Atlanta Aquarium!!

We've lived in Georgia for 7 years and this was our first visit to the Aquarium!!  Since we have another big plane trip this summer we didn't do anything extravagant for spring break.  So I took off Thursday and Friday, so we could have some local staycation fun!

 We left our house for the 2 hour drive around 830.  This is as Atlanta came into view.

They do check your bags when you enter the facility.  I would definitely buy your tickets beforehand so you skip the ticketing line and go right through to the security check.  They DO check inside your bags.  On the website (and on blogs I read beforehand) they said no outside food and drink is allowed in the facility, which was hard for me because I normally like to save that money and bring in our lunch and waters.

 This is what you see when you first walk into the aquarium! It was so beautiful!

 This boy is always taking pictures/videos on ANY adventure he goes on.

There was just so much to look at!

 Sea Lions - this was one show we missed. 

So many things for him to touch and climb on!

The belugas kinda stayed like this most of the time - they kept feeding them, only a few times did they swim and you could see all of them.

PENGUINS!  I saw in the schedule that they paraded them around somewhere in the main aquarium but we were never in the right spot to see them.

Of course my Alaska heart gets excited when I see this stuff!

Different view of the belugas

 They have several areas you can touch.  He said it was weird to touch it!

 As we were walking through this area this show started.  Which is why Cale is sitting by himself.  He wasn't alone for long as within a couple minutes this area was packed!

It was actually a cute puppet show.  They sang and danced and told a story about how turtles lay their eggs.

After the puppet show we headed to lunch in their little cafeteria.  It was a buffet and had LOTS of food options.

 I spent about $35 on lunch - but as you can see Cale got a special Slurpee drink which was probably $6 with the cup.  Had I realized earlier I would have bought that water bottle earlier and just refilled it in the water fountain all day, instead of just the afternoon.  The food wasn't bad so I wasn't too upset at the $35.  One thing I did see mentioned on other blogs was to eat at non traditional lunch times.  Don't go right at noon because you might not find a seat to sit at when you want to, but it's also a good time to go see shows that are scheduled over that time because most people are in here and eating.  I heard going at 11 or 1 is the better idea.  We ate around 1230ish and we did have to wander for a bit to find a free table.

 After lunch we hopped on the little moving walkway to see the bigger animals!

 LOOK AT THAT MANTA RAY!!  It was huge!!!

This part of the aquarium was probably my favorite!! The view was beautiful!!

 Whale Shark!!

 We got to see the scuba show.  There were 3 divers in there answering questions.

These pictures were taken around 2pm - I mean this place was packed!  If you have a small child I would definitely backpack "leash" them (if you believe in that sort of thing - and we did when our kids were small) because it is very easy to get separated with all the people there.  I kept loosing sight of Cale in the crowds because he is shorter.  But thankfully he had his iPod hooked up to the WIFI at the aquarium so had he truly gotten lost he could have FaceTimed me.  Had I thought about it ahead of time I would have put his cell watch we have so he could call - and if someone (God forbid) did grab him we could trace where he was with the GPS on it.

The submarine is where the VR game is.

 

 We walked up to the dolphin show part and we were about an hour and a half too early to see it.  So we watched the tank for a bit.

While we waited I paid the $10 for Cale to play the VR game.  He said it was totally cool!

At 230 we went back upstairs to get in line for the dolphin show that started at 3.  I was worried about this line, it was pretty long.  Here is a tip that I didn't know about until I got there and it was too late.  You can pre-purchase your seats ahead of time so you DON'T have to stand in this line.  Normally this show is free but if you want reserved seating to avoid the line it's $5 a seat.  I totally would have spent $15 for us to not have to wait in that line and wait inside the theater for 30 minutes.  When I got there at 1030 and found this out - they were already sold out ALL DAY!!!

We sat in there pretty close and it was awesome.  We sat on the right hand side and that side didn't get splashed as much (even in the front rows)  but that middle section was DRENCHED!!

I mean this auditorium was HUGE I had no reason to worry about our spot in line!

He really wanted to get wet so I'm not sure why I had to give up my jacket so he wouldn't!!  Weirdo.

We left the dolphin show at around 345 so either EVERYONE was in the dolphin show and still trying to get out or this place isn't as packed in the afternoon hours.

We had a FANTASTIC time at the Aquarium.  I thought it would be an all day at the Aquarium experience.  But really it was only a couple hours.  Had we not waited for the Dolphin show at 3 (because we missed the 11am one) we would have been done at 130 - so about 3 hours to see everything AND eat lunch.
No we went over spring break (I'm not sure if Atlanta schools were on spring break or not) so it MIGHT not be as packed on a Thursday morning as it was for us - I went in thinking it wasn't going to be as bad because we went on a weekday morning.  I was TOTALLY wrong.
Was this a frugal trip?  Not in the least (or at least by my standards), I paid $130 for the three tickets and that was with the military rate, $15 for parking in the garage (which was more convenient than driving around the block in downtown Atlanta looking for cheaper $10 parking), $35 for lunch and $30 for the two souvenirs I bought them.  But the memories they created from this are PRICELESS.
If you can't tolerate a big crowd and rude people pushing their way this is NOT the place for you.  But if you CAN and have patience that you WILL see everything I totally recommend going!  All the staff at the aquarium were nice, the facility was clean, the bathrooms were big enough to handle the crowds without waiting in line forever!