 Favorite
Part of the Day
Buying a bag of carrots and feeding them to the deer that came up to the
car.
Most Fun for Adults
Watching the kids as their eyes bugged out when the large animals such
as llamas and reindeer came right up to the car and popped their head
in through the window.
Most Fun for Kids
Taking pictures of all the different animals and trying to feed them.
What it's like
On our five hour drive from Chicago to Cleveland we stopped at the African
Safari Wildlife Park in Port Clinton, Ohio. This is the only place in
the Midwest where you can get so close to a variety of animals such as
llama, deer, buffalo, giraffes, zebras, and ostriches. There are two sections
to the park: a drive through and a walk through.
 The
park suggests you do the drive through section first. You can go back
through it as many times as you want. We drove through a set of gates
and a pair of reindeer escaped as we were driving in. The ranger had to
chase them back into their area. Included in the price is one cup of feed.
They call it a bucked but it is a very large plastic glass the size of
a souvenir cup. We bought two extra cups for $2 each and headed in. As
soon as the gates started opening the animals flocked to the car. They
are a bit aggressive because they know they will be fed. We had reindeer,
elk, llamas, alpacas, and deer all sticking their heads in our window.
Right away one of the elk grabbed a cup out of my hand and hogged it all
by himself. The other two cups were gone in a matter of minutes (I think
from the same elk!). We were a bit put off by this and decided to roll
up the windows (once they got their heads out) and drive on. When the
next car behind us came into the park they fled over to him since they
realized we weren't going to feed them anymore. When we stopped though
we saw some llamas chasing us down the road! We got to another gate where
they gave us an option to buy carrots to feed the animals. $3.00 for a
one pound bag and $5.00 for a two pound bag. We were going to skip it
but we wanted the full experience and bought a two pound bag. As soon
as the animals in the next section saw our car at the gate they started
moving closer to great us. The animals were smaller in this section and
we were more comfortable feeding the smaller deer. We drove on and saw
about five large reindeer soaking in some muddy water. We stopped to take
pictures of them and some goats resting up on a patch of boulders. One
reindeer came out of the water and slowly came over to the car. We opened
the sun roof and fed him carrots through the top of the car. It is an
amazing experience to be able to interact so closely with animals. We
were a bit nervous at first when the llamas and reindeer had their heads
in the car with us, but we got used to it after a few minutes. Driving
further down the road we drove through a heard of buffalo and got to see
some of their babies as well as a bison. The next section we drove through
had more exotic animals which were behind fences. We saw ostriches, zebras
(including the rare white zebras), bongos, giraffes, and some animals
which we did not know.
 In
the walk through section of the park you can visit with several smaller
animals, mostly in cages. Peacocks roamed around the grounds. Pig races
are held daily as well as camel and pony rides which are all included
in the base price. We saw several types of monkeys including Colobus monkeys,
baboons, and orangutans. Also at the park were flamingos, goats, camels,
alpaca, lynx, a serval and several birds. We even saw two warthogs sleeping
the day away. In the park
The gift shop sells t-shirts and several little toys and stuffed animals
of all sorts of wildlife. We wanted the kids to get something reminding
them of the animals they saw and this experience, but many of the stuffed
animals were expensive. We found a "surprise bag" for a boy
and a girl that were $5.00 each. It was a brown paper lunch bag filled
with all sorts of little trinkets. They got stickers, gooey animals, and
all sorts of little toys. We were all happy with that option because they
got more for the money plus the kids were very excited about the fact
that their souvenir was a surprise.
See the Slideshow!
|
