The Good Zoo is a good zoo for children

The Good Zoo is located at Oglebay Resort in Wheeling, West Virginia. It is a small zoo geared toward guests visiting Oglebay, but it can be a great zoo for young families who want to see exotic animals without spending the entire day walking through a large, urban zoo. The Good Zoo is AZA-accredited and has around 68 species of animals.

For most of us Ohioans, Oglebay is a household word. The 1,700-acre Oglebay Resort and Conference Center just outside of Wheeling offers summer and winter activities and is well-known for its Christmas Festival of Lights.

Oglebay is approximately 2.5 hours from Columbus, Ohio, or just under 3 hours from my home in North Central Ohio.

Visiting The Good Zoo

The Good Zoo offers free parking. Admission costs are currently $17 for adults and $13 for kids aged 3-12. We used our Cleveland Zoo Membership Reciprocal benefit to get 50% off the cost of admission. We did purchase tickets for the train ride ($6 each), which seemed overpriced at first. However, because it was 90% humidity, I appreciated every dollar spent on that ride up the steep hill. 😉

We packed a picnic lunch and had no problem entering with our sandwiches and drinks. They do offer a small food booth with hot dogs and refreshments. The lady at the front desk advised us not to leave our coolers unattended, but we felt ok leaving them in the gazebo near the entrance to the outdoor exhibits and pressing our luck. They were fine there for a couple of hours – no one touched anything.

Within the entrance building, an indoor exhibit houses the red pandas, the tamarins, an alligator, and a sloth. We chose to save this building for last (when we really needed the a/c).

It took us about 90-minutes to enjoy the outdoor animals, before waiting for the train up the hill to retrieve our picnic items.

We chose to picnic near the “Ninja Warrior”-style playground, new since our last visit. There are two picnic tables adjacent to the playground that have umbrellas. There is another playground on the property, but it is a traditional-style, and smaller in size (best for ages 8 and under).

Why visit the Good Zoo?

I loved this zoo because it’s highly walkable for little kids. It’s a LOT smaller than the Columbus Zoo, but it’s perfect for little ones with short attention spans (and parents with low energy – ha!). And because the zoo is in a park-like and hilly setting, many of the areas and walkways were shaded! (Thank you, thank you- no sunscreen required)!

The Good Zoo offers only 50 species of animals, but the intimate setting allowed us to feel like we were up close and personal with the animals. We saw the lemurs being fed, got inches away from wallabies, and stared in the face of an ostrich. The kids had so much fun!

The Good Zoo also has cheetahs, farm animals, and a red panda! It offers after-hours encounters with the Kangaroos and wallabies, the Pallas Cats, Sloths, and the Red Pandas. Visitors can also book a Behind-the-Scenes Tour or a Photo Safari!

Ah, another day of making memories. Yes, the Good Zoo is a good zoo for children!

What’s your favorite zoo?

If you don’t want to stay at the Oglebay Resort (it’s difficult to find rooms for 6!), we have stayed twice at the Springhill Suites by Marriott Wheeling Triadelphia, which is only a short drive from the Good Zoo.

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