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While no aquarium can duplicate the conditions of the sea, it does provide the public with
a glimpse into the beautiful undersea world.
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Watching all the colorful sea creatures swimming around in larger-than-life tanks can seem pretty magical, especially to kids. Fish, sharks, sting rays and plant life, sweep us away to the wild and wonderful undersea world. With this in mind, we scoured the country to find the best, must-see aquariums to visit during your next family vacation.
1. Georgia Aquarium
Located directly across from Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, this 550,000 square foot complex offers and unparallelled display of sea life, two gift shops, a food court and even a child-friendly Learning Loop. Ocean Voyager is the biggest exhibit in the aquarium and it features more than 60,000 animals, including whale sharks which can be viewed through a 100-foot-long tunnel.
2. Monterey Bay Aquarium
Inside this building on the California coast are over 200 exhibits featuring more than 35,000 animals and plants. In addition, there is a large collection of flip books, slide-up panels, light-up buttons, and many other touchable kid-friendly features. The Splash Zone is a 7,000 square foot area with more than 30 hands on features for younger children. There are even underwater video cameras that allow kids to steer through the tide pools and wetlands.
3. John G. Shedd Aquarium
The building itself for this aquarium is an architectural masterpiece, with elaborate re-creations of global habitats and fossils embedded in the Beaux Arts-style central rotunda. Exhibits like the Wild Reef and the Amazon flood plain. Wild Reef offers more than 20 sharks swimming in a tank above visitors while stingrays glide in a pool below their feet.
4. New England Aquarium
Located at the Central Wharf along Boston’s historic waterfront, this aquarium offers more than 20,000 animals from over 600 species. In addition, there is also a fabulous offsite whale-watching cruise available from April thru October. An interactive penguin path is a highlight for the younger folk where kids can listen to penguin sounds, visit a tide-pool touch tank, get their penguin passport stamped at eight different stations, and spin on discs that allow children to change the color of a tank full of sea jellies.
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