This past week we took a mini-vacation to Gatlinburg & Pigeon Forge, TN. It was our first time to the area and I’ll be posting about our trip spread out over the next 2 weeks. A sneak peek of what is to come: Local Restaurants & Eats, Hotel reviews – one Great, one HORRIBLE, Dollywood, and Go-Karts in addition to today’s aquarium post. So stop back by and check them out!
Back to the topic at hand Ripley’s Aquarium of the Smokies located in Gatlinburg, TN. First I do need to preface this and say that I think if you’ve seen one aquarium then you’ve most likely seen them all, but this one has be promoted as the #1 aquarium voted by Tripadvisor so I had some inflated expectations.
We stayed at a hotel on the Parkway (main street downtown Gatlinburg) where you can walk to the restaurants and attractions, our hotel was about a 1 mile walk (despite another blogger posting it was closer) but you do NOT want to stay there…that deserves a whole post in itself!
Being that it was summer it was a bit crowded on the streets while we walked down around 5:30 pm and was still crowded when we walked home later that night at 9 pm. Normally we travel in the off season to avoid the crowds but didn’t have that luxury this time.
I thought it was a bit pricey! It was $82 for 2 adults and 3 kids WITH the military discount, but it could just be me.
A jellyfish is a jellyfish is a jellyfish, LOL!
We easily walked through the aquarium in an hour and truthfully I have to say I was a bit disappointed, I can’t say that it was any better or worse than the Atlanta aquarium, although the Atlanta aquarium now has dolphins…there were no dolphins here. I can say that it did not live up to it’s ‘hype’ of #1 to me it was about the same as the others I’ve been to, nothing really made it stand out as being #1 to me. The aquarium itself was not crowded at 5:30 pm, there were people there but the exhibits were easily accessible to all, which also helped to get us through in a good time.
Boo photo bombing Mr. B & Bea’s pic, LOL!
Boo (16) & Bub (12) would’ve been fine if we’d just skipped it, Bea thought it was neat but nothing she hasn’t seen before.
We didn’t watch any of the live sessions or feedings, they were getting ready to do the stingray one as we were leaving but we were hungry at that point and we’ve all pet sting ray’s at Sea World. Other than that I didn’t see any ‘must see’ events listed.
Here are a few highlights of the visit:
This stingray was cracking us up! He swam up to the window and kept spitting water, he looks like he’s smiling!
While we were in the underwater tunnel the Saw Tooth Shark saw over us, which was neat. The moving belt was horribly slow though and after so long you’ve seen the same thing for what seems like forever.
These crabs were HUGE, it made me think of the Deadliest Catch and being on the Bering Sea!
Bea taking a peek at the penguins!
They have the Dino Exhibit going on, which is included in the price of the ticket, but it was really small and unless you have a small child who would be thrilled or a dino enthusiast it could easily be skipped. We walked through it in 5 minutes or less.
Me with the kiddos outside the penguin encounter, as you can see Bub is just thrilled to be there 😉
Bea petting a Horseshoe Crab, she was so nervous.
Overall I will say the facility was clean and the staff was friendly and helpful, so those aspects are great for those who want to visit. If you really love aquariums and want to go visit it then do, if you’ve seen other aquariums this one will probably not knock your socks off, it didn’t ours. I’m sure little kids would enjoy it and there was a neat little kid play area near the horseshoe crabs. While we had a good time and it was a great way to do something as a family I’m not sure it was ‘worth’ $82 and we wouldn’t go back for another visit, once is plenty for us.
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