After our stop over at the Mayfield Dairy, Hannah and I were back on the road heading to Atlanta. For her birthday gift this year we promised to take her to the Georgia Aquarium. Unfortunately, David was not able to go with us due to his surgery so it was just us girls. The drive was easy since we are only 90 miles from Atlanta. We arrived an hour ahead of our entrance time. (Since the aquarium is so popular there are large crowds and they limit the amount of visitors each hour so when you purchase your ticket you are given an entrance time). We decided to walk through Centennial Olympic Park and over to the CNN building where I knew there was a food court and we could eat lunch before going into the aquarium. By the time we finished and walked back it was time for us to enter. This aquarium claims to be the largest one in the world. It just opened up last year and seems to be an extremely popular place. Once inside we first went to the Deepo 4-D Theatre for a fun experience. I just love those 4-D places. We had to wear our 3-D glasses and we were sprayed with water, soaked with bubbles, zapped on the backs of our legs by an electric eel and jellyfish danced on our heads during the course of the movie. It was a lot of fun! There are five major areas inside the facility and our favorite was the one called Ocean Voyager. It is the large tank where the big whale sharks are located. There are now five whale sharks as two more had arrived the day before we got there. Apparently this is the only aquarium outside of Asia where you can see whale sharks. They are the largest fish in the ocean… yes they are fish, not whales! They were awesome and we enjoyed our time watching them. Another favorite was the penguins. We spent several hours walking around inside and enjoying everything. Below are just a few of more than a hundred photos I took of the day. I still think the National Aquarium in Baltimore is my favorite. I have been to a lot of nice aquariums but the one in Baltimore has them all beat in my opinion. Baltimore has the best sharks, the best rays and an awesome and educational dolphin show. Among my other favorites are Atlantis in the Bahamas (best open air and best tunnel for viewing), the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California (the awesome Sun Fish) and one in Monte Carlo, Monaco (an educational experience). Hannah and I both had a fun-filled day.
Hannah sitting at one of the tables in the CNN building food court
Hannah standing in front of the CNN building
Hannah is all smiles with Deepo
one of the pretty jellyfish
one of the whale sharks swims by with a school of fish surrounding it
some of the cute little penguins
