Chester Zoo. CH2 1LH.

We promised our 8yr old we’d take him to Chester Zoo….so we did!

Being the loser parents we are we decided to leave at 4pm on a Friday afternoon (I can hear your tuts…. idiotic we know!) Hoping it would take 3-4hrs. Yep…we dumped our fast asleep children in their premier inn beds at 11pm! SHOCKER of a journey. We did stop for tea for an hr and a half to avoid traffic, but still.

4pm on Friday arvo…. clearly not just us!

Despite kids sleeping through no problem, I lay awake listening to my dear hubby snoring but being too far away to physically prod without getting up. Still, I love a hotel breakfast, no cooking or cleaning up for me and once kids had eaten their own body weight in pastries, toast with nutella and blueberry muffins we hit the zoo for opening time.

Chester Zoo has a great selection of exotic wildlife to see and some which were firsts for us and we visit a fair few zoos so great to see animals we’ve not seen before.

There is a monorail to transport you from one side of the zoo to the other whilst catching a bird’s eye view of all the enclosures and their inhabitants. This costs extra and we booked it in advance when booking our entry tickets online.

You can hop on a little, very safe and slow, boat trip too if you like that sort of thing.

Everything is clearly marked on a map and the zoo is split into sections/areas. Everything is easily accessible.

Lots of different play areas and cafes around and toilets all over the place too.

People were tucking in to picnics all over the place but if not, there was a bbq selling hot food and those children’s lunch boxes you can get everywhere (although massively over priced as most of these are. £5.40 each I think they were!)

There was a live performance/ show in the Madagascar area and for an extra cost you can have a go on a mini high ropes challenge that seemed quite popular.

They have a well stocked, very popular zoo shop. We couldn’t resist!