Head to Boo! at the Zoo For Halloween Fun

For a howling good time, take a brief detour on your fall Route 66 road trip to experience Brookfield Zoo’s annual Boo! at the Zoo family-fun Halloween celebration. On Saturdays and Sundays from October 8 to 23, zoogoers of all ages can enjoy creatures, memorable photo opportunities, sweet treats and fall fun – all right along The First Hundred Miles of America’s Mother Road.

Guests will be treated to a number of spooktacular pop-up events, including Howl-O-Scenes, sponsored by Faegre Drinker. Here, you’ll find plenty of seasonal photo opportunities, such as a large inflatable spider on a web; not-so-scary cut-out characters of ghosts, dragons, witches, vampires and alien creatures, as well as hay bales and pumpkins. Additionally throughout the park, there are Halloween-themed photo frames, cut-outs and peek-boards featuring the likes of a black cat, snake, stacked pumpkins, scarecrow and a monster. After visiting Boo! at the Zoo, guests can share their photos on social media with the hashtag @BrookfieldZoo.

Guests also can take their chance at finding their way through the “Crazed Maize” Corn Maze or take a spin on the carousel (fee applies), decorated in not-too-scary Halloween-themed decor. Seasonal fall food and drinks are on sale at food carts around the zoo for those who work up an appetite.

Over the course of the three Boo! at the Zoo weekends, several of the zoo’s animals will be treated to pumpkin feedings at 10:30 a.m. These adorable animals can play with, eat and smash the gourds as part of the zoo’s enrichment program. The special feeding events will feature: capybara on Oct. 8 at the Pachyderm House, polar and brown bears on Oct. 9 and 23 at Great Bear Wilderness, goats on Oct. 15 at Hamill Family Wild Encounters, sloth bears and big cats on Oct. 16, and western lowland gorillas on Oct. 22 at Tropic World: Africa.

The animals will not be the only ones receiving special Halloween treats at Brookfield Zoo – guests will be treated to goodies, courtesy of Ferrara, as they exit the park – running each event day until 4 p.m.

Discover fun facts about creatures of the night during special Zoo Chats, held each day during Boo! at the Zoo. Hear about the screech owl at 11 a.m. at the Hamill Family Play Zoo, snakes at 11:30 a.m. at Feathers & Scales, ravens at 1 p.m. at Hamill Family Play Zoo, and the Rodrigues fruit bats at 3:30 p.m. in Australia House.

The fun doesn’t stop there. Boo! at the Zoo guests will be among the last to experience the Ice Age Giants before the limited-time exhibit goes extinct Oct. 30. Here, you can encounter more than 30, life-size, animatronic recreations of giants that once roamed North America and Eurasia, including a 15-foot-tall woolly mammoth, a 20-foot-long giant ground sloth, a 12-foot-tall giant bird, a fearsome 5-foot-long saber-toothed cat and many more.

Admission to Brookfield Zoo costs $24.95 for adults, $17.95 for children ages 3-11, and $19.95 for seniors age 65 and over. Parking is $15. To avoid confusion with Brookfield Zoo’s costumed characters, full-body costumes that cover faces are not permitted for guests over the age of 13. To learn more, visit CZS.org/BooAtTheZoo.

https://www.thefirsthundredmiles.com/2022/10/07/head-to-boo-at-the-zoo-for-halloween-fun/