Home »>> Florida Travel »>> Dade City Wild Things–A Hidden Gem

We no longer stress over buying Christmas gifts for our son. He has everything he could ever want and when we did purchase toy after toy, he played with them for a few weeks and tossed them aside. Instead, we now give the gifts of experiences. “Collect moments, not things”. For Christmas, we gave our son the experience of animals. Dade City Wild Things is truly a hidden gem.

Located in Dade City, Florida, Dade City Wild Things is a zoo like no other. The attraction is part of the owner’s homestead and is home to a variety of species of exotic animals. Your visit will include a jungle safari ride where you will view several animals and for an additional cost you can add on animal encounters.

Now I know there are going to be the critics, to include People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who are going to immediately say this type of zoo should not be in existence. They will claim the treatment of the animals is inhumane. For those of you who research attractions before you go, you will no doubt see where there have been formal complaints brought against the zoo. Articles read, “Judge Bans Dade City Wild Things from Owning Tigers” and “Dade City’s Wild Things Accused of Abusing Animals”. I read all of these articles, but still felt compelled to go. From our afternoon at Dade City’s Wild Things, I did not see any inhumane treatment of the animals and they all appeared to be happy and healthy.

Jungle Safari Ride

When visiting you have several options for tours. The cheapest option is to go on the Jungle Safari Ride. Should you purchase this tour via their website, the cost is $19.99 for adults and $15.99 for children. At times during the year, I have seen Groupon offer this tour at a reduced rate of around $13.

The safari ride is a seated trailer being pulled by a Jeep. There is a tour guide who tells you about the different animals. You will see several different types of animals from Tigers, to Lemurs, to a Zebra. During the Jungle Safari Ride, you will get to feed Buffalo named Laverne and Shirley.

This tour was interesting, however unless you plan to add some animal encounters to your experience, I would not recommend spending the money on the Jungle Safari Ride.

Note: you must do the jungle safari ride in order to do animal encounters.

Optional animal encounters

You may add animals encounters to your tour experience. The price for these animal encounters range in price from $20 each experience all the way up to the hundreds. There are several packages where you can choose a select number of animal encounters or combine encounters.

The animal encounters range from meeting a Fennec Fox, feeding a cougar, to swimming with a sloth, tiger, otter, or a bear.

Our tour

We purchased an encounter package that included the Jungle Safari Ride and 10 animal encounters. You were able to pick the encounters you wished from a list of animals when you arrived at Dade City Wild Things. I would caution you to not get your hopes up to see a particular animal. Though the animal may be listed on their website as a possible encounter, they may or may not have the animal available. An example would the Wallaby. My son saw on their website there was an option to hold a Wallaby yet when we arrived we were told that was not an option. (Should we visit in the future, we will call in advance before going to make sure the animal we wish to see will be available).

We toured the facility during Christmas Break. My advice would be to plan your trip during a time when it is not a school holiday and definitely not during a major holiday such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everyone is in town visiting relatives, kids are out of school, etc. If you want a more personal experience, visit during the less busy times.

Also, I would encourage you to wait to visit in the Spring. Why? BABIES! Baby tigers and bears were born and they began to see guests in March of this year. We missed them by just a few months because we chose to visit in the Winter months.

It should be noted that in order to have pictures of your encounters with the animals, you will need to purchase the photo package. They do not allow you to take photos with your cell phones stating they do not want you to scare the animals. The photo package was $25. They send you via email an electronic link to all photos taken during your tour to include the other guests who may be with you. You can then download the photos you wish to save.

What did we see?

We saw ten different animals. My son chose animals that I did not choose and visa versa which gave us the experience of seeing even more animals.

We saw and held a baby lemur:

We saw a baby monkey. You were not permitted to hold the monkey. Should she wish to sit on your lap, it was up to her. She was very finicky. She did not like some of the people and liked others. Many of the encounters would be at table with other guests outside of your family. As stated above, we went during a very busy time. I believe the experience would be a bit more personal during the down season.

My son and I both fed tigers. They put chicken on the of a long stick and you fed them through the fence of their enclosure.

We fed a bear marshmallows. My son also fed a cougar.

We held a Fennec Fox named Dixie. She was just precious! Did you know foxes have a very musky scent? She did.

Our favorite animal was the anteater named Annie. Look at that tongue!

There was a skunk and a beaver. We got to hold and feed a sloth named Louie.

In summary:

Dade City Wild Things is a hidden gem in Dade City, Florida. We enjoyed our once in a lifetime animal encounters. This is a memorable Christmas gift for both adults and children alike, so put it on your list. Though the cost may be a bit more than you wish to spend, the experience was one we will not soon forget!

I do have two criticisms of the experience:

• Should you not choose to do any of the optional animal encounters, I do not feel the Jungle Safari Ride was worth $20 per person.
• I do feel that since you are required to purchase a photo package for $25 in order to document your memories, they should give you a disk with the photos on them or at the very least send you an email containing only your photos. This would be a more personal touch.

Have you visited Dade City Wild Things? What did you think? Drop me a comment. I would love to hear your opinion.

Disclosure:  I did not receive any compensation or reduced fare from Dade City Wild Things to write this review. I paid full price. The opinions presented in this review are honest and real.

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