Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport, Oregon

Newport, Oregon is home to the best aquarium in the state of Oregon.

• $19 per adult and $12 per kid. 
• They offer a military discount. 
• If you know ahead of time you will be visiting Newport watch for deals. I found a Google Offer for buy one adult, get one kid free.

The Oregon Coast Aquarium had lots of hands on activities for kids, including weighting and selling fish, fishing, touch pools, and digging in sand. Each of the play areas has a sign with tips for parents on how to make the exhibit more educational.


I enjoyed the tropical fish displays the most, even if Oregon doesn’t have any native tropical fish.
 

We paid the extra $2 for our kids to do the hurricane simulator. I think it wasn’t that exciting and it bothered my daughter’s eyes. If your kid has sensitive eyes skip the hurricane simulator.
 

We were able to catch one of the otters feeding times and it was worth the wait and crowd. While they feed them a trainer educated you on otters. He gives you the back story on all three and teaches you fun otter facts.

Passages of the Deep (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Be sure to walk you kids through Passages of the Deep. It's a 200 foot tunnel with sharks, bat rays and more swimming all around you.

Oregon Coast Aquarium
2820 SE Ferry Slip Road
Newport, OR
541-867-3474

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Swimming with Sharks!

The Golden Nugget pool in Las Vegas wraps around an aquarium full of sharks, sting rays, and fish. There is even a tube slide going through the middle of the aquarium. This is a picture of my son popping out of the tube slide after going through the shark tank!

To see other Friday Photos check out Delicious Baby!

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Georgia aquarium - Atlanta, Georgia

While on our Atlanta, Georgia family vacation we went to the Georgia Aqurium.  I must say that after hearing about the aquarium from so many people I was a little disappointed. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was a great aquarium.  After all the build up there was nothing overly special or unique about it. With that said the beluga whales where gone for renovation. It was incredibly over priced. (They will not give you a military discount at the door.  Instead to get the military price you must buy tickets on a near by military base.) We would not go back based on the price.

They did have several touch pools that my kids loved. They got to touch sting rays, star fish, and a bunch of other stuff.

There were five areas with lots of various sea life to see.


My son was thrilled to meet Nemo.  (They don't actually call him Nemo, but I can't remember his name and he does look a lot like Nemo!)


There was a dark area with lots of jellyfish.

We were done with the main areas cover by regular admission with in two hours.  I hear from StressFreeBaby that a dolphin exhibit is on it's way in 2011!

Other activities available with extra costs were a movie and shark exibit.

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