We went to the zoo after looking it up online and seeing that they have a panda exhibit. We arrived early in the am to avoid the heat so there were not many people to contend with. We rented a golf cart since the zoo if located in fairly mountainous terrain, and walking would be a lot of up and down over a two hundred acre area. I wasn’t pleased to find out that the golf cart rentals were cash only, or the response from young lady working the rental, who told us if we needed cash to leave the zoo and go to the bank. Luckily, we had enough to just cover a two hour rental. The zoo was clean and uncrowded. We were able to get to the various exhibits without any difficulty and saw a good amount of animals. We were extremely disappointed to find out that the panda exhibit was closed, and had been for some time. There was no mention of this at the zoo entrance or the zoo website. This is an average city zoo. The consolation prize is that we did get to see a sun bear.

I wasn’t sure about going as reviews were not that great - but wow so glad we went. Its was amazing got close up to hippos, giraffes and elephants you could feed them all. Sat I. Tortoise enclosure which was brilliant. The way the zoo is set out is great -yes lots of walking but so much to see even without Pandas and aquarium- it’s a must visit and so glad we went.

First of all, this zoo is massive. The animal enclosures are spread out over the zoo, which is located at the base of Doi Suthep mountain. The roads and oaths are very hilly and sometimes even very steep. Exploring this on foot is possible, but will be quite challenging to do in the heat. Since we were visiting with children, we decided to rent a golf buggy to navigate the zoo. You get a machine time stamped card when you depart and pay 300 baht per hour. The first hour being 250 baht, and with a 15 minute grace period. There was a lot of construction work going on during our visit. The aquarium was closed, for that matter. Unfortunately, the giant panda died in April. But the enclosure is still open, now with cardboard pictures or panda. There even still is a security guard sitting in the panda enclosure guarding… cardboard pictures of giant pandas. A lot of roads were closed, unclear if those would lead to parts of the zoo we did not explore or were just service roads. We saw some walking paths that looked pretty cool, but would be impossible to do with young children in a pram. So the buggy was a very good idea. For our next visit, I would plan around the parking spots and animal enclosures a bit better. As sometimes we passed an enclosure that would’ve been cool to explosie, only we could not backtrack anymore (unless we circled the whole zoo). Nonetheless, we had a very fun afternoon. There is a small restaurant where you can eat a couple of basic Thai dishes. The zoo has a ‘say no to plastic policy’, but there’s a large plastic screen from where you order food. Which is served on a cardboard plate with plastic cutlery. Drink bottles are all of plastic (rather than glass), so not sure what the way no to plastic policy actually means. Thai zoos are very different than their counterparts in the western world (if I may draw an east-west comparison, for that matter).

The experience was kinda depressing tbh. But it might just my taste. I’m not a big fan of zoos, my highlight there should be a panda, but unfortunately panda died a while ago, what we found out after more than 30 min of ride there. Golf carts were pretty cool. It was 1,5 hour trip for us, otters and hippos were fun to watch.

What is open in the zoo is pretty cool but there is way too many things under renovation or just closed to give a rating any higher. We purchased the hop on hop off ticket for the zoo buses which helped with how spread out the zoo is and the up hill areas although we still had to back track a lot to see exhibits we had driven past as the stops were in frequent and at times not were you would want them. What was even more annoying was that we walked to exhibits just to find out they were empty and derelict but there was no signage pointing this out. Yes the Panda is no longer there, the aquarium was closed, the waterpark was closed, both white tiger and normal tigers are no longer there, many of the food and beveridge places were closed for renovation and some interactive buildings were also closed. Some of the animals looked like they needed more love and care as I wouldn’t have described them as healthy and happy, and some of the exhibits were barely fit to keep the animals in let alone let them thrive. We are comparing this to zoos in Australia so maybe our standards are just high, I would have to admit the state of the zoo isn’t too bad if compared to buildings in Thailand but I would also say the state of buildings isn’t great when compared to Australian standards. On the plus side we got to see a lot of cool animals we hadn’t seen before and some cool experiences like we got to feed the giraffes, elephants and hippos for 20 baht each which the kids loved

The zoo is very extensive, you'll walk a lot, while most of the compounds look not too modern and species-appropiate. Besides that theres no info about no Panda being here, while the zoo advertises with them and the aquarium is closed, also without prior info at the entrance. The zoo itself isn't bad, but I wouldn't go here a second time.

I’m going to have to write a disappointing review. The zoo is definitely in need of financial support. So don’t be put off from going there if you just put your expectations back a bit. It’s a nice place to visit, the animals are nice but I think some could be more attended to. The zoo looks a little run down but that is my subjective.