By Andrea Stetson

It takes only a few hundred steps to go from a gator slough to an African Island. A few more steps and children can strut among the peacocks or bop up and down with the prairie dogs.

It’s all inside the new-and-improved Nature Park beside the Shell Factory in North Fort Myers.

Gone are the cages from the old Octagon business that used to occupy the space. New are the wide paths and open spaces meandering around trees and animals.

Guests are greeted by about a dozen prairie dogs that pop up and down from their holes in the sand. A few feet away, gentle spray from a giant waterfall refreshes passersby when the wind is just right. Get a bit closer to the falls and you’ll see a turtle pond.

The Nature Park is also home to ring-tailed lemurs, raccoons, a bobcat, an African serval, boar, coati-mundi, kinkajous, striped skunks, deer and armadillos. Read the rest of this entry »

North Fort Myers attraction ready to show off new improvements on Sunday.

BY Laura Ruane.lruane@news-press.com

The Shell Factory has restyled its nature park, adding new animals and a splash of green, which owners hope will extend to company revenues.
They’ll show off the new improvements at a chili cook-off there on Sunday.

“We’re not Busch Gardens, but we have a lot to offer families,” said Tom Cronin Sr., managing general partner of the 67-year-old retail and amusement center in North Fort Myers.

Since purchasing the attraction in 1997, Cronin has tried a lot of new features, some of which haven’t stuck. His goal is to please tourists who come here by the busload in the winter, but also to woo repeat visits from the local families, who comprise about half the year-round market share. Read the rest of this entry »

By Drew Sterwald. dsterwald@news-press.com
The Shell Factory & Nature Park, one of Southwest Florida’s best-known tourist attractions, blends the natural - and unnatural - wonders of our world in a way that keeps visitors coming back.

Its got carved coconut monkeys, thousand-dollar Cowrie shells, pickled sharks, and live critters ranging from Anacondas to zebras.What exactly, is this eighteen-acre attraction? A museum of mollusks? An ersatz zoo? A cathedral of kitsch? We think its better if you make up your own mind, so go see for yourself….And check off the first of Tropicalia’s top 12 things to do before you die. Passport stamp number one.

Cotton-candy colored toilet seats embedded with sea horses and shells are calling my name.
“Fancy Toilet Seat” brags the label on the $75.99 souvenir sold at The Shell Factory but manufactured in China.
Fancy indeed. Look at how the clear lucite magnifies the details in the thumb-sized seahorse.

As I weigh the possibility of painting my guest bathroom in teal or plum or Barbie pink to match one of these Fancy Toilet Seats, my brain teeter-totters between anthropological fascination and morbid fear.

Kitsch runs both ways, intersecting at this North Fort Myers landmark.
Bigger and better than ever now that Waltzing Waters has returned under the sexier moniker Liquid Fireworks, The Shell Factory & Nature Park is a rangy 26-acre complex that lures visitors with a campy yet compelling come-on: a rotating conch out on U.S. 41 almost as big as a Mini Cooper. Read the rest of this entry »

By Eric Raddatz.eraddatz@news-press.com

This past Monday, I was motivated to go where I’ve never gone before - The Shell Factory.Can you imagine that?

Five years living here and I have never visited this North Fort Myers extravaganza. The shame.

Thrilled to be art directing the Top 12 Things to Do in Southwest Florida Before You Die, I wondered how I’ve managed to drive past the place so many times and not stop in.

I guess I always imagined it to be simply a warehouse of mollusk. Yawn.
I mean, it is called The Shell Factory. And the sign advertising it on U.S. 41 is just a big upside down V with a shell in it. Not exactly calling to me, you know?

Boy, was I wrong. Never would I have expected it to have have lions, tigers and bears. Throw in Liquid Fireworks, a karaoke restaurant, Ms. PacMan, Subway with the toasted buns, a homemade fudge factory, miniature golf, a petting zoo and a very helpful staff. Read the rest of this entry »