Last Updated on November 19, 2025 by Suzy McCullough
Growing up, I don’t ever recall hearing about sloths. Nowadays, there are a handful of places in the UK where you can actually see sloths. They sleep in a ball for about 16 hours of the day, so they aren’t really much to see when you do see one. But you can’t help but love them. In fact, as a species, it’s amazing they have even survived as they are so incredibly slow.
My husband really loves sloths and he would love to travel abroad to see them. I found the next best thing and booked him a sloth animal experience for a Christmas present here in the UK. Luckily, we didn’t have to travel too far as Lincoln Zoo near Lincoln in Lincolnshire has just that. Children can take part in this experience from the age of 8.
Sloth Animal Experience Lincolnshire
The year before, I tried to book an experience, but they were fully booked. This time, I waited until the middle of November for when they released their VIP tickets and I bought some right away.
For animal experience bookings, it’s a really user-friendly experience. They have a section on their website where you go to book and then there’s a calendar with the available dates. For the sloth experience, they have a few slots a day with only 4 allowed in each time.
Your experience also includes a visit to the rest of Lincoln Zoo. We arrived an hour early and headed for the cafe. Nearer the time, we were met by one of the members of staff and she led us to where their two sloths live. The experience states that it includes the sloths and you can meet one other animal – marmosets or meerkats. The marmosets live with the sloths, so naturally they were included in the experience.
I was a little apprehensive about going into a cage full of marmoset monkeys. But oh my gosh, they are so cute. They just ran happily above us and allowed us to feed them grapes. One even sat causally on my husband’s shoulder. They are really small and not at all how I had expected them to be.
They are also not at all bothered about the two large sloths. In fact, one marmoset tried to pinch a grape right out of the sloth’s mouth. They share a large cage and have access to a smaller warmer cage, which is where we started the experience.
Both sloths were asleep and one soon woke up for grapes. We learnt that they have a male and a female and that they are hoping for babies. We could stroke the sloths, which they didn’t seem to mind and pop the grapes in their mouths. They even eat slowly. Literally, everything is done in slow motion.
The female wouldn’t wake up, but after a few minutes, she did eventually wake. She was actually very alert and was soon hanging off a rope, wanting more grapes. We were also surrounded by marmoset monkeys by this point.
Unusually for her, the female sloth headed into the bigger enclosure. It was amazing to see her move. Although they are slow, they are incredibly agile. Moving around is actually very easy for them and they are very strong.
The male sloth even entered the room and we were soon treated to two sloths climbing here there and everywhere. They would just head right for you and you had to be the one to move out of the way as they had no intention of going around you.
One even tried to pinch my husband’s glasses. My son was in his element and it made a change to the animals he normally gets to interact with. In the photo below I was trying to get close for a photo, but the sloth kept trying to touch my hair. They really are very friendly creatures.
The keeper informed us that they are rarely this active and it was very unusual to see them move around so much. Honestly, it was amazing and although you can’t guarantee that they will move around, it is worth going in the hope that they do.
The experience is supposed to last around 30 minutes, but we were in there for almost an hour.
We have certainly come away loving sloths even more and we learnt so much more about them.
After our experience, we had a wander around the wildlife park. My son and I have been there a few times in the past as we used to live in Lincolnshire. They have made a few improvements since we were last there, including a fab penguin area.
It took us around 50 minutes to walk around the rest of the park and there is also an outdoor play area.
The experience costs a lot more now than it did when we visited, which is a shame as we would never be able to afford to do this again.
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