Parrot Jungle Island

Parrot Jungle has been in the Miami area for decades but recently moved to the island near the cruise ship docks. This means it's easy to get to from both the city of Miami as well as from Miami Beach. We had half an afternoon to kill so we checked it out.

It's a nice new facility, very nicely landscaped but a bit pricey. The space it's on isn't that big but creative use of landscaping and overlapping trails makes it feel a lot bigger than it is. There are a lot of Parrots there but they are not the only attraction. The parrots were scattered throughout the park sitting in their own little areas waiting for tourists to buy some sunflower seeds to feed them. Most were friendly but a couple looked kinda of mean, not that I know anything about Parrot behavior. There is also a large Everglades Habitat and of course the shows.

Much like Seaworld the highlight is the shows. Your tickets gets you into to see as many shows as you like. Unfortunately there were only three different shows, of which I saw two. We didn't make the Parrot show. The Reptile show was amusing but the Jungle Theater show was more than a little hokey.

Overall it was a decent way to spend much of an afternoon. My 2½ year old daughter loved the park. There was a playground in the middle where she spent a lot of her time too. It wasn't crowded at all which definitely helped. It doesn't do quite as good of a job appealing to both kids and adults but the kids definitely loved it. It's similar to Loro Parque we visited in Tenerife.

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Parrot Jungle Shows

The shows are pretty much the highlight. I saw the Reptile show first. We got there early expecting large crowds, which there never were on this nice Sunday in January. There was a small pen with a shallow pool with a very white Alligator. I thought he was part of the show but turns out I was wrong.

I recommend you sit right in the middle of the auditorium to see the animals. The handlers do take them to either side but they do it very quickly so your best bet is still right up front in the middle.

The last thing we did before the park closed was the Jungle Theater show. There they showed a few exotic animals. The animals were nice but once again unless you were right up front you didn't get to see much and the hokey dialog was more than a little distracting.

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