"Great zoo for kids/ not for everyone."

Great zoo for kids. Great zoo for non-smokers and non vapours. Which means it wouldn't be for everyone anymore, used to be a lot better with smoking/vaping areas.

Food has come downhill a little over the years. Used to love the chicken shop.

Great selection of animals you can see in a short space of time. It takes a while to make it around the buggys, trolleys, and maintenance people on the small pathways.

It was an ok day out but it did used to be a better experience.

"Overpriced and too commercialised "

We hadn’t been here since our now 18 year old was much younger. Planned a nice day out with him and his girlfriend. Booked online. Nearly had a fit at the cost - over £100. Arrived early. Parked fine. First blip was poor signal in reception to bring up the e-tickets. Managed eventually and off we went. Staff were polite and helpful. Toilets varied from clean to downright filthy. Everything seemed aimed at visitors and not the welfare of the animals. Once it became busy it was a nightmare with senior school groups being loud and blocking walkways. We stuck it out for 3 hours but then called it a day.

"Great zoo"

Great zoo, loads there, helpful staff, animals seemed well care for, could have watched the otters all day. The only let down is the food, as with most zoos they go on about conservation, helping animals and the environment and then serve up a load of meat centric junk food. If less land was used growing crops to feed chickens, cows, sheep etc then there would be less habitat destruction. Would be good to have kinder, healthier options.

"Toilets weren’t very clean"

Toilets weren’t very clean
Felt sad for some of the animals who seemed to not have any escape from public gaze plus some of the pens seemed incredibly small

"Poor Customer Service"

Very unhappy with the attitude of Colchester Zoo. We were supposed to attend with out of town family at the weekend and attempted to buy tickets ahead of time online.

This proved to be like wading through mud and the upshot was a screen telling us the session had time out, even though we had put the payment details in. At that point, we had no idea if payment had gone through.

We checked to see if an email had come - it hadn’t. We checked the bank and no money had been taken. We waited and this did not change. We ended up not going to the zoo as we were unsure if we had tickets or not and did not want to end up paying twice.

Fast forward to today, Monday and we find the money was taken from our bank. Further, an email was sent but it went to junk mail. We called the zoo to ask for a refund but were told we couldn’t have one.

We were offered tickets for another time. This is useless to us as we were only going that particular day because family from away were going and they won’t be going again any time in the next year. I explained this and was told they don’t do refunds.

I was told we can email in to the director and ask for one, so in other words, beg for our money back, despite the confusion over the ‘timed out’ message we got from them during the transaction.

When I protested, the call handler said she would put the request through for us but warned that the zoo director rarely agrees to refund. I was urged to accept tickets for another day.

What a poor way to deal with a situation caused by their system telling us the transaction timed out. And, we were told, in the unlikely event we do get a refund, we will have to pay a fee.

If you do want to visit the zoo, don’t use the online booking system is all I can say because they are very uncaring if there is a problem. Money is clearly more important than customer relations.

I am not surprised to see an overall rating of 3.8 here. They clearly don’t get how a better, more flexible attitude would help their rating.

"been here about 3 times"

been here about 3 times. animals look happy and well fed.
its a bigggg and massive zoo so you would enjoy it.
i ahve been in summer and winter.

the playgrounds and mini playparks can be quite distracting for kids lol. they want to stop walking and play.
restaurant serves good food as well

well recommended

"Place has gone down hill "

The place was so busy it may as well have been the London underground! sardines in a tin! We had to que for everything from the discovery room to the toilets even the kids parks and every food outlet. Even ushered round at the bird exhibit cause it was too busy! This can’t been good for the animals and underwhelming for children when they can’t see anything! What is the point in an online booking system if you just Jam Pack the place! We left early in the end and doubt we will go back! I also can’t believe they are still selling so much meat when they claim to be for the animals and nature and the environment! You can go from viewing a pig at familiar friends to ordering it for lunch!
Place is out of of touch

"Great day"

Great day, however we found it very expensive compared to other attractions we have visited. Would still recommend, but take your own lunch for the kids as it’s expensive!

"Returning Animals back to their natural…"

Returning Animals back to their natural habitat


I have visited Colchester Zoo many times down the years. I can see at each visit the behaviour of the animals is woeful and through boredom, they show signs of what looks like distress.

I have just had the good fortune to visit the Massai Mara and also the Amboseli nature parks in Kenya. I witnessed animals at their best, out in the open and feeling free. Its only really when you observe how it should be naturally do you come to realise that Zoos are completely wrong, they do not deliver what their written aims set out and should in my opinion and that of many others, should be closed down

I find Joanne Lumley spear heading a cessation of Elephants being corralled, for that it’s what it is. Visit the plains of Kenya to see how these huge gentle giants sweep across the grasses 24/7 in order to eat

There is no empirical evidence that support Zoos are educating people. I was taken to a zoo from childhood and in turn I have taken my daughters. All we were doing was educating children that it is Ok to take animals out of their natural habitat and cage them for a few minutes, if that, of gawping, noisy children. Not education.

I think that has come through on my visits to the Zoo. Children were more interested in play adventure areas, having snacks and generally yelling, maybe even banging on the glass. There was very little for anyone, young or old; to stand and read information about their natural habitat and behaviours. My two nephews can tell me alsorts of things about Dinosaurs, yet have never seen one, so does it actually need a zoo ?

Has the Zoo considered the size of your marketing budget and ask why ? – have you compared that huge part of your zoo’s turnover, with that of vet’s bills and projects conducted on the ground ? – which has the priority ?

Zoorocrats cannot change the way they think, it’s self-preservation, it would seem. The Zoo has stumbled into the prime driver of making a business pay, through footfall no doubt, to see caged animals which must be destroying their mental health

Lobby the Government, ask them for a program of funding to rehome your animals to sanctuaries and stop breeding / buying and/or bringing in animals to a caged environment. Conservation if you believed in the word, is one of shutting down Colchester Zoo and others

"Amazing zoo"

Amazing zoo, bought as a member so can go all the time for a year, definitely worth it, free soft play (needs booking) but a great time filler when needed