Toledo Zoo named BEST ZOO in the United States

We always make a special effort a few times per year to take a road trip with our kids to visit the TOLEDO ZOO because it really is a great park and a nice change of pace with different exhibits and animals on display to enjoy from our own local Detroit Zoo which with our annual membership itself is a pretty frequent destination for our family.  So it really wasn't that much of a surprise when we heard that this Midwestern factory town's zoo was named by USA TODAY as the "Best Zoo in the USA" and "one of the top 10 zoos in the U.S." by Family Fun Magazine. The Toledo Zoo is home to more than 9,000 animals representing over 800 species.  It also just completed a new 178,000 gallon aquarium so that a visit to the zoo not only lets you observe land animals but also takes you under the sea.

Because the Detroit Zoo is just a few minute drive from our house we've become pretty accustomed to that place so making a trip to the Toledo Zoo is always a special treat to check out new things.  My kids favorite three features of the Toledo Zoo ( the hippoquarium, elephant exhibit & salt water aquarium)  aren't available to see at our local zoo making the experience out of the ordinary and extra special for them.  These exhibits really provide a close up views of these creatures allowing for some extraordinary experiences.

The Hippoquarium

Visitors to this exhibit are treated to a view of the underwater world of Nile hippopotamus.  This 360,000 gallon pool has a filter system that cleans 8,000 gallons of water every 90 minutes to help provide a clear closeup view of the hippos as they lounge and wander about underwater.  My kids always are thrilled when they have an up close encounter with these humongous creatures.

 

Elephants of the Savanna

Speaking of larger creatures, right next door to the hippoquarium is the elephant enclosure.  Whenever my daughter brings up a trip to the Toledo Zoo the first thing she references is wanting to go see the elephants.  The Toledo Zoo enlarged and renovated this exhibit in 2012 providing for expanded viewing areas for people and more stimuli for the African elephants that call it home including elevated feeders, enrichment walls and trees that creating a dynamic space for the animals.

The Hippoquarium and Elephants of the Savanna exhibits are part of a larger themed African Safari themed display area called the Tembo Trail.  As you venture along the Tembo Trail in addition to elephants and hippos, you'll also encounter lions, white rhinoceros, spotted-necked otters, slender-snouted crocodiles, naked mole rats and meerkats.



Aquarium

After a two and half year closure for a $25 million dollar expansion and renovations just re-opened in the Spring of 2015.  This exhibit has transformed a 46,000 gallon aquarium that had mostly displayed local freshwater varieties of fish into a 178,000 immersive underwater experience where people can view more than 3,000 creatures from a variety of ecosystems around the world.

We took a road trip this summer to the Toledo Zoo just to check out the new aquarium facility and I have to say it really is fin-tastic!  CLICK HERE to check out A Geek Daddy's review of the Toledo Zoo's aquarium "Sea-ing the Toledo Zoo Aquarium is Fin-tastic!"

Playgrounds

It just figures though that my kids enjoy playing at the Toledo Zoo almost as much as venturing around observing all the wonderful animals.  The zoo has a nice area called Nature's Neighborhood that has a playscape area featuring a kids only tree house to explore, rock walls to climb and a stream to wade in.  There is also the Jumpin Junction indoor workshop area that has projects to do and presentations to see throughout the day all year long.  At Jumpin Junction kids can see themselves on a large TV screen with backgrounds from the natural world behind them or they can play around with animal costumes and puppets for a fun experience.

During the warmer months there also are daily performances at 2 pm each day featuring Toledo Zoo animals at the outdoor Fisher-Price Discover Stage for families to enjoy or you can pet African pygmy goats in Nature Neighborhood's Goat Yard.

As part of the aquarium renovation, the Toledo Zoo also just installed a great aquatic splash pad play area directly behind that facility that also includes oceanic themed play structures like a giant crab holding a tire swing in its pinchers.

A few other highlights of trip to the Toledo Zoo include taking a train ride around Africa! which circles a field filled with zebras, giraffe, wilderbeest, ostrich, and wild dogs; trekking through the Arctic Encounter to view polar bears and seals; meandering through the Primate Forest filled with lemurs, monkeys, and red pandas; and a walk through the reptile house which features a giant saltwater croc. CLICK HERE for a map with a full layout of the zoo.

Of course we can't head home for the day until we've taken a ride on the old fashion carousel situated by the park's main entrance.

 

If you happen to be visiting the area the Toledo Zoo has a nice Out-of-town Visitor Guide on its website to help with planning a trip to the zoo.  If you can make it to Toledo, A Geek Daddy recommends that a visit to their zoo is well worth it.  You'll always discover something that will put a smile on your at the Toledo Zoo!

Toronto Amusement Park Caters To Children

Amusement parks aren't always the friendliest of places for family vacations with children as they don't often have many attractions to please the preschool to elementary school aged kids in the family and are filled with roller coasters and other thrill rides that are just too intense for young riders.  There is always that dreaded moment when traveling with young kids where your child isn't tall enough to get on something they really want to experience or worse needs a parent to go along with them on a ride you really don't want to partake in yourself.  So when we heard about an amusement park in Toronto, Canada that caters to young children we just had to take a road trip to go check it out.

