Cincinnati Zoo Festival Of Lights

We love the Cincinnati Zoo and our lack of visits this year is one of the many COVID pandemic setbacks for 2020. Since I am off work this week for the holidays, I arranged a visit for us to spend a long day at the zoo seeing our beloved animals and then perusing the lights when it got later. Unfortunately, the boys could not make it as long as I hoped so we only stayed for a few hours, however, we enjoyed ourselves. The cats in Cat Canyon and the animals in Night Creatures were unusually active. Perhaps we were there during feeding time, I am not sure. There were many we saw that might be the first time we caught an actual glimpse of their face. Below are a few pics of some of our favorites over our visit.

Besides the active animals, we enjoyed some delicious food at their “food truck” dining area. Maybe the best chicken tenders I’ve eaten. L enjoyed her soup and grilled cheese. I originally made hot dogs and snacks in case nothing was open so we were pleasant surprised to have these food offerings available to us. I am not sure these were open when we visited last in the spring. Unfortunately we live in a time where predictability is not inherent, so being able to grab a nice hot meal there was refreshing.

Some other observations we made included the new Australian exhibit looking like it will be interesting when it opens. The ropes course really has Teddy excited. Roo Valley should be cool. I am curious what is going on in the Manatee exhibit. They had the windows soaped off and a man was diligently polishing the glass globe. Are they increasing the size of the tanks or just cleaning them? Also, what will the new eatery across from the food truck area look like? We ran into Teddy’s old coach Brian there, who is now a full time employee of the Cincinnati Zoo. We grabbed a fresh coffee from their new cafe as we chatted with him. It was nice to see him again. He did a really great job with Teddy when he ran athletic programs at Silverlake and I am happy for his role at the zoo.

Overall we found that the Cincinnati Zoo is managing the pandemic well. I saw very few people without masks. We were disappointed that the Insect House and the Elephant Enclosure were closed, and surprised that the Reptile House was not given how close you can get to others there. I am just glad we finally got to the zoo to see these animals again. I plan on keeping our passes again for 2021 and can’t wait to get past COVID once and for all.