Three Sisters Springs
Three Sisters Springs
4.5
Bodies of WaterNature & Wildlife Areas
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Monday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Tuesday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Wednesday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Thursday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Friday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Saturday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
Sunday
8:30 AM - 4:30 PM
About
This natural inlet in Crystal River contains three natural springs, with crystal-clear turquoise waters and an abundance of wildlife. In winter, look out for the manatees that migrate and seek refuge in the warm water. Get up close to these gentle giants by kayaking, and even on a swimming and snorkeling tour—just remember to know your "manatee manners." If you have any questions, the wildlife guides are always on hand to help. You can also enjoy gorgeous views from the boardwalk and hiking trails all year round. The best way to get there is by trolley from City Hall, which is included in your admission ticket. – Tripadvisor
Meets animal welfare guidelines
Suggest edits to improve what we show.
Improve this listing
Tours & experiences
Explore different ways to experience this place.
What is Travellers’ Choice?
Tripadvisor gives a Travellers’ Choice award to accommodations, attractions and restaurants that consistently earn great reviews from travellers and are ranked within the top 10% of properties on Tripadvisor.
Revenue impacts the experiences featured on this page, learn more.

Top ways to experience Three Sisters Springs and nearby attractions

The area
Address
Reach out directly
See what travellers are saying
  • Chris&Jules
    London, United Kingdom6 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Excellent
    Perfect to swim with manatees. We booked fun 2 dive with captain Gavin and Tyler as out guides. Couldn’t have asked for better. Would highly recommend. Clear visibility and made our trip perfect
    Visited March 2023
    Travelled as a couple
    Written 19 March 2023
  • Susan N
    Newton, Massachusetts38 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Beautiful place
    We learned about the springs and their importance to manatees while taking a boat tour of the area. You park and pay entry fee by the Crystal River City Hall (unless you are disabled) and then take short bus ride to the Springs. There is a boardwalk which gives you excellent views of the springs and you can also walk on other trails. We also wanted to visit the National Wildlife Refuge so took bus over there as well. Well worth the extra time since refuge office has many informative displays and some items for sale. Then bus took us back to our car. Don't miss this if you are visting Crystal River.
    Visited March 2023
    Written 20 March 2023
  • serd_traveler
    Springfield, Missouri16 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Magical!
    Magical experience! We visited on a beautiful February day. The blue/green water was gorgeous and we saw dozens of manatees of all sizes. The boardwalk was a great way to walk around the spring and watch the manatees. The docents were knowledgeable friendly. Such a great time!
    Visited February 2023
    Written 20 April 2023
  • Sorab W
    Mumbai, India27 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Once in a lifetime experience!
    What an absolute thrill to see so many manatees right beneath me in the spring pools as we walked above on the boardwalk. The volunteer guides there are wonderful too. Full of information and happy to share it with you.
    Visited January 2023
    Travelled solo
    Written 2 June 2023
  • Chickadee2013
    Cocoa, Florida373 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Beautiful clear water
    This is such a beautiful place to kayak and snorkel. You can't get on the rocks or the land but you can jump out of your kayak and snorkel around. We then used a rock that was out in the water to hoist ourselves back into our kayaks. We also kayaked around out in the river and saw manatees out there. Definitely would like to come back and swim in this area again in the future after they open back up.
    Visited October 2022
    Travelled as a couple
    Written 14 August 2023
  • Kathydale
    Chicago, Illinois10 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Search Crystal River Wildlife refuge
