Chester Zoo altered the wording on its website after it accidentally listed tickets for a child predator tour. The booking page drew ridicule online before the zoo changed the label, leaving a public-facing mistake attached to a guided predator tour priced at £30 for an adult ticket.
The listing offered a £60 combined entry-and-tour option, while children's tickets were set at £25 for the tour alone and £55 with zoo admission. The experience lasted 90 minutes and ran early in the morning before the general public arrived, with guests taken aboard an electric bus through the zoo.
Chester Zoo ticket prices
The guided experience covered the zoo's big cat and predator enclosures, including visits to the Sumatran tiger family and Komodo dragons. Screenshots of the page spread rapidly across X and Reddit, where one user wrote, "Let's all go to Chester Zoo for the child predator tour" and another posted, "'So we're all agreed it'll be the Child Predator Tour?' Marketing team: 'Absolutely'."
Other comments on the listing included, "I refuse to believe anyone has actually proofread and approved this" and "Staggering. How did that get approved?" One reaction said there were "plenty of calls to the local constabulary," while another user wrote, "This has given me such a chuckle this morning."
Chester Zoo default naming system
A spokesman for Chester Zoo said the names had not been devised by staff and were generated by a default naming system. That left the booking page showing a label that did not match the zoo's intended wording, even though the experience itself was already on sale and described as an early-morning guided tour.
The changed wording removed the error after it was brought to the zoo's attention, but the sequence showed how a default label can override what staff meant to present to visitors. The open question is how long the incorrect ticket name remained live before Chester Zoo changed it.
