Punta Culebra Nature Center — Attraction in Ancón

Complete waste of time. We took a taxi there from Cangrejo only to be told it was closing from 11-1 for some reason. We should’ve checked the hours, but still frustrating with a baby in the heat. We went to a nearby restaurant to kill 1.5 hours and then paid $20 to touch a star fish.

The entire thing takes about 10 minutes to walk, and includes a few tanks with a couple fish, 1 sting ray, some star fish and sea urchins. There were 3 buildings with “exhibits”, one which was closed. The first one said the they had and amphibian exhibit starting in 15 minutes so we walked around and when we came back, they wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t have tickets. We’d just paid admission, did we really need a ticket? Anyway, we went to the next building and got tickets to their demonstration which was “great for kids” and starting in 30 min. After melting in the heat for half an hour, we returned only to realize the demonstration was not at all suitable for our 11 month old, so we left. We were heading toward the exit and one of the employees kindly let us into the amphibian exhibit (sans ticket, imagine!) to take a peek at the frogs.

A long, hot day which would’ve been better...

Visited here with my grandchildren ages 8, 3 & 1. They had a good time with the hands-on exhibits such as specimen microscope viewings. If the guides maybe talked them through what they were looking at such as with the starfish tank pool, it would be better as they cannot read the information about the animals written on the signs, I read some signs to them as they were asking questions. The frog & fish displays were so informative if you could read otherwise they were just pretty displays. I believed since this was under the prestige of the Smithsonian name, it would be amazing. However, the facilities were underwhelming. I expected more, larger up to date displays. The aquarium fish tanks were the size that a homeowner could have, again beautiful but I expected more. We did see a sloth, stingray, starfish, sharks & turtles. It took 1.5 hrs to get through the whole place, they were wanting more! Our plan was to visit the Biomuseum as well but it was closed because we got distracted at the playground and ate at the many shops and carnival rides in the same area. Again they enjoyed it but, it's not a long activity. Overall a good trip just...

I found it disappointing.

One star deducted because visitors were kept waiting outside the main gate for up to 45 minutes. No explanation, just " momento, momento".

One star deducted because some exhibits were not maintained or not in use. The fish tanks outside were full of algae. Doesn't take much to clean them.

One star deducted because of lack of interesting information about the exhibits.

Anyway, you get to see a beach from a distance, try to go on it and the guard shouts. Lot of rubbish at the high water mark.

Then there are some frogs to be found in some tanks, which are difficult to find Next door there are pickled frogs and a bunch of bones, which are easier to find. In both small display rooms you have to wait, as visitors are only allowed to enter in batches.

Further up there are some fish tanks with a few fish and some coral.

Inexplicably the look-out platform is closed.

I also saw one sloth up a tree, and a handful of racoons. Which you should not feed, according to several signs.

In hindsight I would have preferred to spend the...