Colchester Zoological Society Anmeldelser 

Again, if i could, would not even give them the star i had to give them.
They are thieves, nothing more, nothing less. Decided whilst i was down that way with family, to visit the zoo. Booked tickets online and paid. NO EMAIL, NO TICKETS. Checked bank, payment taken. Checked all emails, junk files etc, nothing!!! Tried phoning, no one answers. Sent email, took so long to reply it was too late as returned home by then. Same response as i see others have had. They do not refund e-tickets. So i replied not acceptable. It is their mistake and as it is their error, NOT MINE, i want the £90+ back!!! Then told it has been passed on to another department and they will contact me. NOTHING!!! not heard a word, no reply what so ever and i have sent them several emails on this matter.
Am i wrong to ask for the return of my cash due to their mistake? Errors happen, own up to them and respond and make right. I do not want replacement tickets, I AM NO LONGER IN YOUR AREA TO BE ABLE TO VISIT AND IT IS TOO FAR TO DO A DAY TRIP!!!
By purchasing the tickets and them taking payment from me for a service they are offering, we enter into a contract between us. One that they have not fulfilled or rectified. I could even say that the money they need to return is not even a refund!!
A refund is for something you have received and then returned. I HAVE NOT EVEN RECEIVED ANYTHING TO BE IN A POSITION TO RETURN ANYTHING. therefore you will be RETURNING THE MONEY YOU TOOK FROM MY BANK ACCOUNT FOR A SERVICE YOU DID NOT PROVIDE.

What really annoys me about this whole ongoing issue is their arrogance, that they are not in the wrong as they do not make mistakes!! Mistakes happen, it is part of life. Just be big enough to accept that, own it AND MAKE IT RIGHT.
My advice, stay clear of their online booking system like a plague. Like a thief, they will take your money and it is gone for good when they make a mistake, because they do not make mistakes and for that reason, will not return your money to you.
Customer service is atrocious as basically, they just ignore you. If they do respond to this review, it will be. WE CANNOT RESOLVE THIS MATTER ON THIS PLATFORM and invite me to fill in the correct form on their site.
THE FORM I HAVE ALREADY FILLED OUT ON THEIR SITE!!!

THE ONE THEY HAVE BEEN IGNORING!!

You have been warned about their underhand tactics to steal your money. Just because they put it on their site concerning no refunds. If it is their error, you are entitled to get your money back. I JUST HOPE THEY TREAT THEIR ANIMALS BETTER THAN THEIR CUSTOMERS but i will not hold my breath on that.

15.9.24 we did a 4 person extra ordinary experience with Tigers,Giraffes,Meerkats, Lemurs Monkeys. We had a Zoo Keeper called Lisa that showed us round and gave so much information, she was lovely company and explained everything about every encounter we had. Each encounter was amazing and fully recommended. We have learnt so much about lots of the animals at the zoo. My daughters 21st birth present, Too be able to be up close to tigers as always been a dream to her and got very emotional doing it. One she will never forget! Colchester Zoo has always been a favourite of our family too visits, all animals to the biggest to the smallest are all very well looked after and happy. Amazing day for us and will definitely be booking more encounter here, had a private lunch room which was beautiful. Can't recommended this experience anymore, you will not be disappointed. Also go home with a gift each from the shop!

Great zoo for kids. Great zoo for non-smokers and non vapours. Which means it wouldn't be for everyone anymore, used to be a lot better with smoking/vaping areas.

Food has come downhill a little over the years. Used to love the chicken shop.

Great selection of animals you can see in a short space of time. It takes a while to make it around the buggys, trolleys, and maintenance people on the small pathways.

It was an ok day out but it did used to be a better experience.

We hadn’t been here since our now 18 year old was much younger. Planned a nice day out with him and his girlfriend. Booked online. Nearly had a fit at the cost - over £100. Arrived early. Parked fine. First blip was poor signal in reception to bring up the e-tickets. Managed eventually and off we went. Staff were polite and helpful. Toilets varied from clean to downright filthy. Everything seemed aimed at visitors and not the welfare of the animals. Once it became busy it was a nightmare with senior school groups being loud and blocking walkways. We stuck it out for 3 hours but then called it a day.

