Chester Zoo Reviews 

Waste of money!!
Absolutely not worth the ticket price. All the best animals people go there to see e.g. lions, tigers, leopards, bears, aligators etc...none were visible. Even the realm of the red ape was completely empty.
Viewing areas had too many over grown bushes so the animals that were present were hard to see because of bushes or too far away.
Paid a lot of money to see grass and trees, kids and adults were disappointed and bored, ruined what was supposed to be a good day out.
Do not reccomend!

Saw no lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars only one elephant and one rhino. Cost a small fortune ( 5.00 for a portion of chips!!) and reminded me of the scene in Jurassic Park when they are looking for the dinosaurs and the disappointment when nothing there. Would not go again. Blackpool Zoo is much better and not as expensive.

We have visited several times before. Always find the way the animals are cared for is excellent and enjoy the visit. But this time the zoo has been over taken by greed. Entry fee is already quite expensive and now the food/drink etc kiosks are overpriced. On a hot day with only one water refill station found - at the new Heart of Africa toilet area (near the entrance) you are held to ransom for their prices. Water £3.50 Tea £3.15 Magnum £3.80 come on Chester Zoo play fair and don't be so grasping, if you had more reasonable prices we would have bought more and you would have received more money/profit. We will not be visiting again, so more money lost !!

The worst zoo, I would not recommend to visit. Took the kids for a fun day and ended up seeing empty stalls for majority of the time. Very disappointed and upset children after overpriced tickets! Would’ve had a better fun at the park. Please don't waste your money nothing to see take your time and money elsewhere!

I contacted customer services to ask about ticket pricing and my calls was answered in a professional way, the call handler was professional, polite and positive.

This was one of the best experiences I have ever had with a customer services agent.

Keep it up!

The directions to the zoo are terrible you get a sign then nothing for miles. The signs and the map inside the zoo are even worse you end up going around in circles not seeing very much at all not even any indication of North South East or West this could surely be done much better.
The worst bit was on entrance showing my blue (photo) badge and being told that is not proof of being disabled??? I had to show proof of PIP like anyone would carry a dwp letter with them! I do have to say though that the haddock in the oak field pub is exceptional well done to the chef. Most of the enclosures are empty or have one hidden animal in them in four hours we saw about ten animals. Their mapping system is atrocious it seems to keep you in the shop or food area getting to see outside this inner circle is almost impossible. You follow a sign and it just brings you back to where you were before like a maze. So not worth the extortionate entrance fee. You’d be better of going to the midland safari zoo as that is much better organised I’m not joking when I say that a 10 year old could do a better animal finder map and signposts than whoever did what they have - extremely bad Chester Zoo sort it out!

Dont bother trying to claim for their so called "Rainy Day Guarantee", as its a total scam and certainly does not exist, unless of course their happens to be a Monsoon breakout in the area and even then if it stops for just one minute, guess what, its not classed as a rainy day, even though we all got soaked!! Also, we had our Autistic grandson with us, who is obsessed with Tigers, only to find when we had walked around to the enclosure where they are supposed to be, to find absolutely no sign of them! Our grandson was beside himself. Thank you Chester Zoo, you have just lost a regular donor, as I will no longer support any Company who runs a form of scam. Also, you are missing a trick, the charges you make for food to a captive audience is frankly extortionate and I wold advise anyone thinking of going, not to bother, spend your hard earned cash on some other less ripoff attraction. Shame on you.

Suppose to be a Zoo but no animals all either hiding or cages empty and over grown. Very expensive to see nothing

Not very good my son who is autistic wanted to go on the lazy river ride which finishes at 7.30pm get there at 6.30pm whe. Not so busy to be told sorry we are shutting early due to lack of staff tried explaining to them my sons condition not interested at all wont visit again

The zoo visit was disappointing because so many animals were not in their enclosures and were not visible. Considering this, the ticket price felt far too high.

What a disappointment, one empty enclosure after another! Yes of course you'd expect some but not over 80% of them!
The main reason we cane was to see the snow leopards and hopefully their cub. Not a sign of them However they have a tv screen of the inside den, and it shows a looped video of the cub. Ermm sorry but why? Live feed please! And this highlights the issue with this zoo. There's cameras everywhere watching us but instead of investing in live animal cams and interactive displays all the development has gone into money making food and gift stores.
The phone app is appaling, yes you can type an animal and it'll direct you but its void of any other info on your trek. It could show you what you're passing and nearby, it could present you with the animals names and pictures but its just a very basic cheaply made app.
As an environmentalist and botanist I fully appreciated the planting and species chosen. The plants were amazing and compensated for the lack of animals, but this is a zoo not a gardens and you need to rethink your focus/time spent on horticulture.. As others have noted areas are overgrown to the point you cannot view what few animals that are in the pens...
Overall we left feeling very sad feeling some of the animals were in too small enclosures, looking bored, depressed, and lifeless. Like circus animals, there for a show, locked in prisons. Yes the destruction of their natural habitats is heartbreaking but shipping them across the world to die in cages is not the answer. Even if you got to see the animal up close and had a zookeeper there to storytell his charges, or a modern informative display it may educate, inform and change kids and folks view on the world.. but no, its more about selling food and toys...

