Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium — Attraction in Fort Myers

The experience I just had at the calusa nature center, was down right traumatizing, to say the least. I am a homeschooling single mother who decided to take her daughter for a day of learning at the center. Due to medical conditions, we are both exempt from wearing masks, which was said to be respected in their policy. Upon arriving I expressed our situation to the woman at the front desk. She immediately began pressing me on political views, and laughing manically when I told her 'I believe everything will soon be okay in the world', giving out the notion that I was insane for believing so, in front of my 6 year old daughter..she proceeded to insinuate that she didn't believe I 'sounded like I have asthma', which is immensely unprofessional + completely illegal when it comes to medical rights in this country. When I told her I felt uncomfortable with her actions + that we were just going to leave, but that I first wanted her name to carry out legal measures, she immediately starting manically laughing + screaming that she was now afraid of me! entirely flipping the script..she proceeded to frantically jump up + down, grabbing her neck and face like a lunatic, screaming to the other side of the building that she is scared of me and that I am a pyscho. To the extreme point where her employees had to calm her down and pull her aside. This experience was terrifying to not only myself, but more importantly my impressionable 6 year old daughter who was so excited to spend a day at the center learning about Nature. To bring up political views + insinuate that I was lying about medical conditions is something that should be taking extremely seriously by any establishment. As a being of that nature has no buisness handling visitors during this extremely trying time in the world, where with diversity, some people truly have underlying health issues, it is down right sinister to bully them out of an experience. This woman had blond long curly hair, and I belive her name is susan...though I'm not sure as they unprofessionally wouldn't disclose her information, it is vital for mothers like me to be informed of her atrocious pyschotic episode, to prevent this awful experience to ever repeat to innocent beings who are merely trying to enjoy their day. Through the entire episode I remained cool calm + collected, although internally terrifed, as it was highly apparent she is suffering with extreme psychosis. Be warned, this establishment does not value your medical rights + are liable to bully you out of pressure + ridicule. My 6 year old child left with tears in her eyes, as all she wanted to do was learn about animals for her day, in turn the lesson ended up being that, unfortunately, some humans too, have tendencies to act like...

For summer camp - my daughter found them to be very rude or "mean". She was extremely upset when I picked her up from the one day she did the camp. She couldn't go the rest of that week due to an illness and they refunded us which was nice but I have to say I was really hurt by how she felt after the first day because we were both excited about trying the new camp and thought it'd be great. Children have feelings too and deserve mutual respect. Writing this review so they can work on that and realize that some kids are looking forward to these camps and its a real bummer when the adults who monitor them aren't kid friendly or whatever the reason is for not trying to give these kids the best time. This camp is NOT cheap... I really thought it would be different.

Updated to reply:

I’m not sure why the center is confused by my negative review - not all reviews will be positive ones. I’m sure that once you work on improving your program you will get many great reviews after mine. My daughter was 1) sick and I gave you a doctor note so you know she was sick - she had impetigo which can be contagious so no she couldn’t go back to camp 2) she had a very bad day at the one day at camp 3) she was sad she couldn’t go back because I had a long conversation with her about how not all people are going to be nice and she wanted to give it another try. 4) I hope you’re concerned for my daughter too not just your bad Google review. The kind of attitude you had in your email and your concerning reply to my Google review showing lack of empathy for my daughters illness or bad time is the kind of attitude my daughter explained your staff has. I hope you guys do better for future kids. Just work on remembering that kids look forward to camp and it means more than just giving them...

We had to kill an hour and change while waiting to pick up a buddy from the airport - so we decided to take a quick stop at the Calusa Nature Center. We're big animal people so we had seen they had some exhibits on the premises - so we took a shot in the dark. Previously, I had no idea that this place existed - but now I'm happy I found it does.

The animal welfare here, which I always try to stress at all the places I visit, is up to par and even exceeds it in some degrees. Particularly all of their outdoor exhibits and aviaries. They are currently as of my last visit, rehabilitating several birds of prey, including Barred Owls, Bald Eagles, Black Vultures and more. Beyond that, they have several habitats and terrariums for local species such as snakes, soft-shelled turtles, and even invasive species like the Green Iguana. All of these are fairly well kept and each exhibit has a lot of education to pair with each species about it's role in the Florida Ecosystem, whether they're native or invasive, and how we can do our best to protect our local species here all throughout.

That's only half of the story though - because the outdoor trails have a ton to explore. While it was a particularly hot day for this New England boy, it was an enjoyable walk. Not too many species were out through we went later in the afternoon - tons of butterflies as well as some Vultures flying overhead, and a Red-Bellied Woodpecker nesting in a palm tree.

Overall this place was pretty great, I look forward to coming back again. I definitely see the appeal moreso for families with small children, but for a place with some good clean walking trails, opportunities for seeking out birds and butterflies, and more, this was a pretty...