Great zoo, loads there, helpful staff, animals seemed well care for, could have watched the otters all day. The only let down is the food, as with most zoos they go on about conservation, helping animals and the environment and then serve up a load of meat centric junk food. If less land was used growing crops to feed chickens, cows, sheep etc then there would be less habitat destruction. Would be good to have kinder, healthier options.

Toilets weren’t very clean
Felt sad for some of the animals who seemed to not have any escape from public gaze plus some of the pens seemed incredibly small

Very unhappy with the attitude of Colchester Zoo. We were supposed to attend with out of town family at the weekend and attempted to buy tickets ahead of time online.

This proved to be like wading through mud and the upshot was a screen telling us the session had time out, even though we had put the payment details in. At that point, we had no idea if payment had gone through.

We checked to see if an email had come - it hadn’t. We checked the bank and no money had been taken. We waited and this did not change. We ended up not going to the zoo as we were unsure if we had tickets or not and did not want to end up paying twice.

Fast forward to today, Monday and we find the money was taken from our bank. Further, an email was sent but it went to junk mail. We called the zoo to ask for a refund but were told we couldn’t have one.

We were offered tickets for another time. This is useless to us as we were only going that particular day because family from away were going and they won’t be going again any time in the next year. I explained this and was told they don’t do refunds.

I was told we can email in to the director and ask for one, so in other words, beg for our money back, despite the confusion over the ‘timed out’ message we got from them during the transaction.

When I protested, the call handler said she would put the request through for us but warned that the zoo director rarely agrees to refund. I was urged to accept tickets for another day.

What a poor way to deal with a situation caused by their system telling us the transaction timed out. And, we were told, in the unlikely event we do get a refund, we will have to pay a fee.

If you do want to visit the zoo, don’t use the online booking system is all I can say because they are very uncaring if there is a problem. Money is clearly more important than customer relations.

I am not surprised to see an overall rating of 3.8 here. They clearly don’t get how a better, more flexible attitude would help their rating.

been here about 3 times. animals look happy and well fed.
its a bigggg and massive zoo so you would enjoy it.
i ahve been in summer and winter.

the playgrounds and mini playparks can be quite distracting for kids lol. they want to stop walking and play.
restaurant serves good food as well

well recommended

The place was so busy it may as well have been the London underground! sardines in a tin! We had to que for everything from the discovery room to the toilets even the kids parks and every food outlet. Even ushered round at the bird exhibit cause it was too busy! This can’t been good for the animals and underwhelming for children when they can’t see anything! What is the point in an online booking system if you just Jam Pack the place! We left early in the end and doubt we will go back! I also can’t believe they are still selling so much meat when they claim to be for the animals and nature and the environment! You can go from viewing a pig at familiar friends to ordering it for lunch!
Place is out of of touch

Great day, however we found it very expensive compared to other attractions we have visited. Would still recommend, but take your own lunch for the kids as it’s expensive!

Returning Animals back to their natural habitat

I have visited Colchester Zoo many times down the years. I can see at each visit the behaviour of the animals is woeful and through boredom, they show signs of what looks like distress.

I have just had the good fortune to visit the Massai Mara and also the Amboseli nature parks in Kenya. I witnessed animals at their best, out in the open and feeling free. Its only really when you observe how it should be naturally do you come to realise that Zoos are completely wrong, they do not deliver what their written aims set out and should in my opinion and that of many others, should be closed down

I find Joanne Lumley spear heading a cessation of Elephants being corralled, for that it’s what it is. Visit the plains of Kenya to see how these huge gentle giants sweep across the grasses 24/7 in order to eat

There is no empirical evidence that support Zoos are educating people. I was taken to a zoo from childhood and in turn I have taken my daughters. All we were doing was educating children that it is Ok to take animals out of their natural habitat and cage them for a few minutes, if that, of gawping, noisy children. Not education.

I think that has come through on my visits to the Zoo. Children were more interested in play adventure areas, having snacks and generally yelling, maybe even banging on the glass. There was very little for anyone, young or old; to stand and read information about their natural habitat and behaviours. My two nephews can tell me alsorts of things about Dinosaurs, yet have never seen one, so does it actually need a zoo ?

Has the Zoo considered the size of your marketing budget and ask why ? – have you compared that huge part of your zoo’s turnover, with that of vet’s bills and projects conducted on the ground ? – which has the priority ?

