Zoo Lates at London Zoo – Releasing my inner party animal!

An adults only party at London zoo after hours with alcohol and great food - what is not to love about that concept!

 

After having such a great time at this event last year we had our tickets purchased the minute an offer came up for them, I do love a bargain and it meant I had more money to spend on the amazing selection of food and drink that is available. They run every Friday night through June and July but often sell out if you don’t get in quick!

I do love a good costume but knowing that if you embrace the animal theme too much you become limited as to the areas you can go into as it scares some of the animals. The gorillas are especially offended by people in animal onsies…. Personally they scare me too to be honest! Subsequently we wore a bit of animal print and took some masks – I couldn’t go completely without a prop now could I!

 

 

 The Food Festival there is excellent, lots of free samples of interesting food washed down with wine samples. After indulging in some raclette (love cheese.... nom, nom, nom) and churros with chocolate dip we were ready to go and watch some of the animal talks starting off with the penguin enclosure. We then spent some time, armed with a few ciders, wondering around and checking out the new tiger territory, seeing the gorillas and wondering into African to play spot the difference with a zebra.

We got caught giggling at a group of lads who we overheard getting quite excited about going into the butterfly area (how alpha male of them) and subsequently they persuaded us to go with them. Just what you need on a hot night is to go into a very humid greenhouse type environment - that was a massive error and we quickly made our way out.

  

 
As the animals started to go to bed we hit the Merry-go-round (after a few ciders what could possibly go wrong!) and the Playroom that was filled with all sorts of great things to play with. There was Twister, giant Jenga, giant Connect 4 (Sophie wouldn't play with me as my reputation for being a bit of an expert was just too intimidating for her!). The most fun was to be had in the adult sized ball pen - a few people were back flipping into it but I barely managed to step in and out alive (it is not as easy as it looks) and I did feel like I was being sucked under like quicksand and had to call in Sophie to pull me out much to my own embarrassment!



I would highly recommend Zoo Lates, last year was great fun and this year was even better. I can't wait to see how it grows next year, I will definitely be back to find out.
 Their next event is a sponsored streak to raise awareness and money to protect the endangered Sumatran tiger - streak being the collective noun for tigers! Turns out that I’ve found the line that I won’t cross in terms of randomness… not as a runner or even a spectator! Good luck to everyone who is involved though! A great idea to support a great cause.

 

 

For more info check out
 http://www.zsl.org/zsl-london-zoo/whats-on/zoo-lates/