The Clearwater Marine Aquarium is home to motion picture star, Winter the Dolphin. This is a unique facility that you and your family are sure to enjoy. You'll hear about Winter the tailless dolphin and other resident animal stories. Want to learn more about Winter? Watch a dolphin presentation and witness Winter's tail being put on, or enjoy a relaxing movie about CMA and Winter. Watch the staff care for dolphins, sea turtles, otters, stingrays, sharks, and more! A guaranteed fun filled afternoon for all ages. Get up-close and personal with one of our resident dolphins and stingrays in three different types of dolphin encounters, plus a dolphin photo opportunity and a stingray feeding opportunity - an experience you'll remember for a lifetime! This 30-minute program offers participants the opportunity to work side by side with one of CMA's trainers during training and feeding sessions with one of our resident Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins. You'll take a tour of the aquarium to see how animals, food preparation and rehabilitation areas. Then, you will spend fifteen minutes poolside, with a trainer learning about the anatomy, intelligence and beauty of these amazing animals. The Sea Life Safari Boat Tour is one of the most popular activities at CMA. The tour includes a 90-minute trip into our beautiful Intracoastal waters. Look for dolphins, sea birds and other marine life as our staff narrates the scenic ride to a shell island. You'll witness data collection in action as we perform our net pull and pass around sea critters before releasing them back to the bay. Kids and adults alike will love this one-of-a-kind, hands-on experience! Clearwater Marine Aquarium offers senior citizen discounts as well as discounts on packages (behind the scenes tours and eco safaris).
Wallaroo Station. This interactive family area is an Australian adventure with koalas, wallabies, cockatoos, bats, New Guinea singing dogs, kookaburras, and more! Kids can play in "The Billabong" water play area, pet the goats, ride on a horse and the Tasmanian Tiger family roller coaster, too. Free Flight Aviaries. This sub-tropic rainforest lets you see our fine-feathered friends in their free-flight habitat. You'll Red-legged Honeycreeper, the Purple Swamp hen, the Toucan and the Blue Bellied Roller. Enjoy the peaceful waterfalls and river that runs though this area and watch exotic and endangered birds gracefully soar overhead. Florida Manatee & Aquatic Center. Twin observation pools allow for year round, up-close viewing of manatees. The Zoo operates the only non-profit manatee hospital in the world and to date the hospital has cared for more than 290 manatees. Birds of Prey. Also known as raptors, the birds of prey make amazing debuts daily in the Spirits of the Sky show.
Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo also offers a hands-on and educational experience with our interactive exhibits and habitats, such as Giraffe Feeding. Stand on the feeding plateau of Safari Africa and get eye-to-eye and even feed the tallest animals in the world. Camel Safari. Children and adults can take a ride on the back of a Dromedary camel. This ride also offers unique views of Rhino Reserve as well as the cheetah exhibit. Discovery Center. Enter the Harrell Discovery Center and to see aquariums full of exotic and endangered frog and toad species, where you can learn about our amphibian friends! Wallaroo Station Interactive Experiences. Feed and pet the goats in the Goat Yard, walk with wallabies, feed bright orange koi fish or take ride on a pony or llama. Bushland Budgies. This unique interactive free-flight aviary allows guests to feed hundreds of small Australian parrots known as Budgies. Lorikeet Landing offers a thrilling experience for guests when birds land on you and if you purchase nectar, they will eat out of a small cup as you hold it. Stingray Bay. Feel slippery stingrays brush under your fingertips. Smooth and silky to the touch, the stingrays will come over to the side of their pool so you can touch and feed them.
The Henry B. Plant Museum is located in the south wing of Plant Hall on the University of Tampa's campus. Plant Hall was formerly known as the Tampa Bay Hotel. During the 1880s, Henry Bradley Plant was building an empire of railroads, steamships and hotels. He wanted that empire to have a palace so he built the Tampa Bay Hotel, a large room resort hotel opened in 1891 by Henry B. Plant near the terminus of his rail line. With its splendid Moorish architecture, opulent furnishings, and spectacular tropical gardens, Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel attracted a host of celebrated guests, from Teddy Roosevelt to Sarah Bernhardt to Babe Ruth. The hotel itself covers 6 acres (24,000 m2) and is a quarter-mile long. It was equipped with the first elevator ever installed in Florida. The elevator is still in use today, making it one of the oldest continually operational elevators in the nation. The 511 rooms, some of which were actually suites consisting of between three-to-seven rooms, were the first in Florida to have electric lights and telephones. Most rooms also included private bathrooms, complete with a full-size tub. The price for a room ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 a night at a time when the average hotel in Tampa charged $1.25 to $2.00.
The Florida Aquarium is one of the most visited Tampa Bay attractions in the area. It is located in downtown in the Channelside District next door to Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruise terminals. It is highly recommended that you visit this must-see attraction. The children will enjoy the new Explore-a-Shore water park area. By itself, it's worth the price of admission since they can play all day on the Pirate ship and in the streams of water that shoot up from the ground.
