If you have a toddler, this zoo is perfect. I love the small size of this zoo and it's just enough to see without being overwhelmed. If it's crowded, the parking lot can be the hard part about the zoo. There is some street parking outside but I'd say that's the downfall. I love that you can feed the alpacas and other reindeer. It makes the visit more interactive. They also have extra food by the alpaca for 50 cents so bring some quarters. The staff seem to really care for the animals and enjoyed hearing the talk about lemurs. They just got some lion cubs adjusted to their enclosure and it was super cool to see them on their first day. If your toddler is still not tired out, there's a playground in the parking lot they can run around in. Under 3 yo is free! read more

Cougar Mountain Zoological Park - Sloth - Zoos Near Me - Issaquah, Washington

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This is a great way to spend a day walking around the zoo. I will admit we have been there when every animal seems to be asleep it might pay to call what are the best times of the day to visit read more

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I'm sorry I really can't recommend this place. I didn't know what to expect being my first time here but I didn't expect so much heavy energy. The enclosures are so small and devoid of life. The animals look so depressed. Both my sisters and I left feeling so sad for all the animals locked up. I just feel like it could have been more naturalistic to their home like a NW Trek vibe but instead it just looked like a concrete prison for the wildlife. read more

Small but mighty zoo! This is such a cute and fun zoo! The best part of this zoo is you can feed certain animals apples! This place is located right outside Bellevue in Issaquah. It's $18 to enter, $16 for senior citizens, and free for kids under 3. The apples were $2 a cup but the cup comes with a good amount of diced apples. There are signs where they tell you if it's a treat spot and they also have pellets you can purchase for a couple of quarters. I loved that the animals come right up to the fence line. My daughter loved feeding the alpaca and the reindeer. We saw almost alll the animals. The only animal we didn't see was the tiger. The workers said it was sleeping somewhere in the back. They even had a cute photo op with a chair & flowers, & a "Happy Birthday" sign! Such a cute touch. There's even a little hall where you can actually host a birthday party. Lastly, there's a schedule for when the zookeeper will feed & educate the animals. We saw the owl, hawk, and parrots being fed which was pretty cool. Overall, we had a blast & highly recommend bringing your little ones! read more

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Not as busy as Woodland park Zoo and you feel closer to the animals. Not to big easy to get around. read more

I finally had a chance to visit this tiny-but-mighty little zoo located high above Lake Sammamish. I was there with some friends and a few little ones and we all had a nice time, although it was a super hot day so we weren't able to stay long (plus a lot of the animals were hiding). I appreciated that this zoo is small, and didn't require an all-day commitment of time and money like a large zoo might. We were able to see pretty much everything in the 90 minutes we were there - which was especially perfect considering we had toddlers in tow. The kids, of course, loved the animals that were out and enjoying the weather. The reindeer, emus, parrots, and wolves were crowd favorites. And while other animals were harder to spot (like the cats, who were all hunkered down in the shade), I appreciated that almost every exhibit had a zookeeper standing by to point to the animals we could not easily spot. This zoo may not be ultra fancy, but it was clean and very professionally run. I could tell the animals were well cared for. Would love to go back on a cooler day. Oh, and the views down to the lake were incredible! read more

Small but really fun zoo! Very doable for families-just big enough so we could see everything before the little ones got tired. When buying tickets, there's an option to buy treats for the animals. Our kids (and grown ups) had fun feeding the llamas and wallabies. Unfortunately, because of the avian flu, there was no feeding for the birds. There were a bunch of pretty disappointed emus! There's a small shop near the exit where you can get snacks and souvenirs. read more

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3 new African lion cubs. Watch them grow and have fun. One male with his 2 sisters. Become a member, take your friends, enjoy enhancement times while Mt. Lions search for treats. Take a lunch, enjoy the peaceful surroundings read more

Cougar mountain zoo is seriously underrated! We visited for the first time this weekend and had a great time. It's very clean and well maintained. The animals seem happy and well cared for. It's also small enough to walk through in a reasonable amount of time (we spent 1hr 30 there) and nowhere near as packed as some of the bigger zoos we have. You can enjoy the animals without being overcrowded by other visitors. You also get to feed a few of the animals which was super fun. We found the experience to be much more enjoyable than our recent trips to Woodland Park. Entrance is $18 and there was free parking. Great afternoon experience for kids & adults alike. read more

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perfect small zoo closer to home! Small, cute , clean & friendly staff at your neighborhood zoo. Well planned and they have lots of shows throughout the day including feeding the tigers which is quite entertaining! Stroller friendly and easy to walk around and cover the entire park within a couple of hours. Parking is a little tight and the first sign you see is not the zoo but adjacent property! read more

