Saturday turned out to be a breezy and cloudy day, and the kids have been wanting to visit the Al Ain zoo for awhile now…
With our bags packed for the hour and half drive we headed down towards Al Ain. The hubby loves ❤️ his long drives during winter ❄️ so that’s always a plus.
A quick stop for lunch at McDonald’s & Pizza Hut… we love choices!! And off we were again.
Parking was close by and the zoo offered valet parking for AED 20. We rolled out of the car equipped with the strollers and headed towards the ticket booth. Tickets started at AED 30 for an adult, AED 10 for a child (3-12). They also offer regular and private safari tours but as there was an age limit that wasn’t really an option for us!
Once in you are immediately greeted by stunning gazelles, Arabian oryx, deers 🦌 and other desert 🌵animals. We strolled through starting from the right side of the park, where we met pumas, white tigers, bengal tigers 🐯, lions 🦁, and some other members of the cat family… unfortunately as we moved towards a dedicated lion oasis area, the only think we saw was all the flora and fauna and no lions! A couple of the other guests of the park were quite irked by this also.
Oh well, we moved along quickly and went towards the African habitat.. where the children were enthralled by the hippos playing in the water! I must say I loved watching these gigantic creatures dive and play around. From there we head off to feed the three giraffes they had (a family)
After a little snack and sit down in the wide open grass area… we wandered towards the bird house (and inside encountered beautiful penguins 🐧). Little did we know there is a whole other area of the zoo on that side. We found a bike rental place, 2 huge kids playgrounds and a petting zoo! Most of those areas close by sunset 🌅 so best to check out this area earlier.
Tired, cold but super happy we made our way towards the exit and gift shop. We love gift shops at the end of every trip, looking for a souvenir/or just something special. After much deliberation Kid 1 choose a tiger t-shirt, Kid 2 took a cap and they found a switch-a-rooz (turns from an elephant into a tiger) for Baby J. As we were leaving the gift shop the kind lady in charge gave both the big kids water bottle sized mist fans (they even choose the color) as a present 🎁 they obviously were overjoyed and spoilt 😜😜
The kids fell asleep 😴 in the car 🚗 so it was a quite and calm ride back home 🏡.
It was a fun family day out in Al Ain, we will return once the weather cools down and maybe get the whole family… ❤️
MeMineOurs 