San Diego Zoo & Wild Animal Park — Kids get in free through October

Family travel tip: Don’t forget that kids get free admission to the San Diego Zoo and San Diego Wild Animal Park during October. The deal is valid for kids 11 years old and younger when accompanied by a paying adult. Normally ticket prices for kids ages 3 to 11 are $26 per child; adult tickets, for ages 12 and older, are $35. If you’ve visited these parks before, here are a few reasons you might want to take another trip.

San Diego Wild Animal Park: The park is celebrating Halloween with “Pumpkins at the Park” on weekends. Have fun with a trick-or-treat scavenger hunt, the Extinct Animal Graveyard and the Hidden Jungle, which has been transformed into the Creepy Crawly Crevasse — with frogs, spiders, scorpions and other creatures that crawl and creep. And kids who bring in a decorated pumpkin for display will get a free carousel ride for their pumpkin donation. The park has set up an area for carnival games, including a beanbag toss and animal races, and there’s also a full pumpkin patch. View the Pumpkins at the park website for a full list of activities, photos and more info.

San Diego Zoo: The Children’s Zoo has a new Discovery Playground presented by Fisher-Price, which features a net tunnel, climbing wall, periscopes, scramble net, talk tubes and a tube slide. Also, if you haven’t seen the zoo’s new Elephant Odyssey, there are lots of play areas for the kids to have fun in addition to viewing the pachyderm’s new $45-million habitat.

Contact: San Diego Zoo

– Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times Travel & Deal blogger

Photo: At San Diego Wild Animal Park, giraffes munch on leafy branches tied to telephone poles. Credit Fred Greaves / For The Times

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20, 2009 at 9:58 am by Jen Leo and is filed under Deals, Family & Kids, News, Tips & Advice, San Diego, San Diego Wild Animal Park, San Diego Zoo, Theme Parks, Weekend Getaways. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.