Akron Zoo

Several friends and I purchased those «Discover Downtown Akron» passports when we went to «First Night» on News Years Eve. For only $ 5.00 more were able to buy the passport instead of just the First Night button ($ 10.00). One of the items is free admittance to the Akron Zoo, available anytime in January, a $ 7.00 value. Having nothing to lose and with the weather in the 50’s, we met there last Saturday. Admission was free but there was a $ 3.00 parking fee, which I think is to keep the parking lot free of undesirables.
Anyway, the zoo, tucked within the city, is kind of small, but it packs a lot in. Displays are very nicely done, giving the animals room to roam and still allow them to be seen. Bears, lions, tigers, wolves, coyotes, penguins, bald eagles, river otters and aquarium/​amphibians are just some of the animals in visually attractive displays. The octopus was very active the day we were there. The lions, ready to be fed, were pacing right in front of the viewing window, literally inches from my hand. Jellyfish were putting on an awesome display. You get the picture.
It’s probably perfect for kids. Or adults. Plan to spend about three hours there. You will be glad you did. And it’s cheap enough that you wouldn’t mind going back again and again.

I heard so much about the Akron Zoo prior to moving to the area. The stories were always that this place was super awesome, super small, and everyone loved to return weekend after weekend.
Well after going here about 10+ times already, I can see what the hype was all about. I have to give huge props to the Akron Zoo.
The exhibits are all really well kept, the zoo is super clean, and they really seem to pack a big punch for such a little zoo. Sure, I doubt this is going to be the biggest zoo most of us have ever been to. Matter fact, it might trend on the smaller end of the spectrum.
However, this is a perfect size zoo for a family and children. By the time you’ve seen everything, your kid is likely exhausted, you’ve reached the pinnacle of cuteness in zoo animals, and its time to exit through the gift shop; where you are welcomed by every damn animal in stuffed plush fashion imaginable. And come on, why not pick up another animal for the already growing stuff animal zoo at your home! :)
Membership is also really cheap, matter fact, we purchased membership on the first visit! And considering this place is all of a 5 min drive away, it paid for itself after two visits. You also get discounts in the gift shop and on special events! Speaking of…
I love the fact this place is always opened, has a ton of activities, and keeps things fun. Let’s face it, after visiting a zoo over a handful of times, things can get a tad boring. However they are always changing angles and doing some special event, monthly to boot, that keeps things fresh.
Boo at the zoo, super fun. And apparetnly there is a Booze at the zoo nights… yup that’s super cool!

I love Akron Zoo! Yes this is a rather small zoo but the convenience of driving to the zoo within 5 minutes from my home gets my vote! Perfect for kids, there’s not a lot of walking. For a small zoo, there’s lots to see: a good amount of animals, the carousel attraction and the aquarium. We bought the season pass because we do visit weekly and my daughter loves this zoo. There’s even an indoor play area in the Aquarium for kids when the weather gets too hot. Beware of the exit, you have to go through the gift shop and you might want to distract your toddler from wanting the plush toys as you exit.

Great smaller zoo to sneak into your day. There are still a lot of animals, both exotic and native, to see throughout the zoo in a really manageable layout for smaller kids. The zoo is well maintained and clean also. All and all, a great little activity to add to your day.

I was pleasantly surprised with my visit to the Akron Zoo. It was a little frustrating to have to pay for parking — HELLO! Include parking in the ticket price. People don’t like feeling nickled and dimed to death. But I guess $ 3 isn’t too bad, but seriously! It’s a parking spot. Everyone needs one. I felt nickled and dimed.
The penguin exhibit was cute and close to the front. I liked the platform we could climb up on to get a better view.
The food service area was nice and accommodating to people who wanted to bring their own lunch instead of paying $ 30 for an over cooked hamburger, so thanks for that.
BY FAR the highlight of the visit was the bear exhibit. They have a nice artificial pond with a plexiglass side through which you can see the animals. We got there when two of the bears were play fighting, allowing for extreme closeups of the bears teeth and claws as they wrestled each other in the water. Such an amazing perspective of nature in action. I’d go back just to see the bears again.

Unexpectedly wonderful, animals are up close and you don’t have to do a ton of walking. Lots for kids… Interactive displays, playgrounds, etc. I found Akron Zoo to be just as good if not better than Cleveland or Toledo zoos.

Perfect little zoo for the kids… it is a bit small but it is a nice getaway for the kids during the day… you can bring your own food inside &the play areas for the kids are great

Love the Akron zoo, we buy the yearly pass every year. It is the perfect size for smaller kids. The otter and the slide through their habitat is our favorite part.

small zoo
in 2013 and the winter of 2015 I was here. I like all he animals.
this zoo so small you can tour it all in under 2 hours. there are no zebras, elephant, cheetah. panther, giraffe and other animals.
I like the zoo but not as much as the Cleveland metro park zoo.
hope who works there out by the sheep and barn area is so nice I will be back.

