<\/p>\n
CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. \u2014 The \u2018Manatee Capital of the World\u2019 is hosting the 39th-annual Florida Manatee Festival<\/a> this weekend in downtown Crystal River<\/a>.<\/p>\n The festival features two days of live entertainment, food, activities and vendors along with guided manatee boat tours and kayak tours. \u2018Marley The Manatee,\u2019 who locals lovingly describe as a Crystal River celebrity, will also be in attendance.<\/p>\n Tickets are $10 for adults. Children under the age of 12 can get in for free.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Manatee Festival is so important to this community,\u201d said Kim Altman, owner of Explorida Adventure Center in Crystal River. \u201cIt draws people in who otherwise wouldn\u2019t know about the manatee.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is really a great way economically to boost our local economy and get local dollars flowing\u2026 in the most fun way possible,\u201d added Jade White, Associate VP of Operations and Outreach for Citrus County Chamber of Congress<\/a>.<\/p>\n Organizers recommend utilizing free parking at nearby Crystal River High School<\/a> or the West Citrus Government Center<\/a>. Shuttles to the event are available.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source baynews9.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" CRYSTAL RIVER, Fla. \u2014 The \u2018Manatee Capital of the World\u2019 is hosting the 39th-annual Florida Manatee Festival this weekend in downtown Crystal River. The festival features two days of live entertainment, food, activities and vendors along with guided manatee boat tours and kayak tours. \u2018Marley The Manatee,\u2019 who locals lovingly describe as a Crystal River […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2238716,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25177],"tags":[22811,433183,433182,21738,433185,433184,344787,21737],"class_list":["post-2238715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrities","tag-app-top-stories","tag-citrus-county","tag-jeff-butera","tag-news","tag-on-the-town","tag-on-the-town-app","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Crystal-River-\u2018celebrity-to-attend-Manatee-Festival.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238715"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2238717,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238715\/revisions\/2238717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2238716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}