Chester Zoo, September 2025

It’s been a while since we’ve visited Chester Zoo, but for a birthday treat request we found ourselves heading back. Chester Zoo is one of the UK’s biggest, best and most famous zoos and it’s worthy of the accolades it gets. We’ve been to lots of zoos and the like and Chester Zoo is always miles ahead in terms of its enclosures and the animal welfare, not to mention the massive selection of animals they have on show.

It’s not a cheap day out any more. A day ticket to Chester Zoo when purchased online in advance starts at £34 per Adult, £26 per child (3-15 years) and toddlers at £2.50 (1-2yrs). Students can get access from £33 per person and babies and carers go free. All ticket prices online include a small donation towards animal conservation.

If you’re paying at the gate, expect to pay prices from £42 per adult and £30 per child.

Currently, membership to Chester Zoo costs from £105 per adult and £55.20 per child depending on if you wish to set up a direct debit. Paying as a one off raises the cost to £131.25 per adult and children at £69. The cost also increases for children buying a pass without an adult (£79.20 or £99). Its all a bit confusing…

We’ve always chosen annual membership and we’ve been members on and off for the last 10 years. The price looks like it has jumped up though so it is pricey, but when you consider we’re paying around £120 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children for one day and you’re getting a years worth of visits for the family for £320, it makes sense to go for the pass if it’s affordable to you and you can use it regularly. We’re located 20 minutes away so we can pop whenever we want to.

Well, parking is free, and I’m a big fan of free parking, so that’s always good, and the paper park maps are £2. You can also pay extra for VR experiences, animal feedings, VIP tours, animal adoptions and much more. Best check the Chester Zoo website for a full list of its current offerings.

Wow, it was busy. In all the years we’ve been visiting I’ve never seen it so busy (except for that free entry on Mother’s Day a few years back when the queues were so bad we couldn’t even get to the car park). By the time we arrived, the car park was already pretty full but even on a busy day you won’t struggle to find a space or you won’t queue very long to actually enter the zoo.

We had to queue at the Membership Office to get our pictures taken and get our new passes before we could go in to the zoo. In the past, they have handed out temporary passes to enter the zoo so you could go back and complete your membership registration at a quieter time, but today wasn’t one of those days, so we waited it out. It can take a while getting your registration sorted, so if there’s a queue, you might have to wait 20-30 minutes to get into the building.

Once done, head on through the gates, scan your pass and you’re in!

It had been a while since our last visit. We hadn’t been since before the Snow leopards were added and the new section was in the process of being built, when some of the animals like the zebras and meerkats were temporarily hidden away from the public. So as it was all open, we though we’d head straight to the Heart of Africa to see what it was like.

It looks amazing. Such a difference to the zoo that you’d hardly think you were in the same place. The change in this area since our last visit made it unrecognisable, with only the smelly rhino hut looking familiar (that’s not a dig at it being horrible, it just stinks of warm rhino poop).

As you enter Chester Zoo, turning right would lead you down a path with an exotic bird enclosure to the left and rhinos to the right, leading around to the entrance to the islands section. Now you’re greeted with the bright, shiny new Heart of Africa, with lots of new enclosures, paths, buildings, seating areas, dining choices, and a wonderful ‘African Savannah’ area with several species on display together. You could almost hear the Lion King music when you looked out across it. Thankfully, there were no lions in there eating the giraffes.

Well, the new meerkat enclosure was great. Plenty of room for these li’l cuties to run and play. Plus it has those glass domes in again so the kids… and adults can go through the tunnel and pop their heads into the enclosure.

The new flamingo area looked great too. A really big open pond area absolutely brimming with flamingos and some other smaller birds.

The vultures also have a new home in the Heart of Africa. Harbingers of death though they are, it’s great to see them in their new digs.

The best area is the African Savannah, with giraffes, zebras, ostriches and some kind of deer (they were a bit far away and I didn’t see the info board) roaming in the open. This looked great. You’re walking along a raised area so you get to look down across the enclosure and see everything. Plus there’s plenty of different spots to view it from along the side to see the different animals as they wander. About as close to a safari as you’re going to get in Chester.

