Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Clearwater, FL

www.seewinter.com

Date of Visit: Summer 2012

Admission: $21.95

Hours: 9AM-6PM

Quick Intro

As you have probably figured out by their website name the Clearwater Marine Aquarium is where the Dolphin Tale movies were filmed. Judging by that fact it seemed like it would be a cool little place to check out. It was reasonably priced and local to where we were at the time. They rescue, research, rehabilitate, and release animals so the mission is awesome. It is a tad smaller though than most places we have visited.

Highlights

The rescue part of it, winter's story, the sea turtles, and the pelicans were all neat.

Disappointments

Wish it was much bigger and had a wider variety of animals to look at.

Pictures from the website

Turtle Bayou

Shipwreck Alley

Otter Oasis

Shark Pass

Rufus Beach

Winter Zone

Rating

I gave this zoo 1.5 out of 5 elephants.
This zoo gets ranked higher than the Seas at Epcot because it is a rehab zoo that does a tremendous job. If you have seen the Dolphin Tale movie and liked it, I am sure that adds something to it as well. It also isn't too expensive. Most importantly though as far as viewing animals it is not an impressive place to be so it can't be ranked too high. Just from an amount of animals to look at, it matches up about even with Tarpon Springs, but Tarpon Springs is 1/3 the price. Therefore, this had to be somewhere in between 0 and 2. Putting it on the higher end of that because of the entertainment value of Winter and the mission of the aquarium.

-Noland

Gulf World Marine Park

Gulf World Marine Park

Panama City Beach, Florida

Date of Visit: December 2014

gulfworldmarinepark.com/

Admission: $28

Hours: 930AM-4PM

Quick Intro

Gulf World was a decent aquarium in Panama City. It is the first time I was able to visit a zoo locally while visiting my wife's family, so that was exciting. It is pretty small, but we were able to spend a few hours here. While it opened at 930, most of the creatures weren't out until 11 or so. They had some cool exhibits including the closest we've ever gotten to Flamingos. Several animals that seem they are at every FL animal attraction were present such as Alligators, Stingrays, and African Penguins. It was a decent experience.

Highlights

There were two fantastic shows at Gulf World. The first great show was the Sea Lion show which also featured rough-tooth dolphins. The second was the Bottlenose Dolphin show. Each of these were fantastic dolphin shows and better than the dolphin shows at Sea World. They were easily the highlight of the visit.

Disappointments

The shows other than the dolphin shows were a waste of time. The first show featured dogs, cats, and a rat. The reptile show only had 3 animals. Other shows were uninteresting. When we got there, as mentioned earlier, most animals were not on exhibit. There is a lot of wasted space at this zoo too. Considering how small this place is, there should not be wasted space. It appeared that there was an effort to help this by constructing a new stingray area, but right now they need to fill some of that void. Also the reptile show was surprisingly disappointing. The gator even peed on half of the audience during the show. The other reptile out was a bearded dragon and that also had an accident.

Pictures

Macaw

Random turtle

Son loved this Flamingo exhibit

Tortoises

African Penguins

Sea Turtles

Sea Lions

Rough Tooth Dolphins

Mid-air dolphin

Again mid-air

About to splash!

End of the sea lion show. This dolphin and sea lion kissed.

Our son was thrilled after the rough tooth dolphin show.

End of the Bottlenose Dolphin show.

In the end, we were looking around for more, but poked our heads in and enjoyed ourselves.

Rating

I gave this aquarium 2.5 out of 5 elephants.
The reason for this rating is simple. There were two fantastic shows both involving dolphins, but other than that this aquarium was a snoozefest. The day started with empty exhibits and a dud of a show in "Feathers and Furry Friends." While some of the exhibits were cool like the turtles and the penguins, they were not as cool as other exhibits we have seen featuring the same creatures. The shows bumped this place up to average because they were that good. Other than the shows, this is a 1 elephant zoo. If you go here you have to check out those shows with the dolphins.

-Noland

The Seas @ Epcot

The Seas @ Epcot
Walt Disney World Resort
Lake Buena Vista, FL

Date of Visit: Several Times in 2014

We went to Epcot often this year because we have the annual pass for Disney. In fact, we likely will go a few more times before these passes run out in January. However, we did not go to these aquariums nearly as much as we went to Animal Kingdom. That should give you a good idea of what we thought of this aquarium compared to Disney's other animal attraction. There are not a lot of animal attractions unfortunately. However, we all enjoy this part of Epcot and it is the favorite of our entire family while at the park. If we did not have annual passes this year though, we would not have gone multiple times and we may not have gone at all. It is pretty small when you get down to it.

Website

Pictures

 Tank Full Of Jellies

 More Jellies

 Last Shot of Jellies. This was the coolest part of the area. These guys are by Turtle Talk With Crush. They are neat to look at.

 You cannot always see the Sea Turtle, but we were able to catch him on one trip. Another of the cooler parts of this aquarium.

Hidden Mickey behind the fish.

