A visit to Clearwater Marine Aquarium is a must-do for every family! Clearwater Marine Aquarium is open in Clearwater. They treat injured marine animals here, and it was in this aquarium that a tail prosthesis was made for a female dolphin named Winter, about which the film “The History of the Dolphin” was shot (animals and birds that were filmed in the movie still live in “Clearwater Marin ”. First of all, it is a rehabilitation center, so there are not so many animals in spacious aquariums: dolphins, giant turtles, pelican, sharks and otters live here. On special excursions, children can take part in feeding and caring for animals, and here they offer to take pictures with dolphins or sign up for a summer camp with educational programs for schoolchildren.
Another marine park, Gulf World, is located in the north of Florida, in Panama City. Here there are shows with dolphins, and after presenting with them they are allowed to take pictures and arrange swimming sessions. In Panama City, you can also visit the Odditorium, where amazing artifacts are collected from around the world, or spend the day at Shipwreck Island Waterpark water park, rolling downhill and swimming in the pool.
Not far from Panama City, in Fort Walton Beach opened the world’s oldest aquarium, the Gulfarium, where dolphin shows and sea lion shows are held, and in the water park you can watch sharks, otters, turtles; Some of them – for example, sea stars – are allowed to touch.
On the coast of Tampa Bay, in Sarasota, the Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium is open. At the research center, scientists are developing programs for the rehabilitation of elephant seals and other underwater inhabitants. Sharks can be observed through the windows directly under the water. Visitors over 10 years of age are waited on contact excursions with sea horses, stingrays and starfishes, in children’s camps during the holidays, as well as during the morning backstage tours, where they help feed the animals and fish and learn how everybody prepares for the opening day.
Next to the Aquarium is the Center for the Study of Wild Birds Save Our Seabirds. At the center, the bird hospital is open for visiting, where pelicans and white herons, hawks and owls, parrots and other wild and wounded poultry are nursed.
And in the Ringling Museum in the same Sarasota, you can visit the family mansion, which in the early twentieth century belonged to a traveling circus tent. Next to his Venetian mansion, John Ringling opened the museum of circus art with a large circus layout, made in great detail, as well as a collection of retro posters, props and photographs that feature performances of those times with all sorts of complex stunts. Some of the rooms offer visitors to repeat: for example, everyone can try to walk a tightrope.
An amusement park and the Bush Gardens zoo (Busch Gardens Tampa) is located in Tampa. Interactive programs are held in the zoo with hippos, giraffes, lions, cheetahs, rhinos and other inhabitants of Africa: they offer to feed a kangaroo, stroke a flamingo, a sloth or aardvark, go backstage and learn how to care for animals. In the amusement park among extreme roller coasters and free-fall towers there are also rides for children, such as a three-level rope camp or riding over the jungle on the Jungle Flyers zipline. You can see a roller coaster from a bird’s eye view and look at the inhabitants of the zoo from the cabins of the aerial cableway. On several scenes, “Bush Gardens” put on ice shows, musicals and performances with trained animals, and for kids the life-size puppet Elmo from Sesame Street arranges a musical safari in Africa.
Picture Credit: extrabrandt