Great zoo. Really enjoyed the size and overall feel of this place. Wasn't overwhelming and didn't take all day read more

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I'm so happy we live within a community that prioritizes yielding protection to, and educating on the local wildlife. The Cougar Mountain Zoological was a great fall outing for my entire family. The staff was incredibly courteous and welcomed educating on the animals and their respective habitats. My little ones loved the Macaw exhibit, and the Magic forest filled with animal statues. I purchased our tickets prior to arrival, but tickets are available for purchase in person. Be sure to bring a few dollars ($2-4,) or quarters to feed the alpacas and reindeers. If you enjoy wildlife or have busy little ones definitely plan a trip The Cougar Mountain Zoo; I highly recommend! read more

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Fun little zoo, but quite small with a limited number of animals available for viewing. It's easy to navigate, inexpensive, and great for the toddler set who might not have the attention span for Woodland Park Zoo. There's a large aviary section and my son loves feeding the llamas and alpacas. It's rarely crowded in the mornings and a nice convenient alternative on the eastside. read more

Place school went here for field trip and every kid had so much fun something for everyone to look at great zoo definitely recommend.

Well kept small zoo perfect to take your little ones. Just the right size they won't be overwhelmed. Cats, birds, lemurs, deer, wolves with really nice enclosures. I live close by and I like to come at least once a year usually in early spring or a weekday in the summer to take photos and enjoy the views of lake Sammamish. read more

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Small zoo with a ton of Macaws, my favorite ones were the blue ones, as they seemed to be the least enclosed. They have a white Siberian tiger and some other cool creatures. Layout is a bit hilly and views are gorgeous. Some of the animals can be fed apples that one can purchase for $2. Deer and alpacas love apples. All in all we had a reasonably good time. Great place to bring kids to in order to burn off some of their energy. read more

I came by for the reindeer festival and enjoyed this lovely little zoo. They have several modest enclosures with different animals, but not all are out during the wintertime. I managed to visit some reindeer, deer, alpacas, cranes, tigers, wolves, a lemur, and a wallaby. The zoo also had numerous animal statues throughout the grounds and a small museum and gift shop. I especially loved buying little bags of diced apples to feed the reindeer! read more

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Arrived around noon and the parking lots were full. I would recommend coming early to find a parking spot. It's a small zoo that will take 30-45mins to complete. Some of the exhibits were closed. The $2 apple to feed certain animals can be purchase at the front counter. Overall, it was really fun experience. read more

This is fun place. Never expected to be this good when we decided for a day trip here with kids. They have many endangered species in this zoo - some of them are born and raised there. They promote the idea of conservation of these wildlife through education. It's a small zoo. The parking is limited - they do have additional parking as well. General admission is $16 and $13 for kids (2-12). Their flyer covers a lot of information about their programs, show times and a map. If you want to feed the animals, you can buy the zoo treats for $2. Please keep quarters with you so that the food can be taken from the dispensers and kids will have a great time feeding reindeer, alpacas and deer. Cougars, Bengal tigers, Siberian Reindeer, Lemurs, wolves, Macaws, Cranes etc are the primary attraction. They have few enrichment shows going on every one hour, where they talk a lot of these animals, their habitats etc. Also, get a chance to see the staffs feed them. There are not many animals. but the activities are quite engaging and kids will love it. We got a chance to watch the staffs training the Macaws for the bird show - that's gonna start in May this year. It was fun even though it was training. When you go to a normal zoo, you don't get to watch a Tiger or a Cougar closely. But we have seen these animals a few feet away from us, which makes it very interesting for kids. If you want to have a fun day with kids, I highly recommend this place! read more

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This was a lovely little family outing spot. All the animals were very cool our favorites for the reindeer's and the wolves. Many of the animal spots had lectures scheduled throughout the day where a caretaker would come out and provide some information on the animals. It is quite small only took us about an hour to go through while we took our time. read more

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Week 36/52 in my endeavor to try somewhere new (to me) every week! Cougar Mountain Zoo is no Woodland Park, that's not a secret. But what they lack in size, they make up for in quality! This zoo is amazing, especially for younger kiddos! Outside of that, the staff is also really sweet and helpful. Can't beat that! The animals that really stood out for us were the tigers and the gray wolves. Seriously so fun to sit and watch them, we could've stayed there the whole time, I think! This zoo is the CLOSEST I've ever felt to animals like this. The tigers are SO much bigger than I've ever realized, and the wolves are literally almost close enough to try and touch, if you wanted? But, ya know, don't. Beyond that, they also have other fun exhibits reindeers, lemurs, different birds, alpacas, wallabys, cougars, etc. Small zoo, but really great for what it is. There's a gift shop as well. There's a small coffee stand type of place, but I don't recall there being food so I'm sure you could pack something but I would verify on their website before doing that. :) Highly recommend for a fun daytime activity! I know they have the reindeer festival during the winter as well which is a perfect time to visit. read more

