Turtleback Zoo Reviews

It's a smaller zoo that can be pretty much be done in half a day. It's fairly clean and well maintained, and there's no sign that any of the animals are mistreated are malnourished. Although it's hilly, much of the area is shaded, so it's manageable even on hotter summer days.

It's a cute spot to visit with kids and their friends!!!

Only down side is the amount of ppl that go but it's always a great place for the kids

Great little zoo, doable in a couple of hours for little ones with short attention spans.

Awesome animals great place for kids! it's all up hill so be prepared to walk

Great day trip awesome upgrades to the penguin exhibit

Check the zoo web page for all the details. A great dat for families.

Not worth the time.. some of the exhibits are closed and too much of up hill walk... It might be better once the repairs are completed...

Absolutely lovely and well maintained zoo. For the price you simply cannot beat it! My only complaint is the food which is pretty horrible, but the rest of the experience more than makes up for a stale hot dog. I will certainly take the tradeoff every time because this place is always growing and improving. It has never disappointed me ever.

I definitely suggest checking out the giraffes, especially when they are being fed. But my personal favorite is getting up close and personal with the wolves. So cool.

A Great Place to take the kids and enjoy it with your family. Especially on Holiday they are usually open. The animals are such a great sight to see

A fun place to spend the afternoon with kids. There are play areas spread throughout the zoo; large, open observation areas; and lots of great exhibits. The staff do a great job of making themselves available to answer questions and provide facts. Just small enough to manage in a morning or afternoon without being overwhelmed. The zoo also provides wildlife rescue and rehab facilities, so there are even more learning opportunities.

Very friendly and a really nice place to visit with the family

It was fantastic! I didn't know what to expect when I got there oh, but I was blown away by the amount of animals that they had. Everything was viewable barely anything sleeping. I went with the kids and everyone had a fantastic time. Is enough places to sit down and snack. Plenty of bathrooms throughout the park. Overall wonderful experience!

It was very interesting and fun it was one of my best field trip in 5th grade.

If you ever wonder on a Saturday morning what do giraffes eat for lunch here's your chance to find out first hand and feed them. Kids love it.

This is perfect for your kids can enjoy all day with nature.

Great Zoo. On the small side, but always expanding and adding more animals. They also have a nice little train ride included in the price of admission. During the holiday season, they have free admittance for Christmas lights after dark.

If you're lucky enough to live in the area there is good value here with a family membership. Free parking is pretty good too.

I love this zoo. It's not too big, not too small, yet so perfect for a little family. The animals are pretty close up and the bird house is a treat for everyone!!! The kids loved feeding them and holding them, it was an exhilarating experience

Great smaller zoo that is becoming bigger, new exhibits and animals areas are under construction

Visited during the COVID reopen and moser than half the visitors are not wearing face masks consistently. Visitors are pulling down face masks or taking them off as they walk through the park. Employees are also pulling down face masks to talk to visitors or yell out instructions.

Awesome range of animals, the bathroom however, was unclean and thus unusable.

Great zoo, free light show is always worth it during the holidays

Was not sure how many animals I would get to see at this time of the year.. but was pleasantly surprised to see all of them. Bonus - no crowds

A great starter zoo for little ones. Beautifully maintained, a great staff, and a great value.

Turtle Back Zoo is an awesome place! My family and I have visited this zoo at least 3 times and it never disappoints. The best part that my kids love is the train. Love to see the various animals either playing, sleeping or just relaxing in their respective areas.

A wonderful place for kids, they have well collection of birds, reptiles, fishes and other animals too.

Great place for the kids. My little one loves the pony rides and loves the train ride even more.

This is such a wonderful place to see many animals that you wouldn't ever get this close to anywhere else.
I do have a hard time seeing the small spaces that several animals are alotted; esp the cats. I hope that an expansion is planned for them as there seems to be plenty of acreage for it.
It's still a nice place to spend a couple of hours wandering around.

Gotta check out the train. Good family place. Better for littler kids than the older ones.

Awesome place to take the kids, fun for adults as well.

The overcharge for everything! I spent 25 bucks on a buger with fries and tenders with fries....easily 12-15 bucks and thats pushing it. At the gift shop they were charfing 20 bucks for a stuffed animal the size of a bell pepper!

I was volunteering for feel trip. But I can say best zoo in New Jersey. Widely spread and well taken care by authorities. Every path is interconnected. Zoo has cafe play are for kids. Separate sections for each aquatic animals.

Great Zoo, glad to continue to see it grow. My son loves this place.

Visited in the summer with my kids and we enjoyed the experience. Although some of the animals were not there for whatever reason but it was still a great place to visit. The dolphin show was especially fascinating. The kids loved it.

I went there with my leaders an counsels for Jackson recreation it was a fun time see the peacock walking around it amazing and if you want to feed the nice giraffes it takes 2 dollars to a lettuce it was nice next that there was a penguins site and lion house if I keep going I may stay here for rest of the year so all i am saying is it the best at that place take ur kids there

My niece and I visited the zoo last week on one of those very hot and humid days. In spite of the terrible weather conditions, we had a great time!! There were very nice exhibits. There was a Beautiful Peacock walking around the grounds. We had lunch in the cafe, and the food was pretty good. I highly recommend Turtle Back Zoo and will definitely return in the near future.

My 8 year old son loves this place. He enjoyed feeding giraffe in this summer. During winter time, the zoo becomes quiet as all other zoos.

Great zoo, lots of exhibits and plenty of animals and spots to sit and picnic areas.

