Category: Uncategorized (Page 4 of 12)

Delve into the Sea of Love inside the Aquarium Pyramid at Moody Gardens with a romantic Valentine’s dinner celebration on Feb. 10 and 17. Choose from dining options at the Gulf of Mexico Rig, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, South Pacific and Caribbean exhibits.

Packages range from $200-300 per couple and include a three-course dinner, bottle of champagne or wine, rose for your special someone, souvenir photo, Aquarium Pyramid admission and a meet and greet with one of our biologists.

For a complete dinner menu, click here, and for reservations, call 409-683-4202 or email dsalinas@moodygardens.org.

Continue your romantic getaway with a stay at the luxurious Moody Gardens Hotel. Be sure to inquire about the special room rate for guests when you make dinner reservations.

Sail aboard the Colonel Paddlewheel Boat

Enjoy a two-hour Valentine’s dinner cruise Feb. 10 aboard the Colonel Paddlewheel Boat. Feast on a buffet dinner while sailing Offatts Bayou with music, dancing and a cash bar. Boarding begins at 6 p.m. with the boat shoving off at 6:30 p.m. The cruise runs 7-9 p.m.

To reserve a space on board the Colonel, please call 409-683-4419 or email lhuff@moodygardens.org. For a complete dinner menu, click here.

Golf Fore Two

Enjoy a day at the top-rated Moody Gardens Golf Course with your partner and take advantage of an incredible all-inclusive package that combines golf and dining for just $200 per couple.

Enjoy an 18-hole round of golf, cart fee included, as well as one dozen golf balls, one large bucket of range balls and a free replay (subject to availability) all topped off with unlimited food and drinks, excluding alcohol!

The all-inclusive Valentine’s package is available Feb. 10 and Feb. 17. To reserve a tee time, call 409-683-4653. You can also visit www.moodygardensgolf.com for more details on the course.

Enjoy a romantic dinner with stunning views

Experience premier fine dining at Shearn’s Seafood and Prime Steaks, featuring beautiful floor-to-ceiling views of the Gulf waters from the top floor of the Moody Gardens Hotel.

Shearn’s will offer a romantic Valentine’s dinner on Feb. 9 and 10 starting at 5 p.m. with a special menu just for the holiday. Advance reservations are recommended and can be made here. To view the special menu, click here.

Treat yourself to luxurious pampering

Indulge in a day of luxury, or give the gift of relaxation, with one of several spa treatments and packages, all offered at The Spa at Moody Gardens Hotel. Packages include a Romantic Retreat featuring a 50-minute Couple’s Swedish Massage with Scandle Candle Body Butter, a hot stone foot treatment and Hydrotherapy Soak for two. Relax in our private relaxation area and indulge in chocolate covered strawberries and two glasses of champagne. There’s also a Couple’s Massage performed in our private couple’s suite. For a complete list of services and menus, visit us online.

A rockin’ new fish has joined the party inside the Mangrove Lagoon touch tank at the Moody Gardens Aquarium Pyramid and you don’t want to miss out on seeing this unusual addition.

You’ll have to look closely to spot our new Guitarfish, as it likes to blend in with its surroundings and even burrow itself in the sand.

With a tail that looks a lot like a shark and triangular head, it’s not hard to see how the Guitarfish got its name.  A cross between sharks and stingrays, Guitarfish are closely related to the latter and feature an elongated body with a flattened head and body with ray-like wings.

Our Guitarfish is still young at about 2-3 years old and is only 1-2 feet long. When full grown, Guitarfish can reach 4 feet in length!

Guitarfish like to burrow in the sand so that the only things visible are their eyes and spiracles, small holes on the top of their heads. To breathe, Guitarfish pump water in through their spiracles, over their gills and out through gill openings. Their mouth is located on the bottom of their body and they use pebble-like teeth to crunch their food, which includes shrimp, clams and crabs.

Fun fact – Guitarfish can actually change in color from olive to a sandy brown, depending on the color of their sandy seafloor! Doing so helps them blend in with their habitat. You’ll notice our Guitarfish is very light in color, almost white, and that’s because the seafloor inside the Mangrove Lagoon is light.

Guitarfish are common along the East Coast, especially in mangrove areas found in the Florida Keys, so it made perfect sense to add this unusual and interesting looking fish to the Mangrove Lagoon exhibit at the Aquarium Pyramid where it joins stingrays, a couple of lobsters and other fish!

