During our recent vacation to Tampa, Florida, I wanted to explore some of the more popular attractions in the area. You might have seen my post on things to do around Tampa from a couple of weeks ago, and those were all super fun. But I noticed that many highly advertised activities were part of the Tampa CityPASS.
I’ve heard of these passes in other cities but never felt like dishing out the money to try one. However, it just made sense in this case because I wanted to visit Busch Gardens Tampa. All I had to do was go to Busch Gardens and one more CityPASS attraction, and it would already have paid for itself.
If you’re not the kind of person who wants to do many activities on your vacation, this may not be the right choice for you. But my goal today is to break everything down to see if it’s a wise investment for your next trip to Tampa!
What does the Tampa CityPASS include?
The Tampa CityPASS includes admission to five of the area’s top attractions, emphasizing animal-centric activities.
- Busch Gardens Tampa
- Clearwater Marine Aquarium
- The Florida Aquarium
- ZooTampa at Lowry Park
- The Tropics Boat Tours Dolphin Cruise OR Museum of Science and Industry.
All you have to do is show your CityPASS on your phone, and you’ll be admitted to any of these attractions once. The Tropics Boat Tours require an advanced reservation, which I highly recommend making a couple of days before. But more on that later.
Watch Our YouTube Video Summary of the CityPASS
What’s the Cost Breakdown of the Tampa CityPASS?
Each Tampa CityPASS costs $129 per adult and $114 per child. That’s about 53% off what you’d pay to walk up to each of these attractions individually. And as I mentioned before, the pass very quickly pays for itself.
Here’s what you’d pay per adult to go to these on your own:
- Busch Gardens: $126.84
- Clearwater Marine Aquarium: $35.95
- The Florida Aquarium: $36
- ZooTampa at Lowry Park: $44.95
- The Tropics Boat Tour: $31
- Museum of Science and Industry: $12.95
Even with Busch Gardens Tampa running a 25% off sale, it still made sense for us to buy the CityPASS. So if that is on your list, too, I’d highly recommend you get the pass and enjoy everything else being pretty much free!
But if, for example, you only want to go to ZooTampa, the Florida Aquarium, and the Museum of Science and Industry, it doesn’t make sense to buy the CityPASS because the gate prices total less than $95 per adult.
Things to Keep in Mind Before Buying a Tampa CityPass
All in all, we found the passes to be incredibly flexible and easy to use. We were in Tampa for about a week, giving us time to do everything…but barely. If you’re hoping for a lot of beach time, it may get hectic trying to fit all of these attractions in.
For example, the Tropics Boat Tour and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium are not in Tampa. They’re about 45 minutes away in Clearwater, Florida. However, if you bundle up visits to both attractions with a morning at the beautiful Clearwater beach, you can easily make it happen. (We did beach, lunch, aquarium, dinner, and sunset boat tour.)
Because each of these activities takes at least 2 hours (and Busch Gardens is an all-day thing), it can be tiring to do more than one in a day, especially if you’re bringing kids along. Be sure to plan plenty of time to get through each, so you’re not rushing to finish at closing time.
You do have 9 days from the first scan to do everything on the pass, and they’re good to use within a year of the purchase date. So if you have several days to spread out the activities, you should be able to see everything you want.
Another plus is that each pass holder can do whichever activities they want, regardless of the rest of the group.
So if half of your group wants to visit Busch Gardens, and the other half wants to go to the zoo and aquarium at that same time, that’s not an issue. Each person will receive their own pass to scan at each attraction, so you’re free to split up.
A final consideration is whether you’ll get tired of animal-centric activities. The pass includes two zoos (Busch Gardens is half zoo) and two aquariums (although very different kinds). So if that’s too much for you, you probably won’t enjoy the pass.
What are the best activities on the Tampa CityPASS?
The activities you choose to do are up to you! But my personal favorites were Busch Gardens and the Clearwater Marine Aquarium. However, I do want to give a brief overview of each activity so you know what to expect. On more than one occasion, our visits weren’t quite what we thought they would be, and I want to cut out any surprise or disappointment on your end.
Busch Gardens Tampa
Busch Gardens Tampa is a sprawling hybrid of an amusement park crossed with a zoo. There is so much to see and do here that you’ll definitely want to give it a full day.
The park has an over-arching African theme that ties into the many animal exhibits stationed throughout the park. There are 14 different rides, plus a train that takes you right through the massive safari section!
As you walk from ride to ride, you’ll need to make frequent detours to see all the incredible animals, from gorillas and giraffes to elephants, hippos, cheetahs, penguins, and kangaroos.
However, I couldn’t help but wonder… do roller coasters and safari animals mix? If you, like me, were concerned about the animal’s welfare and purpose for being here, I have good news.