Centreville Amusement Park is located on an island in Lake Ontario just off the coast of Toronto.  It features more than 30 rides and attractions that are ideal for children aged 3 to 8 years old.  It is open seven days per week June through the end of August and on weekends in May and September.  We attended on a Saturday in late August and found the crowd to be pretty sparse as we arrived at 10:30 am when the gates first opened and my kids rode several of the rides numerous times in a row without having to get off but by 1:00pm the park began to become more crowded and the lines began to grow for the rides.  Still during our visit the longest we ever had to wait for the kids to get on a ride was about 15 minutes even when attendance was at its peak.  I note "waited for the kids to get on a ride" because a majority of the attractions are designed specifically for children and those that aren't are meant for families to enjoy together with parents riding along with their kids.

To get to the Centreville Amusement Park you need to take a 15 minute ferry ride to the island from the Jack Layton Ferry Terminal located along the downtown Toronto lake shore.  We stayed during our trip at the Novotel which is located a block away from the intersection where the city's train station and the Hockey Hall of Fame are located and it took us about ten minutes to walk to the ferry terminal from our hotel.  When I was growing up there was an amusement park called Boblo that was located on an island near where the Detroit River merges into Lake Erie which unfortunately closed more than 20 years ago.  It was always a thrill to ride a ferry over to Boblo Island for a day of fun.  It was a very nostalgic moment to share a similar experience with my children as they enjoyed the ferry ride and excitedly awaited our arrival at Centreville Amusement Park.

A popular feature of the amusement park are the variety of cars that are available for toddlers to tweens to drive that run on tracks through a course to ensure there is no danger to the riders of crashing the vehicles.  My son's favorite was the Tin Lizzy while my daughter really liked the Ford touring cars.  There are also fire engines that can take little ones for a ride.

My kids favorite part of the amusement park was the kiddie roller coaster which they must have ridden at least 20 times throughout the day.

They even got me to ride it with them a few times.

Then it was down the log flume ride with dad!

Some of the other fun rides that are miniaturized versions of popular adult-sized rides you'd find at other amusement parks included Leapin Lily Pad which is a pint sized Demon Drop, the Rockin Ferry which is a tamer version of the swinging pirate ship, and the Beasley Bear ride which spins riders around in circles a bit slower for the little folks.

All aboard! There's a train ride that takes you for a scenic tour around the outskirts of the park.
 

After your train ride take a spin on the Ferris Wheel for a great view of the Toronto skyline.  Here's a picture of our view from the top.

If you your kids like buzzing around in the air fly over to the Bumble Bees that will have them circling around in the air.  There is also a really nice antique carousel that the whole family can ride on together right next to the Ferris Wheel.  I have to say the Ferris Wheel and Carousel at Centreville Amusement Park are the fastest moving I've ever been on so make sure to hold on!

For toddlers and preschoolers the park has something special to with a kiddie boat ride and twirling teacups meant just for them. The tweens, teens and adults in your group will want to check out the Scrambler which spins and whips you around in the dark surrounded by a laser light and sound show. They also have some great bumper cars shaped like cows and a pond filled with bumper boats that are for the enjoyment of an older crowd compared to the age range that most of the rides cater to.

Who has ever wanted to go on a pony ride?  Children can do that at this amusement park! Plus there is a petting zoo which features horses, donkeys, pigs, rabbits, goats, and several other barnyard animals.  If you don't want to ride a real animal, parents and kids can jump on a motorized swan and take it for a cruise around a pond.

To enjoy the attractions at Centreville Amusement Park you need to either purchase tickets or purchase an unlimited ride day pass.  You can get 25 tickets for $25 (Canadian) but that approach can quickly nickle and dime your trip's budget to death cause you use multiple tickers per person per ride.  For example the Kiddie Roller Coaster and Log Flume Ride are 6 tickets each per person every time you go on them.  If you have four people in your group that is 24 tickets for one ride on the Log Flume Ride right there.  For $120 (Canadian) or $30 per person our family was able to go on an unlimited amount of rides for the day.  We were at the park from 10:30 until about 4:00 pm and we made sure we got our moneys worth.

After a fun day on the island it was back to the ferry for the cruise back to Toronto and on to our next adventure.  The ferry ride is a round-trip fare you pay once at the terminal before getting on the boat to visit the island.  It is $7.25 (Canadian) for adults, $3.50 for children 2-14, $4.75 for Seniors (65+) and kids under 2 are FREE.

We had a grand old time during our visit and if you have younger children in your family I'd absolutely recommend going.  I would note that tweens and teens 10 years and old probably will find this park way to tame to keep them amused for a whole day unless they are joining in having some fun on a family adventure with some younger siblings.  I know with teenage temperaments that type of outgoing attitude can be hit or miss.  If you feel like you've been missing out on enjoying an amusement park experience with your 3 to 8 year old than you'll not want to miss taking a visit to Toronto and stopping by the Centreville Amusement Park.

