Our Trip to the FL Aquarium

September is Swaptember and for us MOSI members it means we can go to the Florida Aquarium and The Lowry Park Zoo for free. So, we decided to go to the Florida Aquarium yesterday. It was a rainy day so it was great that everything is pretty much indoors.

I was bummed when my friend told me that the Explore A Shore area was closed for maintenance for the rest of this month. Since it was raining yesterday it was no big deal but if we go again later this month we won't get to enjoy that area. Oh well!

We had a great time looking at all the amazing and different creatures of the water. My favorite was the Coral Reef area. I remember seeing the sea dragon in this area years back when I first visited the aquarium. They are so fascinating. I was trying to take a picture when the batteries in my camera died. I was so bummed. I'll have to make sure I have fresh batteries in my camera the next time I go which I hope to do before September ends. Click here to see a picture and for more info on Leafy Sea Dragons. I also enjoyed looking at the Posion Dart Frogs in the Aquariumania! exhibit. I love the colors on these frogs! It was interesting to read that these frogs get less poisonous when they are in captivity. We didn't get to see the Penguin Promenade so I'll have to make sure we do the next time we go. Here's a photo of a seahorse I was able to snap before the batteries died.

We ended our fun day out with a very infuriating experience at the parking garage we parked in. I thought it would be cheaper to park in the parking garage across from the aquarium instead of paying $10 to park in the aquarium parking lot. It was only $6 for the few hours we spent at the aquarium (DD was cranky so we kinda breezed through the aquarium). We paid by inserting the plastic chip we received when entering the garage into the payment machine and got the receipt and the chip back to put in the machine at the exit gate. Well, we somehow lost the chip walking to are car as hubby was searching his pockets for the car keys. We tell the parking garage employee that we lost our chip. She tells us we'll need to pay $20 to get out. What??!! We tell her we have the receipt showing we just paid. It didn't matter. We had to pay $20 to exit. I was livid. What kind of policy is this?? It's obviously not a customer friendly one. We had proof we just paid for the time we parked there so why is the receipt not good enough to let us exit?

Apparently, it's rather easy to loose this plastic chip that grants one access to exit the garage without parting with any more of one's hard earned money. There were 2 other people we saw in the same situation and one couple was not giving in to having to pay the outrageous fee for having lost their chip. I don't know what the outcome was because we went ahead and paid and left. We were given a form to fill out to request a possible refund. I really hope we will be granted the refund.

So, this is a warning to all of you that visit Channelside. Either park elsewhere or hold onto that little plastic chip for dear life if you don't want to waste $20!