Looking for awesome gift ideas for Dad? You’ve come to the right place. Nothing beats a fun animal experience at the Zoo or Point Defiance Park, especially when it’s one Dad can share with the whole family.
Eye-to-Eye Shark Dive
All Dads are brave, right? Give yours the thrill of getting up close to more than a dozen massive sharks, while learning about their biology and how we can protect them in the wild.
Hovering nurse sharks. Gliding sand tiger and sandbar sharks. Black tip reef sharks, shy wobbegong and silvery crevalle jack – all just feet away in the South Pacific Aquarium’s Outer Reef habitat while Dad breathes surface air with one of our expert dive team in the shark cage.
Best of all, you can do it with him.
He’ll never forget THIS Fathers’ Day.
Book now
Keeper for a Day
Everyone wants to be a zookeeper, right?
Help Dad achieve his goals by signing him up for our incredibly popular Keeper for a Day or Marine Biologist for a Day experiences.
He’ll get to go behind the scenes, help prep food for our animals, hang out with the keepers or aquarists and learn just what they do – from a totally unique perspective.
And then he’ll have bragging rights for a long, long time.
8am-4pm. Four more dates this year, filling up fast.
Book now
Membership
Give Dad a whole year of nature, wildlife and awesome family fun.
A membership to Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium gets you free admission every day we’re open, plus discounts on camps, experiences, gift shop and cafe items. You get members-only events, discounted admission for friends, and discounted admission to our sister Northwest Trek Wildlife Park.
Plus, you’ll be helping support wildlife, both here at the Zoo and in the wild with our conservation programs. What more could any Dad ask?
Explore memberships
Rent a boat
Hey, it’s summer!
Take Dad out on the water to explore our beautiful Puget Sound (keep a lookout for orcas, seals or jellyfish) and see Point Defiance Park from a unique perspective: the water.
Point Defiance Marina rents boats daily, as well as offering fishing classes, a bait and gear shop and much more.
Start exploring
Wildlife gifts
Visited the Zoo gift shops lately?
Our Pacific Seas Aquarium gift shop is full of entirely reusable or recycled-content items with cool ocean messages: perfect for Dads who love sharks, sea turtles or rays.
Our main gift shop has wildlife-themed items from T-shirts to caps to mugs and reusable bags to help save the planet.
Bring Dad to the Zoo and buy him a gift he’ll always use.
Plan your visit
Stare down a moose, ride a zip line
Our sister zoo Northwest Trek Wildlife Park is full of wild adventures for Dad!
Book him into a zip line experience that’ll have him soaring over a lush Northwest forest canopy, or bring the whole family on a Keeper Adventure Tour in the Jeep, going off-road in the Free-Roaming Area to come up close and personal with moose, bison, elk and mountain goats.
And that’s just the beginning.
Escape from Fort Nisqually
Is Dad up for a challenge? Does he love puzzles and solving mysteries? Drop him into the best puzzle in Tacoma at Escape from Fort Nisqually, a new escape room experience set in the historic 19th-century fort in Point Defiance Park, just uphill from the zoo.
Try out Dad’s ingenuity in “Trapped,” an award winning escape game that challenges you and your friends to explore a trapper’s hidden secrets as you uncover clues, solve puzzles and unlock your way to freedom – all by candlelight.
Or maybe he’s up for “Arrested,” the sequel, where Fort Nisqually employee John McLeod has been arrested by the Washington territorial governor for aiding the enemy and your team has to uncover the evidence before it falls into the wrong hands.
Ages 14+. Currently booking for rentals only. Book here