The porcupines have a new home here too. There’s a covered seating area (underneath the walkway) and you can see out on to the porcupines new home with the open African plains just across the water.

The Hidden Savannah is an indoor area that’s filled with the smaller mammals, reptiles and bugs. There’s a whole room here filled with thousands of locust, like something you’d see in a horror film. There is a Land Rover partly inside the enclosure too so you can sit in it and feel like you’re being swarmed. It was closed off while we were there, so maybe next time.

There’s enclosures showing off dung beetles, cobras, mole rats, lizards, tortoises and more. It’s a great addition.

On the walkway there was a new Hot Dog van selling fancy organic hot dogs from £8.95 plus soft drinks from £2.95. Pamoja Outpost is a new stall selling hot drinks and snacks, plus a few plushes and novelties from the new area. And in the ‘courtyard’ area, there is the Pamoja Village shop serving a selection of flatbreads from £9.99 (including cheese & tomato, hummus & chickpea), signature drinks (Rangers Coffee, Mango & Passionfruit Lemonade), hot and cold drinks and popcorn. Some nice new additions. We’ll have to try one of the flatbreads next time, and Jo had her eye on the Mango & Passionfruit Lemonade.

Heart of Africa is a great addition to Chester Zoo. It brings a new feel to the place and makes it feel brighter and more fun whilst in keeping the theme of the area. The Pamoja Village area is nice and open with plenty of space to stop and explore, it has play areas for the kids, some great new animal exhibits, merchandise stalls and places to eat and drink, plus additional toilets. We can’t wait to do some more exploring over the coming months.

Another new(ish) thing at Chester Zoo are the Snow leopards. I was quite looking forward to seeing them. Alas, no, they weren’t playing ball today. We headed down to the new Himalayan inspired area to see if we could spot them along with the new Snow leopard cub but they were hiding. The enclosure looked great though with wide open rocky landscapes and the indoor viewing areas at the front. Shame they weren’t out, but you can’t make them appear. Hopefully next time.

We headed to Islands as Elliott always wants to see the Sunda gharial in the Monsoon Forest enclosure, and we actually caught sight of the tigers on this visit, albeit briefly. The cassowary was also out in the open, which we’ve rarely seen and the Visayan warty pigs are always wandering about.

We didn’t do the boat trip this time, the queue was massive and you don’t really see anything while you’re on it anyway. Even the Banteng cattle at the end weren’t out and they’re usually the only thing you can rely on seeing on the boat ride. We did see the baby orangutan swinging on the ropes and the adult one hiding in it’s sack. The monkeys are always busy and there’s a great selection of birds to see indoors, plus lots of frogs, bugs and fish.

We took a tour around some of our favourites. I always have to go find the capybara, they’re my favourites. They look like the sort of thing Tolkien should have had the Dwarfs riding to war in some epic Middle Earth battle. If I could have one as a pet, I would. They’re ace. Just a shame there was only one out right at the back, so we couldn’t really see them.

We did see the elephants, rhinos, Komodo dragons, penguins, onagers, mandrills, tapirs and more on our walk around. Great to see some of these creatures on your doorstep. I know some people aren’t a fan of zoos and some get a bad reputation, but Chester Zoos animals all look like they have great enclosures with space to roam and are well looked after.

We weren’t there for the full day so didn’t see everything, plus it was busy. I’ve never seen such a queue for the bat cave. It wasn’t the greatest day we’ve had there with a lot of the animals hiding, which can’t be helped. It’s fine if you’ve got a pass and can just pop back, but a bad day if you’ve paid £120 and not seen much.

Not seeing the Snow leopards was the biggest disappointment as they’re new there. Those, along with the Bat-eared fox which we’ve never seen and the capybaras hiding away, and it’s always pot luck on if you’ll see the tigers, which I was lucky enough to spot this time.

…And we had a cranky child in tow and they’re never fun at the Zoo. Maybe they should have an enclosure for them?

We loved the new Heart of Africa section and can’t wait to explore it further, and we’ll be back again soon to visit the lemurs in Madagascar and head over to see the lions in their newer home. They really have upgraded a lot of Chester Zoo over the last decade.

All info about Heart of Africa, tickets and more can be found on the Chester Zoo website.