In general do zoo's issue "souvenir entrance tickets" these days? My recent experiences are that at Chester you just get a till receipt, but at Barcelona in addition to my till receipt I also received an actual entrance ticket with a nice illustration of an Otter on it.
I’m very much in the habit of buying my entrance tickets online prior to my visit in most cases, so I have quite limited experience to draw from overall. However, in Czech Republic I bought all my tickets at the gate, and there was a real mixture - some zoos issued tickets, some zoos issued receipts and some zoos issued nothing at all.
Well, there are still many zoos who employ those "swing bars" to let in guests. Sorry for my inadequate verbosity, but I have no idea what they're called in English - I mean those kinds of carousel-like barriers that consist of several smaller bars that jut out so that you have to push one at a time to pass through. The ticket has a barcode on it, and you scan the barcode to push the bar. Beyond that, it's not that common, though not extremely uncommon either since zoos do realize that a fancily designed ticket would be appreciated as a souvenir by many guests.
I have a collection of zoo entrance tickets from around the world, I actually avoid on-line bookings if paying at the gate includes a funky looking ticket. I have some beautiful tickets from San Diego, I'll try and post some pictures for you to see.
Here in USA it seems the really big zoos use tickets and the medium and small size zoos do not. It also seems to be more common in European zoos, based on my limited experience of a dozen zoos in western Europe.
I avoid paying online partly for the reason of getting a nice ticket, and partly because often the disabled rate isn't available online as they either need written proof, or more usually, to see that you are disabled.
I've heard stories of people being refused a concession because they did have proof that they received disability living allowance even though they quite obviously had a disability.
In recent years I've only been to Chester and Barcelona (so far... ), at Chester I don't get a concession but my membership card says my name '+ carer' so someone can accompany me at no cost. I Barcelona I just asked for an entry ticket and was given the disabled price as can be seen on above ticket.
I think this just reflects how difficult it must be to establish a clear policy for assessing elegibility for a disabled entry rate. So many people with a disability don’t claim DLA, so basing entry on this would make many disabled people ineligible for a disabled entrance rate. However, by the same token, so many people with a disability are living with conditions that aren’t necessarily visible, so basing entry on this would again make many disabled people ineligible! I guess everywhere has to just decide on their own policy and stick to it, as it is impossible to monitor it on the basis of trust and honesty. I think potentially a letter from a doctor would be the most accurate way to monitor it, but imagine firstly having to obtain a letter and then having to remember to carry it with you everywhere you went after that - not the most convenient things to do! So there are huge drawbacks to every policy I can think of so far!
My favourite souvenir entrance ticket is the one issued for Whipsnades's Golden Jubilee; this was available on one day only, 23rd May 1981, the 50th Anniversary of the park opening. Tickets that day were on sale at the 1931 admission price of 5 pence (1 shilling). I queued up at the entrance for a long while to acquire my souvenir ticket (even though, as a Fellow of the Zoological Society, I didn't need to pay).
The person I bought my set from added a note that it poured with rain all day and it took one and a half hours to get his car towed out!
