Shanghai Wild Animal Park

On the last day of the national holiday I went to Shanghai Wild Animal Park. It is quite far but I had heard many reviews that it was much better than Shanghai Zoo.

I took line 2 to Zhangjiang High Tech Park metro where for the first time ever I experienced the doors not opening and leaving the station! The man next to me was very frustrated but we just had to get off at the next station and hop on a train going back to Zhangjiang. A little troublesome.

Outside this metro are many many taxi drivers and tour guides who are the most forceful bunch I've met so far. They really hassle you and know you are going to the animal park but out of fear of being ripped off we decided to take the bus.

Opposite the station is a bus station and it seemed only the 2nd bus stop along where many people were queuing so using my Mandarin skills I managed to ask if this was the bus to the animal park which was confirmed. On the bus and there is a staff member with a machine who asks where are you going and uses your jiao tong card on it. It took about 30 minutes on a crazy bus to get there and on arrival there are locals trying to sell binoculars and are also quite forceful and follow you a lot!

I managed to use my student card so I paid only 65RMB to get in (normal entry is 130RMB). Inside the park you need to be prepared for many extra costs like feeding animals and taking photos with them all costs around 20-30RMB. You can rent these little cycle cars at 50RMB an hour but we decided to walk. It got a little frustrating that people would cycle up to the animal cages and block people on foot!

There are many animals there and a section for baby animals. We saw a baby tiger only a week old, baby cheetahs and I got to hold a baby lion and baby white tiger. This park also has 3 small pandas who were the most active in the whole park. You can ride camels and elephants too.

The other half of the park is safari and you use your ticket to get in there. You sit on a coach which is not ideal for seeing animals but I guess it's safer. Here you can see tigers, lions, zebras, cheetahs etc. The map was rather outdated with some animals missing or changed around.

The park is open from 8am - 4.30pm.