We had the best time visiting the Lincoln Park Zoo during our visit to Chicago. Our son loves…read moregorillas so we were so excited that he was able to see them! The zoo is well maintained with excellent exhibits. We enjoyed seeing all the animals. We spent 3 hours and got to see so much. They also have several places to eat or grab snacks. We had such a great time!

Lincoln Park Zoo is a good free zoo. I've only been to... 2? 3? zoos. I can compare it with St…read more Louis, which isn't fair. Instead, the best of the things I saw. Variety of animals: Decent Favorite buidling: The bird house had a few species per exhibit Improvement needed: Penny flattening machine was not working and needed an out of order sign/service Best animal exhibit: Giraffes and zebras are together and something about the staging made the giraffes really "pop" Honorable mention: Lions (easier to see these lions than the lions at the St. Louis Zoo) I saw a number of signs about exhibits being empty of occupants because of animals sometimes needing privacy. We didn't see the farm area. One of my companions ordered a Chicago (hot) dog and seemed to like it.

The animals are visible and cared for . We saw staff taking care of the animals, the enclosure…read morelooked clean, some animals were off site for the season but enough for my toddler to enjoy.

Good place to explore with children in Aurora. It turns out to be a bigger place than it looks…read more Phillips Park Zoo is the highlight of this big public park and one of the best things about the city as well. Best thing is there's no admission price. This makes it even more worth it for looking around once, and you can come back as often as you want if planning to come more times. Even though it's kind of small, it feels there's a lot inside and you can be here awhile. It's got an interesting history. The beginnings of the zoo started when it was established in 1915, and a birdhouse was built the next year. Over the following few years the animal collection grew. There were birds, black bears, buffalo, deer, elk, foxes, monkeys, and wolves. In 1933 the birdhouse was destroyed in a hailstorm, and the following year the Brookfield Zoo opened. They chose to refocus on native animals after this. A few years after this, mastodon bones and tusks were found in the park. These were put on display in the zoo. In 1950 a barn was built. The following years included the addition of a water wheel. Farm animals such as goats, as well as birds like swans have their exhibits around these. The more recent additions include cougars, as well as improvements to exhibits for reptiles and wolves. Also the zoo has a few resources for education. The ZooCiety has various activities and programs. Have to say it's a good zoo for the city. It's located in the middle of the park. This is particularly a good one for young children, but it's open for everyone, so it's also okay for adults or whoever.

A very clean smaller zoo. Kids are free and adults cost $12 each. If you are in the area it might…read morebe worth checking out! This is a good zoo to checkout with small children. There's coyotes, deer, cows, horse, llama, goats, chickens, and ducks. It's a little unclear if you can pet anything as the signs say "we bite." Does that mean pet at your own risk? I just assumed don't do it at all. It also wasn't clear if you could feed any of the animals outside a 30 min window that was listed on a flyer hung up.

Small zoo in the suburb of Chicago that offers free admissions in December. Kids can spend about an…read morehour or so to check out all the different animals, from chicken and rabbits, to racoons, llama, and Canada lynx. The newest additions are 2 coyotes. The lights turn on at 3PM. They also sell Christmas tree and weaths in December.

Has a quick wooden area (portage trail) loop walk with shade. A one-eyed red tailed hawk, another…read morehawk, an owl and a coyote are viewed in a cage enclosure. The visitor center is clean nicely maintained and has more live critters, reptiles and amphibians on glass enclosures. I imagine kids would enjoy seeing the animals. Medium parking and best of all, it's free. Donations accepted.

I recently took a hike in this area and passed by this Nature Center several times during the hike…read moreand decided to stop in. I was pleasantly surprised at how many different things there were to do here, but indoors and outdoors. Outdoors I was able to see a variety of animals including a coyote, owl, hawk, eagle, kestrel, and fox. Though they were caged, I got to see them fairly up close and hear the different sounds that they make. Indoors, there were various interactive exhibits as well as live turtles and various educational displays. Overall this is definitely worth a visit if you're hiking in the area and want to see a nicely maintained and educational display that helps to explain some of the wildlife nearby.

Took our son (who just became a new sailor) here to spend some intimate time hanging out with his…read moreparents and siblings before saying our goodbyes. This setting was perfect for anyone looking for a little country in a busy city setting. Calming, peaceful beautiful and happy. Just what we were needing for an outing we agreed to on a whim!

A small but amazing experience for all ages that love animals :) I'm 21 and I still love going and…read morefeeding the animals as well as going into the goat pen. Truly a nice experience.