Moody Gardens is once again joining forces to bring awareness and protection to Pygmy Slow Lorises this fall with its PSLs for PSLs campaign.

Guests can enjoy a Pumpkin Spice Latte while doing their part to protect Pygmy Slow Lorises in the wild. Moody Brews, located inside the Moody Gardens Hotel, serves Starbucks drinks. Through Jan. 7, a portion of proceeds from each PSL sold at Moody Brews will be donated to Little Fireface Project, the world’s largest running project that aims to protect lorises from extinction through research, education and conservation.

PSLs for PSLs, along with Little Fireface Project, hopes to bring attention and awareness to the plight of this small group of endangered primates.

Pygmy Slow Lorises are small, nocturnal prosimians native to Southeast Asia, specifically Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. They have a vice-like grip, move slowly and have a venomous bite – which is unique for a mammal. Some believe lorises have healing powers. This, combined with the issue that they are perceived to make good pets, has led to the capture of many lorises and their numbers in the wild are dwindling.

So, head over to Moody Brews to grab a drink and participate in PSLs for PSLs now through Jan. 7.

After you help the cause be sure to stop by the Rainforest Pyramid to see the Pygmy Slow Lorises that Moody Gardens biologists have the pleasure of caring for. You can also head over to http://www.nocturama.org/en/welcome-little-fireface-project/ to learn more about the Little Fireface Project.

Moody Gardens is taking you on a Jurassic adventure this summer when the Dinos Alive Exhibit comes to Galveston Island.

This fun outdoors exhibit features life-like animatronic dinosaurs, including a full-size Tyrannosaurus, as you become part of a rescue team sent back in time to search for a missing plane and its crew.

Along the way in the adventure, you get an up close and personal experience with some of the most feared and amazing creatures to ever roam Planet Earth.

Discover treasures of your own as you explore an archeological dig site in the exhibit. In addition to the dig site, the attraction will include a gift shop and photo opportunity. Explore all things dinosaurs June 3-Aug. 13.

Treat your mom like the queen she is with a day of pampering, fun, and time not spent in the kitchen, this Mother’s Day at Moody Gardens.

Join us for two mouth-watering buffets at the Garden Restaurant and Moody Gardens Hotel. Feast on omelets made to order, Belgian waffles, hatch pepper crab cakes, red snapper, carved prime rib with rosemary jus and horseradish and more!

And the best part? We do the dishes, too. Click here for the Garden Restaurant menu and here for the Moody Gardens Hotel menu.

While you’re here, explore all that Moody Gardens has to offer. Journey through our Rainforest Pyramid where you’ll meet free-roaming monkeys and free-flighted birds. Take in more than 1,000 exotic plants from the rainforests of Asia, Africa and the Americas. You’ll also find an ocelot, komodo dragon and, if you look closely, a sloth or two.

You can also set sail aboard the Colonel Paddlewheel Boat, be adventurous on our Ropes Course and Zip Line, relax in our MG 3D theater to watch a film or discover dinosaurs and set sail in Bikini Bottom at our Discovery Pyramid.

Want to treat mom to a day of pampering? Be sure to check out the Moody Gardens Hotel spa packages online. Whether it’s a deep tissue or Swedish massage, pedicure, nourishing facial or manicure, you’ll find it all at the hotel spa.

Journey to new depths to take in a unique tropical coral reef system found in Galveston’s front yard in the Gulf of Mexico, all without leaving dry land.

Your voyage to the Flower Garden Banks is just around the corner as Moody Gardens reveals the new exhibit – and so much more – this summer as part of our $37 million enhancements to the Aquarium Pyramid.

Explore this unique tropical coral reef system found 115 miles offshore from Galveston in the Gulf of Mexico. Moody Gardens partnered with the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary to highlight this gem in our front yard and replicate the diversity in the reef systems of the East Flower Garden Bank, West Flower Garden Bank and Stetson Bank.

See first-hand how Brain and Star coral dominate the reef system. Vibrant coral and sponges add pops of color deep underwater. Our exhibit also highlights Elkhorn and Staghorn coral. While not currently located in the banks, the sanctuary found that Staghorn Coral was once part of the reef system thousands of years ago. Some species of Star, Elkhorn and Staghorn coral are listed as threatened species on the endangered species list.

