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

Top Ten Zoos In the Southeast

It is my birthday today and one of my favorite things on this earth are countdowns and countdown shows. Because of that I decided that I would do a countdown of the top 10 zoos in the southeast. We live in Florida and I grew up in Virginia so the majority of the zoos I have been to are in the southeast. For purposes of this assignment we will call the southeast anything south of Baltimore on the east coast.

Add in Maryland and take out the non coastal states and then this map is where we are going off. MD, DC, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL. We will count theme parks and aquariums as part of this countdown. Unfortunately if we have not been to the zoo it can not be included on the countdown.

10) Florida Aquarium, Tampa, FL
Review to come soon. Visit in 2011.

9) National Aquarium, Baltimore, MD
Review here

Main Tank at the National Aquarium

8) National Zoo, Washington DC
Review Here

The biggest draw at the National Zoo, their Giant Panda Exhibit. Well other than the fact that it is free!

7) Sea World, Orlando, FL
Review coming soon. Trying to wait for a return visit to get an updated review before posting.

Shamu

6) Lowry Park Zoo, Tampa, FL
Review Here

Penguin Feeding at Lowry Park Zoo

5) Jacksonville Zoo, Jacksonville, FL
I've been to this zoo many times in the past, but Jenna and I just went together last week. Our review is coming very soon.

4) Maryland Zoo, Baltimore, MD
Review Here.

Arctic Fox @ Maryland Zoo

3) Busch Gardens, Tampa, FL
Review posted 3 days ago. Click on the FL tab for more on Busch Gardens Tampa.

This picture was not in the review. It is a Gorilla napping @ Busch Gardens Tampa.

2) Disney's Animal Kingdom, Kissimmee, FL
Review Here

Tree of Life @ Disney's Animal Kingdom

And the number one animal attraction in the southeast is.....
Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
Full Review Here

They had close views of my favorite the Rhino!

They also had a baby komodo dragon feeding when we went.

Zoo Atlanta is very deserving of #1. It was so close between it and Animal Kingdom though.

However, if this was talking about each park and not just the animal portion, I would go with Busch Gardens Tampa. I suggest you check out all of these places if you can!

Let us know if you think we missed anything or if we need to check another zoo out. Also if you have different rankings please share.

-Noland