Fun Things to Do in Florida With Family

Past Carrie McLaren

Is it whatever wonder that Florida is the Number One dream vacation spot for kids? After all, it's the dwelling house of Walt Disney World, Universal Orlando Resort, Busch Gardens and other thrilling theme parks. And Florida has 1,800 miles of coastline, translating to sandcastle-building, fishing, and family fun.

In the Sunshine State, your kids can meet Mickey Mouse, for sure. But they can also meet an astronaut at the Kennedy Space Center and a professional person baseball game player at a bound preparation game.

Meet an astronaut at Kennedy Infinite Centre.

- Carrie McLaren

Here, kids tin can swim with dolphins and manatees, come across real live alligators, and snorkel surrounded by colorful tropical fish. They tin can experience fun, hands-on exhibits at child-friendly museums, aquariums and zoos.

Here are some places that just shouldn't exist missed while in Florida.

Alluring Amusement Parks

Love drawing characters, exotic animals and killer whales. Scream-inducing, tummy-turning roller coasters, magical fairylands and realistic simulators. Fireworks parades and light shows. Stunning costumes and talented dancers and singers. This is the world of Florida theme parks -- sensory overload and excitement like nothing your kids take always experienced. Theme parks are a must practice in Florida.

The Orlando surface area is theme park central, home to the Walt Disney World Resort (including Magic Kingdom Park,  Epcot,  Disney'southward Hollywood Studios and Disney's Animal Kingdom);  Universal Orlando Resort (including Universal Studios Florida and Universal'due south Islands of Adventure); and SeaWorld Aquatica and Discovery Cove.

In nearby Wintertime Haven, LEGOLAND Florida is a family favorite, filled with rides for footling ones and even a waterpark.

Busch Gardens Tampa, about an hour away, offers thrills too as animal encounters.

Visit A Fort

Theme parks may seem like the obvious vacation choice when traveling with kids, merely you lot can expand your trip to include a variety of activities. Spend a day in one of Orlando's abundant theme parks, then travel merely 90 minutes away to celebrated St. Augustine. Castillo de San Marcos in downtown St. Augustine is impressive and well-known. Just two miles northward is Fort Mose Historical State Park, the first free community of ex-slaves. Africans who fled slavery in the British Carolinas were welcomed by the Spanish government to this fort in 1738.

Learn history in St. Augustine.

- Daron Dean for VISIT FLORIDA

A Launching Pad for Fun

Get swept upwards in the thrill of space exploration at the awe-inspiring Kennedy Infinite Centre Company Circuitous on the Space Declension. Hither, your family can larn about early space pioneers, see their personal memorabilia, and feel what it's like to walk on the moon. Besides, savor iii-D movies in ii giant IMAX® theaters, live shows and exhibits. A backside-the-scenes tour will bring yous by huge rockets too as launch and landing facilities. Encounter a fellow member of NASA's Astronaut Corps past signing up for the "Luncheon with an Astronaut" program. For an actress treat, make certain your visit coincides with a rocket launch - a truly out-of-this-world experience.

A Beach for Each

A visit to Florida just isn't complete without spending at to the lowest degree one twenty-four hour period at the beach. From powdered sugar-white sand and emerald water in Northwest Florida beaches to difficult-packed gilded grains and pounding surf on the Atlantic coast, a beach can be easily reached, no thing where you are in the land.

Toddlers dear wading and splashing in the warm h2o, or digging holes in the sand. Older kids swim, snorkel, play a game of beach volleyball, or surf (surf'south upward mainly from New Smyrna Beach to West Palm Beach to Venice Beach).

Beaches offering food, restrooms, and rental embankment toys, or chairs are particularly family-friendly. Check out Siesta Key, Clearwater Beach, Fort Myers and Fort WaltonEmbankment to name just a few.

For a unique special event, kids of all ages tin can feel the Mardi Gras festivities in Perdido Key. With a lighted boat parade, live music and the Cajun cook-off, the festivities bear on into the evening with a fireworks show over the water.

Lions, Etc.

Meet lions and tigers, plus leopards, elephants, zebras and more than, all living in natural habitats at Florida'due south zoos. The state is dwelling house to several, including ZooTampa at Lowry Park, ranked beginning in Child magazine's list of the country's "10 Best Zoos for Kids" in 2004 and likewise No. ane by Parents Magazine in 2009.Panthera leo Country Safari, merely outside West Palm Embankment, is home to the state'due south but drive-thru safari and is home to over 900 animals.

Mama and baby - Matata and Hakuna

- Lion Country Safari

Concoction Up!

Take your family out to the ballgame -- on a budget. Florida hosts 15 Major League Baseball teams during Jump Training. Bring your mitts and take hold of a game; your kids tin can see their favorite pros upwardly-close, and you won't go broke on tickets.

Football game Fanatics

Florida is the place to be for football fans in your family. Depending on the time of year, you can savor the Florida Blue Florida Archetype in Orlando. The game features two Historic Black College Universities based in the Sunshine State: Bethune Cookman College and Florida A&Thousand Academy. Loftier profile college basin games take place each yr throughout the state -- the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, the Citrus Bowl in Orlando, and the Orange Bowl in Miami are just a few of the almanac matchups.