If I could give zero stars I would! Chester Zoo is all about making money. The lack of the wildlife animals was ridiculous we was a family of 5 walking for hours and saw about 5 diff animals. There was no Lions, Tigers, Bears or Red Pandas. Most of the enclosures were empty.
Everything is centred around making money and seems no care is given for the animals. We won't be coming back again.
It was £3.29 for a refillable metal water bottle and yet there was only 1 filling station which was miles away.
Face painting was a min of £8 which was ridiculous.
To dig for "dinosaur bones" was £4.50. It's just such an underwhelming experience we don't want to repeat!

My wife and I took our 7 year old granddaughter to chester zoo yesterday 10 August 25 full of hope and vigour and this is what we all thought. Trying to find your way around efficiently you might as well follow a blind man. The signs are useless and the paper map is even worse. We must have wasted 2 hours wandering around in circles and only covered a third of what we wanted to see. What was disappointing; the Congo buffalo and okapi locked away, the komodo dragon in its shed, a massive disappointment for my granddaughter. An old lion lay on its back to us bored to tears, the orangutans looked totally fed up with each other with nothing to stimulate them in very dismal dingy looking housing. Where was the majestic herds of wildebeest, gazelle and zebra. The only redeeming enjoyments for us were the penguins full of enthusiasm swimming about, the butterfly house and the black jaguar who came outside to say hello. My granddaughter got more enjoyment from the numerous commando parks. Well, we could have stayed at home and done that. Warning: stay away from the numerous kiosks and drinks counters as you will lose the clothes off your back paying for them. £4.50 for candyfloss, your having a laugh!
Understandably the costs to run a facility such as this must be eye watering but if you don't give people what they pay to see they won't come back. Will I return, possibly not.

Overpriced entry, empty enclosures and no refillable water stations

We went for a family day out, lucky enough to buy the family ticket that didn’t specifically need children as we went as a group of adults. Which was a saving grace as £40 for an adult ticket is extortionate.

Initially went to purchase a bottle of water, £3.25 for a metal bottle that could be refilled (already an extortionate price but we didn’t take our own which was our own mistake) we found one facility to refill our water bottles in one of the food courts but the majority of the day we found no refillable water stations or even a water fountain. It was a sunny UK day with temps around 24-26 so water is a must.

Willing to purchase other drinks/snacks but lack of vending machines (that also never worked when you did come across them) / large queues at every station gave long wait times.

Very busy everywhere, saw lots of empty enclosures and ones where we did see some animals they looked as if they were fed up

Disappointed with the overall experience and unlikely to return in the future

The food wasn't good. Was thrown on the plate. Very very expensive place. Didn't get to see any big cats. 2.70 for a can of pop ridiculous didn't buy one. The ice cream was lovely and very well priced. Won't be going again. The entry fee is extortionate. Will probably find alternatives.

Very over price. Bad signing. Disappointing experience. I hardly saw any animals. Mostly empty enclosures. Lots of walking. No tigers No lions. No jaguars. No Bears to be seen.

£42.50 adult entry . Very disappointed. Not much to see .

Having been to many others over the years . Ie kent , Devon and Norfolk. I found this one to be the biggest disappointment.

I had high expectations considering the cost of tickets . Not much to see and rather boring to be honest . Empty cage after Empty cage .

Disabled parking not great . Still had a fair distance to walk and parking bays same average size . You would struggle if wanting to get into wheel chair .

Very disappointed with our visit, we took three grandchildren, age 14,6 and 4, £175 admission fee….felt it was totally overpriced, saw very few animals, quite a few empty stalls/paddocks, I realise animal care, feeding, vet bills , staff wages need to be covered, we came away feeling it was one big money spinning machine, especially seeing a fun fair there??????.
Will not be returning….

Reading recent reviews felt jubious about going but still made the 200 mile round trip.
Wasn't disappointed, food was great and reasonably priced (7.99 for kids nuggets chips and drink)
Animals everywhere, we didn't not see any of them.
Place was clean and animals looked healthy and happy.
Thing is with a zoo, it's hit and miss if the animals are out, they like there privacy too.
Would definitely go back.

Just been today the Tigers, Lions and Jaguars were nowhere to be seen what a disappointment & waste of money! Save your money and go to Knowsley Safari Park or somewhere better. Also too much walking and not properly signposted. Kids not happy. Won't be going again!!