Georgia Aquarium

While we were in Atlanta, we decided to pay a visit to the Georgia Aquarium.  The kids had not been since Olivia was 2 and Owen was 6 months old, so a return trip was needed.  In case you haven't heard, the Georgia Aquarium is the largest and, in my opinion, best aquarium in the country.  Since our last visit, they have expanded the aquarium and now have dolphin and sea lion shows.

 We arrived around 10:30- just in time to see the penguin parade. A couple of times a day, the staff marches a few penguins down a ramp in the atrium.  This allows visitors to get an up-close view of them.  Penguins are Owen's favorite, so he was especially excited to witness this.

 My favorite part of the aquarium is the Ocean Voyager gallery.  This is where you will find the four whale sharks that the aquarium is so famous for.  Those things are amazing.  I could sit in front of the large window for hours and watch them swim.

 The new dolphin show at the aquarium was surprisingly well done.  I would say that it was on par with the dolphin show at SeaWorld.  We sat in the "splash zone", so we had a great view of the show.  It was very enjoyable.  We also attended the Sea Lion show.  It was pretty good as well.

 Both of the kids were really fond of the beluga whales.  Olivia even chose a stuffed beluga as her souvenir.  I think we spent more time watching the belugas than any other animal at the aquarium.

 There were several touch tanks throughout the aquarium, and I think Olivia touched every single fish in them.

 The kids favorite gallery was the Tropical Diver.  They enjoyed watching the colorful fish in dart in and out of the coral reef.

Another pleasant change to the aquarium since our last visit is that the 4D theater that used to be an add-on is now included in the price of admission.  We enjoyed watching a "Happy Feet" show.  There is also a new hands-on educational area for kids.  There was not much traffic in this area of the aquarium and I don't know why.  Olivia and Owen enjoyed all of the interactive games.  I practically had to drag them away from this area.  Another interesting thing about the educational area was that there were windows where you could see the top of the various tanks.  That's a part of the aquarium that you don't always get to see.  We spent a little over four hours at the aquarium.  We could have stayed longer, but needed to get on the road to head home.  I would definitely be interested in doing a behind-the-scenes tour or animal encounter here in the future.