You HAVE to Visit Wild Animal Safari - Pine Mountain, GA
My boy's summer bucket list included a trip to a zoo. As a family, we love visiting new zoos! We were in Atlanta this past weekend for a Braves game, and we had planned on visiting the zoo there. At the last minute, my husband has a brilliant idea... Wild Animal Safari! I've always wanted to visit, but I always forget about it. This weekend, we made it happen, and we quickly learned this wasn't just a zoo... it was an experience!
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What to Expect
Tickets aren't cheap-- $32 for adults, $26 for kids (3 - 12), and kids 2 and under are free. You can purchase tickets ahead of time here- Wild Animal Safari, PineMountain, GA.
You have three options when deciding how to drive through the park. You can drive your own vehicle, rent a van (for an additional charge), or take the bus. We had planned on renting a van, but there was a two-hour wait for one to become available. The vans have a few bars over each window, so the animals aren't quite as accessible compared to the bus with no bars; however, the vans are lower to the ground compared to the bus, so you may get better views. We had no problem on the bus, though.
You will spend about an hour driving through the park. There is also a "walkabout" with additional animals to visit. This took us about 20 minutes.
There is a gift shop.
You will get slobbered on if you feed the animals.
Recommendations
Ride the bus!
Not only is it free with the purchase of a ticket, but you also have the added bonus of having a guide. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable about the animals in the park. He was able to tell us things we wouldn't have known if we were on our own like their names, where they came from, and more! He was also quite entertaining with a plethora of family-friendly, cheesy jokes.
Buy food!
Get the full experience and feed the animals! The value pick is four bags of food for (around) $19. We have four in our family, and we had plenty of food. We did save a bag for the walkabout since we didn't know what to expect. You can feed the goats and alpacas on the walkabout, but you can purchase treats for a quarter or so by their enclosures, so I recommend using it all during your drive. It's so much fun!
Get a souvenir!
There is a pretty decent-sized gift shop at Wild Animal Safari. You're going to want to remember this experience. My husband collects stickers from places he's been to put on his Yeti cooler, so he purchased a sticker. I collect magnets, so he purchased me a magnet that says "I got slobbered!" It has a picture of the park and a bus like the one we rode.
We let the boys pick out a souvenir too, but you have to be careful with these guys. Their souvenir of choice will end up being something completely random and having nothing to do with the experience. They are still young enough to love stuffed animals, so we gave them a guideline... pick a stuffed animal of their favorite animal that they saw during the trip.
Wild Animal Safari
This experience far exceeded our expectations, and I highly recommend it to anyone in the area. They also have locations in Strafford, MO, and Aggieland, Bryan-College Station, TX.