Tampa Zoo or Florida Aquarium

[Pembo]

For my Tampa friends....We have a few hours between our arrival flight into Tampa and my mil's arrival flight. We were thinking of visiting either the Zoo or the Aquarium before meeting her at the airport.

Which one is easier to get to? Which one could we see in about 2 hours?

OR is there something else close to the airport we could do for a couple hours?

 

[bgirldeb]

They're both about the same distance from the airport- about 20 minutes or so. We LOVE the Lowry Park Zoo. The aquarium is nice, but a little overpriced IMO. If you do go to the aquarium, the Channelside area where it is located has a lot of nice restaurants and shops, etc.

 

[ckay87]

IMO, the best animal experience you can have in the Tampa area, or anywhere really is Big Cat Rescue http://www.bigcatrescue.org/ . It is a rescue organization for BIG cats...lions, tigers, bobcats, servals, leopards, etc etc. They have them all. They have genuinely rescued these animals from bad situations.

They give small group tours 2 times per day. This, of course, may be the downside for you if the times do not fall within your schedule. Also, they don't allow small children other than special Saturday morning tours.

But I plug it every chance I get. I visited the Lowry Zoo and this place within days of each other and the Rescue really surpassed any zoo experience I ever had. You get soooo close to the animals (they are in cages) and learn more than you can imagine about big cats.

Here is how close we got to the big tiger:

 

[1PrincessMomma1]

The Aquarium is doable in 2hrs. It's a nice indoor activity.