Each of the Discovery Days include extra opportunities for San Diego Zoo guests to meet exotic creatures up close. This photo was taken in September during Reptilemania.<\/figcaption><\/figure>People notice the difference during San Diego Zoo\u2019s Discovery Days immediately when they walk into the front plaza. There are bright new banners waving. Often costumed characters such as Bamboo Bear or Sydney Koala greet them. The music is different and themed for each event. Sometimes fun activities, like counting koalas in a tree and winning prizes, start right in the front plaza!<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s it all about? Well, discovery!<\/p>\n
Discovery Days only started in 2009, so they may seem like they just popped up. The idea was to create fun, animal-related four-day events for zoo members and other guests to enjoy three times a year during the \u201cshoulder seasons,\u201d times of the year when the zoo isn\u2019t as busy as, say, weekends in June. So, it’s the perfect bonus for all the zoo’s Uptown neighbors! And it’s free with admission or membership.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers love it,\u201d said Phil Leiss, the San Diego Zoo\u2019s special events manager. \u201cAll the normal stuff we do is just pumped up. If we are doing 10 keeper talks on a weekend, during Discovery Days that number jumps to 15 or 16.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although the zoo has had many recurring events over the years such as Garden Festival, Discovery Days are different because all areas of the zoo contribute, from those who care for animals, to food service and conservation scientists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea was to do events where all the departments in the zoo came together to make a fantastic experience for our guests,\u201d said Leiss, who has been the Discovery Days organizer from the first Koalapalooza in January 2009. He is now working hard on the next one, Mission Fed\u2019s Discovery Days: Festival of Flight, Nov. 11 \u2013 14.<\/p>\n
As with each of the Discovery Days, Festival of Flight has a focus on a single type of animal\u2014birds\u2014with activities such as the \u201camazing aerial feeding frenzy\u201d in the Scripps Aviary. But it also celebrates 100 years of naval aviation. There will be booths for the USS Midway Museum and San Diego Air & Space Museum. People who want to get their own \u201cbird\u2019s-eye\u201d view of the world can take flying trapeze training. (The class, which lasts an hour and 45 minutes, costs $69 per person in addition to the zoo admission.)<\/p>\n
During Festival of Flight, the \u201cParty on the Plaza\u201d will include a condor (not a real one) flying down a zip line over guests\u2019 heads. After guests go through the turnstiles, many more surprises await. During Koalapalooza, guests might meet a koala. During Reptilemania, they came into the zoo and got to stand in front of a 6-foot-tall photo cutout of a cobra for a memorable family photo.\u00a0 Each Discovery Days event has food specials, unique shows and chances to meet the behind-the-scenes folks at the zoo, including veterinarians and scientists. Kids scramble to win cool keepsakes in the scavenger hunt or learn to radio-track animals along the front plaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou really design it for each generation, from grandson to grandpa,\u201d Leiss said. \u201cYou want the kids to get Mardi Gras beads in the front plaza and for grandpa to have a chance to meet a scientist working on animal conservation. It takes a lot of work, but Discovery Days are so much fun!\u201d<\/p>\n
__________________________<\/p>\n
Dani Dodge is a former newspaper reporter and editor now working as a public relations representative at the San Diego Zoo. She can be reached at ddodge@sandiegozoo.org<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Dani Dodge People notice the difference during San Diego Zoo\u2019s Discovery Days immediately when they walk into the front plaza. There are bright new banners waving. Often costumed characters such as Bamboo Bear or Sydney Koala greet them. The music is different and themed for each event. Sometimes fun activities, like counting koalas in […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1289,"featured_media":243957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"San Diego Zoo\u2019s Discovery Days are perfect for San Diegans","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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