Georgia Aquarium Atlanta GA

It was a fun day at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. We left the RV at 9:20 and drove to downtown Atlanta, arriving there just as it opened at 10. We were pretty surprised at the crowd that was there already, but we bought our tickets at the credit card kiosk (much faster than waiting in the cash line) and entered the Aquarium. It is laid out in a pretty convenient way in that one enters into a huge central area from which the various exhibits extended. We went first to the Coldwater Quest area. At the entry one could touch sea anemones, urchins, and starfish. They had an exhibit of Japanese Spider Crabs that was truly impressive. At most of the exhibits they had volunteers or staff members to explain and answer questions. We saw woody dragon seahorses, beluga whales and otters at feeding time.

The next exhibit was Ocean Voyager. This is the big aquarium, 280’ long. The first viewing area is an acrylic tube that one can walk through with the fish overhead and beside us. The big area was like an Imax theater with the whole front viewing glass. They have several whale sharks which are impressive along with hammerhead sharks, a leopard ray, huge groupers. It was mesmerizing. We stopped to have lunch at the aquarium food court. I had a decent mushroom and goat cheese pizza while Bill had a chicken Caesar salad. The Aquarium was beginning to fill up especially with lots of strollers. That was an obstacle course.

Then it was on to the Titanic exhibit. They had lots of relics retrieved from the ship plus many exhibits concerning the ship. We stopped to see the Georgia Explorer which was mainly a kids play area We did the River Scout exhibit which had mainly river fish (not so pretty or impressive) river otters, and some alligators. Finally we went to the Tropical Diver which had lots of coral and reef fish and was quite pretty. We finally gave up at 3 and headed back to the RV.

Bill watched a ballgame and a golf match while I chatted with Mandy and read. We had leftovers out of the refrigerator so that we will have less to haul into the house when we get home. About 10 we drove over to the main area of the park to see the carving lit up at night. There wasn’t any good way to view it, so I wonder why they even have it lit at night.

We leave tomorrow for home and will stop for one night at Concord NC arriving back in Raleigh on Tuesday.