The American Victory Ship and Mariners Museum
The AmVic will be our first stop in the morning. It is one of our country’s most historic icons. The SS Amer-ican Victory was built in 1945 in just 55 days. The SS American Victory served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Today, the ship is only one of four opera-tional WWII merchant steamships in the USA. It came to Channelside District of Tampa in September 1999. Dedicated volunteers have invested over one million hours to restore, maintain and operate the vessel. Inside the steel, you will find rare photos, uniforms, medals, and precious documents. You will see three level cargo holds, radio and gyro rooms, hospital gal-ley, weaponry, steering stations, flying bridge, signal-ing equipment, wheelhouse, mess halls, crew cabins, lifeboats, cargo equipment and the engine room. The American Victory Ship and Museum serves as a train-ing site for firefighters, law enforcement officers, ac-tive and reserve military and working dogs. It is a non-profit organization and is recognized in the Na-tional Register of Historic Places.
Please note there are steps to the gangway and each room is separated by step-overs at the hatch doors.
Lunch will be the Columbia Café (sister to the Co-lumbia Restaurant of Ybor City). The menu is American and Cuban.
Florida Aquarium
Following lunch, we will spend the afternoon at the Florida Aquarium. Since 1995, the aquarium has been telling the story of water and its inhabitants – from wetlands to coral reefs, bays to beaches. There are more than 14,000 animals from Florida and all over the world, and the aquarium is home to more than 7,000 aquatic plants.
Along the Wetlands Trail with the mangrove forest and large aviary, you will see river otters, alligators, sea turtles, stingrays, reef fish, eels, sharks and more. Thousands or fish can be seen in the 250,000-square-foot aquarium. Journey to Mada-gascar to find ring-tailed lemurs. Enjoy the touch pool with stingrays, sharks, moon jellies and more. Other highlights include the 500,000-gallon Coral Reef habitat, the Waves of Wonder gallery that tells the conservation story, and the 4 -D Theater. The Florida Aquarium is a not-for-profit attraction de-voted to being leaders in conservation and educa-tion of marine life and conservation.