My husband and I showed up around noon on a Saturday that was sunny and almost 80 degrees. Given the beautiful weather, the zoo was understandably busy and we waited a long time in our car to reach the entrance. An employee handed us a map with directions to another parking lot and told us to drive around the current parking lot to see if we could find a spot. We did not find a spot, so we headed to the other parking lot that was located blocks away. That parking lot had a locked fence. We could not get in. For probably a couple of hours, the employee was directing people to a parking lot that was closed for business. After waiting in line and driving around for about one hour, we decided to skip the zoo and go out to lunch elsewhere instead. After lunch, we headed back to the zoo’s main entrance. The employee there tried to hand us another map to the other parking lot. We told him that that lot was previously locked. He replied that they had an «issue» and that it should be unlocked now. We eventually found a parking spot.
We waited in another long line of people to purchase tickets. The prices were fairly low, only $ 7 per non-​member and $ 3 for parking.
We started to walk around the zoo to see the animals. Their website says, «50 acres with more than 700 animals… Most visitors stay for 2.5 to 4 hours.» We did not see that many animals, and we stayed for maybe 1 hour. The animals that we saw included penguins, bears, flamingos, birds, goats, sheep, and tortoises. The buildings and habitats looked new and were very nicely constructed.
The zoo also has a garden, but it was small and some plants were chopped low to the ground.
Update: As a result of my review, the zoo reached out to me via private email to apologize and to offer me tickets for the future. I appreciate that they were sincere. Some businesses make excuses and get angry, but this zoo showed concern and tried to remedy the situation. For that, I bumped up this review by one star.

The zoo is smaller. It won’t take you all day for sure, so I’d plan something else to do around the area if you are going to be making a special trip to Akron. The zoo is very cute as others have noted. Very easy to navigate and not congested or stressful. My favorite exhibit was the songbird aviary. Sounds lame but they way they built it you can get very close and actually see some very beautiful little songbirds. They also do a nice job regarding education and information about the animals. Recommend this little zoo!

This place sure has come a looooonnnnggggg way since I was a kid!
Their new expansion, Grizzly Bear Ridge, is fantastic. There is a slide that goes THROUGH the otter’s swimming area, which is amazing, but as badly as I want to go down it I can’t bring myself to do so because the slide is covered with kid slobber and other ickiness.
I love the baby snow leopards and the Komodo Kingdom is really cool.
Even though I’m an adult I spend 50% of my trips here at the petting zoo, because, well, goats.
All in all, it’s a great little zoo!

Recently a family member and I woke up bright and early to make the trek from Pittsburgh to the Akron zoo on a Sunday morning. Why? Well, because this place had two baby snow leopards on display during Sunday mornings. I love my Pittsburgh zoo but they don’t have those!
We may have made the trip specifically to see the very adorable fluff-​balls but of course once we were there we took the time to enjoy the entire zoo. It was a small and cute place, for sure. What this zoo lacks in size it definitely made up for, partly with its awesome appearance — the paths were paved but the park was built around (and filled with) natural greenery and rock formations, so you really got the sense that you were walking through a piece of nature. That said it was admittedly a little disorienting at times walking through the greenery, but they do give you a map, which helps.
Now for the most important part: the animals. While it isn’t the most exotic zoo ever I do really did enjoy seeing the animals here. Naturally the snow leopards were the big attraction during my visit — there were also a range of wild cats, small primates, birds, aquatic animals, reptiles and more. I really enjoyed ducking into the bat house, seeing the biggest octopus I’ve ever seen in their aquarium, and hearing the Bald Eagles screeching. Other things worth mentioning are the child-​friendly play areas, beautiful gardens, and hands-​on experiences held throughout the zoo and in the aquarium — all make for nice additions to the zoo.
Final opinion: while I think a little more space could allow for some improvements this zoo seems to be doing a good job with what they have. It’s a cool little zoo that I’d check out again if I’m in the area — or if any new adorable babies join their lineup!

Love it! It’s smaller than the Cleveland Zoo, but more compact so you don’t have to walk as far from one exhibit to the next. The highlight is definitely the newly added Grizzly Ridge! I loved seeing the grizzly up close swimming in her pool. You’re underneath a shaded alcove and looking at the bears through a glass wall, which affords a much closer look than across the moat in Cleveland. My son also really enjoyed the jellyfish and kamodo dragons. You do have to pay to park, but at $ 3, I didn’t think it was bad. Our Cleveland Zoo membership got us half priced admission, so our total was $ 14 including parking — definitely a good value!