Zoorocrats cannot change the way they think, it’s self-preservation, it would seem. The Zoo has stumbled into the prime driver of making a business pay, through footfall no doubt, to see caged animals which must be destroying their mental health

Lobby the Government, ask them for a program of funding to rehome your animals to sanctuaries and stop breeding / buying and/or bringing in animals to a caged environment. Conservation if you believed in the word, is one of shutting down Colchester Zoo and others

Amazing zoo, bought as a member so can go all the time for a year, definitely worth it, free soft play (needs booking) but a great time filler when needed

Me and my wife took our son to the Santa's Grotto today and by far was the best we have been to. He has left with a tiger teddy and a massive smile thank you

Colchester zoo throws away tons of food daily when it claims to be for the invironment. It's profits and money is not given to charities, the animals are bailly cared for properly. Food outlets are not hygienically cleaned, employees have admitted to things such as fryers and ban Marie's not being cleaned at all neither was the dish washer. The food like pizzas were dated for 5 days with browning ham and molding bacon. A member of staff admitted that before inspecters come they bleach the whole kitchen. The work counters are never wipped down properly. Animals are often neglected and there health is unimportant to most keepers. Money and how the zoo looks to the public is the most important thing to these people.

Really lovely visit with my grand children.

Staff always very helpful and friendly.

Well worth a visit when down that way.

I'm going to "pinch" a bit from another review as I agree with it completely:- "The site is very clean & tidy and the variety of animals to see is excellent."
BUT....
Nitpicking, the train ride was much too short and showed very little where I had hoped it would take us around the zoo to see some of the animals. And why could they not have smoking zones IN the zoo? It's open air for goodness ake?
MY biggest criticism however is with the signposts. Many of the "exhibits" were not on the paper map given and many of the items on the map could not be found in real life. To make matters worse, the signposts dotted around the place were hopeless!
My family had booked for the soft play area (which was pathetic) but couldn't find our way back to it, struggled to find the entrance to go get our picnic lunch and ended up passing the elephants FIVE TIMES in our search for the train! Actually catching any of the "Encounters" or feeding times was beyond us unless we waited a long time when we stumbled across a particular area.
Again, spotlessly clean, friendly staff (when you could find them) and a wide collection of clearly well cared for animals but PLEASE, invest in an updated map and SOME PROPER SIGNAGE around the zoo?

Every time we have been to Colchester Zoo (Every year), it has been fantastic! The site is very clean & tidy and the variety of animals to see is excellent. You can certainly tell that the staff really do care about the animals to!

If we were really digging to find a negative....maybe you could say that the entrance fee is a little on the expensive side. However, we understand that a zoo is a very expensive place to run and like to think our money is helping the animals though :-)

Let me start off by saying that the staff were extremely helpful in helping me and my disabled wife however, the zoo senior managent needs to get its act together.
Government guidelines suggest that disabled parking ratios should be 6%. I do not know how many parking spaces there are at the zoo but I would estimate in excess of 300, this means there should be at least 18, there are 4!. There were 8 but 4 of these have been put out of action by the public walkway to the entrance. While the zoo was a forerunner in good zoo design however it is looking very jaded. Directional arrows on the walk ways have become very faded, and in some cases, illegible. Although the zoo claims good accessibility, the mobility scooter we hired, had trouble making it up some.of the slopes to attraction areas. If you bring someone in a non-powered wheelchair, there are going to be a number of areas that you won't be able to access.

Although it was very busy on a summer Sunday, there were plenty room to sit /hide from crowds.
The grounds are vast, get your walking boots. The animals' enclosures are large and tidy, we missed some as they were hiding

Colchester zoo is great to explore to create awareness for the kids. It has lots of hidden areas, navigation is easy, just read the signs. Its not the largest zoo so makes it interesting for kids to see lots of animals to be aware of all the different types and hopefully safeguard these animals future in the wild. There are lots of play parks and cafes, food is average but go to a restaurant after if you want good cuisine. Zoo staff do a great job, the zoo is clean and tidy some front of house staff could do with better hospitality training but the majority are good. Overall this zoo is a good solid 4 taken down by irrelevant COVID reviews and by people who cannot navigate. There are some enclosures that need updating and investment, one example being the Lion and leopard enclosures, some improvements and more space here would be nice.