Chester Zoo Anmeldelser 

Great day favourite zoo! Take your kids great range of albums! Kids loved it

So today was all my 3 girls first zoo trip together. Firstly the buggies are so small which we paid for. Two of my daughters were squashed in there so the entire time there they either kept crying or had to come out of the buggy.
Then you had the older lady by the name of either Linda or Vicky at the entrance which had to give me my ticket for the photo option I paid for online (apparently they take photos of you throughout the zoo). In this case not a single photo was taken! The lady didn’t bother to greet us, just handed this black card with a code on. So I asked what on earth do I do with this? It’s my first time here. She didn’t bother to help me at all. Just left me to it. I asked so how will anyone know to take photos of us? Again only was told to go to the shop in the end. I realised she don’t want to help, so I walked off.
Throughout the stay I kept checking on the page if photos were uploaded and they weren’t. I asked several staff members and not a single one knew about it.

Regarding the animals hardly got to see alot of animals.

The signs across were a joke there.

Tickets and food prices were an absolute joke and sky high.

What a waste of a day and so much money that we do not have spare was spent!

Love Chester Zoo, it's always a great experience with the kids!

Excellent day out we don't have blue badge but staff allowed us to use disabled space as my sister is wheelchair bound

Firstly, I was shocked at the lack of clearly marked disabled spaces. It was not clear which spaces where and where not disabled ,meaning many of the disabled spaces where innocently parked in by people without a visble badge. There was also no additional space surrounding the supposedly disabled spaces for unloading pushchairs/ wheelchairs. We had to park quite far away from the park despite us being in the disabled section. This meant we had to push the empty pushchair round with us rather than go back and collect it when we needed it. There was also an error with the tickets and while I understand errors happen, I was with a special needs individual to which I informed a staff member off labeled "here to help", she said okay and we proceeded to wait in the queue for over 15 minutes, no accommodations given. I wouldn't mind but I clearly told the staff member it would not be in the child's best interest to wait in the queue as she struggles to wait. We entered the park with a much less calm child than when we arrived, which was unnecessary.

There should be more done to enable special needs visitors to enjoy their rather expensive experience. The park was very busy and way too overcrowded, much of it felt like queuing and for an individual who doesn't understand the concept of waiting, it was a waste of money really. By the time it was our turn, she wasn't really interested in seeing what was on offer. A small bay or single window marked for disabled people would really help the park to include those who find crowds distressing.

Some parts did have lower windows for the smaller people to see through but others meant the young person would need to be picked up to fully see what they where looking at, it needs to be considered that not all young people can be picked up.

Some parts of the park had double mesh railings which was differently patterned and a total eye sore. Thinking about this from the perspective of those with a visual impairment or depth perception issue, it might be useful to look at the other fencing options as it didn't feel at all accessible.

Also those with autism can somtimes find strong smells and undeclared steam posed as fake rain very confusing and for some distressing. There is very little option to get out of the indoor enclosures such once your in. Whilst I understand its a busy zoo, there should be a cut off point to where nobody's having fun, the animals are disrupted and everyone's squashed together.

I saw lots of other families having fun I can understand this is more of an accessibility issue than an issue with the park itself but I do wish things like this where taken into consideration.

Chester Zoo is the best Zoo in the UK. That's more of a fact than an opinion at this point - their enclosures are thoughtfully designed for each animal's best interests, and the work they do towards Conservation is brilliant.
However, it pains me to say that the guest experience has gone downhill over the years, likely due to various leadership changes.

For example, the 'suggested' 10% donation on top of what is already an expensive day out for most families. I appreciate the Zoo is a pricey plan to run and to staff, but automatically applying it at the entry gate and putting it on the guest to ask for its removal has always left a bad taste. The new website takes this to a new level, offering a prompt to donate when you're on your way to checkout with the 'yes' arrow pointing right, shaded in, and the 'continue without donation' button pointing left (at first glance appearing like a 'back' button) seems dishonest at best. This is a user experience designed to trick anyone not paying attention into spending more, and seems incredibly out of touch given the financial squeeze hitting most households at the moment.

When you add the extra gimmicks (photographers lingering at the gate to sell photo books, and the other chargeable experiences), it feels more like a money-grab than before. Most parents will know that the ticket price is just the start, as the gift shops, ice cream, and face-painting will have you reaching for your wallet even though you tried to plan ahead and packed a picnic. The Zoo knows this too, so why they insist on rinsing you for extra pennies before you've even stepped inside and said hello to the elephants is beyond me.

Love this zoo. My mum and I had a fantastic time wandering around, we even found a short boat ride which is free. I bought the tickets online and they were scanned at the gate for a quick and easy entry. Overall a great place to visit.

My kids loved it here, amazing day. Great range of food and the prices are not as high at we imagined! Defiantly recommend this for a family day out.