It’s not as large a what you’ll find in some big cities, and a few of the animals (tiger, sloth bear…) appear to be a bit cramped and/​or neurotic in the enclosures, but it’s worlds better than it was when I was growing up, and it just feels right to be there on a nice day. Educational, conservational (is that a word – it should be?), and pleasant. Highlights of our visit – the Komodo dragon, jellies (aka jellyfish), red panda, lazing capybaras, active jaguar, stretching Andean condors, chicken frogs, moray eels, freshwater stingrays, sea horses, pufferfish, hungry alpaca, hyper river otters, yawning male lion, bald eagles, Ohio birds in the aviary, and so much more.

The main reason I want to post is to let others know that as of this date the directions Google maps sends you is wrong. it looks like they have done some changes to the zoo in the past couple of years and have not updated it yet. I am not familiar with the area and even though we were driving AROUND the perimeter of the zoo, I did not see one sign directing us to the entrance. The poor signage continued after we parked. The park had been open for 30 minutes and there was a line out the door 300 ft long. I had bought a season pass this morning on-​line and there were no signs saying season holders versus buying ticket line anywhere. A woman in front of me said she had been told to stand in line (she had a season pass) and the door for season pass holders was locked. So we stood in line for about 5 minutes until I saw other people going through the door that had previously been locked. So we went through there — after walking to the front of the room I saw one little sign directing us to the entrance. The girl that scanned my receipt said — «next time you need to go through the ticket line (because i didn’t have my permanent card it wasn’t in their system) but since it is so crowded you can go through today. Uh, the website said to use my receipt as my pass — why would I stand in the purchase ticket line? And it would have been nice if she had said something like — «Oh, thanks for joining» or «enjoy your first visit» or even «here is a map!»
The actual zoo is very pretty, I have no idea how much of it we saw on this visit, most of the exhibits looked new. We were coming for a short visit anyway and getting lost shortened our time even more. Next time I will definitely plan on bringing lunch — there seemed to be nice places to sit and eat. The train ride for kids is just a little loop, I didn’t ck it before buying tickets (you run into the buy ticket stand first) — I was thinking it was going to take us on a ride around the zoo.
When leaving I was confused again — there seemed to be no exit until I found the doors we originally came through — then there was a sign that said «Please exit through gift shop». Uh, no. No thank you.
The poor signage continued after we left the parking lot. Seeing that it was new construction around the entrance I decided to follow the signs instead of my phone. Well I followed the sign to 76 for about a mile and then the sign turned into a 76 East sign. I needed West. I ended up driving 4 miles out of my way before getting onto a highway — if I had followed the phone first it would have been only a few blocks.
Now that I know my way around a bit more, I am hoping are next visit is more enjoyable and a little less crowded. But I still wont be exiting through the gift shop.

A nice smaller zoo, great for smaller kids!
After getting membership at the Cleveland Zoo and hiking through several times, we thought we would make the trip to the Akron Zoo. The Akron Zoo is much smaller than the Cleveland Zoo, only taking about 2 – 4 hours to see everything depending on your pace. Making it a great place for families with smaller kids.
Many of the animal enclosures are a bit small (looking even cramped at times) but this means that the kids can easily see everything. The snow leopards cubs were a great sight! Our little one had a good time looking around, and was able to walk a lot of it (at a year and a half). It wasn’t crowded at all on a slightly drizzly Saturday morning, which amazed me!
We went at the end of the summer in 2012 and there was a bit of remodeling being done. There are a few new exhibits coming in 2013.

I love the intimacy here — you really get up close and personal with all the animals. As others have mentioned, prices on admission and food for non-​members aren’t great, but it is paying for some of the unique experiences — in particularly the snow leopard cubs.
One warning — if you go right now, there are quite a few exhibits being remodeled, and not everything is open at one time. Call the zoo ahead of time to find out what’s available to the public before you make the trip.

The Akron Zoo seemed like the little zoo when I was growing up. If we wanted to check a zoo out, we’d head to Cleveland or Columbus. Now, living in Akron with our 7 year old son, we’ve been members of the Akron Zoo for 6 years. We love it!
The exhibits are fresh and engaging. The zoo itself is always clean, safe and full of fun activities.
The other benefit is that it’s more of a half-​day excursion. We can drive there in 10 minutes and see everything we want to see in 3 hours.
My only complaint is the exit through the gift shop. What a drag to look at every possible animal stuffed animal on the planet when you’ve been in the sun for 3 hours and you’re hungry!
Check out the zoo if you haven’t been there recently and if you have, go more often!

I’m feeling nice today, so I’m giving out 4 stars.
It’s a small zoo, but hey it’s Akron. You can walk through every exhibit in about 30 minutes. They have a really pretty garden, also. Out of all the times that I have been there it was never crowded.
Food and drinks are overpriced as usual, but everything is nowadays, so this is nothing new.
I still would rather take go the extra few miles to go to the Cleveland zoo any day, you get more bang for your buck.