This is the largest aquarium in the world and is worthy of its major attraction status. It is an excellent facility located in its own huge modern building in downtown Atlanta, adjacent to Centennial Olympic Park from the 1996 games hosted here. The aquarium is much newer, opened in 2005 as part of the continuing rehabilitation of this part of the city. It is a comprehensive aquarium composed of five themed exhibit areas, only one of which focuses on a specific geographical region while the other four focus on different water environments. One of the areas is a single exhibit which dwarfs the other four that are all of similar size. Each area is uniquely designed and presented, yet consistently excellent, from large tanks to tiny showcases. Each area is arranged in a loop that clearly starts and ends in a central lobby, a nice feature since the facility is so large that a single loop would be exhausting and a more complex layout would be confusing and probably dilute the themes. Entry and lobby facilities are all very roomy, designed for accommodating large crowds, and this consideration is extended to most of the exhibit areas with wider hallways and larger viewing areas than many other aquariums. Informational graphics are plentiful and easily read, although many contain simpler facts and explanations than comparable facilities, surprising for an institution that has such an extensive education mandate and veterinary and scientific programs.
The building is surrounded on three sides by streets and the other by an attractive park filled with a complex series of curvilinear planters and walls. It is oriented toward the corner of Centennial Olympic Park across one of the streets and the adjacent park, and is composed of several large sloping wedge shapes punctuated by a taller blue futuristic ovoid shape and a pointed curving canopy wrapping around the front that shelters a similar curving stepped amphitheater that contains the entry plaza. The sides and back of the building are less interesting, being blocky rectilinear forms that follow the lot line and backed by a multiple story parking structure which turns its back on the adjacent lower density older neighborhood. The entry plaza is a spacious sheltered area for multiple ticket booths that leads to a door on the first and primary level. Once inside, visitors encounter a dark lobby with a large undulating ceiling painted with whales and sharks. The lobby narrows at its end to a door where tickets are collected before entering the main lobby beyond. On each side of this narrow end, an abstract tank features a school of jacks swimming against an artificial current in an endless loop, the largest exhibits of this type I have seen and a very effective dramatic and simple introduction to the wonders ahead. In contrast, going through the door reveals the main lobby, a tall central space filled with activity and visual stimulation. It is dominated by a dark ceiling hung with massive white oval forms in a random pattern and an undulating wave-like light wall high above several sides that features a changing pattern sequence rendered with pink, lavender, and white lights projected within. This light wall dominates the space, and when at its brightest it makes the huge space glow. This showy effect is impressive, yet seems out of place here; it is like a design for the main floor of one of the newer slick Las Vegas casinos! Perhaps the design team had a backup plan in mind in case the aquarium was met with indifference? Despite this, it is a well designed dynamic space that includes a large rounded central seating area and information desks as well as being the hub for all of the themed exhibit areas which extend from here. A second story balcony above one side of the space is reached by a staircase and leads to a plain medium sized theater for a technically impressive but vapid fifteen-minute ‘4-D’ animated film called ‘Deepos Undersea 3D Wondershow’. The show features moving seats and live effects interspersed with the film, but the content is basically a ripoff of a scene from a famous adaptation of ‘The Little Mermaid’ with a few educational gems thrown in such as discarded plastic 6-pack rings being dangerous to fish. There is also a special exhibition space adjacent, currently showing ‘Planet Shark’, an additional admission area that contains no live exhibits. I did not go into this exhibit so I cannot comment on its content. Back on the first level, the far end of the main lobby leads to an opening to another lobby, this time a tall round skylit space with seating areas on two levels for the adjacent Café Aquaria Food Court. The design of this area is bright white with bright blue tile wall sections and upholstered booths. The food and selections here are good, and the space is large enough to handle crowds, but it is surprising that a finer table service restaurant is lacking in this facility. The upper floor of this lobby is reached by another curving stairway or a long curving ramp that is backed by a massive blue backlit wall etched with donor names. This upper balcony has more tables and is an entry lobby to Oceans Ballroom, a large private event space which was locked when I visited. I understand it is an impressive space with large windows viewing two of the large exhibit tanks from angles that the public areas do not see. Back downstairs, the small Sand Dollar Gift Shop is adjacent to the Café Aquaria, while the much larger Beyond The Reef Gift Shop forms the exit passage out of the main lobby and building, emptying back into the outdoor plaza and park. This latter gift shop features a small abstract glass tiled tank with tropical fish at its entrance, a large statue of their mascot Deepo (who is a Garibaldi), and big curved brightly lit forms that erupt from floor to ceiling and form merchandise centers. Like the rest of the non-exhibit interiors, it is striking and abstract with just the right amount of evocative slick detail without being too literal. For instance, the cash wrap is not in a pavilion inside a giant red octopus like I have seen elsewhere. I think the design team wanted to set apart this aquarium in this way, a sort of reaction against the hyper-theming of facilities opened ten to fifteen years ago which itself was a reaction to the consistent concrete minimalism of many of the 1970s and 80s facilities. On to the exhibit reviews!
