Georgia Aquarium Reviews (Atlanta, Georgia)

Spend the day, enjoy yourself and empty your wallet

Marietta, Georgia

June 10, 2011

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Best of IgoUgo Take two seniors and two children, add entry fee, dolphin show, and 3D movie...mix with lunch at the "cafeteria" and a stuffed critter for each child...equals over $200.00. Slightly more than most people can afford in this economy.That aside, the ...Read more Take two seniors and two children, add entry fee, dolphin show, and 3D movie...mix with lunch at the "cafeteria" and a stuffed critter for each child...equals over $200.00. Slightly more than most people can afford in this economy.

That aside, the kids really enjoyed seeing the assortment of ocean-dwelling animals, Deepo and his 3D adventure movie, and the Dolphin Tales theater and show.

The 3D movie explained why we need to help keep the waters of our planet clean - Don't Trash Where You Splash is the basic theme brought to life in song and "dance". The characters were colorful and most of the music was catchy. Some of the words were a little hard to understand due to the loud volume, but the kids really didn't care, they were bopping along to the beat. The "explosions" during the movie did scare the little one so that she wound up sitting on my lap (the chairs shook during the show).

Dolphin Tales is also a story in song, but the "dance" part was taken over by the acrobatic dolphins. The theme is the interaction and connection between humans and dolphins. Lights, music and action keep even the smallest child interested and the water element is emphasized with "rain" and water sprays.

The other sections of the aquarium are themed according to the climate or region. Coldwater Quest shows us the Arctic and Antarctic regions. The leafy looking seahorses, one yard wide spider crabs, beluga whales, penguins and other critters are facinating to watch and the interactive screens help identify the unfamiliar fish.

River Scout is the home for the river otters and other river creatures. Look for the albino alligators! Also, look up into the ecosystem of the average Georgia river.

Georgia Explorer was our first stop and the touching pools (rays and crusteaceans) were not as interesting to the children as were the climbing area and slides (a "playground" in any language).

The Ocean Explorer and Tropical Diver exhibits let you feel as if you were actually under the water and among the fish. Acrylic tunnels and large viewing windows (some with seating) let you study the movement and grace of the assorted creatures. The kids were facinated by the jellyfish!

This was a day well spent with the grandkids and we did enjoy the whole display, but our wallet will feel the pinch for months to come. Close

The Aquarium & Behind the Scenes Tour

by Valerie_C

Lawrenceville, Georgia

March 4, 2008

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The aquarium itself is well worth the money, with amazing animals that you might otherwise never see. I love the fact that the aquarium is free flowing, with different exhibits branching out from the main lobby. Because of this there is no time ...Read more

Georgia Aquarium

by Little Ayun

Cambridge, Massachusetts

September 11, 2007

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Best of IgoUgo I was actually able to visit the Georgia Aquarium for free, because the conference I attended held an opening-night reception there, but I would have gladly paid the adult admission cost, which is $23 ($17 for kids). That’s not much more than what ...Read more I was actually able to visit the Georgia Aquarium for free, because the conference I attended held an opening-night reception there, but I would have gladly paid the adult admission cost, which is $23 ($17 for kids). That’s not much more than what my local aquarium in Boston charges, and the Georgia Aquarium beats it by a mile. About three thousand teachers and school administrators, on top of the visitors who were already there, filled the place to bursting, and every exhibit was jam-packed so tight you could barely move. The pungent smell of not-so-appetizing catered food and Sterno carried throughout the entire building, and camera flashes went off approximately eighty million times a minute. Despite all these distractions and annoyances I was utterly transfixed, and had to be dragged out by my colleagues.

There are five major exhibits to explore, each featuring a different water ecosystem, and all include contextualized displays, giving you a sense of what the associated landscape might look like. You can walk around and under tanks, usually from multiple heights, and in the largest exhibit, the Ocean Voyager, has a 100 foot-long clear tunnel running right through its 6 million gallon tank, so you can watch creatures like 600 pound grouper swimming right above your head. The usual suspects are all here: otherworldly sea dragons and so-cute-you-wanna-try-to-walk-off-with-them penguins (from Africa!), but there’s also creatures you don’t often get to see in an aquarium (or anywhere else, for that matter) like beluga whales, giant Japanese crabs (which can grow to the size of cars), and whale sharks. The beluga tank alone dwarfed most of the exhibits I’ve ever seen in aquariums like the Shedd in Chicago, or California’s Monterey Bay, and you’d have to travel all the way to Asia to see another whale shark in captivity. The Georgia Aquarium has four of them! There’s a side mini-exhibit that looks like a commercial for a shipping company, but is actually a really interesting record of the massive effort of shipping those whale sharks to the aquarium before it opened.

