The day had finally arrived; our long awaited, slightly belated birthday present from the boy's Aunt and Uncle and Cousins. A trip to Toronto to visit the Aquarium. 
It was quite the place. This gives you an idea of the place when you walk in. You look down from a gallery into a children's play area. Note the aquarium accross the room with a rather large shark swiming along the face if it. I was a little worried that it would be a bit tacky and maybe too, erm, 'kid friendly' an attraction if you know what I mean. But as we ventured into the acutal aquarium area, our worries were put to rest quite quickly.
The scale of the tanks and displays was quite incredible.
Here are the boys pretending to be starfish stuck to the tank's glass.
A beautiful but rather lethargic octopus. We wished he'd been swimming around, but he was very happy to stay right where he was.
Some beautiful anemones.
The size of some of these tanks was really amazing. This one, the Pacific Kelp aquarium, even had a wave simulator at the top so that you could see what it would really be like in the ocean. Very interesting to see the fish and seaweed sloshing about at the top.
One of the most exciting exhibits was the tunnel through the shark tank, or rather the "Dangerous Lagoon, as they call it.
There were an impressing number of sharks and saw fish.
One of the boy's favourite parts though, was the slow moving walkway that wound its way through the tunnels. We rode it veeeeeery slowly through the tunnel twice. They even pretended to sleep on it part of the way. You know, in between jumping up and down and yelling "SHARK! SHARK!" in tones of delighted mock terror.
See? Sharks. Also note my freakishly long arm. Must be the camera angle.
And there were little tunnels to crawl through...
...and little bubbles to pop your head up into.
And such gorgeous, delicate creatures.
And stingrays by the dozens.
we even got to watch a diver feed them, and were allowed to pet them in "Ray Bay".
But my very favourite part was "Planet Jellies".
They are just hypnotically beautiful!
I could have stood there for aaaages.
It was a lovely day, full of excitement and wonder. Thanks to our lovely family who gave us the tickets to go. Such a treat. Like a little day-long holiday int the middle of a busy week. And now we will sleep and dream of deep sea wonders.
Our kids loved it too. We went the last weekend of March...mistake. It was sooo busy we were right done by the kids zone and moved quickly through the rest. A weekday is the answer, for sure! Kieran gets to go again with school in two weeks, so he'll be the boss! Cheers.
Posted by: Sheila | 04/09/2014 at 08:46 PM