A travel site offered a local deal for the Sunken Gardens of a discounted annual membership for the family. Not much more expensive than the cost of individuals tickets for our family of three to visit once, we went for the deal.
An added benefit was that the voucher could be redeemed up to 6 months after the online purchase date and the membership itself would be good for a year from the date of redemption, not the online purchase date. This gave us a sense of comfort, since the Gardens are in St. Petersburg, and we were not entirely sure how soon we would make a visit that way that would include the Gardens. We pushed the benefit to limit, redeeming our voucher just days before its expiration.
The day of our redemption was rainy to the point that the Gardens were closed for the inclement weather! Fortunately, the desk was still manned so that we could redeem our voucher and establish our membership. Now we have a membership, but still have never visited the Gardens, which we have only ever heard are an amazing must see.
Not to disappoint our son, however, we needed something to do despite the weather and there where we were. The Great Explorations Children's Museum of St. Petersburg shares a building and entrance with the Gardens. Hank loved the museum. He even got to visit the "beach" and play in sand with beach toys on the rainy day. (Our original plan had been to visit the Gardens and St. Pete beach.)
I recommend Great Explorations as a place a preschooler with thoroughly enjoy, but the admission price is high. Definitely consider a membership if it is a place you will be able to visit often and/or you can use the reciprocal membership frequently.
Don't Try This At Home
"Pssss bab click click click. The car is riding the helicopter. BOOM! It crashes onto the car below..."
I looked up from reading to see my son bang one toy car from an aerial position down onto another on the ottoman. This was the moment I realized perhaps he is too young to be watching the Discovery Channel show Mythbusters with us. At least, not without my previewing and selecting which episodes might be a better influence than others.
My husband and I are huge Mythbusters fans. When the Behind the Myths Tour came to our attention, the furthest South Adam and Jamie were scheduled to travel was Raleigh, North Carolina. We took a date weekend to travel to Raleigh just to see the show.
Upon our return, our son was a little disgruntled over being excluded. We said maybe, if the Mythbusters came to Tampa, we could all go see them. Little did we know that was going to be a matter of a mere seven months later.
For our March trip and show, my husband (with his talented graphic designer sister's help) created a poster to look like a Tweet that read: "@donttrythis We're all the way from Tampa! PICK ME!" After unveiling his sign, he was selected to go on stage for one of the audience participation opportunities.
When tickets became available for the Tampa showing of the Tour in October, my husband decided we needed to spring for the VIP seats and post show Meet & Greet with Adam and Jamie. He really wanted to get pictures with them and try to get them to autograph his Tweet sign that got him on stage. Of course, an 8-10 PM show with backstage time following, sounded like a recipe for disaster with a four year old.
We bought our tickets: two VIP seats with Meet & Greet. We booked the baby-sitting gig with Grandma. We have not and plan not to tell Hank we ever went. Shhh! It's a secret.
The show is really awesome! And who knows, in a few years...