A Georgia resident I met while in Atlanta said that he’d been waiting since 2005, when the aquarium opened, for visitor traffic to fall off a little, so he could see the place when it wasn’t so crowded. He’d been waiting two years and there was no sign he’d get his wish anytime soon. You’ll have to deal with large crowds, but it’s more than worth it, and you can probably avoid the worst of it by visiting on a weekday and showing up early. Close

From journal Looking for the Cool in Atlanta

Georgia Aquarium

by MichelleSB

Huntsville, Alabama

November 5, 2006

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Upon entrance, all have to go through security checkpoints. They check for knives, and guns. No guns allowed! The inside is split into 5 areas, and unfortunately because of the way it's organized, traffic is constantly bottle-necked through the ...Read more

From journal Overnight Trip to Atlanta

Georgia Aquarium

by bnStanza

League City, Texas

October 14, 2006

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Best of IgoUgo The Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the world! It has 8 million gallons of fresh and sea water and more than 100,000 animals per their website (www.georgiaaquarium.org).It has five sections with different types of fish in each section. ...Read more The Georgia Aquarium is the largest aquarium in the world! It has 8 million gallons of fresh and sea water and more than 100,000 animals per their website (www.georgiaaquarium.org).

It has five sections with different types of fish in each section. Their prize animals are four whale sharks. Each section has a large viewing window that gives you room to move around or sit and watch the fish for a while. Amazingly, the pictures come out fairly well even through the glass (acrylic) windows.

They have a 4-D movie that is worth seeing. With the special glasses, you get the 3-D effect, but then they are additional real effects (such as, water, flashing lights, exploding ribbons, etc.) to get the fourth dimension into the experience. The movie showing in summer 2006 was Deepo's Undersea Wondershow, which is cute and worth seeing and very reminiscent of Disney's Finding Nemo.

One of the five viewing sections is a play area for younger visitors. It includes interactive exhibits for the children, including a "petting zoo" for some smaller fish.

One interesting item to note is that the aquarium was originally funded by a single donor, who is a co-founder of The Home Depot. For all the other donors, there is a wall with each of their names. A computer next to the wall lets you search for each person by name and then the wall lights up to show you where that person's name is. It's pretty neat.

The gift shop is a must for all the people you need to buy gifts for when you return home. Some of the items available are shirts, toys, collectible souvenirs, books, etc. You can spend a long time in there.

Daily admission costs $22.75 per person over 12 (free for children 0-3, $17 for children 3-12, and $19.50 for persons over 55).

The aquarium is still a relatively new attraction (opened in November 2005), so it is very crowded. It is highly recommended to make reservations on-line or by phone ahead of time. Going during the week and during the afternoon is also recommended for smaller crowds. The reservations are to allow you entry during a specific hour (e.g. 2-3 pm). You can then stay as long as you like.

Parking is available next to the Aquarium for $10. It's next door, but a little bit of a long walk to the entrance. Close

From journal North Georgia Mountains

Georgia Aquarium

by Sierra

Chicago, Illinois

September 19, 2006

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Best of IgoUgo Adjacent to the Olympic Park, you will find one of the most surprising attractions to be found in a non-coastal city: the Georgia Aquarium.The Georgia Aquarium (www.georgiaaquarium.org) opened in November 2005 and has already seen over 3 million ...Read more Adjacent to the Olympic Park, you will find one of the most surprising attractions to be found in a non-coastal city: the Georgia Aquarium.

The Georgia Aquarium (www.georgiaaquarium.org) opened in November 2005 and has already seen over 3 million visitors - that's an average of more than 11,000 visitors per day. It bills itself as "the world's largest aquarium" due to the fact that its tanks hold more than 8 million gallons of water.

And yes, the place does feel as crowded as it sounds - our tickets were for 9am, and we got there around 9:30am. I am not exaggerating when I say that even at that hour of the morning, the Aquarium is a super busy. School groups, tourists, you name it, the place was absolutely packed. If you don't buy your tickets online (like we did), you will definitely have to wait in line to get in!

The Georgia Aquarium has a variety of really lovely animals and fish (more than 100,000 animals across 500 species), but it's lacking something: enough windows to see them. The place was jammed with people, which meant that every window was packed with people trying to see inside.

The aquarium's design is very attractive, laid out in several Disney-style tours of different ocean regions, which made it easy to navigate. I would have also liked to have seen more information available at each display tank, although having the guides giving live talks was a really nice touch.

