Hello fellow parents out there! How many of your children have spring break or some other school break coming up? Well, I’m sure that you would like to take them somewhere fun for their break. My daughter just had her spring break for school, and my husband and I were trying to figure out a new, fun, and exciting place to take her.
We finally decided that we were going to spend the week down in Atlanta, GA. There are so many different parks down there that have a great environment for families. One place that we decided to take her to was the Georgia Aquarium, which is the world’s largest aquarium with more than 8.5 million gallons! We thought this was the perfect place to bring her seeing that she absolutely loves all types of animals and that place is full of them!
Tickets are a little bit pricey, being that just for general admission into the aquarium is $18.95 for children (3-12) and $24.95 for adults. It sounds pricey, and that’s what my husband and I thought before we got there. But let me tell you, once we got there our thoughts completely changed concerning the prices.
We got to the aquarium and everyone was pretty friendly, which made us even more happy to have decided to take our daughter there. Before you even get into the aquarium itself, you walk down this hall with windows looking into a tank full of fish. This was just a glimpse of what was to come. Once we got through the hallway, we picked up an aquarium map, there were 6 different sections inside the aquarium that all had a different type of sea life in it.
The 6 sections were Cold Water Quest, Georgia Explorer, Ocean Voyager, River Scout, Tropical Diver, and Dolphin Tales. Cold Water Quest is home to a huge aray of marine mammals, including sea dragons, spider crabs, and damselfish. The two tanks which have the most popular animals were the beluga whales, and sea otters. My daughters favorite in this section was the sea otters because they were being very playful.
The Georgia Explorer section is home to 3 touch tanks which include horseshoe crabs, sea stars, stingrays, baby sharks, and shrimp. I know, you think it’s crazy that they allow sharks in a touch tank, but the woman that was there told us that these baby sharks were never know to attack any humans, which was definitely a relief. The touch tanks are a great place for children to learn about the animals, and see what these animals look like up close, if they were ever to see them out in the wild.
The Ocean Voyager section is home to 4 huge manta rays, and 4 huge whale sharks, small and large sting rays, and hammerhead sharks, as well as thousands of other fish. This tank is definitely a site to see! Those sharks are definitely scary and really make you think about what’s out in the wild! All of the sea life in this tank was about the size of 3 of 4 humans, my husband and I couldn’t imagine how bug the sharks were out in the wild if they were this big in these tanks in captivity!
The River Scout section is home to many different types of fish, including piranha. The real highlight of this section, and my daughter’s absolute favorite part was the asian small clawed otter tank. These animals were the cutest things I had ever seen, they were playing with each other and swimming about the tank playing with some toys that were in there with them.
The Tropical Diver section was home to garden eels, and tons of tropical fish including “Nemo” and “Dori” from the infamous children’s movie called Finding Nemo. The big exhibit in this section was the hallway that has 4 different tanks with a ton of jelly fish. My husband was not a fan of these because he thought they were creepy, even though he couldn’t stop snapping a million pictures of these “creepy things”!
The Dolphin Tales Section is of course home to dolphins! This was my favorite part to see because I think that dolphins are such peaceful mammals. I was just amazed to see the way that the trainers interacted with them, getting them to do all of the tricks during the shows that are put on.
Not only does the aquarium have animals, but there are also places that you can sit down and get something to eat. However, I will say that these food places are way to pricey for any normal middle-class family. Our advice to everyone is to simply bring a cooler and pack a lunch for your family. There is a beautiful park right across the street from the aquarium that is perfect for a picnic lunch!
The aquarium also have 2 gift shops that you can buy souvenirs for yourself and other family members who were not able to be there with you. These shops can be pretty pricey, but my husband and I definitely didn’t stop our daughter from picking out a few of her favorite souvenirs. This may sound funny, but we couldn’t just leave without letting her get something to remember what she says was “the best vacation ever, thanks mom and dad!!” Come on now, what parent could say no after that?!
Overall, this was probably one of the most exciting and fun places that we could have taken our daughter. This place is definitely recommended for children and adults. So what are you waiting for? Go to http://www.georgiaaquarium.org/ and get your family tickets today!!
