{"id":1575,"date":"2020-12-04T03:27:48","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T03:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/?p=1575"},"modified":"2022-12-29T16:43:25","modified_gmt":"2022-12-29T16:43:25","slug":"weeki-wachee-mermaids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/weeki-wachee-mermaids\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeki Wachee Mermaids"},"content":{"rendered":"

Weeki Wachee<\/strong> is a Florida state park <\/a>located in Spring Hill (formerly Weeki Wachee), Florida. The park offers kayaking, a spring-fed water park, wildlife shows, a riverboat cruise, and — what it is famous for — Mermaids<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

I visited the park on December 9th, 2019, during my grand tour of Florida. Weeki Wachee — like the House on the Rock, Graceland & South of the Border — makes the bucket list of most fans of roadside attractions & tourist traps, so I had to check it out. Plus everyone likes mermaids, right?<\/p>\n

I had the opportunity to purchase a ticket for the mermaid show and a riverboat cruise<\/em>. I opted for both. The riverboat cruise takes you and a dozen other tourists down a vegetation-lined, spring-fed stream with a beautiful turquoise stream bed. The stream eventually connects to the sea, allowing manatees to swim into it, but we didn’t see any that day. The boat captain told a story about an island that was inhabited by monkeys. Not sure what happened to the monkeys. Didn’t ask.<\/p>\n

The park grounds are decorated with dozens of sculptures of mermaids & nude swimmers. Sorry to disappoint\/happy to relieve: the actual mermaids & swimmers in the exhibits and neighboring water park are NOT nude.<\/p>\n

\"Weeki<\/p>\n

\"Mermaid<\/p>\n

The Mermaid Mold-a-Matic molds you a plastic souvenir in a matter of minutes. I got a blue mermaid. Yes, that’s the only choice. There’s also a souvenir shop in the main building.<\/p>\n

\"Mermaid<\/p>\n

On to the show!<\/p>\n

I entered the Newton Perry Underwater Mermaid Theatre, then descended down a long cement ramp (sort of like descending into a cave) and entered the seating area. If memory serves, the seats were like high-school bench bleachers. The air was humid, but not hot. Everything felt almost moist.<\/p>\n

\"Mermaid<\/p>\n

The entertainment started with a park ranger who gave a talk about the local geology, fauna, and flora. Don’t be shy — ask a question, and the ranger will have an answer. Snakes, birds, lizards, manatees, what type of stone the grounds are made of — the ranger knows.<\/p>\n

Once the ranger left, the Mermaid show began. The “ring leader” announced the start of the show, the curtain rose, and I COULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT I SAW. Yes, three beautiful mermaids & their ring leader\/announcer, but also the amazing sight of a huge, bubbling blue natural spring… held back my three thick glass windows. EYE-POPPINGLY AMAZING! If memory serves, the mermaids & the ring leader performed about a dozen “dances” & skits — all underwater, with the help of air hoses, and a lot of athletic talent (you try swimming underwater for 45 minutes).<\/p>\n

It’s definitely worth seeing the show if you’re in the area, especially if you’re a mermaid or mermaid enthusiast.<\/p>\n

The ring leader fights off the alga monster (alga is a problem with the local springs):<\/p>\n

\"Algae<\/p>\n

The ring leader and mermaid breathe oxygen through hoses:<\/p>\n

\"Mermaid<\/p>\n

Since I visited in 2019, a lot has happened. The park was closed due to the 2020 pandemic, the town of Weeki Wachee was dissolved<\/a> by the state, but the area was placed on\u00a0the National Register of Historic Places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Weeki Wachee is a Florida state park located in Spring Hill (formerly Weeki Wachee), Florida. The park offers kayaking, a spring-fed water park, wildlife shows, a riverboat cruise, and — what it is famous for — Mermaids. I visited the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1576,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[78,79],"class_list":["post-1575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-roadside-attractions","tag-78","tag-florida"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dancentury.com\/travel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}