 Cool looking Lionfish.

 Another shot of the Lionfish.

 A shot of one of the eels.

My favorite creature here, the seahorse. This is the 2nd coolest exhibit they have behind the moon jellies. There are not quite as many seahorse as there are Jellyfish.

Yellow Tang in front of some cool coral.

Overall Review

We give this aquarium 0 out of 5 elephants.
The reason this is so poorly rated is that you get very little bang for your buck in the aquarium. It is $95 to get in which is 4x the price of the FL Aquarium. You pay all of that to get a small building of fish that you can go through in 20 minutes. If you are into the other stuff at Epcot than it is a solid deal. However, if you only want to go for the Aquarium, then it is a major ripoff. I'd choose FL Aquarium over this place any day. If you are solely going to see the fish/animals than this is not the place to do it. I'd go again if we got passes, but no special trips. In fact, if we could get Disney passes without Epcot for a cheaper rate, we'd be all over that. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for a post about the exciting places ZooZooReview has been and will be going.

-Noland

Tarpon Springs Aquarium

Tarpon Springs Aquarium
Tarpon Springs, Florida

Date of Visit: Summer 2014

Cost of Admission: Adults $7.75

Seniors $7

Children (3-11) $5.75

Under 3 Free

Hours: Monday- Saturday 10am-5pm

Sunday 12-5pm 

Website

The Tarpon Springs Aquarium was very interesting. It was a bit on the small side, okay it was very on the small side, but it was interesting and fun. The entrance was fun and Jr. loved the shark teeth. He loved running around and the lack of crowds too. His favorite part though was that parking was free. Okay, maybe that was my favorite part and not his, but it is always a plus.

Highlights: No crowds and free parking are huge highlights. We got to save money and got to enjoy the fish without feeling crowded. Good viewing spots for small kids is also a plus. Sometimes the exhibits do not have good places for him to see, but not at the Tarpon Springs Aquarium. Interactive feeding shows are a plus as well. While we didn't stay for any other shows, we saw an Octopus feeding and that was awesome.

Here are some of the pictures we got.

Alligator Snapping Turtle

Albino Python

Full Size Python

Jr. following a fish in the big tank

Crab

Nurse Shark Feeding Tank

Great Grandma and Grandpa holding him up to see the stingray tank

Petting the stingrays

More stingrays

They even had a "Nemo"

Finally a nurse shark in the big tank

We gave this aquarium a solid 2 elephants out of 5. The lack of crowds and free parking made it a worthwhile trip.  However, it was very small. This is one of the worst zoos or aquariums we have rated to this point. I would only say that because it was so small. It rates slightly above the Sarasota aquarium because it was pretty good for its size. Do not plan a special trip for this aquarium though unless you are in the area. It is not that great. It is pretty neat though if you are in the area and looking for something to do. We had fun, but again, don't make a special trip.

-Noland

Florida Aquarium

Florida Aquarium
Tampa, FL
Date of Visit: October 2011

Cost: $21.95 Adult (We got in for $10.98!)

Hours: 9:30 A.M. - 5:00 P.M.

Early on living in Tampa we checked out our local zoo and local aquarium. We already posted about the Lowry Park Zoo and now comes our review of the Florida Aquarium.

We enjoyed this trip very much and got in for 50% off on our FONZ membership! It is an AZA reciprocal admission zoo. The full list of those zoos and aquariums can be found here. 

Highlights: The zoo is right in downtown Tampa and easy to get to. It is extremely affordable, especially with any AZA zoo membership. That membership gets you 50% off admission! They had a lot of moray eels which are pictured below. Noland and I love these crazy looking animals. The other animals in the coral reef looked fascinating. The shark dive was also very cool. Take a look at the goliath grouper in our picture what a big one. The Wetlands part of the exhibit was a fun area and we loved the animals here, especially the otters!

Lowlights: Our pictures came out horrible, but that is not the aquariums fault. All of the pictures in this blog post are actually from the aquariums website because our did not come out that well. Ocean Commotion was to cheesy for us. We will see if our kids like it when they come, but it was too cheesy for us. We missed the penguin promenade and there is no exhibit for it. If you want to see the penguins be sure to ask someone when they are coming out.

More Pictures

Goliath Grouper

Exhibit in Ocean Commotion

Shark Dive!

You can swim with fishes for an additional fee. We chose not to do this, maybe next time.

We missed these guys, but they sure look cool

Top of the Wetlands Exhibit

River Otter

We gave this place a 3 out of 5 elephants!!

It was a very good aquarium. However, it is nowhere near the Baltimore Aquarium or Sea World. Definitely above average though. If you like aquariums and are in the Tampa area check it out. Stay tuned for our Sarasota Aquarium review in our next post though and check which one you would rather visit. If you can only go to one zoo in the Tampa Area I would suggest Busch Gardens or Lowry Park. Or making the hour drive over to Animal Kingdom.

Let us know what you think of this post or the Florida Aquarium!

Signing off ♥jen