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It’s hard not to be slightly confused by the idea of London Zoo’s newest attraction. You go to the zoo to see animals. But ZooTown only features beasts of the cuddly toy variety.
Taking up residence in the old Reptile House (which was vacated last year in favour of fancier new digs), ZooTown is a zoo-themed role play area for kids ages three to eight. Sessions cost £1, with bookings opening online three days beforehand, and each session lasting 45 minutes.
This is clearly a big chunk of time out of your trip to the zoo, especially during shortened winter opening hours. But here’s the thing: as evidenced by me and my two kids later abandoning an attempt to make it to the monkey walkthrough (because everyone was on the verge of killing each other by that stage), a trip to the zoo consisting of nothing but animal watching can actually be pretty draining for youngsters. ZooTown, however, they could have stayed in longer.
The most popular room involved making a pair of zebra backsides poo out brown plastic balls all over the floor
If anyone remembers erstwhile Westfield institution KidZania then ZooTown is a not totally dissimilar idea, albeit all animal-themed and without any of the icky corporate stuff. Basically, it’s shaped like a big loop (à la the old Reptile House), and at every point on the way there are 13 beautifully, brightly designed role play stations themed around aspects of zoo life, from a vets, to a cafe, to an animal enclosure, to a quiet reading area magnificently stocked with kids’ nature books. Most of them come with their own uniforms for kids to dress up in, and there are endless interactive opportunities, from scanning the microchips that have been implanted in the numerous toy animals at the vets to serving up cups of ‘tea’ in the cafe.
At the press preview, some members of zoo staff were on hand to discuss ZooTown and their earnest hope that it will educate little ones about what goes on behind the scenes at a zoo. I hope this too, although it has to be said that the most popular room involved making a pair of zebra backsides poo out brown plastic balls all over the floor. Which is obviously legitimate prep for a zookeeper’s lot. But as a staff member waxed lyrical about how much the children would learn, I winced slightly as my seven-year-old roly-polyed around the corner cackling madly, wrapped in a bit of build-your-own zoo enclosure. Of course, it’s great that it has such worthy intent behind it. But let’s be clear that ZooTown is basically 45 minutes of fun, at which they will hopefully learn something.
Still: accepting the caveat that I attended a press preview with a much lower number of children than the usual 75, I can pretty unequivocally say that ZooTown is great and that it’s well worth the £1 booking fee. It’s beautifully made and the educational subtext is of course wonderful. But most of all it’s 45 minutes of pure fun for little ones, of a sort that’s not really comparable to anywhere else in London. If you’re rocking a three to eight year old and not on a lightning visit to ZSL, I’d go so far as to say that at least one trip to ZooTown should be more or less essential.
ZooTown is at London Zoo and open daily from Saturday October 18. To secure a place go to the London Zoo website – the first bookings will be from Wednesday October 15.
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