Adventure Awaits: A Day of Wonders at SeaLife Aquarium and Madame Tussauds in Orlando, FL. Two great places to visit!

We were hit with some chilly, wet weather this week. While we are super happy to not have been hit with the snow that even Northern Florida got, we were stuck inside for several days. And our fireplace ran for several days and nights straight. Hard to complain when it is now 75 and sunny a few days later! But it made us want to get out of the RV and explore.

SeaLife Aquarium

One of the destinations we had on our list to visit in this area was the SeaLife Aquarium in Orlando. We had such a great time visiting Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Aquarium in Myrtle Beach (see a preview of that aquarium here), that we were all up for another aquarium visit.

The GPS took us to the entrance of Icon Park which has a bunch of shops and restaurants as well as the aquarium. It was right in front of the giant Ferris wheel, that we had passed many times on the interstate. We had to U-turn up the street to get back to the parking garage, but we were there on a rainy weekday, so there wasn’t much traffic. Also note, the parking garage right there charged if you were parking on either of the first two floors. Anything higher than that was free parking (and they had elevators) so it really was no big deal to save the money!

The morning we decided to go, we had purchased our admission tickets online so that we could get in faster and smoother when we got there. There was a deal on the site to add $10 per ticket and you would get into Madame Tussauds, which was in the same building as well. We had heard about wax museums, but had never been to one, so decided to try that too. More on that later.

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As mentioned, it was a cold, rainy weekday when we went, so there were no lines and we were able to get into the aquarium quickly and move around at our own pace.

This aquarium has what you’d expect from an aquarium. There were many different varieties of fish, turtles, seahorses, etc. One of our favorite things is to see how colorful everything is in an aquarium, from the bright blue water to the colored fish and coral reef.

One complaint I would have for this particular aquarium is that each tank was labeled like most of the ones that we had been to before. Usually, tanks have pictures and descriptions of the fish you will see in that tank. This one wasn’t like that. There were some descriptions of fish along the walls, but you had to go looking for them. We found ourselves using Google’s features to search for what the fish were that we were seeing. That is just something we would have preferred as a feature.

To follow up on the creatures that the girls each saw in the aquarium, they each picked one to research for their homeschooling the next day. They learned about their habitats, size, ages, lifespan, etc. They each wrote very informative essays and then used their creativity and put together little presentations on the species they chose. Here is Emma’s:

Here is Aliyah’s:

I’d say they both learned quite a bit from this trip on fish, many they hadn’t seen before. A trip to the aquarium is always worth it as there is always more to learn and observe.

Madame Tussauds

Across the lobby from Sea Life was Madame Tussauds. While Aliyah was skeptical about going in, she was pleasantly surprised once we got in and saw all the real-life statues. Most of whom she recognized, whether they were music or movie stars, or historical figures. We will definitely be going to more of these!

While Jesse was a fan of US history and sports figures, the girls preferred the pop music stars and DC section. They are right that there is something for everyone!

In seeing the E.T. bike, we realized some of the movie classics the girls haven’t seen. E.T. will be next on this list, but we did make them watch Mrs. Doubtfire this week after it came up in a trivia game and they were clueless about what it was. An important part of homeschooling is knowing these movies their parents grew up with, right?

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My favorite, of course, was the HUGE Shrek. I mean, I had to hug him!

When you tell someone you are going to Orlando, FL the first thing they say is “Are you going to Disney?” Well let us be the first to tell you, there are many other things to see and do in Orlando. Find yourself planning a trip there, definitely consider SeaLife Aquarium and Madame Tussauds. You’ll have a great time and learn something along the way too!