We were kindly provided with 4 tickets to visit the zoo. No other compensation was received.
I had never heard of Ponderosa Zoo until the email landed in my inbox, given how close we live I was pleasantly surprised to learn of a new place to discover with the children. Visiting a zoo in winter is not something we had done before and so this trip was full of new experiences. After a short drive we arrived at Ponderosa Zoo and wondered if we were in the right place, the car park was very empty.
Luckily we had found Ponderosa Zoo and we decided to take part in the Christmas themed hunt looking for pine cones hidden around the zoo. The pine cones were actually very well hidden and it took us some hunting to find them. The zoo was very quiet and we only saw one other family all day, this actually worked to our advantage as we almost had a VIP experience.
We happened to fall on the keepers feeding their animals and so given how quiet the zoo was the keepers spoke to us in great detail. We learnt quite a lot about each animal and the girls got to ask lots of questions too.
Ponderosa Zoo has lots of play areas. The first we came to had two areas to climb and explore, one for older children and one for the under 5s. There was also a separate slide and a zip wire. There was a smaller play area with swings near to the lakeside restaurant and round the back was a large sand area and pirate ship. I can imagine in summer it is lovely to let the children sit and play in the sand. It was a little too wet for us though.
The cafe was closed and so we cannot comment on having food here, the lakeside restaurant was open but we happened to stumble upon it during breakfast with Santa. The staff were lovely and really accommodating for us.