I've been coming to the zoo as a kid, with my kids and now alone with my hubby. You're never too old too look for adventure and fun at this zoo! A lot of construction going on now, can it wait to see the results. 11/26/2018

Absolutely phenomenal zoo, one of the best I've ever been too. They have many animals all with large cages so I don't have to feel too bad about them being in there. There is a touch tank and a petting area which I though was very neat. Turtle back is a must!

Such a great Zoo. I took my niece and nephew who are 5 and they loved it, I myself had a great time also. Plenty of animals to see and some cool exhibits. Definitely is a great place to go for a nice day!

Animals looked so depressed at the zoo. Poor things, hope there being treated properly.

it's free after 5pm so no complaints there. great place to bring your kids.

This is a local treasure. If you have kids it is a wonderful place to go, see some animals and have a great family outing.

Great place for family fun. Parking is free a huge plus. Price is fair considering, you can easily enjoy a fun day while cooling off with water mist all throughout the zoo. Feed giraffe up close, eat in or bring your own food. Worth checking !

Small but decent zoo if you are visiting the area. Bronx zoo is a better choice.

Didn't see many of the animals but the penguins are cool...

Great place if you can i recomed to go very great place

My niece and I had a blast! There were a lot of construction sites that were unappealing to the eye and we wished there were more big cats to see, but overall it was awesome!

One suggestion, if you guys want to charge people to feed animals, like giraffes, then you should accept credit too. My niece was really disappointed that she couldn t see the giraffes up close during feeding time like some of the other children, b/c I didn t have any more cash, three dollars to be specific!

Fantastic layout that allows you to walk the entire zoo without becoming exhausted. The exhibits are designed well so that the animals have lots of space, but zoo visitors are still able to get a very good view of the animals. We got to see lions, otters, bears, and even wolves (including gray wolves and a wolf I had never heard of, the maned wolf)--so close that if there were no glass, we could touch them! The animals look happy and well cared for. We did not visit the zoo's other activities (the adventure park, the cafe, the minigolf, etc), but the zoo all by itself was wonderful!!

Highly recommend this zoo.

Love the zoo spent 3 hours here with my 2 older teens they were entertained the entire time lots of new renovations happening and entrance fees are reasonably priced

very good zoo; used to go here as little kid, and it is still good.

Love this place. Not too big so Def can see everything in a few hours. They have a good selection of animals. Love the train ride. Nice way to cool off. The Cafe has good choices for food but a little bit on the pricey side.

Nice variety of animals with multiple areas of entertainment for the little ones!

I was in a van with handicap plates. I was told that I had to park in the garage in the front. So I had to push my wife in her chair all the way to the front gate. My mother had to push my father in his chair as well. She is 69. So not an easy task. We past many parking spots that were open and people getting out of thier cars that were not handicapped. Once inside we could only go to 2 exhibits. All the trails lead to steep inclines which lead to even steeper inclines. It was impossible for my mother to push my father so they waited with the prarie dogs. I finally was unable to get my wife up the hills. She had to wait at the cafe while me and my daughter went to other exhibits. This was my daughters first zoo and my wife had to miss out. I even saw mechanical wheelchairs that couldnt make it up the hills. So, if you have people in wheel chairs. DO NOT GO.

Amazing and still getting better.
Fun day trip.

Best zoo i have experience with my daughter. The environment is clean, and even tho there was a lot of persons. I did not feel crowded.

Holiday tradition for us every Friday after Thanksgiving. This is a beautiful place to visit for the holidays. The animals are great and the lights are beautiful and they even had the Wolves out tonight which I haven't seen in the past 3 years. The Polar Express is a great train ride. Great for the kids too. 10 star rating!

Great local zoo! Took us 2.5 hours to see most of it with an 19 mo old in stroller/walking. Longer if you do pony rides or petting zoo

I forgot this place even existed! I remember going here in the 70s as a kid. Might not be the same location? Or the same place I just remember my grandparents taking me to TBZ. Most places like this have been shut down by PETA! All the animal places around me where I live now are closed permanently because of peta! And they are in the sticks where it s still natural for the animals! Hope this place survives many more generations!

This zoo has a wonderful variety of exotic, and downright epic animals. The thing that really bugs me, however, is just how busy and crammed the zoo gets.

This zoo is nice. This was our second time visiting. It s small and not a ton of animals but definitely the right amount. We spent 3 hours here and it was more then enough. One side is very hilly and quite a pain if your pushing a stroller so I would suggest starting from the right side when you enter which is the sea animals and african animals and work your way down the hills that are on the left side of the zoo which are the farm animals and smaller animals. They did have a few exhibits closed but it was okay considering we saw plenty of animals. Definitely a fun thing to do on the weekday, my kids loved the train ride and the hands on exhibit with the sting rays. Food was available at the restaurant too which was a plus considering it was closed due to covid a few months ago but its very expensive. Would definitely recommend bringing your own snacks and drinks.

Nice place for kids and Adult... for kids zoo and for adult Zipline

Wow what a difference over the years. Still a great place to go with the family that won't break the bank.

I went to turtle back zoo with our four year old special needs son. The grounds are gorgeous. The animals are beautiful. And the set up is very enjoyable. The staff is rude. They do not have patience. I didn t see one staff member with exception of a Pony director named Emily crack a smile. We have been there before and had the same experience.
It is a family establishment. It is necessary to treat your guests as such.
Our child is friendly and non confrontational. He is easy going and smiles. He was placed on the pony by Emily he smiled. The other attendant was not happy because Our son wiggled a little she immediately pulled him off the pony without an attempt. My child was smiling through the whole thing. My husband mom and self not so much. :(.

Great zoo with lots to do. The zoo has a train, pony rides, an aviary, a butterfly house and even stingray feedings. A great day out for the whole family. Also lots of other things to do for the family in the area. Paddle boats, mini golf and a ropes course. Free parking.