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Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Photo: Beyond My Ken / CC BY-SA 4.0

🎡 Attractions

Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Clearwater, FL · Tampa Bay

About

A working marine hospital on the Clearwater Beach waterfront, where rescued dolphins, sea turtles, manatees, and river otters recover in pools you can watch up close. It opened in 1972 inside a former water treatment plant, and its tailless dolphin Winter, who swam with a prosthetic tail, drew the world here through the Dolphin Tale films. The work is the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of injured sea life, so what you see is a real animal hospital rather than a show.

Highlights

Rescue, rehabilitation, and release marine hospitalResident dolphins, sea turtles, manatees, and river ottersHome of Winter the dolphin and the Dolphin Tale filmsWaterfront setting beside the Clearwater Memorial Causeway

Getting there

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Florida Attractions

For much of the world, Florida means the attractions. The theme parks that built Orlando, a working spaceport on the Atlantic coast, mermaids who have performed underwater since 1947, and a coral castle one man carved by hand. This is the big statewide guide to what people fly to Florida for, the giants and the roadside icons alike, from the Keys to the Panhandle.