Mesker Park Zoo and Botanical Gardens Review

Great place to go with your family or friends. Lots of interesting animals.

Great zoo for a small local zoo. Lots of newly renovated exhibits.

Very nice zoo for a small city. No elephants anymore, but rhinos, giraffes, zebras, tiger, etc., plus some cool unusual stuff like red pandas, Komodo dragon, etc. Very hilly, makes for a good work out just walking around. Kids love the playground areas as well as the animals.

The otter exhibit and playground near it were closed for no apparent reason. :(

Great zoo! Very wide selection of animals for the size! Can't beat the price either!

Mesker Park zoo is a lovely zoo, for just about anyone. They offer a trolley service throughout exhibits, giraffe feedings at 11:00 & 2:00, and many extra activities for kiddos. Impressed by vast enclosures for large amount of animals. Enjoyed the day.

Probably would've enjoyed more if the weather was better. We think most of the animals were inside do to the rain coming.

What a great place to visit. Southern In. Is very fortunate to have a zoo.

Absolutely a great place for the family.. Not exspensive either. Definitely goin back.

It's the only zoo we have in Evansville and it's been around for a long time. I think it's a great little zoo and admission is super cheap. It's well worth the money and they are slowly adding to it so it just keeps getting better.

Hasn't changed much in a while but the kids love it

A disappointing overall experience hampered by inadequate employment. Seasonal part-time listings for $7.25 an hour hidden on the city's job website is not the place to get people energetic about conservation and wildlife.

Just went at noon on a Thursday. Children everywhere, several families roaming the park, yet it felt like the place was closed down. Not a single attendant to be seen outside of the gate or the tram. We were not given a map and spent a good chunk of time trying to use decade-old memories of the park to figure out where everything was.

The petting zoo area was not listed as being closed at the gate, it was closed (which really did a number on both us and the crowd of school children behind us expecting to see animals.

A procupine was listed at the gate as being the petting attraction of the day, nowhere to be seen.

The newest exhibit is next to the new entrance so the experience is basically front-loaded to be impressive, followed by a long string of decaying old exhibits and attempts to block off abandoned older sections of the zoo. Exhibits I fondly remember as a kid have either been whittled down in size or blocked off by gates.

The restaurant by the main gate has been demolished so the only refreshment on that side of the zoo is a string of vending machines with $3 drinks.

There need to be steps taken to get enthusiastic well-paid maintenance people (LOTS of dirty exhibit windows), perhaps not at bare bones minimum wage. If the city has the cash flow to build a new penguin exhibit they can probably afford to drop $2 or $3 more per hour to get some actually motivated employees.

Great place for everyone!!! Love this small zoo, can get through it pretty easily and has a good variety of animals !

First time visiting. We are used to the larger Indy zoo, but enjoyed our visit here a lot.

Great time exploring the animal enclosures. Tons of different side adventures. The Botanical gardens rain forest was a nice experience. Expensive food. Semi expensive gift shop. Decent entrance fee.

Love this Zoo! It has been a family favorite of ours for years less crowd than others!

A really great value for the cost. There's a lot more to see then you would expect considering the size of the zoo. I really enjoyed my visit to the zoo and may come back in the future but the only thing I would say people may want to consider is the amount of walking you'll do up and down hills at Mesker Park Zoo. I enjoyed it and felt good about the number of steps I put in at the zoo but I know many people don't like exhausting themselves like that.

It's a really nice zoo for a smaller sized one. There are a lot of steep hills so if you have any issues walking you might want to ride the bus around the park.

It seemed like a lot of the animals were just not in their habitats. The tigers and camels were not there, there were no ostriches or hornbills, and those were just the animals I remember that had signs up, but were not anywhere to be found.

It's also odd that a zoo wouldn't have lions, elephants, or bears. What was there seemed well maintained, and the animals certainly seemed happy, just the selection seemed lacking for what was advertised.

I did see that they were adding penguins in soon, which might also mean they would get polar bears, so I will be interested to see what they will do with that.

We love coming out to the zoo. We have gotten memberships for the last few years and use them all the time. My kids love it and want to go every chance we get.

Great variety of animals and exhibits, including feeding a giraffe. Prices are good too.

It's a small zoo but reasonably priced. The staff was super friendly especially in the dining area. Shirley did great and was good with the kids. Exhibits for the most part were well maintained. Only complaint is the wait time trying to get tickets. The one line extended out into the parking lot where people had to move due to incoming vehicles.

I love going to Mesker Zoo. Amazonia (the indoor Amazon Rainforest) is one of the coolest things I've seen at a zoo before.

Always fun! Thankful for such a nice zoo and all the improvements and additions they continue to do. Fun for everyone!

