I had the opportunity to visit here on a early afternoon this past weekend. I had never been to a Sea Life Aquarium before, but I have been to plenty of standard aquariums. These are smaller aquariums, but it still took us about 2 hours to go through. I am not going to review every tank or section, but rather just give a broad overview.
This aquarium is designed in ways that maximize the spaces and is VERY immersive compared to other aquariums I have been to. Every "zone" has an area you can crawl under and get into the tank with a blister, most aquariums seem to have one or two of these, but SEA Life has 7 or 8 of them along with 3 or 4 tanks designed to give the impression you are diving in them via a wrap around wall of glass. They also have a 360 glass tunnel and normal 180 glass tunnel whereas most aquariums just have one 180 tunnel. The design is top level, really.
Entering the aquarium you go into a circular room with a school of pompano, the tank is designed to that they can swim around the entire room. From there it is the Caves zone, then Shipwreck, "Last of the Dragons" (Axolotl), Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean (180 tunnel and 360 tunnel), Sea Horse Temple, Indian Ocean, Rays, Everglades, rock pools, gift shop.
Atlantic Ocean had black tip reef sharks, green sea turtle, tarpon, southern sting rays, etc. Pacific had zebra shark, green moray eel, and lots of tropical fish and a few rays. In the Shipwreck they had tanks for sea anemone, urchin, bamboo shark, starfish, and other smaller fish. Everglades had some really beautiful tanks and Rockpools had the obligatory sea anemone, starfish, and barnacles.
Overall this is a really cool aquarium. I intend on going to the one in Tempe later this year, so it will be interesting to compare them. In all honesty if you were choosing between here and the Florida Aquarium I would be indecisive. They are both really nice facilities. The FL aquarium is overall better, but if you did not want to make the drive to Tampa then I think that this is a very good substitute if you are in the Orlando area.
I have added more pictures in the gallery, but here are a few:
This aquarium is designed in ways that maximize the spaces and is VERY immersive compared to other aquariums I have been to. Every "zone" has an area you can crawl under and get into the tank with a blister, most aquariums seem to have one or two of these, but SEA Life has 7 or 8 of them along with 3 or 4 tanks designed to give the impression you are diving in them via a wrap around wall of glass. They also have a 360 glass tunnel and normal 180 glass tunnel whereas most aquariums just have one 180 tunnel. The design is top level, really.
Entering the aquarium you go into a circular room with a school of pompano, the tank is designed to that they can swim around the entire room. From there it is the Caves zone, then Shipwreck, "Last of the Dragons" (Axolotl), Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean (180 tunnel and 360 tunnel), Sea Horse Temple, Indian Ocean, Rays, Everglades, rock pools, gift shop.
Atlantic Ocean had black tip reef sharks, green sea turtle, tarpon, southern sting rays, etc. Pacific had zebra shark, green moray eel, and lots of tropical fish and a few rays. In the Shipwreck they had tanks for sea anemone, urchin, bamboo shark, starfish, and other smaller fish. Everglades had some really beautiful tanks and Rockpools had the obligatory sea anemone, starfish, and barnacles.
Overall this is a really cool aquarium. I intend on going to the one in Tempe later this year, so it will be interesting to compare them. In all honesty if you were choosing between here and the Florida Aquarium I would be indecisive. They are both really nice facilities. The FL aquarium is overall better, but if you did not want to make the drive to Tampa then I think that this is a very good substitute if you are in the Orlando area.
I have added more pictures in the gallery, but here are a few:
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