These banks are some of the healthiest reef systems, thanks to being far removed from manmade pollutants. Nationwide, coral reefs are facing pressures from manmade pollutants. It’s been estimated that up to 70 percent of the corals in the Gulf of Mexico are in trouble.

Get Up Close!

In addition to the Flower Garden Banks Exhibit, Moody Gardens is enhancing its touch tank in this area to give guests a fully immersive experience while crossing the air/water border. The tank showcases invertebrates including sea stars, hermit crabs and pencil urchins, all of which guests will be able to touch.

Renovations will offer guests a spectacular aquarium experience including a new Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Exhibit and Mangrove Exhibit. Moody Gardens will unveil enhancements made to the Aquarium Pyramid to the public with a grand reveal May 27. Travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the North Pacific. Each ocean exhibit highlights different marine sanctuaries.

We’re also adding jellyfish and tropical penguins at the Aquarium Pyramid, all ready for you to explore starting May 27, 2017!

Explore a shipwreck replica of famed Galveston pirate Jean Lafitte’s, The Pride while immersing yourself in the vibrant coral ecosystem and marine life sanctuaries of the Caribbean, all while sharks, rays and a bounty of tropical fish swim overhead beginning Memorial Day weekend.

A glimpse this week of the Caribbean Exhibit revealed The Pride, a 19^th century rum-runner shipwreck replica, loosely based on the vessel sailed by Lafitte.

Moody Gardens divers spent a total of 48.5 hours underwater of the course of two days, putting the massive puzzle pieces together to create the replica. Luckily, each piece was labeled and outlined in a corresponding manual, making the construction slightly easier.

The Pride is just one of several enhancements to the Aquarium Pyramid, sure to give guests an unforgettable experience, all while learning just how important our oceans are and what they can do to take better care of them.

Moody Gardens’ Caribbean Exhibit is one of the largest tropical marine exhibits in the country featuring sharks, snappers, eels and reel fish swimming overhead as you walk through the tunnel into the one million-gallon exhibit. The enhanced exhibit transports you to the Caribbean with breathtaking views of shallow and deep coral reefs, and the marine life that call them home. New artificial coral, along with additional marine life, will be added to the exhibit.

You’re bound to have questions after seeing the improvements. Don’t worry. They’ll be answered thanks to new in-water presentations by Moody Gardens divers. You’ll now be able to communicate with exhibit divers to learn more about what they do and the marine life that makes up the Caribbean.

Renovations will offer guests a spectacular aquarium experience including a new Gulf of Mexico Oil Rig Exhibit, Mangrove Exhibit, Caribbean Exhibit Touch Tank area and the new Flower Garden Banks Exhibit. Moody Gardens will unveil enhancements made to the Aquarium Pyramid to the public with a grand reveal May 27, just in time for Memorial Day weekend.

The Aquarium Pyramid is currently closed as we finish the final wave of our renovation. But you don’t have to wait long to see all the wonders for yourself. Beginning Memorial Day weekend, you’ll not only be able to explore the Caribbean, but several other ocean habitats, all enhanced as part of the $37 million renovation project. Travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the South Atlantic, the South Pacific and the North Pacific. Each ocean exhibit highlights different marine sanctuaries.

We’re also adding jellyfish and tropical penguins at the Aquarium Pyramid, all ready for you to explore starting May 27, 2017!

Moody Gardens is helping you keep a little green in your pocket this spring break with a great deal that saves you $20 on a Value Pass for a family of four when you purchase your tickets online.

And, it’s simple. Just visit moodygardens.org and purchase your spring break tickets online. You’ll save $5 per person on your one-day or two-day Value Pass. Saving cash and skipping the ticket lines – what’s better than that?

Find the Force

Star Wars fans will find the force is strong at Moody Gardens, as we feature “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” nightly at 8 p.m. March 11-19 and at 5:10 p.m. March 20-26.

In a time of conflict, a group of unlikely heroes band together on a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the Empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction. This key event in the Star Wars timeline brings together ordinary people who choose to do extraordinary things, and in doing so, become part of something greater than themselves.

We’re also featuring “Amazing Mighty Micro Monsters 3D.”  Beetles, spiders, scorpions and ants. These are Earth’s superheroes, living right beneath our feet. From shooting chemical fire to lifting massive weights and showcasing impressive crushing powers, these mighty micro monsters have abilities not often seen by the human eye. Until now.