This is a nice zoo. If you live in the area or plan to visit frequently I would recommend a membership. Good size, without being too big. Paddle boats are fun and a nice touch. Not the cheapest place to eat but the restaurant makes decent pizza and burgers. Cost is about $100 dollars for a family of 4 to enjoy the day, seems a little high, but again membership had its privaledges and would have made this much more economical.

An excellent afternoon with the kids away from their mobile devices. I personally love the hilly terrain but it may be a bit of a hindrance to those with limited mobility.

Although there are a lot of hills making it a bit challenging to walk, it is a very clean and family friendly environment. The zoo now has two rhinos! There's lots to see and do for people of all ages. Plenty of benches if you need to rest as well as water fountains to refill your water bottle for those hot days.

Zoo wasn't very busy and was very relaxing to casually walk without being in someone's way. Lots of animals to see!

It's ok, but Nashville is much better. Starting to look run down. Most impressive animals are the giraffes and leapord. If you can stand the hot smell of poop, the rhino is neat, prehistoric looking.

We love Mesker Park Zoo and Botanical Gardens. They just reopened after covid quarantine and not everything is open, but it was good to be able to go. We support them with an annual zoo membership and Penguins are coming in 2021!!!

Decided to take the kids today since we would mainly be outside, and Corona sucks. Had an amazing time with the kids, and even though there were a few things we couldn't do, we all had a blast. I appreciate the effort of everyone who works and volunteers at our zoo and I'm very glad we renewed our membership!

Not sure if I went at a bad time but everything looked empty and run down. Lots of enclosures were empty. Lots of buildings looked like they were abandoned. The plastic glass stuff on many enclosures were foggy or had millions of fingerprints over them so even if you saw an animal, you couldn t take a good photo. Lots of dead ends. Drove 2 hours from St Louis to see this zoo and was really disappointed. Hopefully things pick up and are better if I m ever in the area again!

It was our first time there . I was impressed with the staff and the setup. it was well worth our hour trip there and back.

My daughter and I love Mesker Park Zoo. Everyone was wearing masks and respecting social distancing. An excellent place for very small children to get out for a bit. Many parents were out with their stollers.

A lot of the animals were "out for medical treatment ", the zoo wasn't as clean as it use to be, and the drinks were very expensive. A bottle of water was $6.

Nice little zoo making the best of things during covid BS

Usi alumni association and dental hygiene association student chapter serving others!

Love all the animals so much... So much better then people!!! And here's my big bad lion...lmal

Super nice and relaxing, followed covid procedures, very knowledgeable staff. Penguins coming soon!!

Clean and animals are well kept. Staff was friendly and helpful. I wish there was more variety of animals, but I'm sure that would improve with more community support.

Good place for family day or for a nice walk. Low admission. Food is very expensive, but most zoos are that way. The zoo is by west side strip. Maybe get a bite before going or bring a picnic.

Pretty good zoo for being smaller. The animals weren't very active but it was like 95 poor things. They had pretty flowers too.

Unlike Japan's zoo, it was a nice atmosphere with many plants. There are many ups and downs, so I think a stroller is essential if you have a small child. Single strollers and double strollers can be borrowed for a fee within the park. There is a place where you can play in the water right at the entrance, so it is convenient to change clothes.

The animals do not look very happy, the tiger walked around wailing in misery the entire time we were there. The inside exhibits stink like nothing I ve ever smelled before, like the animal feces is not cleaned up, ever. (We ve been to plenty of zoos, the inside exhibits have never smelled that awful) We were adjusting our masks inside one of the exhibits, trying to breathe from the awful smell, and the rudest employee came up to us, glared and pointed at her mask and then followed us around, like she was waiting to start a fight..... the only reason i didn t give them one star is because it was such a beautiful day and we enjoyed the scenery of the outside part.

I have never been able to find a place find
animals

I've been going here since I was a kid! I haven't been yet this year, but I'm SUPER excited about the new Budgie Walkabout!! Plus, this Zoo is AZA certified, so it's guilt free to go see the animals that are well taken care of because it's such a rigorous check on the well-being of the animals. Perfect place for a summer activity on a nice day.

Just had the BEST birthday party here! Molly was our zoo guide and was fabulous!

Great zoo. The family and I loved. For a smaller zoo it is awesome. Drink machines are expensive at 3.00 a drink. A little crazy.

This zoo needs closed. Cramped conditions and animals bored out of their minds.

This is a nice, small zoo. Most of the staff was friendly, but not everyone. Bring some comfortable shoes, while it is a small zoo, it's very hilly and a lot of walking between exhibits.

My kids had fun and we got to see a lot of animals. Worth the stop if you are in the Evansville area.

Great zoo! Wish this one was closer to our home because we would visit all the time!

Always love going here. And I gotta say, I kinda like the covid-19 one way directions! No more wondering where to go first, just follow the arrows!