I was recently in this situation and decided to take a nice camera and tripod to Phipps as early as possible. It was funny because I decided to do this in mid December, the Christmas decorations were up so there was actually a little bit of traffic. Phipps is really designed for single file walking, so in about three minutes I'd bewildered a whole lot of mostly older people who were so confused why I would be in a hurry to get through the conservatory. I went into the big jungle room, quickly snapped like 100 selfies in the hopes I would get one for a smile like a normal human, and then since I was in a jungle in December I brought a book and just read for an hour and soaked up the humidity and left.