Planning a Family Vacation to San Antonio

We took a family vacation the first week of October to my husband's favorite city — San Antonio. Here's a rundown of the places we visited and our recommendations based on our experiences.

Nimitz Museum (National Museum of the Pacific War), Fredericksburg, TX (RECOMMENDED!)

This museum showcases an in-depth look at the life of Admiral Nimitz as well as the history of the Pacific War of WWII, with thousands of artifacts including planes, artillery, and submarines. We especially enjoyed the Pacific Combat Zone reenactment where we learned about many of the weapons used in the Pacific War and saw a live demonstration, including a full-blown reenactment including flame throwers and Sherman tanks.

We highly recommend the National Museum of the Pacific War, especially since homeschool groups can get free admission!

Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch, San Antonio, TX (RECOMMENDED!)

This is a drive-thru wildlife safari where the animals come right up to your car to be fed. We've never done anything like this before, so we were especially excited about visiting the ranch. Food was only $1 a bag and we drove through the ranch twice, seeing different things each time.

We highly recommend the Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch.

Animal World & Snake Farm, New Braunfels, TX (NOT RECOMMENDED)

We first heard about Snake Farm while watching an episode of Dirty Jobs, so when we were planning our visit to San Antonio, we decided to make Snake Farm one of our stops.

Unfortunately, we were pretty disappointed. The facilities were rather run down, although it did look like they were in the midst of trying to repair and upgrade several things. Additionally, most of the snakes seemed to be housed in extremely small cages relative to their size. We felt so sorry for the animals. Even the exhibits of other animals in the back were less than ideal, and some of the cages were situated so that you could barely see inside. Admission was also overpriced in our opinion.

We wouldn't recommend Snake Farm as place to visit.

Sea World, San Antonio, TX (RECOMMENDED!)

My husband and I have been to Sea World as kids, but this was the first time for our own children. It was the perfect time of year for our visit, and the weather was absolutely beautiful. We attended most of the shows, and most enjoyed Azul, The Cannery Row Caper, and the Shamu's Rockin' Creep Show (although we would have much preferred that show without all the Halloween-related fluff).

We thought the Shamu "Believe" show was pretty pathetic, with the first 5 minutes consisting mainly of an overdone soap-opera-ish video about a boy who wants to be a whale trainer. We thought the video took away too much from the actual perfomances of the whales.

The kids also enjoyed the rides, and my girls got to experience their first roller coaster. Jerah discovered that she's just like her father and loves roller coasters!

Although we were able to get Sea World tickets for the girls at $5 a piece, I think the admission was still overpriced for a one-day pass. But the experience was still worth it.

We'd recommend visiting Sea World on your next trip.

IMAX and The Alamo, San Antonio Texas (RECOMMENDED!)

Before visiting the Alamo itself, we stopped by the Imax theater and watched Alamo: The Price of Freedom. It was a fabulous film and really prepared us to visit that actual Alamo itself.

The relics housed at the Alamo were quite interesting, including several of Crocket's personal guns, a snuff box given to Sam Houston by Santa Anna, and Travis's ring that he gave to one of the Alamo survivors to pass along to his children. The Alamo grounds were beautiful, and so rich in history.

We'd definitely recommend a visit to the Alamo.

These were the only places we were able to visit during our short trip, so I'm sure we missed a lot of great attractions. Do you have any recommendations for what we might want to visit on our next San Antonio trip?