Lion Country Safari

The Office

Wonderful lady at front desk--
sorry I do not remember her name

I have to say that I really enjoyed my first trip to Lion County Safari in Loxahatchee. The last time I thought about prices, they charged by the vehicle no matter how many people riding. Not now. It is expensive at $25.50 a head on down to toddlers between 0 and 2 getting in free. It was what I would call an expensive "trip to the zoo" but not when you consider the cost of taking care of these exquisite animals as well as the Rehab Center they have. Once you get over the initial shock of a car costing $100, you just relax and enjoy a drive-through zoo experience.

The Park opens at 9:30 with the last car at 4:30. We were the first to enter because this is the time of day that they feed the animals and we wanted to see them all. I had two children with me and they didn't want any big old SUV in front of us. I made sure that would not happen.

Lion Country says, "Become a part of the Herd" and we did. It was an enjoyable hour drive on this 320 acre property through this cage-less zoo consisting of 4 miles where animals literally walk right in front of your car. They were not the least bit intimidated by vehicles and casually walked in front or beside us as we drove. In one of the photos, you will see Azizi the baby giraffe that was in a pen with her mother while her father was on the other side of the fence close by. The only thing that we noticed that seemed quite unusual was that it did not seem to have enough shade trees anywhere for all the 900 animals.

We saw Blue Herons, Brown Pelicans, Llamas, a Rhea in one of the photos shown here, beautiful Zebras and more. The water buffalo looked the most content of all the animals. I was amazed that one nine year old could identify all of the animals some being from Madagascar, Brazil, the Sahara Desert, southern Africa, central Asia and others.

The speed limit is posted at 8 mph but I was going much slower taking photos at the same time. You must keep your windows closed and you can not leave your vehicle for any reason. They also have an amusement park, a restaurant and you can buy film if you want to spend $6 more to park your car.