I took an injured bird I found in my yard there. They heal many types of animals. It is a great…read morecommunity resource.

Agree with Rob H. This place is so sad now. It used to be among our top five favorite places, but…read morethey need to tear down that waste-of-space building and make the full-grown trees and nature come back right now! We don't need more strip-mall crap! We need trees, flowers, grasses, meadows, creek, and pond. This place used to have them all, but now you might as well go to chucky cheese.

My GF and I purchased a Groupon for the Chicago Photo Safari and we chose to shoot at Millennium…read morePark. Unfortunately, about 15 minutes into the session, it started to rain so the group (around 10 of us) fled into the Chicago Cultural Center for the remaining time. I thought the CCC was interesting for about an hour but definitely did not have enough interesting areas to fill up a 3 hour photo shoot. This brings me to one of my complaints-the safari was supposed to be 3 hours, but it was only about 2 hours and 20 minutes. I'm sure it would be a better experience in Millennium Park but if you are planning to make the safari rain or shine, you should have a better back up plan. Also, b/c the CCC isn't brightly lit, this limited the settings people could use while taking pictures. Our instructor - Scott - is a student at Columbia and he had a good personality and did his best to engage the students and help them. I thought it was helpful that he had an iPad that allowed him to pull up a picture that illustrated the concept that he is explaining. He also was knowledgeable re photography. The one complaint regarding Scott is he clearly was out late the night before and still smelled like stale beer. Not a big deal to us, but I can see how that might bother some people. I think this class would be useful for someone that has a DSLR and only shoots in automatic mode or in program mode without understanding what is actually happening in the program mode. I'd say the majority of the class fit into this description. But, if you have a basic idea of how to set the exposure, what depth of field and what ISO are, I'd skip the safari and just walk around Millennium Park. The 3 stars is based on the Groupon price and if you are an absolute beginner. If you paid full price the rating would be a 2 stars.

My Mom and I bought a Groupon and did the Millenium Park daytime safari. I live out of town, and…read morethought this would be a fun way for us to spend time together while I was visiting for the holidays, and it was! The MP safari was beginner level, which worked well for my mom who was borrowing one of my DSLRs for the first time. As a more intermediate DSLR photographer, I got more familiar with my new camera and was able to talk lenses and other advanced topics with the instructor and students with the same DSLR Rebel I had. But the most beneficial thing for me was the fact that we spent so much time photographing the same subject (the Cloud Gate) over and over. Other yelpers lamented that there wasn't enough subject matter to photograph, and although that is true, the real benefit to the repetition is that you can take the same shot over and over and adjust your settings each time. Then when you go home, you can load the shots into the computer and compare the settings for each picture, and try to learn more about what settings work in which conditions. "Setting intuition" is something that I struggle with and having a slow tour through MP has already helped me to better predict how to set my camera for different lighting conditions. I would certainly recommend Chicago Photo Safaris to (1) beginners who own or have access to a DSLR camera or (2) intermediates who are either looking to become more familiar with their DSLR or use the safari as a way to experiment with settings, take home the shots, and critically evaluate them. The MP safari was NOT for folks who (1) want to take a bunch of pictures of different things, (2) don't own a DSLR or other digital with shutter speed and aperture controls, or (3) are easily bummed out by being outdoors on one of Chicago's many less-than-perfect days or indoors in one of our many old, under-lit buildings. As for me, I would seriously consider another Chicago Photo Safari when I'm in town in the future.

If you're looking for some Ukrainian shelf staples, like flour and tea, you'll be able to find them…read morehere. They have frozen pork and chickens. They also have a very nice selection of some homemade sausages and brats. When I was checking out, they gave me a free sample of their homemade apple cider and it was delicious, but the thing that keeps me coming back for more is their bread. it is a light white loaf that works well for sandwiches and toast. Consider picking up some Ukrainian jelly to spread on it.

DO NOT VISIT! If I could put negative stars I would! Not safe for children! My 7 year old neice got…read moreshocked by the electric fence they had up FEET away from the apple picking orchard. And there was NO sign stating there was an electric fence. She came running back crying terrified at what just happened to her in pain! What a horrible experience. Not to mention also having my 9 year old special needs nephew with a heart condition who could have died from touching that fence if he touched it smh there was 1 person working the entire farm who was not even helpful. No petting zoo, you touch animals who stay caged, zero rides like displayed online, no pony rides NOTHING. It looks like a dead zone farm. Stay away.