While the zoo environment is pleasant enough and n...

While the zoo environment is pleasant enough and nicely landscaped, I found it unnecessarily commercial: from the two-tiered pricing structure that forces you to buy the "Total Experience" package if you want to actually see all of the animals (we didn't, having assumed it was only for gimmicks like camel rides, the monorail and the carousel), to the slightly disappointing gift shop that had countless stuffed toys but little else and the overpriced cafeteria with its offering of the usual cheeseburger n fries fare. Had we understood what each ticket included from the deliberately misleading website we may have bought the full ticket online beforehand, but the walk up price of $34 was too much for us, so we settled for the basic experience, which still allowed us to see most of the animal exhibits. Madagascar and the tropical birds areas were both particularly good, although a few too many enclosures were closed for repairs when we visited (Oct 2015). I suppose the rainy day didn't help, but the weather also meant we had the place virtually to ourselves and most animals were still visible (apart from those we were barred from seeing on our paupers tickets).