Check out both films on the world’s first 4K 3D Giant Screen 6 Primary Laser Projection System. That’s a lot of words to say it’s the largest movie screen in Texas that will give you the most vibrant, clear images you’ve ever seen.

Interact with Dinosaurs
Don’t miss out on our Dinosaurs in Motion exhibit in the Discovery Pyramid. Using levers, pulleys and video game controllers, move the arms, legs, wings and heads of 14 life-size fully interactive dinosaurs made out of recycled metal. You can even make some of the artistic sculptures roar while you learn how dinosaurs once roamed the earth!

And, there’s more!
Your tickets also get you into all of the fun at our Rainforest Pyramid, SpongeBob SubPants Adventure, 4D Theater, Colonel Paddlewheel boat, Ropes Course and Zip Line!

Buy Tickets Here

Being one of the top tourist destinations in Texas, Moody Gardens has a reputation for creating lifetime experiences, but also making a difference in the Galveston community.  Do you know someone who has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease? The Moody Gardens Education Department has partnered with the Alzheimer’s Association to begin a new event, a Seven-part series called, “Growing Together” to assist those living in the early stages of Alzheimer’s remain mentally and socially active.

Moody Gardens is hosting the fourth of its seven-part “Growing Together,” series on Tuesday, February 7 from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the Moody Gardens Rainforest Pyramid. Activities will include a day in the life of a Rainforest Pyramid biologist! Participants will create toys as part of our animal enrichment program and present a nice gift to our beautiful macaws to add something special to their environment to assist with their learning!

Programs will be held on the first Tuesday of every month ending on April 4, 2017 to coincide with Senior Tuesdays at Moody Gardens. Senior Tuesdays offers guests 65 and older $5 admission per attraction including the Rainforest Pyramid, Aquarium Pyramid, Discovery Pyramid, Colonel Paddlewheel Boat and movies at both the 3D and 4D Theaters.

For more information on how to register and the series’ upcoming events, please contact volunteers@moodygardens.org or call 409-683-4108 as we would love to have you become a part of this wonderful series!

What’s better than some time at the range, a few hours on the green and unlimited food and drinks?* Getting all that, and more, in a value-packed All-Inclusive Package.

And, you don’t have to look further than Moody Gardens Golf Course to get an impressive deal on the island.

The package includes the 18-hole green fee and cart rental, one dozen golf balls, a bucket of range balls and unlimited food and drinks, alcohol excluded, all for $100 per person Monday – Thursday. Golfers can get the same deal for $125 per person Friday-Sunday and on holidays. Free replay round is subject to availability and tee time reservations are required.

One of the Best

Moody Gardens Golf Course features stunning views, green fairways and a gulf breeze, making it one of the most popular public golf courses in Texas.

Jacobsen Hardy Golf Course Design, a renowned firm drawing on the expertise of PGA Tour professionals Peter Jacobsen and Jim Hardy, completed work in 2008 on the $16 million renovation to the new par 72 course.

The island course has earned numerous honors, including GolfNow ranking it as the third-best course in the Greater Houston area. GolfNow’s ranking was based on ratings and reviews from thousands of its website’s visitors. The site’s users have given Moody Gardens an average rating of 4.5 out of 5. The island course also earned a “Recommended by TripAdvisor” status.

The course rivals three of the state’s best municipal venues, Memorial Park in Houston, Tenison Highlands in Dallas and Cottonwood Creek in Waco. Measuring 6,816 yards from the back tees, the golf course is designed to be player-friendly, with five sets of tees to accommodate all playing abilities.

Grab a Bite While You’re Here

Take advantage of the All-Inclusive Golf Package and start your morning off at The Pelican Grille with a hot and fresh Breakfast Taco with bacon, breakfast sausage, bacon or potato, topped with fresh salsa and cheese.

For a lighter lunch, choose from On the Green, which features a refreshing Garden Salad, Chef Salad, and Caesar Salad.

Grille Favorites include a Buffalo Chicken Wrap, Shrimp Po-Boy or Wrap, Peninsula Cheeseburger or The Birdie Panini. Visit our website for more!

To reserve a tee time, call 409-683-4653. Times may be booked up to two weeks in advance. You can also visit www.moodygardensgolf.com for more details on the course.

*Please note: the All-Inclusive Package excludes alcoholic beverages.