We paid a visit to the remarkable Georgia Aquariam in Atlanta today. Being a native who now lives in NY, I must admit that I was really really, impressed. I have been curious about the aquarium since it opened in 2005. Located in Pemberton Place, right across the way from the Coca Cola Museum, it’s one of the world’s largest aquariums. I have been to the NY Aquarium and the aquarium in Baltimore, and others around the country. I have to say that the GA Aquarium outdoes them all. With more than 8.5 million U.S. gallons of marine and fresh water fish, it houses more than 100,000 animals of 500 species. It’s elaborate with moving creatures every which way you look. We saw so many creatures we’ve never seen before – sharks, whales (aside from our whale watching in Cape Cod), manta rays, sting rays and so much more.
The aquarium was founded by $250 million donated by Home Depot co-founder, Bernard Marcus. He’s someone I’ve known about all my life as he’s a huge philanthropist and has given to many Jewish charities helping children and the elderly. Leave it to him to create a place that provides so much joy to so many people.
The aquarium is unique in that it has five galleries, each hosting a form of sea life in various tanks. The main event was Ocean Voyager. You actually feel like you’re going inside a tank, because you walk through a 100-ft.-long glass tunnel and gaze at all forms of fish swimming around you, over your heads. We saw whale sharks (which scared my son), hammerheads, grouper, sting rays, zebra sharks, and many others. My daughter pointed out a “school of fish,” a term I was pleasantly surprised to hear her use. The exhibit also features a “Touching Experience” where the kids could touch fish on a screen to learn more about them; a theater to watch fish swimming (like going to the movies but seeing live fish in the screen) and a film about how UPS transported the whales to the museum. My son was fixated on this film. It is amazing to see how they got 25,000 creatures to the museum from far away places on a trip where no part of their body could be away from water.
A friend of mine actually told me to start our tour in the Georgia Explorer gallery, an area for children, which introduces 
them to some of the types of fish featured in the museum: sea turtles, sting rays, lionfish, starfish, shrimps and fish we’ve never heard of like robust red horse sucker fish. It features touch pools for the kids to actually touch and feel some of the creatures, while learning what’s living on our won coast. It also features a playing area for kids to run around in with an enormous slide. We started our tour there, and ended our tour there. The kids loved the playing area, which thankfully they both reached the height requirements (up to 52″ only). My friend was right.
The Tropical Diver gallery feature smaller tanks with more unusual fish that we had never heard of that live in coral reef. There is a fantastic recreation of a tropical Pacific coral reef, complete with an overhead crashing wave. Ornate wobbegons, atlantic sea nettles, beautiful sea jellies with lacy arms and tentacles that glow in the dark, angelfish, sturgeonfish, exquisite wrasse, sea horses, zebra turkeyfish, scorpionfish, cherubfish, hogfish, seahorses, and a fish that we’ve seen so many times before, the clownfish that looks exactly like Nemo from Finding Nemo. The aquarium’s mascot looks like Nemo. His name is Deepo, and his voice narrated our walk into the aquarium from the parking lot. It’s a shout out to Home Depot, a major sponsor of the Aquarium.
In the Cold Water Quest, kids can touch sea urchins, sea stars, sea anemones. Through the glass windows, we saw spider crabs, ratfish, the beluga whale (which means “white” in Russian), sea otters, an octopus, sea dragons and one of our favorite parts of the museum, penguins. They have a cave for kids to crawl through with peepholes to see the penguins.
The last gallery we visited was River Scout, which features fish
from all over the world (Africa, the Amazon, Asia and right here off the coast of Georgia). There’s a tank of fish from Africa. Other tanks include eels, catfish, buffalo, sturgeon, piranhas, and otters. The museum has a lot of information about all the fish, including a video about non-point source pollution. It’s clear that the goal is to better understand how these areas help us manage the world’s major fisheries and help them thrive.
They also offer a 3D film called “Deepo’s Undersea 3D Watershow” which we didn’t have time to see. It allows guests to experience the underwater world from a marine’s animal’s point of view.
A visit to the Georgia Aquarium is not cheap. An adult ticket costs $26.50, with children under 2 getting in free. We managed to find parking for $5. I did find a really good coupon offer for Mommy & Me here. For $25, the Me & Mommy ticket includes Aquarium general admission for one adult, free admission for children age five and under (maximum four children per paid adult) and free parking ($10 value). This offer is valid Monday-Friday through November 12th, 2010 and can only be purchased online. The Aquarium is also hosting the same offer for dads. It’s called Day with Dad. This ticket has the same deadline and other rules as Me and Mommy.
Disclosure: Our admission tickets were provided to me free of charge, but no review was requested in return and the opinions reflected are my own.
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