Tarpon Springs Aquarium and Animal Sanctuary — Attraction in Tarpon Springs

Where to begin? We visit Tarpon Springs every time we visit Florida from the UK, usually twice a year back when Denise worked at the aquarium. Travelling extensively worldwide, we have a big interest in visiting zoos and aquariums. Having previously had a private collection of reptiles for 40 years and associated zoo vet access, I feel qualified enough to give an educated opinion of our visit. We have visited the previous site for several years and returned year on year. Although the exhibits were shoehorned into a very compact space it appeared to work well, apart from specimens having outgrown their enclosures to the point of hardly being able to move such as the large snapping turtle, we could at least see light at the end of that tunnel with a scheduled move to new location. Every visit we saw the 'donations' target chart growing higher and higher for the anticipated move to larger premises.

Two of the big pythons had severe eye problems, one was blind, we were told by staff the reticulated python was a rescue and had an issue with the former owner causing the blindness, but the real reason was that both pythons were riddled with mites all clustered around the eye sockets. These mites unless addressed literally eat their way into the back of the eyes blinding the snake over time. It's a very horrible and slow process, however It's a very simple issue to treat, either one vet injection and the mites die and fall off, or self remedy, flood the eye sockets with olive oil several times and this suffocates the mites.

The second big issue was the small ponds in the snake enclosures were full of red ear terrapins. These fowl the drinking water for the snakes riddled with nasty bugs inc salmonella. The vivariums were elongated and tall with cut out shelves midway and completely unsuited for large snakes because of the tiny footprint space and poor overall design.

We could not therefore believe that at the new location these inadequate enclosures have all been replicated in concrete as if no lessons have been learned at all. Even though acres of space is available. Drinking water full of terrapins again. This shows me that there is a basic misunderstanding of the animal's requirements and not the 'space issue' that was previously claimed.

Saying "were just a small family business", "these are rescue animals" is NOT an adequate excuse. Similarly the construction underway at the time of our visit appears to have been carried out by designers and builders of concrete garages, or coal bunkers, as every single enclosure has zero design or aesthetic qualities and all look like small prison cells. Who on earth thought this looks good?

We felt completely and utterly ripped off $72.98 for 2 people plus 20 tickets , 3 of which bought us a tiny plastic tub of baby alligator food, literally a piece of hot dog smaller that ONE M&M candy and then cut into several pieces. Feeding them lasted less than a minute.

The walk through area with various monitor lizards and Iguanas in is another disaster, as the design is again completely bad. Rather than something new that has been built it's the same concrete garage design syndrome built by someone with zero knowledge of reptiles. Monitors are primarily solitary animals and hate being housed together, creating hostility , animals hiding in opposite various corners.

I cannot believe if the old aquarium location donations chart was correct and not fake ,that anywhere near that amount raised has been spent here.

The entire aquarium experience was done in an hour, and we had done everything there was to do. As a comparison we got 20 x 6" long fish to feed the baby gators at Gatorland, which we broke up into small pieces. Entrance cost was similar admission price and yet the attractions lasted all day.

Unfortunately we won't be coming to Tarpon Springs Aquarium again which is sad for us, there is a big lesson to learn and that is the perception of good value for money, especially when you have a small family business.

Our perception is that we were ripped off, and that...

This was our family's third visit to the Tarpon Aquarium. You can expect to be there for about 2 hours. This is a small family run operation by local animal lovers and a rescue facility. They offer a lot of hands-on, close-up experiences with local wildlife. It's a compact place and good for a partial day experience with kids.

Here are some logistical tips! Sometimes, they offer coupons or groupons for a small discount on the entry fee. Bring cash for food to purchase for the animal feedings, and there is cute stuff in the gift shop, so you want to be prepared! There was a new snack vendor for the humans on-site now in addition to the basic vending machine type snacks available in the gift shop/check-in building. No outside food stuff allowed. There is a single restroom and an additional sink to wash your hands after the touch tank. The parking lot is full sun and full of dust, bring wipes, and I like to take the kids shoes off cause yeah...it's dusty.

To make the most of your time be sure to catch their few shows. Last time it was a reptile show, alligator feeding, and a scuba show. The first 2 are generally hands on as the owners let you touch baby gators, turtles and snakes. They hold the kids attention well. The scuba show is not as captivating for younger kids but is still interesting for the adults. Improvements have been made throughout the Aquarium to add more shade. Please consider to add some more fans too!

There are a good amount of animals packed into this facility. There are many reptiles including lizards and monitors, gators and a crocodile, snacks, turtles, and tortoises. There are touch tanks with fish, urchins, turtles, sharks, rays and other critters. Feeding tanks for turtles, rays and sharks. There are 2 larger tanks housing local fish to see up close including a Goliath grouper, Tarpon, and Bonnet head shark. Newer is a petting area with bunnies, pigs,...

Visited here with my son and we had a wonderful time! It's really more like a little zoo/animal sanctuary than a traditional aquarium in that they don't have lots of glass sided aquarium tanks like big aquariums do. However, it is much more "hands on" than traditional aquariums. They have multiple touch tanks with horseshoe crabs, little sharks, anemones, and rays. They allow you to feed the rays. Since the rays are used to being fed they will come up to the side of the tank for you to pet them and feed them. It's adorable. You can also feed turtles/tortoises, crocodiles (safely with a fishing rod like tool thru a teeny tiny slot in the enclosure) and fish and sharks. The fish are really fun to feed as they will zoom across the gigantic pool-like tank to catch the food when you throw it. They have multiple shows daily including reptile encounters (they let you pet a baby crocodile, a lizard, a tortoise and a snake and you can opt to have your picture taken with baby crocodile and/or snake too.), crocodile feedings and others. We watched reptile encounters with Paige and she was soooo great! She was very engaging/animated and so knowledgeable about all the animals! Tori was helping handle the reptiles and she was really great, too! You can really tell that the workers enjoy their work and the animals seem well cared for. In addition to the above mentioned, we also saw more lizards of all kinds, multiple types of snakes (including some gigantic Burmese pythons and albino Burmese pythons), tons of turtles/tortoises, a couple frogs and even some ducks and I think a rooster? It was a really nice afternoon and I would recommend to anyone looking for something a little bit off the...