Summer has officially arrived and we kicked off it's arrival with a fun event at one of our favourite places- Edinburgh Zoo. So, join us as we visit the Zoo during their ‘After Hours’ event, but- be aware- we might come across a few surprise visitors!
Throughout this summer, Edinburgh Zoo is offering special ‘After Hours’ events that offer fun for families as well as evenings that are for adults-only. We were fortunate to take part in one of the members only evenings that was offered a few times this past month.
As I mentioned above, the ‘After Hours’ evenings available to guests are divided up as events that are either family-friendly (and fun for all ages) or adults-only evenings. There are dates throughout the summer, but be sure to check the Edinburgh Zoo website for the most up-to-date information on pricing, and how to book your time slot in advance (which the Zoo recommends to guarantee entry).
Some of the family-fun ‘After Hours’ events include, live music, face painting, and outdoor games. The ‘After Hours for Grownups’ evenings also have live acoustic music as well as a variety of food and drink vendors.
Our ‘After Hours’ evening was for members-only. Therefore, admission was free as it was included with our membership. Fortunately, the weather gods smiled on us that evening and, although it was a bit windy, we enjoyed dry, mild temperatures.
It was fun to walk around the Zoo after hours and visit our many of our old friends from the animal kingdom. However, this time we were in for some surprises as there were new inhabitants who had moved in. For it seems that similar to our Blair Drummond Safari Park post, dinosaurs have also moved in to Edinburgh Zoo. I guess the escaped dinosaurs from Jurassic World truly have reached all corners of the globe!
Scroll through some of the dinosaurs we encountered (during our ‘After Hours’ exploration and subsequent visit):
After exploring our own ‘Jurassic Park’, we realised that we had worked up quite an appetite. Even though the dinosaurs were roaming close by, somehow the food trucks were left in one piece. Luckily for us, we came across some great food choices. With so many delicious options, it was hard to decide what to get. We ended up getting a couple of items from Ròst and a ‘Jurassic Pork’ pizza from Pronto Pizza to share. Everything tasted wonderful and we were happy with our choices.
With full bellies, we continued on to visit the Giraffe House before it closed for the evening. All of the giraffes were inside eating either a late dinner or evening snack. Either way, it was fun to watch the lanky creatures as they moved about and interacted with each other.
After a while, we decided to start making our way down the hill on which Edinburgh Zoo is situated. All the lions were out enjoying the lovely breeze, and patriarch, Jay, even decided to pull some rather intimidating faces!
Over at the rhino enclosure, one of the boys (not sure which one it was) was clearly having his evening bath but didn’t seem to mind us taking photos and video of him.
Here are a few more friends we visited; the sloths were the most active we've ever seen them:
And, with that, we made our way to the exit and bid adieu to our friends with the assurances that we would be back soon.
We hope you have enjoyed this brief sneak-peek in to our ‘After Hours’ evening. If you would like to read more about Edinburgh Zoo, please check our previous posts that cover some of the basics, new arrivals, and old pals.
Until next time- Explore & Discover!