So my family and I got ickers and a membership in ...

So my family and I got ickers and a membership in advance. We had a really long drive 8hrs + hours worth. We got there later than expected from some unforeseen road blocks, accidents and a shooting! Which made the zoo hours terrible. 4:30 is really early for something like this o close. 10-4 gives people literally no time to enjoy the animals long enough so people rudely rush through and push their way in. The food was WAY over priced. For four popsicles I paid 15$! You can get a box of 8 or more at Walmart for under 5. That was seriously taking advantage of the horrible heat. Every drink we got that was out of a machine tasted off like it hadn t been cleaned. I returned one drink in exchange for a bottle water but had to throw the slushies out. Which as you know cost a lot and are in small cups. The gift shop was also expensive for five kids it cost 235$ and some change. Small stuffed animals were 8$ mediums were 20 and up. What they considered large were very expensive. One of my kids got a plastic car that feels like it was got at a dollar tree. It s so cheaply made and the mark up the price because there s a sticker of a tiger on it? We were really disappointed considering we rented a car to be able to attend this event. It cost so much money and due to the hours and not clear map we didn t get to see all the animals. People in the area were very rude to people who don t know where they are going. (Hanging out of car windows screaming at you and giving intimidation glances while driving by hanging out windows) the staff at the zoo was a toss up. Some were nice while others were rude. As for he animals it was a toss up. It was very hot so a lot of the animals were not active and a lot of the enclosures are so far away you can t even see the animals. We likely won t be going back.