by Jennifer Brooks

Created on: January 21, 2009

Panama, Florida is my absolutely favorite vacation spot. You do not have to be a college spring breaker either. I traveled there just last spring with my husband and three children. My children are very young so at first we even wondered what in the world we could possibly do?

To our surprise they had many things for their age group. The most important thing that helped us on this trip is all the research I done before we left. I had everything planned from tours to restaurants. Although we would have liked to scuba-dive or go snorkeling, we had to choose kid-friendly destinations.

Panama offered many such places. We enjoyed zoo's, museum's, and restaurants. I believe my children especially enjoyed the Treasure Ship Restaurant. The waiters were dressed of course. like Pirates. The food was delicious and we took several pictures on the top deck of the ship.

Another popular place we discovered was Gulf World Marine Park. We watched dolphin, seal, and reptile shows. If you can and are willing, your children and you can swim with dolphins while having your pictures taken. They also have many animal exibits to explore. Kids go crazy about that stuff. If your children are between the ages of eight and twelve, they offer a Dolphin Day Camp. This is where they spend the entire day at Gulf World Marine Park, and get to meet all of the amazing animals. Campers will be able to go behind the scenes to participate in training sessions and to learn many fun facts. Cool arts and crafts are included along with park admission, camp t-shirt, and lunch. If you decide this is something you want to do, be sure that you make reservations in advance.

We also enjoyed Ripley's Museum which featured 500 exhibits, 15 galleries, and 2 floors. This is a must see for both parents and children. The adult admission cost $17.21 and our oldest son was $13.98. It's not too bad of a price since our two youngest were free and we all had a reallly good time.

Most importantly don't forget the beach. Kids love the beach. My daughter only two years old, absolutely loved making sand castles. She didn't want anything to do with the water, but loved the sand. At one point I heard her yelling at a sea-gull for coming to close to her hat. She thought it was going to fly away with it. We didn't want to take the kids around all the spring breakers at the beach, therefore we fell in love with Panama Park, that had an entrance to a more secluded section of the beach. It was beautiful and I noticed it was mostly parents with kids.

When planning your trip whether with kids or without, Panama Florida has something to offer to everyone. If you do have children don't get discouraged if you can't do every single event. Remember their only young once, and you better enjoy it.

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