My family & I enjoyed visiting this super small zoo 10 minutes away from home. I loved that it wasnt crowded & that all animals were close for little ones to see. We bought apples to feed the animals which was definitely our favorite. The zoo staff were kind in answering all of our questions. It is definitely much smaller but I think the price reflects that. This zoo is more so for toddlers or younger elementary kids. We finished within 1hr which was just the perfect amount of time for our family. read more

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Animal enclosures way too small, no enrichment activities, they all appear depressed. Additionally, they had 2 brand new baby wallaby's, we only saw one of them, and the one we saw had cuts all around her ears, the staff member I tried to ask regarding the cuts would not stop to answer my questions. read more

A neat little zoo with tigers, macaws, cockatoos, emus, mule goats, grey fox sightings. It's small and the view is amazing overlooking the lake. The docent we encountered was engaging and interactive with the kids. Free parking You get $1 off for each ticket with AAA membership No AZA reciprocal discount There is a small gift shop that sells drinks, ice cream but no real "lunch" type of foods. Bring your own snacks/lunch and you can eat there. Covered tables available. Bathrooms were basic and clean. read more

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Raise your hand if you've a toddler and don't know what to do on a week day? This zoo is the perfect choice for a toddler since it's not too big (so they don't have to walk a lot.) Cougar Mt Zoo has a good variety of animals (basically mountain animals) with lots of opportunities to feed them, watch them close and learn from the experts. So, what animals did we see? Tigers, cougars, wolfs, llamas and alpacas, beautiful birds (guacamayas and parrots, cranes,) lemurs (yes! Like the ones from the Madagascar movie,) and wallabies. All the staff is super friendly and always willing to answer your questions. I'd say that the best space for children at the zoo is the area called "Magic Forest" where you can have a picnic and kiddos will always play freely with the animal statues. (Yep! Bring your snacks and food for a nice picnic and a great view of Sammamish lake) Parking is free and the admission prices are pretty reasonable. There's one small gift shop. read more

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We recently discovered that the small zoo in Issaquah was a thing, and with our little dudes obviously needed to check it out. We came over on a random Sunday afternoon when we all had a hankering to get out of the house and see something different. It's located about five minutes off the highway in Issaquah. You have to do a little bit of hillclimbing to get there, but overall it's very much and urban zoo. The wolf exhibits overlooks the lake and the freeway, and the place backs up to houses on almost all sides. We came on a kids get in for half price day, and that made it a lot more palatable. The price for adults with something like $15 a person, and kids were $12, but 2 for 1 on "Reindeer Day"! Only about half the exhibits were open but we very much enjoyed our time. The cougar exhibit is front and center when you come in and was quite impressive! Three cougars were hunting for hidden steak and it made for some great animal watching! They had a couple great tiger enclosures - one of which let you sign up to feed them for something like $18/person. They're beaut cats but not that beautiful! The wolf exhibit, the Reindeer enclosure, and the Magic Forest (complete with Emus, Llamas, and hilarious birds) were all very nice. There were opportunities to feed lots of the animals which made for some delightful times for all! The place, while small, had some pretty impressive hills. Important for those who have any trouble getting around or those who are pushing strollers/carrying kids! All in all, this was a very manageable little zoo with some great exhibits and nice chances for the kids to get close to the animals. It's not the best zoo you'll visit but also probably not the least impressive either. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and a place well visit again! read more

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This is a very cute zoo. It's not very big, you can go through it very easily and under an hour and if you go during the week there's almost no crowds and we had the zookeepers at each exhibit to ourselves to ask questions. They were very accommodating, very sweet, very knowledgeable, and great at entertaining the kids silly questions. Only $12-15 a person, timed entrances, covid protocols followed and parking is a jiffy. Highly recommended. read more

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It's not your typical zoo with lots of animals and you have to walk around for 2-3 hrs to see every exhibit. It's a very small zoo, maybe the smallest I've been to, with limited number of species. However, I actually had a great time there. First of all, they have cougars, tigers, and wolves, and they designed exhibits very well so that you can get very close to the animals, I mean VERY close. Secondly, because how well the exhibits are laid out and the routes are planned, the zoo feels more spread out than it actually is. At no point did I feel any exhibits were crowded or I couldn't see anything, now this could also be due to timing of our visit, we got here around 10:30am in the morning. Additionally, you can pay $4 to get a cup of apples to feed certain animals, we fed reindeers, alpacas, and emus. Once again, you can get VERY close to the animals, especially those cute alpacas, very cool. I can see why people complain about the price, but I've also paid more to Central Park zoo where there's more people than animals. So personally I think it's worth the price. It's worth the trip if you have young kids. read more