Don't forget to mark your calendars for these annual festivals: the Gasparilla Pirate Fest in January, The Florida State Fair in February, the Florida Strawberry Festival in March, the Ruskin Tomato & Heritage Festival in May, and the Ruskin Seafood Fest in November. Visit Tampa now and discover how historic Old Florida blends well with the modern, upscale style of some of the most beautiful, master-planned communities for families and retirees. Yes, climate, dining and shopping, cultural attractions, educational and business opportunities, and the beautiful beaches help make Tampa home to a wonderful lifestyle. Tampa is a lot more than beautiful sunsets! Make it your home, too.
Wallaroo Station. This interactive family area is an Australian adventure with koalas, wallabies, cockatoos, bats, New Guinea singing dogs, kookaburras, and more! Kids can play in "The Billabong" water play area, pet the goats, ride on a horse and the Tasmanian Tiger family roller coaster, too. Free Flight Aviaries. This sub-tropic rainforest lets you see our fine-feathered friends in their free-flight habitat. You'll Red-legged Honeycreeper, the Purple Swamp hen, the Toucan and the Blue Bellied Roller. Enjoy the peaceful waterfalls and river that runs though this area and watch exotic and endangered birds gracefully soar overhead. Florida Manatee & Aquatic Center. Twin observation pools allow for year round, up-close viewing of manatees. The Zoo operates the only non-profit manatee hospital in the world and to date the hospital has cared for more than 290 manatees. Birds of Prey. Also known as raptors, the birds of prey make amazing debuts daily in the Spirits of the Sky show.
Tampa's Lowry Park Zoo also offers a hands-on and educational experience with our interactive exhibits and habitats, such as Giraffe Feeding. Stand on the feeding plateau of Safari Africa and get eye-to-eye and even feed the tallest animals in the world. Camel Safari. Children and adults can take a ride on the back of a Dromedary camel. This ride also offers unique views of Rhino Reserve as well as the cheetah exhibit. Discovery Center. Enter the Harrell Discovery Center and to see aquariums full of exotic and endangered frog and toad species, where you can learn about our amphibian friends! Wallaroo Station Interactive Experiences. Feed and pet the goats in the Goat Yard, walk with wallabies, feed bright orange koi fish or take ride on a pony or llama. Bushland Budgies. This unique interactive free-flight aviary allows guests to feed hundreds of small Australian parrots known as Budgies. Lorikeet Landing offers a thrilling experience for guests when birds land on you and if you purchase nectar, they will eat out of a small cup as you hold it. Stingray Bay. Feel slippery stingrays brush under your fingertips. Smooth and silky to the touch, the stingrays will come over to the side of their pool so you can touch and feed them.
The Henry B. Plant Museum is located in the south wing of Plant Hall on the University of Tampa's campus. Plant Hall was formerly known as the Tampa Bay Hotel. During the 1880s, Henry Bradley Plant was building an empire of railroads, steamships and hotels. He wanted that empire to have a palace so he built the Tampa Bay Hotel, a large room resort hotel opened in 1891 by Henry B. Plant near the terminus of his rail line. With its splendid Moorish architecture, opulent furnishings, and spectacular tropical gardens, Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel attracted a host of celebrated guests, from Teddy Roosevelt to Sarah Bernhardt to Babe Ruth. The hotel itself covers 6 acres (24,000 m2) and is a quarter-mile long. It was equipped with the first elevator ever installed in Florida. The elevator is still in use today, making it one of the oldest continually operational elevators in the nation. The 511 rooms, some of which were actually suites consisting of between three-to-seven rooms, were the first in Florida to have electric lights and telephones. Most rooms also included private bathrooms, complete with a full-size tub. The price for a room ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 a night at a time when the average hotel in Tampa charged $1.25 to $2.00.
The Florida Aquarium is one of the most visited Tampa Bay attractions in the area. It is located in downtown in the Channelside District next door to Royal Caribbean and Carnival cruise terminals. It is highly recommended that you visit this must-see attraction. The children will enjoy the new Explore-a-Shore water park area. By itself, it's worth the price of admission since they can play all day on the Pirate ship and in the streams of water that shoot up from the ground.
Don't forget to mark your calendars for these annual festivals: the Gasparilla Pirate Fest in January, The Florida State Fair in February, the Florida Strawberry Festival in March, the Ruskin Tomato & Heritage Festival in May, and the Ruskin Seafood Fest in November. Visit Tampa now and discover how historic Old Florida blends well with the modern, upscale style of some of the most beautiful, master-planned communities for families and retirees. Yes, climate, dining and shopping, cultural attractions, educational and business opportunities, and the beautiful beaches help make Tampa home to a wonderful lifestyle. Tampa is a lot more than beautiful sunsets! Make it your home, too.
About the Author:
Want to participate in some of the these Tampa activities, I recommend you acquire some Tampa real estate. Check out a great builder like GL Homes for wonderful Florida retirement communities.
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