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Mystic Aquarium, Seaport get boys' seal of approval |
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Evan Gardner attempts to feed parakeets at the Birds of the Outback exhibit at Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn.
Reminder Publications photo by John Gardner
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By Debbie Gardner
PRIME Editor
I'm the mom of a nine-year-old boy. That means when our family considers a destination for a day trip, we think long and hard about the boredom factor.
A museum with too many static displays or long introductory films doesn't work. Neither does an attraction that primarily offers an opportunity to look and few hands-on activities, as can happen at some zoos and aquariums.
To keep the adults happy and the kids engaged, a destination has to have just the right balance of interesting (e.g. educational) experiences and plain ol' fun.
From the Greater Springfield area, one of our favorite day trips is a drive down to Mystic, Conn. In my Subaru Outback, round trip is about a half-tank of gas, not too big a budget bite given today's fuel prices. A travel time of about an hour and forty minutes also keeps the "are we there yet"s to a minimum.
And with the choice of visiting either Mystic Seaport or Mystic Aquarium, there's always plenty to do.
Recently, my husband, John, son, Evan, and a young friend, Andrew, and I sampled some of this summer's highlights at both the aquarium and the seaport during a press invitation promoting the area's new Mystic Pass card. (This card gives visitors admission to each attraction, plus myriad local discounts, for just $52 per person adult, $42 youth, $22 child.)
And I can say without reservations that my two nine-year-old testers gave both attractions a thumbs-up.
We started our day at Mystic Seaport and, by sheer chance, found ourselves visiting during the annual Wooden Boat Show. Yes, it was crowded, with many more vessels in port and tents filled with vendors lining the usually quiet seaport green.
But we never felt as though the interpreters in any of the building we visited, nor the ships we boarded, were rushing us along. The kind man in Gardner's Boat Shop took the time to admire the boys' hand-made boats (more about this later), the street magician gladly performed one more trick for us when we were latecomers to his performance, and the crewman providing commentary aboard the steamboat Sabino went below decks to find a reference book to answer my son's question about how much the ship's anchor weighed.
That 30-minute ride aboard the Sabino ($5 adults/$4.50 children six to 16), the seaport's 101-year-old coal-fired steamship, was one of the highlights of this visit, at least for me. Viewing the village, the shipyard and the tall ships from the water gave me a completely different perspective on the museum. It was as if I was seeing the town through the eyes of a sailor returning from a voyage.
The boys, on the other hand, were much more fascinated by how the boat worked.
Long after the other passengers had disembarked, we were still admiring the furnace in the ship's belly, and chatting with the sweaty sailor who was shoveling coal into its maw to feed the flames.
But the Sabino wasn't the only ship we visited during this half-day visit to the seaport. The Freedom Schooner Amistad was back in her home port for a visit (she was built in the seaport's shipyard in 2000), and we had the opportunity to go aboard and get a taste of the history she'd been charged to spread around the world.
My husband and I were impressed with the skill it took the vocational students and volunteers to recreate the famed ship. The boys were awed by how skinny the ladder into the hold was, and how small the bunks were.
At our next stop, the Discovery Barn hands-on learning area, the lure of the tabletop game, Skittles, where players launch a spinning top into a wooden box maze with the object of knocking down mini bowling pins, turned what was to be a quick look-see into an extended stay.
"I love the Skittles game, it was so fun to play," Andrew told me later as we talked about our seaport visit.
But by far the boys found the toy boat shop - where they each had the chance to create their own boat model by hot-gluing wooden shapes, string and paper to a pre-formed hull ($5 per child) - the best part of the visit.
I thought I'd end up carrying their creations through the rest of our tour of the seaport, but to my surprise, they actually wanted to tote their own ships (and show off their designs to anyone who would look - hence the encounter with the boatbuilder!).
A half-day didn't give us time to see everything - we missed seeing the whaler Charles W. Morgan in dry dock among other things - but the seaport was still an attraction the boys voted "yes" to visiting again.
After a quick lunch at the McDonald's across from the Mystic Aquarium, we headed to that attraction for the afternoon.
We made a quick check of the show times on the board just inside the entrance, then headed out for a tour through the outdoor exhibits, pausing briefly to check on the beluga whales and sea lions on our way to the penguins. To Andrew's disappointment, that exhibit was closed for renovations, and only a few penguins were on display in a glass enclosure just down the path from their familiar home.
Though the penguins weren't accessible, just before their enclosure area we did get a small behind-the-scenes peek at the aquarium's work through a recently added viewing patio just above some of the seal training and specimen rehabilitation pens.
We continued on the outside path through the regional marsh, ending our outdoor tour at what became one of the boys' favorite exhibits this visit Birds of the Outback, an aviary where we interacted with cockatiels, parakeets and parrots. (This exhibit has an additional charge).
Seed sticks in hand, we spent the better part of an hour coaxing birds large and small to come down and sit on our hands, seed sticks and sometimes, fingers. It required patience (the boys needed some help at first, but soon got the knack), but the thrill of having a brightly colored bird perched inches from your face was worth the effort.
After the aviary, we ducked out of the sun to take in the indoor deep-sea exhibits. The boys handled a starfish in the touch tanks ("It was hard," Evan said, "but squishy in the middle.that was so disgusting!"), went digging for fossils at the exploration exhibit (for an extra charge) and spent about 10 minutes standing in the frame of the main tank's big windows just watching the sharks swim lazily past the glass.
The boys spent so long watching the sharks that we missed the beluga whale feeding, but they did get to touch the cownose rays (they chickened out on feeding them when they learned the rays sucked the fish out of your hand like a vacuum) and we made it upstairs to the Marine Theatre in time to catch the last sea lion show of the day.
Again, our time was too short to see everything; we missed seeing any of Dr. Robert Ballard's discoveries in the Challenge of the Deep building, and the XD Theatre presentation this trip.
But that's OK. If it's up to Evan, we'll make another trip sometime soon.
"I loved it all," Evan told me as we rode home. "Every single thing."
For more information on Mystic Aquarium, visit www.mysticaquarium.org.
For more information on Mystic Seaport, visit www.mysticseaport.org.
For information on the Sea Everything Mystic Pass, visit www.mystic.org.
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