The Dennos Museum Center - Traverse City, Michigan

I've always taken the approach in parenting that it is important for my children to not just be educated but also to develop an appreciation for life long learning.  Instead of seeing school and homework as a chore, I want them to treat their lessons like solving puzzles so they hopefully will perceive entertainment and education as mutually compatible rather than polar opposites.  One of the ways our family tries to combine entertainment with education is taking a break from our leisurely activities during a family vacation or road trip to visit an aquarium, museum, historical site, science center, zoo or some other location where they can learn a few lessons.  Hopefully this is developing a sense of curiosity and exploration that will help them with their educational endeavors as they move through life.

An example of this parenting approach is during our beach vacation to Traverse City, Michigan we took some time to stop by Northwestern Michigan College's Dennos Museum Center.  It features a variety of displays, exhibits, and facilities to promote the visual and performing arts plus hands-on experiences to encourage people to be scientifically inquisitive.  The Dennos Museum Center was a 2015 winner of TripAdvisor's Certificate of Excellence.   When we stopped by the building in addition to hosting its Discovery Gallery and art exhibits, they were also screening movies for the Traverse City Film Festival in the 1,000 seat Milliken Auditorium.  We focused our time though on walking around the art displays and playing around with the hands-on activities.

The first gallery we explored was the Dennos Museum Center's permanent collection of Inuit Art.  Inuit are the culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic regions of Greenland, Canada, and Alaska. Most of the artwork in this collection originates from the Baffin Island area of Nunavut, Canada and is comprised of more than 1,000 prints, sculptures, drawings, tools, and textiles that were created between 1950 and the present day. The Dennos Museum Center is recognized for having one of the most historically complete collections of contemporary Inuit art located within the United States.

Next we checked out a temporary visiting art display by a South Korean artist named Jae Yong Kim that had a theme we could really relate to - Lusting For Donuts.  The art display is filled with ceramic donuts and a few snails taking a bite out of them.  Kim's art explores issues through the use of surrogate subjects such as donuts or snails.  He has developed a reputation for being quirky and having the ability to present to viewers of his artwork complex concepts of cruelty, pain, joy and love through simplistic images.

This is how Jae Yong Kim describes this display:

One of the few things that brought me joy was a donut.  The simplicity of its shape and expression of taste afforded me a brief moment to indulge in childlike happiness.  And it was here in this simple donut that I found the perfect vehicle for my message.  We ultimately become consumed by what we lust after, but when seeking true happiness we become genuine expressions of ourselves.

Hmm is that a profound philosophy or a Homer Simpson moment?  I'm sorry I kept picturing the character from the Simpsons television series as my kids became obsessed with getting an accurate count of just how many donuts were on display.   In addition to trying to interpret the meaning Jae Yong Kim's work and counting donuts, my kids also contributed to the display.  They colored their own donuts and hung them up on the wall to add their own personalization to the art work and leave their own mark that they'd visited the Dennos Museum Center.

After Lusting For Donuts I was ready for a snack, but instead we explored the Hands On Gallery.  I have to admit that after visiting places like the Imagination Station in Toledo and the Ann Arbor Hands On Museum this area could only be described as tiny in comparison.  That being said they had some very nice features that my kids really enjoyed during our visit.

My son loved the Recollections exhibit that transforms your motions into colorful projections upon a huge screen in front of you.  He spent a half hour just dancing around making all sorts of patterns to marvel at.

 

 My daughter really enjoyed the Sound Wall which allowed you to create your own musical scores by hitting various patterns of shapes placed on a wall before you and the Electricity Attractor which shoots patterns of sparking light around your hand when you place it on a screen.

They also have a a Laser Harp where you can play the instrument by strumming your fingers across an open space where the strings should be and an Anti-Gravity Mirror that creates an illusion that you are flying.  The Hubble Space Telescope display which features transmissions from NASA and the Space Telescope Institute was also a hit with my kids.

We wrapped up our visit by walking through a visiting art exhibition called  Sideways: Exploring Skateboard Art + Culture by a Northwestern Michigan College alumnus Aaron Draplin which our family really enjoyed.  My kids are infatuated right now with skateboarding and we had no clue this was on display until we stumbled on it while wandering through the Dennos Museum Center.  You never know what great unexpected discovery you'll make when you visit local museums like this when traveling to new places.

That's not it though there is one more place to explore as you are heading out.  There is an outdoor sculpture collection surrounding the Dennos Museum Center that you should really check out.  There are 13 unique original artworks placed in the vicinity of the building.  Click here for is a listing of the sculptures and and a photo gallery of their pictures.  Getting a little extra exercise to take a stroll around to appreciate these though provoking sculptures is well worth the time and effort.  Don't miss out on this one last thing as you head back to the parking lot for your car.

Admission cost our family of four $20.  $5 per person for an hour or so of learning and family bonding isn't a bad price to pay.  Normal rates are $6 per adult, $4 per child or $20 family package which covers admission and parking.  For more information, visit dennosmuseum.org.