Largely built with funds from the Bernie Marcus Foundation (Marcus being the founder of Home Depot) and opened in late 2005, the Georgia Aquarium is truly fabulous. It is entertaining and awe inspiring, and both children and adults can enjoy a couple hours there.

Setting & Tickets
The low-rise building that looks like a ship about to set sail on Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park is located at the newly developed Pemberton Place on 225 Baker Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30313. Pemberton Place also houses the brand new World of Coke museum. Doctor John Pemberton invented Coca Cola in the 1886. There’s an adjacent parking garage which charges $7 a day, or you can take the MARTA train to the CNN Center and walk across Centennial Olympic Park, and there is also a MARTA bus which stops outside. Most visitors will drive, though.

It is open 7 days a week, Sunday through Friday from 10 AM to 5 PM, and Saturday from 9 AM to 6 PM. Two to three and a half hours are sufficient to see everything and eat there. Be sure to schedule your entry time and purchase your tickets in advance on the aquarium's website georgiaaquarium.org. Adult tickets are $26, and combination tickets including entrance into the 4D movie are $29.50. If you will be visiting 3 or more Atlanta attractions, the $64 CityPass will save you money. The CityPass allows you to choose entry into 4 of 6 Atlanta attractions and is valid for 14 consecutive days.

What’s so special about the Georgia Aquarium?
For starters, it is the largest aquarium in the world. It holds “eight million gallons of fresh and marine water and more aquatic life than found in any other aquarium”. Its vision is “[t]o be the World’s Most Engaging Aquarium Experience”. While zoos and aquariums are educational to some extent, the main focus of the Georgia Aquarium is entertainment. Plus, it has so many hands on opportunities and special design features that you truly are engaged.

Premises Tour
Upon entry, you are greeted by a dark blue wall sized aquarium with brilliant silver fish imported from Taiwan. It is a beautiful and dramatic entry. You can have your picture taken for free (look up the code on the web and grab your picture later) by the staff, or your party can take a picture at this popular spot.

Just around the corner is a multistoried atrium. Each “ecosystem” of the Aquarium rings around the atrium. It is hard to get lost as the design is very straightforward. We’ll start the tour counterclockwise, heading to the right of the circular atrium. Oh, how convenient. The large restroom bank is the first stop. There is hardly ever a line, even at peak times, because the women’s restroom had stalls galore. Once everyone goes, now you can start the real tour.

Tropical Diver
This area has many colorful saltwater sea creatures. Here you will find a multistoried (1.5 to 2 stories tall) aquarium wall which is partially inside and partially outside. The rainbow colors of all the various species of tropical fish are captivating. You will along snake around and find smaller aquaria or bubble shaped glass housing palette tang (Dori from Finding Nemo), jellies, seahorses, sea dragons (actually look like a plant with leaves until you see them move), spotted garden eels (which look like a blade of grass planted in the sand) and more.

Ocean Voyager
This is the most dramatic ecosystem of the entire facility. A gigantic multistoried aquarium lets you see into the floor of the artificial ocean. This is the closet and most intense experience you can find without actually jumping in the water and scuba diving. You enter an area with a 2 to 3 story tall glass wall. You can see humongous fish and other sea creatures. Further down, there is a moving walkway surround on 3 sides by a glass tunnel. It is a lot of fun to be so close to the hammerhead and whale sharks. Next, you enter the Ocean Voyager Theater, only the stage is the second largest viewing window in the world at 23 feet tall by 61 feet wide and 2 feet thick. This glass was specially made overseas and transported here for installation in the aquarium. On days when the aquarium is not crowded, you can stand in awe at the base of the window to the sea and feel how truly small humans are in comparison to the vast, majestic sea animals. You will see grey colored giant Grouper several times the size of a human body; that’s scary enough. Then you will see the sharks swimming, preceded by little schools of fish hitching a ride to take advance of the aerodynamics of the water in front of the sharks’ mouths. Ever seen a tasseled wobbegong shark? Spend a lot of time in contemplation in this area. You will appreciate the beauty of nature and the complexity of the world.

Café Aquaria Food Court
All the pondering has got you hungry. Visit the upscale food court with offerings from The Grill, Pizza & Pasta, Buckhead Bread Company. To those not from the area, these are real concepts that have opened outlets inside the aquarium. Buckhead Bread has great homemade upscale desserts and you can get coffee if an artisan pizza is not what you’re in the mood for. The area gets really busy and stressful with crowds, as does the entire aquarium, so make every effort to go at an off peak time. Your experience and impression will be vastly different.

Oceans Ballroom & Recognition Rotunda
Above the Café Aquaria Food Court are the ballroom and rotunda. You can peek into the ballroom, but it is reserved for special occasions. Catering is done by Wolfgang Puck Catering, so you can guess the quality and upscale nature of Georgia Aquarium events. The Recognition Rotunda is where donors named are etched onto clear Plexiglas fish scales which line the wall.

Coldwater Quest
Back downstairs is a very cute area. Fake ice bergs flank the entrance to Coldwater Qwest. A touch pool is the first attraction here. Sea otters, sea lions (with combination indoor and outdoor viewing areas), adorable African penguins (you can walk into a Plexiglas tube and literally pop inside their habitat to stare a penguin in the eye), and the huge, majestic beluga whales are in this area. The first belugas were rescued from a holding tank under a roller coaster in a Mexican amusement park. Unfortunately, they couldn’t fully be nurtured back to health and passed away. New belugas which are so friendly, you almost feel like they are putting on a show for you, live there now. You can view them from a tall glass window downstairs, or from an upstairs balcony.

River Scout
In this area, you feel like you are magically walking through a river. Tanks flank the left and right sides and some are also overhead. Everything blends seamlessly together, so you get the feel of a continual river, not a divided tank system. This dark, murky area evokes Southern rivers with moss hanging from trees and muddy catfish swimming along. Alligator and eel make an appearance. There’s a separate large tank with piranhas about 2/3 of the way through. Then the best part is the Asian small clawed otter area. These look like a cross between a rat and a puppy. They are very playful and absolutely adorable animals, who play with rubber toys much like a dog. Their area is both underwater and dry, and the underwater section is like a cut away, so you can fully see them diving and playing.

Georgia Explorer
This is the last of the ecosystems. A large touch pool filled with cownose stingrays is at the forefront. The touch pool is so big that you can always participate without a wait. There’s a hand washing station here for cleanliness. Next, you enter a rubber mat floor area with a dramatic ship. This ship is for children to climb on, over, and through. To the left is an area where you can see the loggerhead sea turtle (they used to have 2, but one was sent to one of Georgia’s Barrier Islands for reentry back into the Atlantic). My neighbor is a biologist here and works with the turtles, so I got a very special outdoor tour of the turtle tank. Normal visitors can only see them from the glass walled indoor tank. A little theater with a New England fishing theme and more touch pools complete this area.

Deepo’s Undersea 3D Wondershow
This 3D Wondershow is misnamed, as it has 4D special effects. A ticket bought after aquarium admission is $5.50 adults and $4.00 children 4-12 yrs old.

Beyond the Reef Gift Shop
No tourist destination is complete without a gift shop you must walk through to exit. This gift shop is pretty large and has a nice assortment of items, some toys for children, some education things, and some things adults might like. The prices are relatively reasonable, as far as gift shops go.

Tour Over
Thanks for touring the new Georgia Aquarium. It is a fabulous destination to visitors to and residents of Atlanta. Be sure to check it out sometime while passing through Atlanta.

Recommended: Yes