Animal Adventure Park

Trained sea lion at Animal Adventure

Animal Adventure Park is a sort of mini-zoo/animal show about 45 minutes from the big hotels in Punta Cana. It's relatively new and is still pretty small. It's not really open traditional hours, and you can't just show up, pay and get in. They send a couple of vans around every morning to the big resorts and pick up whoever wants to come. When they get there, you pay and go in, but pretty much stay in the group and move from attraction to attraction.

There's a lot to do at the Animal Adventure Park, about half of which is included in the roughly $40 entry fee. You get to see the trained birds and sea lions do their shows, and they'll bring out the tigers so you can watch them eat. You can also get your photos taken with the birds and large iguanas. The park, naturally, will try to sell you prints at the end of the day, which cost $10 each.

Most of the cooler stuff, like the swim with sharks or sea lions, costs extra. There is a “touch pool,” which is a smallish, star-shaped pool full of starfish, sea urchins, and whatever else they have at the moment that is small and harmless. These extras cost an average of $20-25 each.

All in all, a visit to the park is entertaining, but expensive. Someone who wanted to get in plus do a couple of the cool extras could easily blow $100. This park is best for families with bored kids who are driving them nuts, and who have plenty of money. Not surprisingly, Animal Adventure Park does not list their prices on their website.

It is impossible to recommend Animal Adventure Park for anyone until they change one of their policies. Once the visit is done, they herd the guests through the gift shop and past the photo sellers, which is annoying but typical, and then put them on the vans. Then, however, the guests who did not pay for any of the extras, like the Swim-With-Sharks, must sit on their butts in the hot vans and wait for those guests who have paid for extras to do them. It is extremely annoying to wait in the bus. Until Animal Adventure Park changes this appalling policy, no one should give them their business.

Tourist Trap

By Christopher Minster

I am a writer and editor at V!VA Travel guides here in Quito, where I specialize in adding quality content to the site and also in spooky things like...

Reviews

Traveler Reviews of Animal Adventure Park

Low budget park for a high budget price

My partner and I selected Animal Adventure as one of our two tours for the week. The first one was Jeep Safari which was great. We had high hopes for the second tour only to crash and burn. I mean, u would think that $95 will buy u a great experience, but all it bought was a half day photo op. And u have to pay for the pictures too. So whats good about it? Hardly anything. We did get to play and pet the dolphins for 1/2 hour and my partner was very pleased but every 5 minutes theres this guy making u look at the camera to take pictures. The rest of the day was dull and slow. The bird's show was lame. The tigers were ok and funny but here comes the photo op again!!!! The touch pool is great for kids and people that arent familiar with the sea and they bring a minihorse and a big Boa Albina snake for u to pet and take pictures The sealions were very funny and well trained. But the stage was too small, the show was too short and the sound and presentation felt amateourish. At the end I didnt wanted to buy anything form those people because I really felt robbed. But my partner was very excited about the dolphins and the pictures are really good so for him it wasnt a total loss. Entertaining, but for almost $100 you could do much better.

Traveler from Puerto Rico on Jul 04, 2009

BEST EXCURSION

CONCERNING THE FORMER REVIEW I CAN ONLY SAY:HAVE THESE PEOPLE BEEN TO THE SAME PARK WHERE I WAS? I WAS REALLY SURPRISED TO READ WHAT THEY SAID AND FIND IT FAR AWAY FROM TRUTH. FOR 40 UD$ YOU GET SO MUCH AND WHEN YOU DO NOT WANT TO PAY 40 MORE FOR SWIMMING WITH SEALIONS OR SHARKS YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT IN THE VAN, THIS IS A COMPLETE LIE, BECAUSE THEY GIVE YOU IN THIS TIME SOME OTHER THINGS TO SEE. IT IS A VERY CLEAN PLACE WITH A LOT OF ANIMALS TO SEE TO TOUCH AND EVEN YOU CAN LEARN SO MANY THINGS. EVEN THE PRICES FOR ADDITIONAL THINGS ARE CHEAPER THAN IN THE HOTEL.

Traveler from GERMANY on Feb 13, 2009

Highlight of our Vacation!

I loved that the staff was really passionate about the animals and making the park a success. They were very attentive to us and friendly.The animals were great--swimming with the sea lion was so fun and getting to play with the other one was incredible. The parrots were cool and were fun to play with along with the goats, and snake....Definitely worth the money though it was a bit pricey.The CD you could buy was expensive but we ended up getting it anyway and they put a lot more photos on it of the animals which was good. We were able to take our own photos all throughout our visit and they didn't pressure us to buy anything.

Traveler from Boston on Sep 11, 2008