Clearwater Marine Aquarium

Last week, we took a trip to Tampa for a few days and from there, made a day trip to Clearwater to visit Hope and Winter from the Dolphin Tale movies.  Although we had our trip planned for a few months, a few nights before we left I discovered that we would be there at the same time that they were hosting a "Meet the Dolphin Tale Stars" event.  

When we arrived, the parking was overflowing and the aquarium staff was directing traffic to alternate parking.  Just a short walk and were were in line at the ticket booth. Once we received our tickets, we hopped on the Jolly Trolly and took a 10 minute ride over to the secondary location, Winter's Dolphin Tale Adventure in downtown Clearwater.

We walked through different scenes of the movie, along with props as we waited for the Q&A with the stars Nathan Gamble (Sawyer) and Austin Highsmith (Phoebe).  The actors were cute, they seemed to be genuinely happy to be there. We heard stories of how they have inspired children with disabilities, how they learned to interact with the animals, and what it was like to film both movies.

After the Q&A it was time to line up and meet the stars!  The line was very organized, we were allowed one photograph per group, and one signature item per person.  

Once we were done rubbing elbows with the stars, we headed back to the aquarium so that we could finally get to see the REAL stars of the movies, Winter and Hope.  

We spent about an hour and a half at the aquarium, watching the show, and just looking at all the animals.  Unfortunately, I lost all my photos and videos from that day, if I can find any decent ones on my kids phones, I'll make sure I update them.  If not, we'll have to make another trip out there to get some decent pictures ;)