Georgia Explorer is the only exhibit area with a specific geographic theme and is the most interactive playful area, yet the least interesting, although it is still a nice facility. It begins with a large square lighthouse on stilts above the entrance from the main lobby, with its sign hanging down. Beneath this is a large rocky low walled touch pool with rays and small sharks. This leads to a highly themed two story room that looks like a wood sail loft decorated with flags and boats hung from the rafters, the center of which has a full sized shrimp boat that can be boarded and an open tank for live brown shrimp touching! There is also a multiple story play structure on one wall and a climbing maze suspended over the exhibit room and a large slide shaped like a right whale entered from the second floor. A small theater nearby plays a video interpreting the Northern right whale population which calves off the state coast. A side room on the first floor has a lower rafter ceiling hung with turtle statues that lead to three average small wall habitats, one for loggerhead turtles, one for fish of Gray’s Reef off the coast, and one for lionfish which are alien to the state but thriving there. There is also a staffed touch pool counter for smaller coastal animals in the center of this room. Finally, a shack-like room has a small exhibit of robust redhorse suckers, a freshwater fish once thought to be extinct.
River Scout is a collection of animals from freshwaters around the world and is the most dynamic and intimate of the exhibit areas. It starts with a simulated rocky waterfall next to a flat wall tank of colorful small Amazon fish such as blue discus, housed in a vaguely native American kiva structure, across from a larger flat wall tank of Lake Malawi cichlids. This leads to an excellent floor to ceiling tank filled with simulated deadfalls filled with larger American river fish which can be viewed from a crawl tunnel and popout window behind. This tank is actually part of the most innovative exhibit system here, an overhead river which loops above the exhibit path length and is viewed from multiple ceiling windows that peer into the river revealing the undersides of all the different species. The windows are set within simulated overhead tree trunks and rock fissures, a common feature of the forest theme of this area. The next exhibit is a nice herpetarium set in a tree for emerald tree boas, and adjacent is a roomy long exhibit with underwater viewing for small American alligators and sliders topped by the best of the overhead river windows. Then a trio of small wall aquariums are nested in another tree feature for electric catfish and electric eels. More overhead views of the river follow, and a wall tank of piranha in a temple-like cave is encountered. The last part is a more open room backed with Asian temple theming that features underwater viewing and an open exhibit for Asian small clawed otters. Although it is also nicely detailed, it is too small and artificially lit and hard-edged (and I imagine loud and echo-filled when crowded) to be considered a nice habitat. It still offers good viewing, and is a nice finale to this loop which exits back out next to the waterfall.
Cold Water Quest, focusing on a strange assortment of animals from chilly oceans, is rather unusually themed with a combination of rocky outcrops, modern concrete round columns, rustic stone arches, and arctic features such as a whale skeleton resting on the ground and a snowy icicle covered rockfall and a large stone inukshuk. After passing the rockfall and entering an arch at the entrance, a large arched wall tank with a California kelp forest and rockfish and garibaldi is seen first, across from a small shallow rocky touch pool for sea stars and large anemones. Then a great medium sized tank is seen with more anemones and Japanese giant spider crabs set within one of the round concrete columns. A few tiny tanks are nearby amongst the rocks, and then a nice large weedy sea dragon wall tank is next to a similarly sized Alaska Rocky Reefs exhibit with wolf eels. Finally, a well detailed large rocky habitat for beluga whales is encountered, with a large floor to ceiling curved underwater viewing window that can be viewed from the lower level as well as a second floor balcony. On the other side of the roughly round tank is another viewing window which is one of the two that are exclusively for the Oceans Ballroom on the other side. Currently, the beluga whales are not in their exhibit and have been moved to another facility because there is loud construction nearby. That construction is for a major addition to the aquarium which will be directly attached to the existing walls, a dolphin exhibit and show pavilion. While the dolphin area will be entered from a passageway connected to the main lobby and not from Cold Water Quest, its building is close to these exhibits and the noise was determined to be too much for the sensitive whales. Construction is in full swing and much of the structural steel is in place, visible outside. A temporary construction wall has been installed that limits access to the furthest exhibits for sea otters and giant Pacific octopus, so I did not see a few of the features normally on view here. Despite this, it is still an enjoyable exhibit area and has been augmented with a preserved giant squid in a case on the balcony.