It is expensive to visit here: adult tickets are $22.75 (plus service fees if you buy online - and you'll want to; reservations are highly recommended), children 5-12 are $17, and seniors are $19.50. In addition, you'll pay for a lot of things inside: audio tour, movie, etc. There is also a "behind the scenes" tour for $50 (in addition to the admission price). If you purchase the Atlanta CityPass, general admission is included on the CityPass.

If you do not like crowds, this place is not for you, as people constantly jostle each other for viewing. I liked the layout and the interior design of the aquarium, but felt that not enough space was given for people to be able to wander and take a little bit of time when viewing some of the more interesting exhibits.

The aquarium is also involved in rescue, research, rehabilitation, relocation, and conservation projects, not just in the southeastern US but also around the world.

In addition, the aquarium's restaurants participate in the Seafood Watch Program, which is designed to increase consumer awareness of sustainable seafood resources.

If you're in Atlanta and like sea life, you may want to give the aquarium a look. Close

From journal A Weekend in Hotlanta

Georgia Aquarium

by brianestadt

Mckeesport, Pennsylvania

August 24, 2006

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Best of IgoUgo Two words: Whale sharks. The largest fish in the world, whale sharks had only been kept in captivity in Asia before the Georgia Aquarium opened. Undoubtedly, they are the stars of the show. You enter the Ocean Voyager section (one of five at the ...Read more Two words: Whale sharks. The largest fish in the world, whale sharks had only been kept in captivity in Asia before the Georgia Aquarium opened. Undoubtedly, they are the stars of the show.

You enter the Ocean Voyager section (one of five at the aquarium) through a clear, acrylic 100-foot-long underwater tunnel. As awesome as it is to see the silhouetted whale sharks above you here, it’s even cooler to see the fish in the viewing area, a dark room in which a 61’ wide (and 23 feet tall) section of aquarium glass is presented like a giant movie screen. Take your wide-angle lenses for this one. A fisheye lens will server you even better to capture the scale in this room. As with all exhibits, try not to use your camera’s flash — it’ll just bounce off the glass/acrylic.

Four juvenile whale sharks (in summer of 2006, Alice and Trixie joined Norton and Ralph) share this tank with nearly 100,000 other fish, including a bunch of rays and sharks. Whale sharks grow up to 40 feet long, but these are toddlers. The ladies are under 15’; the guys are around 20’. Staff say the tank can hold nine of these, though four adults are the most I’d be comfortable with in there. I think adding more would be cruel.

Aside from the whale sharks, we found the beluga whales, the funky deep-sea Japanese crabs and the jellyfish to be most interesting. The sea lions were fun for a little while, but it got dizzying to watch them repeatedly speed past. The penguins weren’t feeling all that energetic, but I’m sure that exhibit is fun at the right times. Same for the otters, which were playful on land, but avoided the water.

The tropical reef section of the aquarium probably will impress those who’ve never snorkeled of scuba dived, but with us being avid snorkelers enroute to the Caribbean with our gear, we breezed through here to focus on fish we’d never seen before. You can check www.georgiaaquarium.org/ to learn about the other sections.

FOR KIDS: There are lots of kid-friendly spots. The penguins exhibit has a crawl hole leading to an area where kids can poke their head up into a plastic dome in the habitat. If the birds are active, I’m sure it’s a cool experience. The aquarium also features a touch tank with rays and sharks.

NOTE: Admission is sold in hourly blocks. This isn’t to say that you have one our to tour the facility (feel free to pass through any of the five areas multiple times if you want), but you likely won’t be able to get in early on busy days. You should buy tickets through the aquarium website since admission times do sell out. This is esp. important to view the “4D” Omnimax movie — we logged on from our hotel in the morning of our visit and were able to book aquarium admissions, but not for the movie. Close

From journal Atlanta, as Seen During an Overnight Layover

Georgia Aquarium

by Clevergrrl

Augusta, Georgia

June 19, 2006

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Even with the tickets we had purchased in advance, we had to wait nearly as long (about 30 minutes) as those that were buying tickets that day. Children screamed and ran everywhere. The aquarium itself was impressive but it was impossible to get ...Read more

From journal Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta

Georgia Aquarium

by lucinda3

Alpharetta, Georgia

March 21, 2006

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Best of IgoUgo The Georgia Aquarium opened in November 2005 with much publicity and local excitement.My friend and I went to the Georgia Aquarium on Tuesday afternoon. We purchased tickets online. You have to select a 1-hour window to show up on a specific date. ...Read more

From journal Atlanta

Georgia Aquarium

by Kataries

Albany, Georgia

February 27, 2006

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This aquarium is definitely something that needs to be seen and is well worth it. There are staff members throughout the encounters that explain certain aspects about the animals to you. It really adds to the experience. Everyone there was really ...Read more

From journal Getaway to Atlanta

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