Pearson Airport to the Toronto Zoo

How do I get from Pearson Airport to the Toronto Zoo?

There is no rail option: the zoo is a TTC bus from the Scarborough end of the subway, two hours from Pearson with the UP Express and two changes, and a family with a stroller and a cooler does not do it. A taxi is a metered gamble on the 401's length. The chauffeur is the version where the fare is known, the seats are in, and the car is at the gate when the children have had enough; the family and accessible page explains the seats and the vehicles.

The zoo, the gates and the drop

The zoo's entrance is at the end of Meadowvale Road north of Sheppard Avenue, where the road ends at the parking lots and the front gate's plaza; the chauffeur uses the drop-off lane at the plaza, unloads the stroller and the cooler, and the family walks to the gate. The zoo is large enough — the Zoomobile circles it, and the walk from the Africa pavilion to the Canadian Domain is an hour — that a family arriving from a flight plans a half-day rather than a whole one, with the Indo-Malaya and Africa pavilions near the gate and the polar bears at the Tundra Trek as the far end. The return pickup is at the same plaza with the point texted when the family is ready, and a car that holds through the visit is billed at the hourly rate; most families book a return for a set time. The Toronto Zoo sells timed tickets in the busy season and the chauffeur times the drop to them.

The family arrival: seats, strollers and the nap

The zoo trip is the family transfer in its purest form, and the details are the reason to book it: infant, convertible and booster seats fitted before the pickup at no charge with the children's ages given at booking; the SUV for a family of four with a stroller and the Sprinter for two families or the grandparents; the stroller and the cooler in the boot; and the forty-five minutes on the 401 as the nap between the flight and the gate. A family landing at Pearson from Vancouver or London on a morning flight is at the zoo by early afternoon with the luggage in the boot, and at the hotel by dinner; a family staying at the Chelsea or a downtown hotel books the zoo as a day by the hour with the chauffeur holding.

The Rouge, the Bluffs and the east-end day

The zoo sits inside Rouge National Urban Park — the largest urban park in North America, with trails from the zoo's edge to the lake — and the east-end day around it is the reason a family books the chauffeured half-day rather than the transfer alone: the Rouge Beach at the park's southern end, the Scarborough Bluffs and Bluffer's Park twenty minutes south-west, the Guild Park's sculpture garden, and the Scarborough Town Centre for the rain day. The Pickering Casino Resort is twenty minutes east for the adults' evening, and the Pearson-to-Oshawa route covers the corridor beyond.

School groups, camps and the Sprinter

The zoo's other traffic is the group: a school from Kingston or Buffalo on a field trip, a summer camp, a family reunion with cousins from three cities, a birthday party of ten. The Executive Sprinter carries ten and the coach more, collected from one or two addresses or from the group meeting point inside the terminal for a flying party, delivered to the plaza on one manifest and returned at the booked hour; a school's booking runs on a corporate account with the manifest and the seats for the youngest. The zoo's summer camps and the overnight programmes bring the same pattern at the same door.

The winter zoo and the seasons

The zoo is open all year, and the winter visit — the polar bears, the snow leopards, the indoor pavilions, the empty paths — is the one families who have done the summer crowds come back for; the 401 in January is the consideration, and the chauffeur reads Ontario 511 before leaving. The spring births and the summer's long hours are the busy season, with timed tickets and the parking lots full by eleven — the reason a chauffeured drop at the plaza beats a family car circling the lot — and the fall is the quiet one with the leaves in the Rouge at their best.

Accessible visits and the grandparents

The zoo's paths are paved and the Zoomobile is accessible, and a visit with a grandparent who uses a walker or a wheelchair is a common booking: the SUV with the raised seat or the Sprinter with the step, the chair folded in the boot, the accessible bay at the plaza, and the pace at the curb that the accessible page describes. Three generations flying into Pearson for a week — the grandparents from overseas, the family from the west — are the Sprinter with seats for the children and a chair for the grandmother, and the zoo is the first day.

What the fare includes

The fare from Pearson to the Toronto Zoo is fixed by vehicle class and includes the chauffeur, the vehicle, fuel, the 407 toll when used, taxes, the child seats, curbside pickup at the pre-arranged area and the included waiting with the flight tracked; meet and greet is the paid add-on; gratuity is never added; a cancellation before dispatch is free; the zoo's own tickets are bought from the zoo, not from us.

The zoo from the Durham and Markham hotels

The zoo is on the city's eastern edge, and for a family staying in Durham or Markham rather than downtown it is the closest big attraction: fifteen minutes from the Pickering and Ajax hotels along the 401, twenty from the Markham and Scarborough Town Centre hotels, and the Pickering Casino Resort tower is the family hotel with the adults' evening attached. A family visiting relatives in Scarborough or Markham — the most common reason a family flies into Pearson for the east end — books the zoo day by the hour from the relatives' door with the cousins in the Sprinter, and the Pearson-to-Oshawa route covers the corridor's hotels.

The zoo and the Rouge: the walk to the lake

Rouge National Urban Park surrounds the zoo, and the walk from the zoo's edge along the Rouge River to Rouge Beach on Lake Ontario — the Mast Trail and the riverside paths, three hours at a family's pace — is the day a family with older children adds to the zoo: the chauffeur drops at the zoo in the morning, holds or returns, and collects the family at the Rouge Beach lot on Lawrence Avenue in the afternoon, with the picnic in the boot and the swim at the beach as the finish. The park is free, the trails are marked, and the Ontario Parks and Parks Canada sites publish the maps; the chauffeur knows the lots.

Members, the zoo's events and the evening programmes

The zoo's members' evenings, the summer's Zoo Nights for adults, the fall's Boo at the Zoo and the winter's Terra Lumina light walk are the evening bookings: the chauffeur at the hotel or the door at dusk, the drop at the plaza, and the pickup at closing with the point texted from the path. Terra Lumina — the illuminated night walk through the zoo's forest from November to January — is the one families flying in for Christmas in Toronto add, twenty-five minutes from the Durham hotels and forty-five from downtown, on the event pattern with the seats fitted and the drive home asleep.

Book Pearson to the Toronto Zoo