In comparison to the first three exhibit areas, Tropical Diver (and the next exhibit area too) leaves most of the theming to the tanks themselves and presents them in a plain darkened series of passages that does not compete with the colorful inhabitants, and this was a good decision. The first two flat wall tanks are medium sized and well detailed, featuring a delightful group of garden eels in one and cuttlefish in the other. Then a room of three abstract jellies exhibits is seen, one a large blue backlit wall of sea nettles, and two smaller dark exhibits for sea nettles and moon jellies. Although these are pleasant tanks, I was surprised that this showy facility decided to downplay jellies because I have seen more than a dozen more impressive jellies areas elsewhere. It is such a pervasive special exhibit in other places that I suspect they decided to focus energy on other impressive features instead, including the next room, which is Pacific Barrier Reef. This is the second best tank in the aquarium and is a great showcase of tropical fish and reef sharks exploring a long rocky wall of real and simulated coral. The tank occupies the entire room and is a long single window to one of the largest living coral exhibits in the world. This window curves near the top and extends above visitors, forming a shelf of water that some of the larger fish and sharks explore. The exhibit is brightly skylit as well as artificially lit so that the room glows, and the light quality changes slightly every few minutes when an artificial wave is generated on the shelf above and rolls into the rest of the tank in a single full length sweep and dissipates when reaching the coral wall. It is a beautiful scene and is further enhanced by the specifically composed orchestral music that plays in the room and is perfectly synched to crescendo with each crashing wave! The viewing area is also augmented by seating areas on each side and touchscreen kiosks with a wealth of information about every species in the exhibit, including every coral. The final hallway of the area has three small wall tanks, a small globe tank, and a small shelf tank, all of which highlight smaller denizens of the reefs.
The last exhibit, Ocean Voyager, is the one composed of a single tank holding six million gallons of the aquariums eight million gallons! This immense exhibit is justifiably famous and the primary reason the facility has received so much attention and admiration. It is truly a mesmerizing panorama of large open water fish, and was designed to be the first showcase of whale sharks in the Western hemisphere, currently featuring four of these giants which are currently about 17 to 23 feet long and growing! Also unique here are two manta rays which are a joy to watch, especially when turning somersaults. Shark species represented here are zebra, sandbar, sand tiger, spotted wobbegong, tasseled wobbegong, great hammerhead, and blacktip reef. Rays include black blotched fantail, bowmouth guitarfish, giant guitarfish, green sawfish, largetooth sawfish, leopard whipray, and cownose. Other large fish are potato grouper, giant grouper, and humphead wrasse. In addition, plenty of other schooling smaller fish fill the habitat with a dizzying amount of action, and most of the larger species listed are represented by many individuals, not just a few. There seems to be a huge grouper lurking around the rocks around every bend. The exhibit is first encountered with a tall thin curved window that only allows a glimpse into part of the tank, then a hall way circles the tank with multiple smaller window views until a long tunnel is reached which crosses under the entire width of the basically rectangular habitat. Visitors can walk or ride the moving conveyor belt through the tunnel, which empties into a hallway with more small window views along with several educational exhibits along the partially rocky walls and dark gallery. Finally, the last view is a large tiered floor area at one end of the tank in a tall dark room with the seamless floor to ceiling window, the true ‘wow factor’ that reveals the immensity and activity that until now has only been glimpsed. The bottom of the tank is a combination of rocky outcrops and sandy floors, and the rocks surround the tunnel and smaller windows so that none are visible from the main window. The exhibit is skylit and artificially lit, yet its far ends disappear to enhance the open ocean feeling. The variety of viewing experiences are successful in this exhibit, allowing close inspection of inactive fish tucked in grottoes as well as fast surface swimmers. Unfortunately, the smaller windows are so varied in their shapes and orientations that they compose a mish-mash collectively; a single choice of flat windows would have been a better design. Another criticism of this exhibit is that when visitors are traversing through the tunnel (the furthest point they can go before circling back the other side) they are only half way through the exhibit. Incredibly, the other half can only be seen from the private function Oceans Ballroom. I would prefer that this alternate view was included with admission. Despite this, it is still a great experience and while the whale sharks are the stars they are by no means the only attraction in this definition of ‘Undersea 3D Wondershow’.