If higher football is not your preference, Florida is likewise home to professional football teams such equally the Miami Dolphins, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Jacksonville Jaguars.

Undersea Exploration

Give your children an unforgettable experience -- snorkel or scuba dive the crystal-clear warm waters of the Florida Keys to view the only living coral reef in the continental U.S. Head to John Pennekamp Coral Reef Country Park and the side by side Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, where kids can see brain corals and sea fans upward-close, and swim with rays turtles and tropical fish. While breathing underwater is part of the fun for many children, younger tykes might rather feel the reef via a glass-bottom boat tour.

H2o Parks

Florida is blessed with more than its fair share of water parks -- cool wonderlands that provide a refreshing complement to traditional theme parks. From daunting, nearly vertical waterslides to "rivers" with currents assuasive you to float lazily forth in a tube, Florida's water parks offer rides for every family unit member from teen daredevil and toddler. Bank check out Take a chance Island in Tampa. Walt Disney World Resort has two water parks: Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach, which features the world'south tallest fastest waterslide.

Chill out at Disney's Blizzard Embankment.

- Walt Disney World Resort

Fauna Encounters

If your child is the creature-loving blazon, up-close, hands-on encounters will provide the thrill of a lifetime.

At Discovery Cove in Orlando, your family can swim and play with a bottlenose dolphin, snorkel amongst rays and tropical fish, and feed tropical birds. Your kids will be kissed and hugged by dolphins and sea lions respectively at Theater of the Sea in Islamorada. And for swimming with wild, gentle manatees, head to Crystal River and Homosassa Springs.

You can participate in a variety of animal encounters, including dolphin care experiences and photo opportunities with resident animals to help you lot remember your day at Clearwater Marine Aquarium.

The ZOO in Gulf Breeze is a 50-acre preserve where piddling ones won't want to miss the petting zoo – dwelling to goats, sheep, cows, pigs and rabbits. Be sure to accept a peek at the hatchlings in the incubator area and see the zoo'southward kitchen, offering an within look at the work involved in feeding more than 700 animals.

For Kids Only

In that location aren't many places in this globe made especially for kids. Just Florida is one large exception. At Ronnie Van Zant Park southward of Jacksonville, for instance, y'all tin can't fish unless y'all're accompanied by someone younger than 16 years old.

Or bank check out one of the many children's museums located throughout the state. Jacksonville's Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens interactive kids' section, called Art Connections, allows fiddling ones to touch/feel and make their own art. Pensacola's Children's Discovery Museum is a historical museum featuring a trading post, a Native American village, and displays from the city's maritime industry. Also, the Florida Aquarium in Tampa offers an outdoor aquatic exhibit for kids called Explore-A-Shore. Here, kids tin can climb on bounding main creature models, board a pirate ship, slide down a waterslide and play in water jet sprays.

Gawking at Gators

Are your children pestering you about seeing alligators on your trip to Florida? One of the all-time ways to view these toothy reptiles is aboard an airboat, a flat-bottomed propeller craft known to speed through mangrove tunnels in Everglades National Parkand in waterways and swamps throughout Florida. Airboats come up in different sizes, offer seating for two to 18 passengers. The propellers are loud, but drivers give out ear muffler,s and most kids dear the ride, which can include speeds of up to 45 miles per hr. In central Florida, Boggy Creek Airboats takes riders up-close along the shores of E Lake Tohopekaliga.

Some other option for true reptile-philes is Gatorland in Orlando, domicile to the easily-on "trainer for a day" program.

Geology Lessons

Visit north and central Florida's country parks and show the kids some of the coolest geological features in the Sunshine State.

In Chipley, walk the nature trails and bank check out the 67-foot waterfall at the aptly-named Falling Waters State Park. At Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna, view the extraordinary formations on your cavern tour and then cool off in the swimming hole.

At Devil'southward Millhopper Geological Country Park in Gainesville, see the huge 120-foot-deep sinkhole that was formed when a cavern'south roof collapsed. Explore the sinkhole from boardwalks or from a nature trail around the rim.

The celebrated Daytona Beach Bandshell hosts a popular summer concert series every bit well as many sporting events.

Reunions

In today'south earth, family members are often scattered all beyond the earth. Then why non set a date to reconnect in a fun and relaxed locale for a reunion? And what better locale is there than Florida, where there's sunshine, warm atmospheric condition and activities for kids and teens besides every bit for their parents and grandparents?

Many Florida resorts specialize in family unit reunions, offering blocks of rooms at a disbelieve as well equally activities ranging from poolside get-togethers and games of water polo to dinners in formal dining rooms.

The Walt Disney World Resort offers "magical gatherings"- vacations featuring special experiences for groups - for those staying at a Disney resort. In addition, vacation rental companies offer furnished and completely stocked houses and cozy cottages. Families can easily rent one large residence or several homes in the same neighborhood. No affair where you go in Florida, a memorable family reunion is guaranteed.

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Source: https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/attractions-must-see-zoos-beaches-parks-families/

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