Absolutely shocking customer service. More likely to win the lottery than get through to the zoo over the phone, honestly. Paying so much money for the membership and being completely ignored. Doesn't matter what day of the week I call it always takes dozens of phonecalls to get through. Membership letters been sent to tge wrong address too. Waited WEEKS and WEEKS for the membership. SHOCKING

On a recent visit the animals were wonderful, as always, and staff were friendly. However I made a mistake and booked the wrong date. I spent a week trying to contact the zoo via their contact page and via telephone. Be warned that they don't answer emails and don't answer the phone. My boss was kind enough to extend my holiday or I would have wasted the £64 for 2 tickets. Also, the zoo has done a lot of work in lockdown rearranging things with paths closed off and a lot of exhausting detours and blind alleys. If you can get an up to date map with path closures marked, it's recommended.

Chester Zoo is amazing! There is so much to see and do here, every time we come back we find something new. Animal enclosures are well designed and the zoo keepers are very knowledgeable. The work Chester Zoo do for conservation and animal welfare is amazing. The food and shops at the zoo are great and there are plenty of toilets around too. Hot chocolates are particularly delicious! Staff are always friendly and helpful and we always look forward to our next visit.

We were quite worried after reading lots of negative comments on here but quite honestly what on earth are they talking about?? We had the best time with a 1 year old who saw more animals than we could count! Some didn't make an appearance but guess what? They are ANIMALS that's the point right?
As for expensive food(??) and queues (none) take a picnic!!! Busy yes but no problem getting around whatsoever and all the staff were fantastic too
All in all highly recommended we'll definitely be back 👍

Was looking forward to the trip to the zoo but very disappointed in the fact I only actually seen 4 animals in 4 hours. Don't waste your money on this

Only way at the moment to get tickets is to pre-book. DON’T!! No refunds!
Booked to travel to Chester on 1st July and booked tickets for Zoo. After update on cities/towns with increased cases of delta variant we decided safer to cancel trip from Scotland. Explained to zoo and asked about refund and told no! Asked if we could then have a voucher to reschedule and potentially book again later in year or better still extend into next year as not confident things will get any better over next few months - told to pick a day in August to move to!! If theatres and shows and hotels can cancel and refund or give extended opportunities to amend- why can’t Chester Zoo??
Anyone still looking to go on 2nd July - let me know - you can have tickets - don’t pay them again.
I know I won’t ever book with them again!!

Absolutely rubbish, all indoor viewing closed due to COVID. Nice sunny day, barely saw any animals at all, animals we did see were clearly depressed and quickly were out of view or went into indoor enclosures.
Saw lots of pigeons and seagulls 👍
Ridiculously slow service for any refreshments (stood in 3 separate queues for 20 minutes but gave up each time as 2 or 3 staff ponder for 5 minutes to serve a drink or ice cream)
No water fountains to drink from or fill bottle up (could be auto sensor or foot peddle to comply with hygiene)
Found a snack bar with no queue for some chips, most disgusting chips of my life, cold, hard, some dark brown and super greasy.
Asked for a cup of tap water which they refused to give us.
No Maps provided, very few physical fixed maps so all day we were just guessing where to go most of the time.
Took us an hour to find the exit as there were no exit signs (until we reached the exit) we looped both sides of the park to find the exit as both times we missed the turning to the unsigned exit.
Heavy rain shower at the end of the day flooded most paths (upto 8 inch deep puddles, our ankles were submerged a couple of times)
Oh., and looks like the majority of the park has been untouched in 20-25 years.
On the plus side a couple of the members of staff were really enthusiastic and polite, the majority however looked like they really didn’t want to be at work.
Penguins were good.

Excellent customer service.
Case number 7051119
We had an issue with our tickets (our fault) and I can’t fault the customer service team. They sorted the issue out straight away and no questions asked.
Great service, can’t wait to visit.

A trip to the zoo a perfect gift, a belated christmas present. A littl expensive regarding the indoor attractions being closed due to covid.
My partner loves the sloths and it was a shame we did not get to see them!
Lion enclosure is much more spacious an open.
Always love a good day at the zoo.

A great day out and my daughter loved it. Although we found it extremely expensive as only half the zoo was open, we enjoyed it nonetheless. A few too many people but we took a mask with us and felt more comfortable. Our 3 year old was so grateful to be out at last.

I bought an animal adoption as a birthday gift last May. This cost £91.99 , which is expensive but I thought the recipient would be able to visit the zoo and enjoy spending time there. However due to the pandemic the zoo has been closed for a number of months and the recipient of the gift does not live close to Chester. They work full time , so it is going to be difficult to visit before the adoption expires. I contacted the zoo to ask for an extension to the adoption period but have heard nothing!! This is really poor customer service and I would expect better from a zoo with such a good reputation. Surely they could have replied to my enquiry rather than just ignore it. I expected better customer service.

Fantastic customer service from Chester zoo.
I booked tickets on line in advance but due to the covid issues the flights across for the people I was taking have been changed and the staff at the zoo helped us out.
Thank you 😊