TRAVEL DIARY | Family Weekend Trip To Calgary, Alberta

We took a family weekend trip to Calgary, AB for a family wedding – and we wanted to take our girls to a few of the fun Calgary locations when we had free time. While we were there we tackled the best activities in Calgary for young families, our kids had a great time!

Day 1 | We ended up having a terrible sleep the night before the wedding at the hotel due to Abigail teething and us being unprepared at 2 am without Tylenol. Thankfully my best friend travelled with us to help watch the girls at night while we went to the wedding (she’s a gem, right!). We packed up Annaliese, left Abigail napping with Matt, and then hurried over to Rosso Coffee Roasters – our first crucial stop of the day. 

9:30 AM | We went to the Rosso Coffee Inglewood location, there are 5 Rosso locations around Calgary, and ordered a latte and a sweet latte. Both lattes were buttery smooth and just what we needed to start our morning. Plus, I always appreciate satisfying latte art!

10:30 AM | We ordered to-go a chai latte, matcha latte, and mocha latte (for Matt). And onward we headed downtown for a quick stop at the Calgary Tower to tire Annaliese out before her nap.

11 AM | I’m so glad we stopped at the Calgary Tower because Annaliese loved it! I’m not a fan of heights and took a bit more courage for me to step out onto the see-through floor, but Annaliese enjoyed it so much and it was all she could talk about on the way home.

The 360 degrees view of the Calgary Tower shows you the view of downtown Calgary and if you look past the clouds you can see the Rocky Mountains in the distance. This ended our day of sight seeing as we attended the wedding in the afternoon and spent the evening at the reception.

Day 2 | After checking out of the hotel at noon, we packed up the girls and headed to the Calgary Zoo for the afternoon. I wish we had checked out earlier and spent more time at the zoo because it was fantastic!

12:30 PM | It was my first time so I completely underestimated the size of the zoo. We stopped into the Canadian Wildlife section first and just got to the cougar exhibit as they were setting up the cougars food – two white rabbits. Matt and Annaliese had front row seats, and it was Matt’s second favourite part (I’ll tell you our collective favourite part of the zoo later).

It was a warm, sunny day and Abigail slept for most of our zoo adventure in the stroller (mom win!). Animals we saw in the Canadian Wilds exhibit were cougars, grizzly bears, black bears, caribou, elk, owls, northern sheep, and mountain goats. 

Though we live in Canada it was still amazing to see these beautiful animals, as it can dangerous seeing them on the highway through the national parks.

We continued to the TransAlta Rainforest and saw gorillas, monkeys, bats, snakes and walked through an open bird exhibit. 

Then onto our favourite: Safari Through The African Savannah, which is half indoors and half outdoors. In here we saw meerkats, snakes, ostriches, giraffes, zebras, lions, and our favourite parts… Hippopotamuses!

Hippos are incredible creatures. These hippos’ hefty size was jaw dropping. The way they waddle on land was adorable – but I know, from Annaliese’s obsession of watching safari animals attack each other on Youtube, that hippopotamuses are one of the most dangerous animals in the water. They are fast, agile swimmers so it was fascinating to see them shuffle around on their feet. 

3:30 PM | And that concluded the zoo trip for us – and trust me when I say the girls were very quiet in the back seat on the way home. They were exhausted from such a fun day!

I can’t wait to take another weekend trip to Calgary to find more awesome activities in Calgary for young families like ours – hopefully next time it will be a girls trip with my besties! 

What do you think the best activities in Calgary for young families are? Let me know in a comment below!

If you like this post, check out my Girl’s Weekend Trip To Calgary post before you go!

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