Posts tagged Atlanta

The Georgia Aquarium is the World’s Largest Aquarium, so it’s only fitting that it’s hosting the world debut of the Exhibition “Planet Shark:  Predator or Prey”.  Earlier last week, I was so happy to be on Twitter at the right time (oh Twitter, how I love thee) because I saw a tweet for an invitation to visit the Aquarium as part of “Planet Shark Blogger Day”.

So this past Saturday we visited the Georgia Aquarium. It was listed on my Top Ten Places to go in Atlanta with Kids.  We went once with Evan when he was about 6 months old.  So while he might have enjoyed it at the time, he didn’t know one fish from the next & would have been just as fine watching a fish tank at PetSmart!  But this time it was different!  I told Evan during breakfast on Saturday that we were going to the Aquarium to see some sharks!  He immediately stopped eating breakfast & announced that he needed to go get dressed!  The boy was ready!!

Evan loves watching the Discovery Channel with his Dad and he’s seen different shark specials before.  Last year, while in Florida a baby shark got caught in the tide and was stuck in the waves close to the shore.  Evan got to see it close up before someone carried it out far enough to swim back into the ocean.  So, honestly even though he’s four, I wasn’t concerned about him being afraid of what we might see.  Either way, I pulled up the Georgia Aquarium’s website and we looked at pictures and a brief video online just to make sure he would be OK with everything.  He was … he was just waiting on us to hurry up & leave!!

The Aquarium is beautiful! It really is.  I don’t say that about many places that are kid-friendly, but really.  It’s beautiful.  I think they did just an awesome job with the design & of course when the most amazing fish & underwater creatures are part of the view, how can it be bad??

It costs an additional $5.50 for adults and $4 for children to visit the Planet Shark Exhibit (and I’ll make that better at the end), but if you have any interest in sharks or if you just want your visit at the Aquarium to last longer then it’s totally worth it!

You get to walk through 12,000 square feet of exhibit space reading tons of facts & seeing some super cool things - there’s shark teeth.  Lots & lots & lots of Shark Teeth! My husband loved collecting shark teeth as a child (it’s actually one of the collections that he still won’t let go of today) and he was in heaven!  There were tons of Jaws, no not the movies (actually there were parts of those playing too), but real-from-the-mouth-jaws!  There are full-scale replicas.  There’s even some frozen in time sharks.  Those kinda gave me the chills!  There were different wet suits that had been made over the years – like the one that looked like bubble wrap.  Just hearing that, I would have told you that might have been a bad idea … but someone went as far as actually making it!  Yep it looked like bubble wrap!  Supposedly it was made with poison so to kill the shark when it bit into the suit.  The problem?  The shark might die, but the person wearing the suit would get bitten pretty good too!  There was a real-life shark cage that you could actually step inside.  Megan (our 18mo) enjoyed the cage a little too much!   There were educational movies playing, tons of facts to read & overall just a lot to take in!

They say the shark is misunderstood … and this exhibit does a great job at laying out real facts. Sure we shouldn’t be stupid when getting in the ocean.  There’s definitely things that swimmers can do to entice an attack, but the sharks aren’t after us by any means!!

Get more information about Planet Shark or the Georgia Aquarium.

*Disclosure – I received 2 Complimentary Tickets to the Georgia Aquarium & the Planet Shark Exhibit for me & a guest.  I have been asked to help spread the word about the Exhibit, but as always, all information in this post is my honest & truthful opinion.