Roger Williams Zoo is one of Providence’s hidden gems. It is one of a handful of places located within the lovely Roger Williams Park. The zoo is great for a close to home adventure and an annual membership is sure to please. The Zoo offers plenty of activities throughout the year making things always interesting and a place to look forward to visiting.
First, what is there to do? For the winter months, there are enough indoor stops along the way that make it still enjoyable to visit! The first indoor stop would be the giraffe and elephant barn. Often times in the morning you can watch them washing the elephants and feeding them. Next, Roger Williams Zoo just opened a super awesome indoor rain forest exhibit with perfect timing for the chilly winter months! You can read all about it here! Following that stop is another indoor exhibit called A World of Adaptations with a Komodo dragon, kangaroos, and birds to name a few. Visiting these three exhibits would definitely make a zoo trip worthwhile and would still keep the family pretty warm!
There are many other fun things to see at the zoo besides the numerous animal exhibits, one of which is a delightful farmyard that usually (from spring through fall) has a little pretend egg collecting station, a pretend milking station, a pretend garden and farm store, and a handful of other farmyard type activities. The Big Backyard experience has a nature-based playground with stick formations to play and climb on, a handicapped-accessible tree house with fun bug scavenger hunts and gear activities, an indoor activity room, a splash pad, nature-based musical instruments, and other fun things. Please note that some Big Backyard activities are seasonal so please call before you go if you have your heart set on something. There is a Wetlands trail that is perfect to walk on with a stroller if you want to take a nice quiet walk and get more exercise in.
There are concessions available throughout the zoo, a nice zoo gift shop to visit, seating for lunch or plenty of places to picnic. Roger Williams Zoo has a ZipLine called the Soaring Eagle Zip Ride that offers a sensational ride with breathtaking views of Providence and the Narragansett Bay.
Next, let’s talk programs! Please note all programs have additional costs to them. For preschool ages 3-5 they offer a great monthly preschool class. The class is 90 minutes long and focuses on a special animal or area of the zoo. The focus changes each month and there are 5 – 7 different class times offered per month making it easy to plan if you have a crazy weekly schedule. It includes a lesson, activity, a craft as well as a walk to an exhibit and an up-close encounter with one of the zoo’s education animals. One of my fellow contributors wrote about her awesome experience with this, read all about it here!
Roger Williams Zoo also has zoo camps for three different age categories! Starting with 4 and 5-year-olds for Tadpoles all the way to ages 11-13 for Conservation Heroes! Even better they offer these camps during February break, April break, and summer break! Perfect if you don’t know what to do with the kids during a school break! They even offer special 1-day zoo camps for the random days off from school from election day to Yom Kipper to Veteran’s day! So don’t be stuck scrambling to find something for the kids to do on their random day off! Send them to the zoo to learn and have lots of fun!
The zoo also has special concerts from Rock-a-Baby and will be doing them monthly for 2019 from January to May with each month focusing on a different theme. The Rock-a-Baby trio has three silly and entertaining puppets, Rhythm, Melody, and Harmony that know a lot about music. This is perfect for even the youngest zoo guests along with the whole family, sure to provide 45 minutes of musical fun and learning!
There are a variety of additional events at the Zoo. Some of the upcoming events to look forward to are breakfasts with various animals, family overnights, and sensory friendly mornings in the Big Backyard to learning to be a frog watcher! Past events that are likely to reoccur throughout the year have included Brew at the Zoo, Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular, Zoobilee Feast with the Beasts, sheep shearing days, a special members night, Born to Breastfeed and more. Above all this, the zoo does birthday and private parties.
Roger Williams Park Zoo Winter Wonder Days are happening through January and February, so stop in for a half-price visit! Perfect excuse to bundle up and get out of the house especially if you have cabin fever. What are your favorite animals or things to do at the zoo?