Cougar Mountain Zoological Park - Nice view - Zoos Near Me - Issaquah, Washington

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This is a pretty fun zoo especially for little children. On week days, the zoo isn't too busy or crowded. There was plenty of parking for us. We got to see many of the animals up close probably bc we came on a field trip. I think the highlight for us was seeing the reindeers. It was a real treat. They had an area where you can eat lunch. All the facilities were clean. Would come here again! read more

Cougar Mountain Zoological Park is a small zoo with a lot of character. It has been a number of years since I was here last and eager to find something to do I decided to visit with my friend. At the time of this review Gov Inslee's mask mandate is in full effect requiring everyone to wear masks. I found it cute that even the main statue has a mask. Plenty of signs were posted requesting people to be mindful of social distancing and hand sanitizer was readily available. Signs were posted alone to keep people moving in a one way path and discourage groupings. None of the feedings were open and most likely won't be as long as we are in the pandemic. Despite the nice weather the zoo was not overly busy and I never felt rushed or pushed through the exhibits. On top of that I also found the staff to be very engaging. Everywhere we went a staff member seemed to materialize beside us and inform us of fun facts about the animal we were looking at. It felt like I was in my own little episode of National Geographic. I had not seen the wolf enclosure before - that was new since last I visited - and the wolves seemed very active and happy. All the animals were active, perky, and interested as we walked by except perhaps the deer who preferred to stay far away from us - not exactly surprisingly behavior. I was very pleased with the experience! read more

This zoo is mid. We went for the Reindeer farm and they charge to feed the reindeer and to take pictures with Santa, so not sure what the $30 charge is for other than seeing the reindeer. It's also on a weird uphill mountain thing so it's hard to get up with a stroller. Idk probably won't go again. read more

We loved this zoo ! Definitely will be back again ! In my opinion it's perfect for kids 1+ , my one year old enjoyed it and me too ! Awesome experience to feed deers, lamas. It's not a large zoo, which is perfect when you are coming with kids, not overtiring for them . read more

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Its relatively small zoo. I went there expecting it is less people, which is now. Admission fee is comparable to Woodland zoo. I had a lot of fun with my 3 years old daughter. I think it's perfect size for her age, that she can walk around and finish her trip alarm and awake. Their staff is super nice. We waited to enter gift shop due to limit capacity of the store, the staff gave us a little gift while we waited in line. Animals are limited, but enough for kids to see. One thing I missed is to look at booklet and find activities. A couple suggestion: -Would recommend to check on hours, zoo are closed on some of the weekdays. -Purchase ticket ahead of time read more

Cougar Mountain Zoological Park - Zoos Near Me - Issaquah, Washington

Clean enclosures, happy critters & amazing overlook. Knowledgeable staff and volunteers! I can personally say the internship experience was wonderful. I love everything that this zoo stands for! read more

Beautiful facility, animals are well cared for. Decided to come by and take some photos as I haven't been here since I was a kid, it did not disappoint! read more

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Small but great exhibits, with relatively inexpensive entry. Would def recommend if in the area!

This is better than the Tacoma Zoo (if. One excludes the aquarium) for it has many more animals. Two hours is plenty of time to explore the grounds and statue park. Friendly and helpful docents who took time to offer information about the animals. Very clean areas and somewhat natural habitat cages for the animals. read more

A relaxing zoo that was nowhere near as crowded as the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, although definitely much smaller in size. As a bonus, the scenery atop gave a view of Lake Sammamish. The variety of animals also aren't as wide, but the enclosures were designed well for clear views and even close proximity to some of the animals. I did feel sorry for the little birds that were shivering in the cold though. Adult tickets are $14.50. Close encounters are also available, such as feeding the tigers for a minimum donation of $18. We didn't as the feedings have limited spots and only occur at certain times of the day, but perhaps next time! read more

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We took our two grandkids (ages 3 & 5) to this zoo on a Sunday in June. We'd taken them to Woodland Park a few times and thought we'd give Cougar Mountain a try for a change. I worked out well. Obviously a smaller facility, with a smaller selection of animals but that was just fine for our kids attention span. Easy to navigate the clean and well maintained park, and you really feel closer to the animals. The kids wanted to listen to the Reindeer "talk" and enjoyed the experience of feeding some of the animals. We ended up attending several of the "talks" that are nicely scheduled back to back. The birds are amazing and the activity level of all the animals kept the kids very engaged. We'll take them again. read more

I have been going to Cougar Mountain Zoo for 30 years. It is the best! Nice people, lively animals and you can feed them. Don't forget the Reindeer Festival!!! read more