The second area of the expansion is the Panda Forest Area. I didn’t get to this area back on my September 2023 visit because it was marked as closed – now 8 months later the area has started to open up with 2 of the 5 pavilions now open to the public (as I write this at the start of 2025, the app still only lists these 2 houses as open). Both the Starry Sky Pavilion and the Star Giant Panda Nursery House are open, while the Starlight, Star Cloud and Star Rain Pavilions are still closed (they do look complete from the outside, but maybe work inside still ongoing or there aren’t pandas living there yet). I really liked visiting the open pavilions in this area, I think they’re an absolute highlight of the expansion so highly recommend visiting them. They have a bit of everything, covering all ages of giant pandas and a really nice mix of enclosure styles. I only saw pandas inside on my visit, but the outside yards really look very nice here and I’m looking forward to seeing pandas in them one day!

The Starry Sky Giant Panda Pavilion has a very nice entrance to it with a big education section covering lots of information on their phylogeny, history, biology, geography, comparing wild and captive knowledge, and also on international panda loans. This section was really nicely done. The Star Giant Panda Nursery House has shops and a coffee counter – the shops here are much more spacious than the ones in the original section of the base, and have more stock than the one in the Panoramic Restaurant section of the Panda Reception Hall, so I’d recommend stopping here if you can and want a more relaxed look at the panda merch. There is also a panda bookstore here, it was closed when I was there but it did look pretty good with a range of books I would have loved to have seen!