As a Valentine’s Day gift for our daughter, my husband got Avery (all of us) tickets to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park! We’ve been to the San Diego Zoo before with Avery and loved it, so we were excited to give the Safari Park a visit!
It is a beautiful park where you can definitely spend an entire day! We got there at 11 am (it opened at 10 am) and stayed until closing! If you haven’t ever been, I definitely recommend it! That being said, if you can only do one and are debating between the two parks- AND if you have a toddler, I’d definitely recommend doing the San Diego Zoo first. Reason is, both parks are HUGE, but the San Diego Zoo IMO is organized better and easier to navigate with a stroller and little one who is excited and eager to find all the animals!
The Safari Park is very spread out which means you’re walking quite a bit between animal exhibits, it is worth it though in the end because the animals are given a ton of room to live but when you have a toddler glued to your hip, it makes things a little difficult to move around quickly LOL. Your park ticket to the Safari park comes with a general “safari tram ride” and then you can purchase other experiences if you’d like- like an up close experience with a cheetah! (My parents did that for my sister and I when we were little and I’ll never forget it! I 1000% plan to take Avery when she’s old enough to appreciate it more and remember it!) The Safari tram ride is a lot of fun and a unique way to see all the animals without having to go to Africa to do it, but for little ones, I think the animals might be a little too far away for them to really be in awe of what they’re seeing (at least, that was the case for us, our daughter liked playing patty cake with us on the tram instead of searching the plains for the animals LOL).
BUT all in all, we had a great day exploring and just overall taking our time and soaking up the entire day outside. We had lunch overlooking wild birds enjoying their lake and spent a lot of time just starring out into the plains searching for giraffes.
Well, have you been to both parks? What are your thoughts?
On Another Coast 
There is a Safari park here in Virginia that is a drive-thru experience as in you drive your own vehicle through a pasture with the animals. You can purchase feed buckets at the start and feed the animals out of your car, but even if you don’t have food, the animals have been conditioned to check every car that comes through. It is a hoot and a half! I’ve been twice and laugh-cried the entirety of both. They also have a walk-through zoo and an aviary that is so much fun. Now I want to take another trip! 😀
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Oh my goodness! This sounds like so much fun!!! I can only imagine the hilarity of the animal encounters LOL
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