Florida Aquarium

Chance in front of the sign at the entrance to the Aquarium
Tampa has a lot of family friendly attractions of which I am sure we will end up exploring all, very soon. First of the big attractions for us was the Florida Aquarium. The Aquarium is right on the streetcar line (yeah there is a streetcar here did I forget to mention that?) and it's downtown so that means walking distance from the Aquarium to the Children's Museum, Riverfront park and the Center for the Arts and plenty of cool little places to grab a bite to eat. Anyway, I think I am getting off track...we got a year pass to the Aquarium with which we get into the Aquarium of course and also free parking, on top of that though we also get 50% off admission to other Zoo's, And Aquariums around the country including the zoo here (the children's museum here too) and the zoo in Portland (for the next visit to Nana and Grandpa Von).


Scott and Chance looking at the Alligators
The Florida Aquarium has a cool Florida wetland area that is humid and muggy with real mangroves growing over the walkways. There are Alligators and turtles and lots of other fish swimming all about as well as birds all through this habitat. The wetland area is also the aviary so there are florida birds flying all around too.


Chance looking at that HUGE fish.
We saw, eels and sharks, seahorses and lots of beautifully colored fish too. As well as this huge fish that looked like he could barely move he was so big even though he was floating right along. They had a really neat interactive exhibit where each of six fish get to plead their case then at the end you vote for your favorite.


Chance pointing out fish in the Reef Tunnel
We were thinking the Aquarium was worth the year membership and then we went outside and realized that it was DEFINITELY worth the year membership price. There is a pirate ship themed water play area with a restaurant and a bar. We didn't know they had that area so we didn't have Chance's swimming trunks so he couldn't play in the big water area. He played for a long time on the playground where there are just a few misters while Scott and I had a drink at the bar. Next time we will bring his trunks so he can really play.



Chance checking out a seahorse