Location https://www.aqua.org/
Address: Inner Habor – Baltimore, MD (walking distance from Port Discovery – Baltimore’s Children’s Museum [link])
Gordie’s Review (3.5 years): What was the best part? “Seeing all the fish!’
Nicky’s Review (11 months): “fish!” (signing)
Day Pass Cost: $30 for adults, $21 for ages 3-11, under 3 is free.
Food Services: There are a few cafeterias.
Age Range: all ages.
Stay Length: 2 hours to half a day.
Worth the Trip?: Maybe. The cost is high but if your kids are interested in fish, dolphins and sharks, there’s plenty to see.
Overall: The kids loved the little fish tank at the Natural History Museum so much I thought that it would be fun to take them to the aquarium. I’d heard some good things about it and it really is huge, they have everything you’d want in an aquarium.
I have to be honest, I was a little disappointed. I had been to the Georgia Aquarium when it first opened, and they have a lot of large ecosystems set up that you can along by or even under. I wasn’t expecting much and was really blown away. At the moment, the Baltimore aquarium is more of a traditional aquarium with smaller separate aquariums. There are currently doing some renovations on one of the levels – black tip barrier reef will be coming summer 2013.
It does have plenty to offer though, and tons and tons of fish and other water creatures. In the main part of the aquarium, each floor represents a different kind of habitat and geographic location.
They have lots of little eco-systems set up for the different fish to swim around in.
One of the things I thought was really neat is how they have it set up so part of the ecosystems is below the water but they also have the above water area visible as well.
The top floor has a rainforest area complete with tropical birds.
They even have a section with a number of different sharks including ones that look like Bruce from Finding Nemo. The dolphins, Jellies Invasion and the Discovery Centre are in a 2nd area down a corridor. I’d suggest checking when the dolphin shows are going to be when you get there so you can plan your trip around it and don’t miss out like we did.
If you are planning on going it’s important to know that you can’t bring a stroller. If you don’t have your own carrier, they have front and back carriers that you can borrow when you check your stroller. Since we had two little kids, I found this limited the amount of time we were able to spend at the aquarium and so we missed the Australian glass pavilion completely and didn’t manage to catch the dolphin show. We had a good time, and the kids both loved seeing all the fish.