Our trip to Italy didn’t get going as smoothly as we’d planned, we missed our connecting flight to Rome. That left us in Atlanta with one day to kill.  Since my FosterDad loves fish, we thought we would make the most of it and visit their famed aquarium. My skepticism led me to think, we are from Southern Ca, this aquarium is in the middle of the South, not near any remarkable body of water, how great can this place be? We mentioned to the lady at the front desk of our hotel that we were going to go to the aquarium the next day, and she asked “Do you have a reservation?” We all pretty much asked the same thing, “Reservations for the aquarium?” She said “The Georgia Aquarium is very popular. Without a reservation you have to rely on general admission, if you do that, you could end up waiting for hours to get in.” Um, ok. So I reserved a spot for 10:00 am the next morning.

Sure enough, there was a long line of people waiting to get in. Since we pre-purchased our tickets, we got to go in right at 10:00.

I can’t even go into how HUGE this place is. Their biggest tank has four (4) whale sharks in it. What amazed me was not only the size but the selection of sea creatures in this aquarium. Themed rooms with everything from cat fish to not 1, but 4 beluga whales! In all my California aquarium trips I had never seen a beluga whale, but in Atlanta you can see 4! (and one of the employees said there was more in the back section of the tank that we couldn’t see!)

The sea otters were adorable and the sheer size of the place was overwhelming, so many fish so little time. We decided to take a break and see their little video, now this video wasn’t in your normal small theatre reeking of stale tourist, it was in a state of the art cinematic experience complete with a SHAG (My favorite artist) commissioned mural in the waiting area.

Needless to say I was quite impressed and am looking forward to my return to Atlanta to see the fish I missed and eat some more amazing soul food.

Click to see more pictures of the trip in the photobucket gallery