The excellent quality and comprehensive collection and fresh presentation of Georgia Aquarium make it my number 2 facility of the 34 aquariums I have visited, behind Monterey Bay and above Sea World San Diego. Ocean Voyager is number 1 and Pacific Barrier Reef in Tropical Diver is number 13 in my list of top 25 fish exhibits. At 26 dollars, adult general admission is overpriced a few dollars but will probably be appropriate when the new dolphin exhibit opens. I have posted pictures in the gallery.
The building is surrounded on three sides by streets and the other by an attractive park filled with a complex series of curvilinear planters and walls. It is oriented toward the corner of Centennial Olympic Park across one of the streets and the adjacent park, and is composed of several large sloping wedge shapes punctuated by a taller blue futuristic ovoid shape and a pointed curving canopy wrapping around the front that shelters a similar curving stepped amphitheater that contains the entry plaza. The sides and back of the building are less interesting, being blocky rectilinear forms that follow the lot line and backed by a multiple story parking structure which turns its back on the adjacent lower density older neighborhood. The entry plaza is a spacious sheltered area for multiple ticket booths that leads to a door on the first and primary level. Once inside, visitors encounter a dark lobby with a large undulating ceiling painted with whales and sharks. The lobby narrows at its end to a door where tickets are collected before entering the main lobby beyond. On each side of this narrow end, an abstract tank features a school of jacks swimming against an artificial current in an endless loop, the largest exhibits of this type I have seen and a very effective dramatic and simple introduction to the wonders ahead. In contrast, going through the door reveals the main lobby, a tall central space filled with activity and visual stimulation. It is dominated by a dark ceiling hung with massive white oval forms in a random pattern and an undulating wave-like light wall high above several sides that features a changing pattern sequence rendered with pink, lavender, and white lights projected within. This light wall dominates the space, and when at its brightest it makes the huge space glow. This showy effect is impressive, yet seems out of place here; it is like a design for the main floor of one of the newer slick Las Vegas casinos! Perhaps the design team had a backup plan in mind in case the aquarium was met with indifference? Despite this, it is a well designed dynamic space that includes a large rounded central seating area and information desks as well as being the hub for all of the themed exhibit areas which extend from here. A second story balcony above one side of the space is reached by a staircase and leads to a plain medium sized theater for a technically impressive but vapid fifteen-minute ‘4-D’ animated film called ‘Deepos Undersea 3D Wondershow’. The show features moving seats and live effects interspersed with the film, but the content is basically a ripoff of a scene from a famous adaptation of ‘The Little Mermaid’ with a few educational gems thrown in such as discarded plastic 6-pack rings being dangerous to fish. There is also a special exhibition space adjacent, currently showing ‘Planet Shark’, an additional admission area that contains no live exhibits. I did not go into this exhibit so I cannot comment on its content. Back on the first level, the far end of the main lobby leads to an opening to another lobby, this time a tall round skylit space with seating areas on two levels for the adjacent Café Aquaria Food Court. The design of this area is bright white with bright blue tile wall sections and upholstered booths. The food and selections here are good, and the space is large enough to handle crowds, but it is surprising that a finer table service restaurant is lacking in this facility. The upper floor of this lobby is reached by another curving stairway or a long curving ramp that is backed by a massive blue backlit wall etched with donor names. This upper balcony has more tables and is an entry lobby to Oceans Ballroom, a large private event space which was locked when I visited. I understand it is an impressive space with large windows viewing two of the large exhibit tanks from angles that the public areas do not see. Back downstairs, the small Sand Dollar Gift Shop is adjacent to the Café Aquaria, while the much larger Beyond The Reef Gift Shop forms the exit passage out of the main lobby and building, emptying back into the outdoor plaza and park. This latter gift shop features a small abstract glass tiled tank with tropical fish at its entrance, a large statue of their mascot Deepo (who is a Garibaldi), and big curved brightly lit forms that erupt from floor to ceiling and form merchandise centers. Like the rest of the non-exhibit interiors, it is striking and abstract with just the right amount of evocative slick detail without being too literal. For instance, the cash wrap is not in a pavilion inside a giant red octopus like I have seen elsewhere. I think the design team wanted to set apart this aquarium in this way, a sort of reaction against the hyper-theming of facilities opened ten to fifteen years ago which itself was a reaction to the consistent concrete minimalism of many of the 1970s and 80s facilities. On to the exhibit reviews!
