text: as a short little birthday treat for my butterfly obsessed lady, we went on a little tour of this relatively new item in scottsdale. \n\ni found it strange when they were building it, out in the desert, in a non-descript parcel of land off the 101, why anyone would build a butterfly sanctuary in arizona, land of 120 degree summer temps?\n\nwell they did, and it was only a matter of time before we would go. \n\nwe bought tix online and good thing we did because the ticket lines were super long. we were able to get in quickly, get our stamp and wait for about 5 minutes for the \"flight of the monarch\" 3-D movie. it's a neat little show about the monarchs, but we had more than a few screaming kids in the audience for the 15 minute show. \n\non to the chrysalis, or butterfly nursery exhibit. that was really neat to see real live butterfly's being \"born\". there is an ant, bee, small aquarium exhibit, and desert insect exhibit, but the real fun starts in the butterfly exhibit. \n\ntip: wear bright clothes and you're likely to get a few of these delicately beautiful insects to land on you!\n\nthere were hundreds of absolutely magical butterfly's floating around. their colors and the closeness as to which you could approach them was truly amazing. they are bugs and only live 2 weeks, but it's still very neat to see them up close and be awed how pretty they are. \n\nweekends are probably packed, but on this sunday around 11am, it wasn't too bad. all the staff were super friendly and the price is decent for an hour or 2!