***Scroll to the end of this post if you are interested to read about our taxi scam!
Brought the kids to the Safari World and Marine park on the last day of our holiday.
Ok, let's explore Safari World first.
Safari drive-thru in a taxi.
Wanted to wind down the windows but the afternoon sun was killing us.
Mommy mommy, look at those huge rhinos..
That zebra is flashing his best smile at me!!!
Ahhh I can see the giraffes!
Koon-ing lions
After we exited Safari World, we went to the walking part of the zoo, the Marine Park next to Safari World. We were famished after the taxi scam episode and headed in to find some lunch.
Bottled drinks and food are not allowed, they will check your bags when you enter Marine Park. Bottled water is only 20 baht so can just go in and buy lah.
We ate street food, just opposite the restaurant.
They have chicken rice, boat noodles, chap chye pun, siew mai, charsiew baos. Nothing very fancy but enough to fill our tummies.
You will need to purchase coupons to buy your food. It's also affordable, like 75 baht for a plate of chicken rice.
蛮有feel的, bought my boat noodles from the boat lady.
Food is tasty too, you can plan to take your lunch here if you do not wanna go for the buffet at the restaurant flooded with tourists.
Feeding the swans
60 baht for a packet of pellets
At the entrance of Giraffe Feeding Terrace.
This is the best part of the Marine Park.
Over 200 giraffes roaming right in my face.
Melman Melman Melman!
[Melman is the name of the giraffe from Madagascar movie]
Highly recommended to buy bananas to feed the giraffes. 100 baht for a small bucket, it's sooooooo fun! We bought 4 and fed them to our hearts content.
They were afraid to feed them initially but became a pro after a while.
Giraffe is my favourite animal now.
I like how they rolled up the banana with their long tongues. Lol!
Our couple welfie ;)
*How we made our way to Safari World.*
We tried to wake up early but failed terribly. It's our Safari World day and we're supposed to be there by 9am to catch the Tiger feeding show but it's almost 11am now!
Flagged a cab at the main road opposite Central World out of desperation, as our bookings got subsequently cancelled by two Grab drivers.
The taxi driver couldn't speak a word of English so everything was translated via Google. He agreed to go by the taxi meter and also to drive us into Safari World, where we will view the animals up close from his taxi.
Entrance tickets at the ticketing booth is quite expensive. Combo ticket for both parks costs 1500 baht/adult and 1400 baht/child above 100cm. Leah hardly hit the one metre mark so she's free! We bought our combo tickets online the night before from KLOOK (saved almost 80sgd) and we are good to go.
Taxi meter from Central World to Zoo entrance was 45min and costs slightly less than 300 baht, we also went by the high way and forked out additional 100 baht for the toll.
Then the driver drove us around in the park, with the taxi meter still jumping. Oh, by the way, the TAXI DRIVER is not required to pay admission fees. I personally went to the ticketing counter to ask as I couldnt find this information online when I was doing my own research. I hope it will be helpful to put it down here.
Alternately, if you do not wish to tour the Safari World in a taxi, you can buy coach tickets from the ticket booth at 45 baht per pax.
**Please read Taxi Scam***
The meter fare was 372 baht when we finished the Safari drive. Husband took out his wallet and round it up to 400.
The taxi driver used his Google translation, pointed at my husband and me and demanded 400 baht x 2.
We were not ready to pay 800 baht and tried to rationale with the driver that we agreed to go by the meter fare when we boarded, and will only pay 400.
Then he passed me to read his Google translation: There's a cost for him to go into the park. I told him his admission was free, NO COSTS at all. I suggested we get some translation help from the ticketing booth staff since we can't understand each other.
He rejected.
Just then a Thai-speaking tourist came forward to help us. "The driver wants to charge you an extra fee for going into the park."
真相大白 he wanna be paid extra for driving in the Safari. However that extra cost wasn't mentioned at all throughout the trip. But we didn't want to waste our precious zoo time with the taxi driver so we negotiated the extra fee to 200 baht.
So if you're taking a taxi into the Safari World like us, do make sure to communicate with the driver there's no extra costs, and if yes then how much. I dislike the idea of a sudden price jack when it's time to pay the fare. It's not alot of money but it's the act that he wanted to con us that made me angry.
Okay, end of rant.
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