Georgia Explorer is the only exhibit area with a specific geographic theme and is the most interactive playful area, yet the least interesting, although it is still a nice facility. It begins with a large square lighthouse on stilts above the entrance from the main lobby, with its sign hanging down. Beneath this is a large rocky low walled touch pool with rays and small sharks. This leads to a highly themed two story room that looks like a wood sail loft decorated with flags and boats hung from the rafters, the center of which has a full sized shrimp boat that can be boarded and an open tank for live brown shrimp touching! There is also a multiple story play structure on one wall and a climbing maze suspended over the exhibit room and a large slide shaped like a right whale entered from the second floor. A small theater nearby plays a video interpreting the Northern right whale population which calves off the state coast. A side room on the first floor has a lower rafter ceiling hung with turtle statues that lead to three average small wall habitats, one for loggerhead turtles, one for fish of Gray’s Reef off the coast, and one for lionfish which are alien to the state but thriving there. There is also a staffed touch pool counter for smaller coastal animals in the center of this room. Finally, a shack-like room has a small exhibit of robust redhorse suckers, a freshwater fish once thought to be extinct.
River Scout is a collection of animals from freshwaters around the world and is the most dynamic and intimate of the exhibit areas. It starts with a simulated rocky waterfall next to a flat wall tank of colorful small Amazon fish such as blue discus, housed in a vaguely native American kiva structure, across from a larger flat wall tank of Lake Malawi cichlids. This leads to an excellent floor to ceiling tank filled with simulated deadfalls filled with larger American river fish which can be viewed from a crawl tunnel and popout window behind. This tank is actually part of the most innovative exhibit system here, an overhead river which loops above the exhibit path length and is viewed from multiple ceiling windows that peer into the river revealing the undersides of all the different species. The windows are set within simulated overhead tree trunks and rock fissures, a common feature of the forest theme of this area. The next exhibit is a nice herpetarium set in a tree for emerald tree boas, and adjacent is a roomy long exhibit with underwater viewing for small American alligators and sliders topped by the best of the overhead river windows. Then a trio of small wall aquariums are nested in another tree feature for electric catfish and electric eels. More overhead views of the river follow, and a wall tank of piranha in a temple-like cave is encountered. The last part is a more open room backed with Asian temple theming that features underwater viewing and an open exhibit for Asian small clawed otters. Although it is also nicely detailed, it is too small and artificially lit and hard-edged (and I imagine loud and echo-filled when crowded) to be considered a nice habitat. It still offers good viewing, and is a nice finale to this loop which exits back out next to the waterfall.
Cold Water Quest, focusing on a strange assortment of animals from chilly oceans, is rather unusually themed with a combination of rocky outcrops, modern concrete round columns, rustic stone arches, and arctic features such as a whale skeleton resting on the ground and a snowy icicle covered rockfall and a large stone inukshuk. After passing the rockfall and entering an arch at the entrance, a large arched wall tank with a California kelp forest and rockfish and garibaldi is seen first, across from a small shallow rocky touch pool for sea stars and large anemones. Then a great medium sized tank is seen with more anemones and Japanese giant spider crabs set within one of the round concrete columns. A few tiny tanks are nearby amongst the rocks, and then a nice large weedy sea dragon wall tank is next to a similarly sized Alaska Rocky Reefs exhibit with wolf eels. Finally, a well detailed large rocky habitat for beluga whales is encountered, with a large floor to ceiling curved underwater viewing window that can be viewed from the lower level as well as a second floor balcony. On the other side of the roughly round tank is another viewing window which is one of the two that are exclusively for the Oceans Ballroom on the other side. Currently, the beluga whales are not in their exhibit and have been moved to another facility because there is loud construction nearby. That construction is for a major addition to the aquarium which will be directly attached to the existing walls, a dolphin exhibit and show pavilion. While the dolphin area will be entered from a passageway connected to the main lobby and not from Cold Water Quest, its building is close to these exhibits and the noise was determined to be too much for the sensitive whales. Construction is in full swing and much of the structural steel is in place, visible outside. A temporary construction wall has been installed that limits access to the furthest exhibits for sea otters and giant Pacific octopus, so I did not see a few of the features normally on view here. Despite this, it is still an enjoyable exhibit area and has been augmented with a preserved giant squid in a case on the balcony.