    Trip Advisor lists Three Sisters Springs and the Crystal River National Wild Life Refuge as different things, when they are the same. It gets very confusing to try and research it. I suggest you use the name Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge when physically trying to locate it. You can park in parking lot across the street. Other places may direct you to the City Hall, but that was damaged by hurricane and moved. (Google doesn't know where city hall is) Anyway, it was worth the effort. The springs are beautiful. There are lots of manatees to see. Go to the board walk and walk all around so you can find them all.
    Visited December 2023
    Travelled as a couple
    Written 14 December 2023
  • Alyssa H
    2 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Fantastic experience - know before you go tips😊
    An amazing place to view the manatees - crystal clear waters where we could easily see 100 manatees from the boardwalk without even trying! The Three Sisters Springs was a fantastic experience but the website does not do it justice. For those looking at going: Park at the visitors centre, head in and buy your tickets. You will receive a wrist band which will give you access to the park. From here, you can either catch the courtesy bus which runs every half hour or so and will drop you at the board walk. OR You can walk directly across to the boardwalk - it is about .3 mile, flat terrain. Disabled parking is available at the boardwalk itself and you can pay directly at the gate to the park instead of going to the visitor centre. Pets are not allowed. For those of you with pets like us, we dropped our dog at the nearby (about .8 mile) Pet Center Dog Day Care & Grooming. It is $6 per hour (they also have half and full day rates for those that need) so you can take as long or as little as you like. We were only about 2 hours but by the time we got back our dog had had a great play and was also treated to a walk - could not recommend highly enough!
    Visited December 2023
    Travelled as a couple
    Written 22 December 2023
  • SGcvn69
    Munhall, Pennsylvania1,060 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    Expensive But Nice Walk & View
    It’s $20 for an adult to get in unless you are senior, military or possess the state park card. Parking is across the street, which is a bit weird to me, but you get to view the manatees hanging out, which is cool. I came after my snorkel tour that took me to a different area. 3 Sisters is *very* clear watered, however, if you do boat/paddle to see the manatees, they are roped off! There is no water access from the park/trail. Guides are spaced evenly and are very knowledgeable! Go early if you want to see active manatees! Otherwise they just bob around sleeping.
    Visited January 2024
    Travelled solo
    Written 6 January 2024
  • Miranda
    54 contributions
    5.0 of 5 bubbles
    Beautiful! And Full of manatees!
    Amazing trip! We decided to go in the early morning instead of late in the afternoon! Good choice. There were less people and tons of manatees! They were some guides that answered questions and told you about the area! We got to see so many manatees! Too many to count! It really was amazing! It was cold this morning but the sun was shining and you could see through the water clearly! Instead of walking back to the parking lot we took the shuttle! I was worried I would have to wait and we were on a time crunch, but the shuttles were moving quickly! As they were dropping off we hopped on and he drove us right to our car across the street. The girls in the office were nice and friendly! Just a beautiful place to see the manatees and the area! A must see if you are in the area!
    Visited January 2024
    Travelled with friends
    Written 17 January 2024
  • loren h
    Wisconsin331 contributions
    4.0 of 5 bubbles
    nice
    Best way to see the Manatees is this boardwalk. First, if you have a handicap plate on your car, you can drive in and park at the boardwalk. No need to wait for a bus and bring 40 people at the same time to get in your way. Another good idea is have a National Parks Pass, this gets half price discount on admission. From the boardwalk you can see Manatees within 10 feet, and the water is so cear you see the whole animal, and all its friends. A boat sounds nice, but you see almost nothing.
    Visited December 2023
    Travelled with family
    Written 19 January 2024
These reviews are the subjective opinion of Tripadvisor members and not of TripAdvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews.

