Adventure Aquarium in NJ

The past week, as you can see, wasn't very blog-worthy. I was sick a couple of days and other than that, nothing much other than the normal routine has been happening.

Today though, Cheryl, Ryan and myself took a surprise trip to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ. http://adventureaquarium.com/ . Ahhh... Now that's "blog-worthy". I saw a commercial on TV about it being one of the aquarium's hippo's birthday and blah blah blah... So I got us tix and off we went. I'm glad we did. I think Ryan really had a good time and Cheryl and I enjoyed it also. First we saw the hippos. We got to the aquarium just at feeding time. They have 2 females, Button and "something or other". The area that they are in is half land and half under water. The under water part is amazing. You look in through a glass wall to see them swimming, eating, playing and lounging around under water. They swim right in front of you... I mean right in front of you and they are HUGE. Humungous Huge. I was kneeling at the bottom of the tank taking picture when one stretched out vertically in front of me as if it were standing on it's hind legs and I actually got a shiver when I looked up at the size of this thing towering over me. After that we made our way through the rest of the aquarium. Their big tanks, "Ocean Realm" and "Shark Realm" are also really amazing. They're gigantic, and the glass walls that they have set up for viewing them are great. Whole walls of just looking in at the ocean. That's what it seems like. And in Shark Realm, there's a big tube walkway through the tank so you are actually surrounded by water and sharks while you walk through. All the way through the different areas have different fishy themes like Coral Cove, Caribbean Currents, Jules Verne Gallery, etc. all with different fish from different parts of the sea, pond, river and so on. This was my first trip to to this aquarium. I've been to the Baltamore Aquarium many times and had always heard that it's the better of the two. After seeing this one, I don't think I can say that. Adventure Aquarium is worth a visit. Now it was a Sunday and I overheard one lady say that she was there on a weekday and it was so crowded you couldn't see anything. The aquarium in Balt. gets the same way. We went early and I didn't think it was bad at all. When we were leaving around 1:30 there was a much longer line to get in than when we got there (no line at all). So maybe that's the way to go... Earlier is better...