In comparison to the first three exhibit areas, Tropical Diver (and the next exhibit area too) leaves most of the theming to the tanks themselves and presents them in a plain darkened series of passages that does not compete with the colorful inhabitants, and this was a good decision. The first two flat wall tanks are medium sized and well detailed, featuring a delightful group of garden eels in one and cuttlefish in the other. Then a room of three abstract jellies exhibits is seen, one a large blue backlit wall of sea nettles, and two smaller dark exhibits for sea nettles and moon jellies. Although these are pleasant tanks, I was surprised that this showy facility decided to downplay jellies because I have seen more than a dozen more impressive jellies areas elsewhere. It is such a pervasive special exhibit in other places that I suspect they decided to focus energy on other impressive features instead, including the next room, which is Pacific Barrier Reef. This is the second best tank in the aquarium and is a great showcase of tropical fish and reef sharks exploring a long rocky wall of real and simulated coral. The tank occupies the entire room and is a long single window to one of the largest living coral exhibits in the world. This window curves near the top and extends above visitors, forming a shelf of water that some of the larger fish and sharks explore. The exhibit is brightly skylit as well as artificially lit so that the room glows, and the light quality changes slightly every few minutes when an artificial wave is generated on the shelf above and rolls into the rest of the tank in a single full length sweep and dissipates when reaching the coral wall. It is a beautiful scene and is further enhanced by the specifically composed orchestral music that plays in the room and is perfectly synched to crescendo with each crashing wave! The viewing area is also augmented by seating areas on each side and touchscreen kiosks with a wealth of information about every species in the exhibit, including every coral. The final hallway of the area has three small wall tanks, a small globe tank, and a small shelf tank, all of which highlight smaller denizens of the reefs.
The last exhibit, Ocean Voyager, is the one composed of a single tank holding six million gallons of the aquariums eight million gallons! This immense exhibit is justifiably famous and the primary reason the facility has received so much attention and admiration. It is truly a mesmerizing panorama of large open water fish, and was designed to be the first showcase of whale sharks in the Western hemisphere, currently featuring four of these giants which are currently about 17 to 23 feet long and growing! Also unique here are two manta rays which are a joy to watch, especially when turning somersaults. Shark species represented here are zebra, sandbar, sand tiger, spotted wobbegong, tasseled wobbegong, great hammerhead, and blacktip reef. Rays include black blotched fantail, bowmouth guitarfish, giant guitarfish, green sawfish, largetooth sawfish, leopard whipray, and cownose. Other large fish are potato grouper, giant grouper, and humphead wrasse. In addition, plenty of other schooling smaller fish fill the habitat with a dizzying amount of action, and most of the larger species listed are represented by many individuals, not just a few. There seems to be a huge grouper lurking around the rocks around every bend. The exhibit is first encountered with a tall thin curved window that only allows a glimpse into part of the tank, then a hall way circles the tank with multiple smaller window views until a long tunnel is reached which crosses under the entire width of the basically rectangular habitat. Visitors can walk or ride the moving conveyor belt through the tunnel, which empties into a hallway with more small window views along with several educational exhibits along the partially rocky walls and dark gallery. Finally, the last view is a large tiered floor area at one end of the tank in a tall dark room with the seamless floor to ceiling window, the true ‘wow factor’ that reveals the immensity and activity that until now has only been glimpsed. The bottom of the tank is a combination of rocky outcrops and sandy floors, and the rocks surround the tunnel and smaller windows so that none are visible from the main window. The exhibit is skylit and artificially lit, yet its far ends disappear to enhance the open ocean feeling. The variety of viewing experiences are successful in this exhibit, allowing close inspection of inactive fish tucked in grottoes as well as fast surface swimmers. Unfortunately, the smaller windows are so varied in their shapes and orientations that they compose a mish-mash collectively; a single choice of flat windows would have been a better design. Another criticism of this exhibit is that when visitors are traversing through the tunnel (the furthest point they can go before circling back the other side) they are only half way through the exhibit. Incredibly, the other half can only be seen from the private function Oceans Ballroom. I would prefer that this alternate view was included with admission. Despite this, it is still a great experience and while the whale sharks are the stars they are by no means the only attraction in this definition of ‘Undersea 3D Wondershow’.
The excellent quality and comprehensive collection and fresh presentation of Georgia Aquarium make it my number 2 facility of the 34 aquariums I have visited, behind Monterey Bay and above Sea World San Diego. Ocean Voyager is number 1 and Pacific Barrier Reef in Tropical Diver is number 13 in my list of top 25 fish exhibits. At 26 dollars, adult general admission is overpriced a few dollars but will probably be appropriate when the new dolphin exhibit opens. I have posted pictures in the gallery.
