Loro Parque in Tenerife

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Loro Parque in Tenerife

Now that we’re in Tenerife, the concept of family has been extended to the maximum possible. We’d have reached the pinnacle of this if my nearly 82-year-old grandma hadn’t gone out partying on the Friday … πŸ™‚

But first things first … One of the must-visits on the island is Loro Parque, and after almost three months in Tenerife we had already waited so long to include it on our blog. Fabio comes and goes, sometimes more frequently than others, and lately not very often at all (working for someone else can be like that). But the big advantage of being in Tenerife is that my family is here and I can carry on visiting places with them.

4 generations (Noah, his grandma, his great-grandma and me, his mommy) had agreed to meet at 9:15am to get to Loro Parque before 10am. When we called my grandma to see if she was ready – surprise! The night before she’d gone to the end of the murgas (carnival), and had got home at 5 in the morning. Of course she was exhausted, so with one fewer than planned we headed for Puerto de la Cruz.

Family Travel Secret
The doors to Loro Parque open at 8:30am, so if you are going to visit for the first time, we'd totally recommend getting there as early as you can - there's lots to see.

 

So we wouldn’t miss anything (given the lesson we learned three years ago), we arrived before 10am and we were told we should first go to the dolphin show. It was very educational as well as being entertaining.

Before midday we returned to the Thai village (the largest built outside of Thailand) and we met up with the group for the Discovery Tour.

Family Travel Secret
We went for the Premium Tour - an option that combines the Discovery Tour (1 hour 40 minutes with explanations and access to exclusive areas of the park) with lunch and reserved places at the various shows. Another option was the Diamond Tour, which includes all of the above but with lunch at Brunelli's Steakhouse - an ideal option for anyone who has been to the park before.

First they took us to the Animal Embassy, which is a special area where they look after the parrots and small reptiles.

Family Travel Secret
If you aren't very convinced about the existence of these parks, we can tell you that almost all the animals that are in Loro Parque (except the Icelandic puffins) have been sourced from zoos or circuses or been abandoned, meaning that they've been given the opportunity to live more comfortably in a park which covers 135,000m2.

Afterwards we went to the gorilla area and they taught us what they eat, where they sleep and lots of very curious facts, like that Loro Parque only has males that have been excluded and they serve as a gene pool. Therefore when a new family of gorillas is going to be bred, the most compatible one is used.

Right next door is the penguin sanctuary with its colony of 250 penguins. We went there to discover the safety measures and cleaning processes they follow strictly.

Family Travel Secret
In the penguin sanctuary there is a female that was rescued by a Japanese fishing boat and spent 6 months living with the crew. She's called Geisha and at Loro Parque she has grown her family by having two babies.

The last stop on the Discovery Tour was the whale section (down there we couldn’t take photos) and we could see a killer whale watching Noah shamelessly … It didn’t take its eyes off him. When we arrived, the rest of the group dissipated. Funnily enough, when we all went to another part to continue with the explanations and Noah went back to the first observation point, a whale (maybe the same one or maybe another) was watching him again. That long hair must have been eye-catching πŸ™‚ πŸ™‚

Family Travel Secret
The water in the 4 pools where the whales live was taken from the sea at a depth of 65 meters. Each orca eats between 50 and 70 kilos of fish per day.

Before the show started we visited Aqua Viva, where there are different types of jellyfish. Three years ago the whales delighted Noah, and they still seem to have a striking impact on him …

We went to eat at around 3pm and when we finished Noah was amazed by the playground. He stayed there investigating.

Meanwhile I went to the sea lion show and the parrot show … Afterwards I went to the playground and there was Noah, hanging from the snake.

Before leaving we saw Loro Parque’s latest acquisition – a red panda that was resting calmly on top of a tree when we saw it πŸ™‚

Definitely a day very well spent and above all one which we enjoyed as a family. When we arrived home, Fabio was already there. Without a doubt the day ended better than it started πŸ™‚

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