Nasu World Monkey Park

Meh for Monkeying Around

I had high hopes for this place, as I have been to and enjoyed other monkey parks, but was a bit disappointed. This opinion admittedly might be colored by the migraine that was throbbing through my skull at the time and was utterly unhelped by listening to the high-pitched screeches of the primates in the enclosed monkey petting space. We came with our four-year-old and I don't recommend making this trip with kids under six. This is because the lemur and small monkey petting cage, where people can put on a windbreaker and pay a small fee to go into a cage and be surrounded by the furry little ones. My daughter was very sad about this but calmed when we learned that she could feed a baby monkey out of a bottle instead. We waited in line for 20 minutes for this only to discover that she would only be holding a bottle of milk in the baby's mouth and standing opposite, more like watering a flower than feeding a baby. At least she had the opportunity to feed and hold the guinea pigs, which made up for the lack of lemur-touching. There were a few bits of entertainment, including an elephant basketball contest and a stage performance including a number of small monkeys and even a specially trained stray cat found on the premises a few years ago. The food station was understaffed and the food we got was not worth the wait we had to endure to get it. It was edible, but the wait was rather stressful. Overall, feeding the sheep and other small animals was the most fun outside of the stage show, which was not in itself worth the price of admission.