Despite being a mix of zoo and amusement park, Busch Gardens Tampa has been named one of the best zoos in the country, and it’s earned the Humane Certified™ seal from American Humane, the world’s largest certifier of animal welfare. They’re also highly involved in animal conservation of endangered species worldwide.
Clearwater Marine Aquarium
The Clearwater Marine Aquarium isn’t your typical aquarium. It’s actually a rescue and rehab station for marine life! It gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what goes into rescuing and rehabilitating injured creatures along the Florida coast.
You can watch as trainers work with dolphins on enrichment exercises or tour the triage center to see where they care for the animals. You can also see animals in all stages of rehabilitation, which is incredibly eye-opening.
The only animals that stay here permanently are ones that could not survive in the wild. For example, turtles whose shells are so damaged that they can’t stay submerged, dolphins with tail injuries, or babies who lost their mothers too early to learn basic survival skills.
This is also where the popular Dolphin Tale movie was filmed, because the dolphin, Winter, was a real dolphin that the Clearwater Marine Aquarium rescued and rehabbed. She recently passed away, but you can see plenty of information about her still, along with all the prosthetic tails that were created to help her swim.
For more information, be sure to check out my full post on the Clearwater Marine Aquarium.
The Florida Aquarium
The Florida Aquarium is more of your typical aquarium experience, but it has some fun twists.
As most state aquariums do, it focuses on creatures that live in the waters of that state. Since Florida is so diverse, this ranges from ibises to otters to sharks to alligators!
One of the largest rooms has birds roaming freely between the sidewalks and their watery habitats, which I thought was very interesting.
There are also tanks of all shapes and sizes where you can see tiny jellyfish or giant barracuda. These are all colorful and well-lit, and several areas were very immersive, with barnacles over your head or ship-like structures holding the fish.
Read more about what makes it so unique in this post!
ZooTampa at Lowry Park
ZooTampa is a large and (in my opinion) beautiful zoo with a diverse range of animals in its care. They are highly involved in animal conservation around the world, and they’re also “a leader in the rescue, rehabilitation, and release of Florida species.”
While I loved seeing the elephants, African painted dogs, and monkeys, I particularly enjoyed their Florida section, where you could see the animals in rehab.
They have several Florida panthers, bears, manatees, etc. that are in active rehab or were unable to return to the wild after they were healed.
ZooTampa also has some creatures that I don’t usually see, such as greater one-horned rhinos, African penguins, pygmy hippos, and koalas.
The zoo also has some fun extra activities, like a safari, water ride, kids’ coaster, and more!
The Tropics Boat Tours Dolphin Cruise
The final part of your pass lets you choose between a dolphin cruise or the Museum of Science and Industry. We went on the sunset cruise via The Tropics, which honestly started pretty rough.
It’s a good thing we’d made reservations because the boat was completely full. Unfortunately, they must have allowed a few extra people on board because our group struggled to find any seats on either of the two decks. Additionally, the benches were just wood planks, and everyone seemed intent on reaching the onboard bar and getting drunk.
But after we got further from shore, things picked up pretty quickly. We had gorgeous views of the bay and the sunset from the front and back of the boat. And we saw more than one pod of dolphins as the sun was setting.
As we cruised around the harbor and ocean, the captain kept us updated with interesting facts about our location, including celebrity houses.
The daytime dolphin cruise may be better, but this was my honest experience with the sunset cruise. Overall, worth it, but it was a rocky start.
Museum of Science and Industry
The final place you can visit with the Tampa CityPASS is the Museum of Science and Industry. Since we chose the cruise, we did not get to see this firsthand, but it sounds like an interesting place.
It calls itself a “scientific playground,” thanks to more than 100 hands-on activities guests can try. There’s also a planetarium, ropes course, and a dino lab.
It seems to be heavily geared toward kids, but it does market itself as a destination for guests of all ages. If you like science, this seems like the place to be!
Closing Thoughts
Overall, we were pleased with our purchase of the Tampa CityPASS. If I had known how long each activity would take, I would have planned a bit better, but we still enjoyed it.
If you’re going to be in Tampa for more than three days, I’d say it’s probably worth a shot. And again, if Busch Gardens Tampa and any other thing are on your bucket list, this pass is an excellent investment.
I will say that some of the activities got a bit repetitive, especially since we had to cram them into a short period. For example, Busch Gardens has safari animals, ZooTampa has all sorts of animals plus an aquarium, the Florida Aquarium has more marine animals, etc. So it was heavy on the animal side.
But on the other hand, I enjoyed learning about the different conservation efforts at each location, so there’s that, too.
I hope this guide helps you make the wise decision about buying the pass for your next Tampa adventure!
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