Most Recent: Reviews ordered by most recent publish date in descending order.

Detailed Reviews: Reviews ordered by recency and descriptiveness of user-identified themes such as waiting time, length of visit, general tips, and location information.

Popular mentions

We perform checks on reviews.
Tripadvisor’s approach to reviews
Before posting, each Tripadvisor review goes through an automated tracking system, which collects information, answering the following questions: how, what, where and when. If the system detects something that potentially contradicts our community guidelines, the review is not published.
When the system detects a problem, a review may be automatically rejected, sent to the reviewer for validation, or manually reviewed by our team of content specialists, who work 24/7 to maintain the quality of the reviews on our site.
Our team checks each review posted on the site disputed by our community as not meeting our community guidelines.
Learn more about our review moderation.
4.5
4.5 of 5 bubbles1,645 reviews
Excellent
1,174
Very good
279
Average
109
Poor
40
Terrible
43

Kandi S
Hawaii34 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Family
What a great place to visit and see the manatees up close enjoying the warm 3 Sisters Springs water. We have gone twice to see the Manatees during the month of February. Saw at least 100 or more along with many babies. A lovely walk along the boardwalk, the grounds are beautiful and very clean and all the volunteers are very helpful and knowledgeable.
Written 14 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Sonworshipper
Niceville, FL459 contributions
1.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2024 • Family
Stopped overnight in the area while driving through and wanted to visit the springs in hopes of seeing manatees. We are Floridians and aware that March can be an iffy time for seeing manatees depending on the weather conditions. HOWEVER, we had just seen dozens of them a bit further South in Ruskin, FL the day before at a FREE viewing facility. The cost here was to be $17.50 apiece (and that was the Senior discount price!!!) for the day which basically only includes use of the park & walking/hiking trails, trolley transport and possible manatee viewing. Those employees working in their visitor center (which had been relocated & NOT indicated on the website!!) were Extremely UNHELPFUL and almost to the point of rude as we expressed the issues we'd had finding information on their website that was NOT updated and very lacking!! There is no parking inside the park so everyone MUST use a trolley system that supposedly picks up regularly around the town but, again, there is very little information on the website regarding times and how one goes about getting a ticket for the trolley. We waited for near 30 minutes at the town square stop and never once saw a trolley, nor did we ever see one during the half day we spent in town driving & exploring around. When we finally found the Visitor Center new location we were told there that you must first purchase a park ticket in order to be able to ride the trolley...this is indicated NOWHERE on the website!! We travel in an RV and require larger parking access than for just a vehicle and all the running through town streets trying to find things is very cumbersome and frustrating!! Also, the park apparently do no counting or reporting of the number of manatees present, as is done at Blue Springs State Park just a bit further South. At Blue Springs you pay one fee per car to enter and the boardwalk along the spring is a wonderful stroll providing many views of the springs and usually manatees which they are always aware of and let you know upon entering what to expect in numbers. We DID NOT pay the overpriced fee to ender Three Sisters and were VERY DISAPPOINTED in our stop there. Although it is a cute town and the murals painted around the town are nice, we would not go back and would NOT RECOMMEND it to others unless you are planning to do a swim with the manatees adventure through a private tour operation.
Written 13 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Kathy J
4 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Couples
We enjoyed this place for watching manatees. A lifelong wish for me. Many places along the trail to observe them. Winter months are best.
Written 7 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Diana M
Carlsbad, NM112 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Mar 2024 • Couples
First issue: the website isn't clear that you have to go to the Visitor's center and buy your wristband before paying to park at Hunters Park to get a shuttle to the refuge. It also doesn't tell you if or when they do run the shuttle to certain stops. Thankfully, I ran into a ranger who explained things to me. Unfortunately I had already paid the parking fee.
OFFICE STAFF ARE VERY HELPFUL!

Second issue: our shuttle driver was rude and unclear in his instructions which kept us on board an extra 15 minutes. When we arrived at the museum and didn't disembark, he smugly asked, "Where are you going?" I had already informed him that I misunderstood his instructions and would be riding back to the parking lot. However he took this opportunity to try and start an "I'm right, you're wrong" argument while other passengers were loading at the museum. Not a nice man. I think it was John. The sweet lady in the visitors center wasn't sure if it was John or Pete when we visited on March 1st.

The Springs were sensational and the manatee marvelous. Just plan for a grouchy old man as your driver.
Written 3 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Cathrine S
Boca Raton, FL136 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Couples
Beautiful! The springs are crystal clear and a beautiful aqua color. There is a well constructed boardwalk all around the springs that make it easy to enjoy the view. We were lucky to see a mother manatee with her calf staying warm in the spring on the morning of our visit. As we ventured further, we saw a turtle swimming along, some fish and at the mouth of the stream, a few more manatee. This place is a real treasure!
Written 1 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

DIANE AND MICHELLE DILORENZO-PARSONS
Henderson, NV2 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Friends
A great boardwalk with first introduction to the manatees. There is so much wildlife there with birds and manatees. Bring some sunscreen and bug spray. My friend stayed on one of the many benches
Written 1 March 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Eileen B
Oregon, WI6 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Couples
I could have stayed on the boardwalks for days watching the manatees and their babies in the incredibly clear water. We saw at least 100 in the two hours we were there. The water was so clear and still and we were so close that we could clearly see without binoculars individual markings and scarring on the manatees as they entered the springs from the river. Surprisingly, cormorants dove into the springs and flew underwater alongside the manatees, looking for fish.

I will go back again and again when I visit Florida in the winter!
Written 28 February 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

FranMDJ M
Venice, FL28 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Couples
Wonderful boardwalk path with many close viewing sites of clustered manatees in warm springs. Helpful ranger & volunteers to ask questions. A manatee was discharged from Tampa Zoo to Three Sisters & that was fascinating to experience. Water is very clean & site is well maintained. Great activity as complement to boat tour.
Written 21 February 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Anne B
2 contributions
2.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Family
What a ripoff!! It is now $20.00 to get in!! Maybe they should use some of that money to build a bigger viewing deck?! You walk to a viewing area, whic is PACKED with people trying to get a look, but it turns into a long line, and then you feel hurried when you finally get a look...not to mention the photographers who will NOT move or let others in. Poorly run, poor communication, and poor facility..look elsewhere!
Written 18 February 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

Terri F
Lancaster, WI21 contributions
5.0 of 5 bubbles
Feb 2024 • Solo
The springs were beautiful blue green. Lots of manatees on my visit, unfortunately LOTS of people too. Very congested in some areas of the boardwalk. Perhaps it's better to arrive soon after opening?
Written 16 February 2024
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.

…
Showing results 1-10 of 1,529
Revenue impacts the experiences featured on this page, learn more.
Is this your Tripadvisor listing?
Own or manage this property? Claim your listing for free to respond to reviews, update your profile and much more.
Claim your listing

THREE SISTERS SPRINGS: All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (with Photos)

Frequently Asked Questions about Three Sisters Springs