Ask a St. Louis kid to rank the zoo and the answer comes with sound effects. Start at Penguin & Puffin Coast, where African penguins — rescued birds with big personalities — rocket past underwater windows while puffins dive overhead, chilling the air to a brisk Antarctic feel that kids adore.
Then the tunnel: at Sea Lion Sound, California sea lions loop and glide directly over your head through a see-through underwater passage, the closest thing to swimming with them without a wetsuit. Add the elephants and rhinos of the River’s Edge, giraffes at eye level from the savanna viewing decks, grizzly bears splashing at Centene Grizzly Ridge and a spin past the historic 1904 Flight Cage, and you have a greatest-hits route sized for a single day.
Keeper chats run all day — arrive at one and watch a child’s whole career plan change.
The Saint Louis Zoo is in Forest Park. Daily schedules at stlzoo.org.
