On Elizabeth's birthday, the kids and I decided to do something
fun. We looked into several attractions and decided to go to Turtle
Back Zoo. After reading a great blog about Wallabies
HERE,
Lizzy could not wait to go and see them. We got to the zoo around
1:00p.m. Upon arrival we found out that The Treetop Adventure Course
had been reopened that week. We started our way around the zoo. After
seeing a large portion, we decided to save the Wallabies,
wolves and big cats for after lunch. The food was absolutely
horrendous, my grilled sandwich was, board of health violation, cold. f you plan on going there, bring your own food.
After lunch, we stopped by the groundhog exhibit and walked
through the butterfly garden. On the way to the Wallabies,we came
across the Tree Top Adventure. Lizzy's eyes lit up at the adventure
course, way up in the trees. As we entered, Emily and I decided to
just do the zip-line but Lizzy, could not get it out of her head to
do the entire adult course. Here is where I get proud of Lizzy. At
11 she conquers every fear. There is nothing that she can't do and do
well.
We all got our harnesses on and Lizzy headed for the course, while
Emily and I headed for the zip line. The zip-line(singular) was
short and didn't compare to the zip-line park we went to in Cancun.
We were done in about five minutes, so decided to sit at the only,
somewhat, shady spot, at a picnic table with an umbrella. Now
somewhere in this story, I forgot to mention that on the day we went,
it was 88 degrees. Why does that little factoid become important?
Because after an hour and a half of Lizzy being on the tree top
adventure and Emily and I waiting for her, we were all dieing of
thirst. Well, the zoo portion of the park had close, so no
refreshments from there. At Tree Top Adventure, there were no
vending machines or refreshments. In fact, according to one pleasant
and sympathetic employee, the nearest form of hydration was past the
end on the parking lot.
After seeing a water machine, just ten feet behind a locked gate,
I lost it. Parched and pissed off, with consciousness waning, I
called the zoo customer service number and left a message. The
message went something like this...
“Hello, I realize you are at home sitting on your fat
expletive
drinking a tall cold one but the people at your
expletive Tree
Top Adventure are
expletive dieing of
expletive thirst.
I brought my daughter here for her 11
th birthday and we
remarked on how well the animals were taken care of and how unbelievably
nice your employees are. Unfortunately the
expletive
management is so
expletive incompetent that they didn't
expletive care about the
expletive silly humans who pay
for their
expletive zoo and
expletive salaries. I've
been watching my daughter on the
expletive course for over an
expletive hour and am so
expletive thirsty it is
expletive ridiculous.
My 11 year old will be completing the course in a little while and
be
expletive dehydrated. Not that you
expletive
realized it may get over 80
expletive degrees in the
expletive
summer after
expletive being here for
expletive 50
expletive years or even
expletive care because you
expletive close the
expletive park and have no
expletive form of
expletive hydration. You know you
could move the
expletive soda machine ten feet and it would
expletive be reachable from
expletive outside of the
expletive gate. I'm calling to offer my management consulting
services, so you can
expletive fire your
expletive
overpaid
expletive management and make your
expletive
zoo a great place to bring an
expletive family instead of having them
expletive
pay extra to be tortured in the
expletive heat. You'd probably make a lot more
expletive money if you just left the
expletive gift shop open for the
expletive hour or so. It would have
expletive more than paid for it's
expletive self for an
expletive month in just
expletive drinks and the
expletive,
expletive I would have bought there today. Also, I plan
to call the
expletive board of health about the
expletive
food in your
expletive cafeteria. Everyone there was
expletive complaining about how
expletive cold the
expletive hamburgers,
expletive hot dogs and
expletive
sandwiches
expletive were. My name is Reed XXXX and my phone
number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.”
I walked back to the picnic area hoping I would feel better but my
throat was now so dry, I could barely speak. Emily was on a chair
looking at her phone. I plopped into the chair next to hers and
twenty minutes later Lizzy came down the pathway to us flush and
exhausted looking. “Daddy, I'm dieing! I need something to drink
before I zip-line.”. As calmly as I could I said, “Sweety, the
management of this park is too stupid to have refreshments out here.
They should all be fired but thanks to the fact that we are in an
Essex County facility and the corrupt politicians probably hired the
incompetent jack asses to begin with, good luck.”. Lizzy saw the
angst on my face and decided to make her way to the zip-line.
We slowly made it back to the car. I literally could not walk
straight from sitting in the heat and not having any form of
hydration. We grabbed all the water in the car and drank it. My
stomach ached as I tore apart the back of the Escape looking for
Gatorade, I had stashed for just such a circumstance. Lizzy and I
each drank a large bottle while Emily sipped on hers. Stomach still
aching but thoughts getting back to normal, we drove home.
I have not received a call back from customer service and would
like to say, that we would never go back again. In reality, we'd
never go to the Tree Top Adventure again. The zoo part was really
nice though and due to our own bad planning, we did not get to see
the Wallabies, wolves or big cats.
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