Cebu Safari and Adventure Park

Cebu Safari and Adventure Park is a 170-hectare wildlife park in Barangay Corte, Carmen, roughly an hour’s drive north of Cebu City, founded by Michel J. Lhuillier and Eduard J. Loop. At more than a thousand animals across roughly 120 species, it’s the largest zoological park in the Philippines by land area — big enough that first-time visitors tend to underestimate how much walking, or tram-riding, a full visit takes.

The park is organized into zones rather than a single loop: the African Savanna gives zebra, wildebeest, impala, and other antelope open ground instead of paddocks; the White Lion Safari holds white lions imported from France; Gardens of the World arranges plantings by continent around some of the more expensive ornamental species in the collection; and Michel’s Garden — named for the park’s owner — is a flora walking trail built around his own forty-year orchid collection, a private hobby that became a public zone once the park opened. A 1.3-kilometer zipline runs 671 meters above sea level, one of the longer runs in the country, and aviaries scattered through the grounds hold species like the Scheepmaker’s crowned pigeon and the chattering lory alongside a bird show built around trained flight routines.

Four dining spots are spaced through the property — Base Camp, The Outpost, Michel’s Pavilion, and an Italian restaurant, Pizzeria Michaelangelo Ristorante Italiano — which matters more here than at a smaller attraction, since the distance between the entrance and the far zones is long enough that most visitors end up eating on-site rather than saving it for after.

Admission for adults, and children measuring 91 centimeters and above, runs ₱900 on weekdays and ₱1,100 on weekends and holidays. Children between 61 and 91 centimeters pay ₱450 on weekdays and ₱550 on weekends and holidays; children under 61 centimeters get in free. The park opens daily, including holidays, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Lhuillier conceived the park after a visit to the San Diego Zoo in California and began acquiring animals and plants for the site soon after. It sits on part of a roughly 2,000-hectare property held by the Lhuillier family, better known locally for the M. Lhuillier Group of Companies and its pawnshop and remittance chain — one of the more visible reminders that a lot of Cebu’s tourism infrastructure traces back to money made in retail lending rather than tourism itself. For Carmen, a municipality where upland farming has long been the main livelihood, the park has become one of the biggest local employers and a rare non-agricultural anchor for the local economy.

The build ran long. Photos of the park under construction circulated on social media in early 2017, with some visitors who’d been given exclusive tours incorrectly claiming an April 2017 opening. Lhuillier corrected that at a press conference, pointing to October or November instead — a date the project also missed — before the park soft-opened in February 2018.

Keeping lions, tigers, and other predators in captivity for tourism draws a fair question wherever it happens, and this park is no exception: it markets its breeding programs as conservation and education, but animals bred this way don’t return to a wild range, and the line between education and spectacle is one visitors can reasonably judge for themselves while walking the grounds.

External links

• Cebu Safari and Adventure Park
• Cebu Safari and Adventure Park on Facebook
• Cebu Safari and Adventure Park on Instagram

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Explore More in Carmen

• Safari Stadium (Bird Show)