Jarden and I love animals. Like seriously, looooooovvvvveee them. We try to frequent zoos in every place we travel too, and awkwardly break our neck at every dog we see. While one day having nothing to do in Orlando, Florida, a quick search on Trip Advisor search led me to find the #30 thing to do in Orlando; An Interactive Exotic Animal Experience!
Quickly after finding this listing, we freaked out. “WE GET TO TOUCH THE ANIMALS?!?!” After reacting like 5 year olds and 1 phone call to the owner later, we were on our way to an animal lover’s Disneyland.
Leslie Rush is the owner of the Exotic Animal Experience, where she raises a countless number of new-to-us animals on her farm. When we arrived we were first greeted by a giant dog and a mini horse. Honestly we were having a blast petting the mammoth K-9, but Leslie soon after led us to the lemurs. LEMURS PEOPLE!
Since Jarden and I were the only ones at the farm at the moment (we booked a private tour), we got to spend a lot of time feeding and playing with the lemurs. Leslie took them out of their cages and they were so curious and playful! Jumping on our heads, scavenging our pockets for more food; one was so curious that it yanked Jarden’s GoPro out of his hand and broke our waterproof housing.
Uhhhhh yeah. A lemur broke our camera equipment! Not something you hear everyday, but it was actually kind of funny after the initial “Aw Shit! Nooo!”. Not a huge biggie to us, but if you go just make sure to secure all your valuables, because these guys are grabby 😉
After the lemurs, we were led to a play pen type area with kangaroos. Did we teleport to the down under? We were amazed at how many different types of animals were at the farm! The older kangaroo was a lazy fella, but the younger one was so cute and playful! At the same time we still had a bunch of different lemurs/kinkajou’s and mini horses (deers?) with us; a lot of the animals were raised together and were totally comfortable with each other.
Finally we were led to an open field area where we saw a pig, some goats, and the funniest of all, a fainting goat. We’ve never heard of fainting goats before, but they literally faint from being startled/excited due to a genetic condition, locking up their legs and falling to their sides for about 5-10 seconds. The fainting goat was on a gazebo, and it seemed to faint every time it stepped off. I felt bad for the little guy but I couldn’t help but laugh! It recovers fairly quickly though and acts as though nothing ever happened, and it supposedly doesn’t hurt the goat at all. [ So sorry but we can’t seem to recover our pictures of the goat! 🙁 but heres another of a kangaroo to hold you over 😉 ]
Overall it was a terrific experience for us animal lovers! We never once felt rushed and Leslie gave us plenty time to interact with her animals. She educated us on the animals but at the same time it was a very relaxed, comfortable experience. You can really see how much Leslie cares for her animals, and how much they care for her back! I believe we spent about an hour and a half total there, and it was the perfect amount of time. I also believe she now has a zebra, which I’m totally jealous of. How many people can say they touched a zebra?!
If you’re an animal lover I’d definitely recommend the Exotic Animal Experience in Orlando, Florida. Children 7-12 are $65/person, adults are $75/person; Private bookings for children $125/person and adults $150/person. I believe we paid the $150 each since we had a private tour, which is on the pricier side, but definitely a once in a lifetime type of activity.
For more information on the Exotic Animal Experience, click here.
Exotic Animal Experience
Quinlan St.
Orlando, Florida 32833
