SEA LIFE Orlando Aquarium

Reviews 3

DO

Donald Hammond

This place was great. The only con was I wish it was a bit bigger and there were more tanks. That being said, those are small cons. Ive lived in Orlando pretty much all of my life. Ive been to plenty of aquariums in many cities but never bothered to find this one here. The thought never even crossed my mind there would be an aquarium in one of the nations largest tourism cities. Then I stumble across it while playing tour guide for a friend of mine who came down from Michigan. So heres my 2 cents on the attraction. First of all, if you have the money and arent from central Florida, I recommend you to give the extra bit of bucks to buy the trifecta ticket (not what its called but bare with me here) because its only $40 and you get to do three attractions for $20 less then buying individual tickets. I believe you can space them out between days as well. Theres a huge, slow moving ferris wheel called EyeOrlando that has a great view of the city in all directions and an indoor event that I hear is good. But I forget the name and never experienced it. Worth the $40 altogether as each of the three attractions is $20 for a single ticket. But I digress, this is for Sea Life, so lets get to it. As I said in the beginning, I wish it was larger and had more tanks. If you went you would see what I mean, as there are plenty of spots where more tanks could be installed for display. But Im certainly not saying its a downfall. You enter the exhibit in a gigantic circular room with a fish tank that encompasses the room with schooling fish pooling up in random spots, then above you is a dome with a projection of animated sea creatures which will serve as familiar faces for you or the kids across the exhibit. A short intro sequence plays and then you are free to roam the corridors of the aquarium at your own pace. The place has a cave dwelling atmosphere, as walls and ceilings are made to look rocky and bumpy. It adds onto the experience. It is rather dark inside, just be aware. A staff member told me it serves two purposes: to envelop you with the fish and their specialized lighting each tank offers the fish and to keep from disturbing the fish. Side note, no flashing cameras in the exhibit, the darkness level is pretty high so it will most certainly have adverse effects on the different aquatic creatures. The aquarium is very interactive. It has tablet signs by each tank you can tap and swipe through to find more information of what species are in the related tank. Ive also seen aquariums with circular design or arched design to give an all around feeling when exploring. But what was most interactive to me was the further engineering they came up with. If youre bringing kids along, or small adults even, a huge enjoyment perk is that many of the tanks have encapsulated domes installed. A child could crawl under the tanks and stand or squat in a dome like bubble and get an internal view of the creatures inside. Me being 26, I still managed to crawl under and sit up in the dome space so I could see the eel that was right by it. It was pretty neat to have a 4 foot eel staring at me face to face, with perhaps only half a foot of distance between us. Another big thing the kids would enjoy is the touching area. Few aquariums offer this, but there is an elongated and lowered tank with multiple species of anemone, fish, and starfish that can be touched and held there. Again, Im 26 and I had a blast holding a starfish and gently prodding an anemone to watch the tentacles retract. Most people see Orlando as main theme parks like Disney and Universal and SeaWorld, etc. But this has a great and cost friendly way of spending an afternoon with family or friends, all while relaxing and not stressing about wait times and rides to hit before going back to the hotel. I encourage you to at least visit the aquarium, it is by far one of the top 5 most unique aquariums Ive ever visited.

JE

Jeanne M.

This is a surprisingly nice little aquarium. If youre looking for something like Sea World, youll be disappointed, but on the flip side there are no captive orcas. This is a series of smaller tanks with a wide variety of fish from sharks to seahorses. They are arranged with educational exhibits in each area. Every hour there is a short talk from one of the employees. Since there were so few people there, my daughter and I got a private lesson about the resident giant octopus. He was less than cooperative, but we hit him at nap time. The speaker was well versed on octopus behavior and we learned a few things that we didnt already know. As we moved over to the bigger tank, the staff member went with us, to point out some of the species there. We saw one of their rescue projects, a big sea turtle that had been hit by a boat. His back fins were paralyzed and his shell was permanently broken, leaving him with a problem they called "bubble butt." This caused air to trap under his shell, so he couldnt submerge. They have attached weights to the back of the shell so he doesnt have the issue, and with his strong front fins, he glided easily around the tank. Hell spend the rest of his life, safe, healthy and well fed. Interestingly, it seems like the staff are really only well educated on one or two of the species. As we saw the sharks swimming by, we commented about the numbers of males vs females. She asked us how we could tell the difference, so we showed her. She said that no one on staff was really well versed on sharks, but she was trying to learn so she could give talks on conservations. While it seems like they should be better educated, she was certainly eager to learn and after we left that room, she came after us to ask some more questions. Overall, Im pretty critical of aquariums, but I think this has the potential to be a great educational facility after the staff is better trained.

TI

Tita Soto

Today my daughters school had a trip to the sea life aquarium and I must say it was horrible experience. First of all they didnt want to give us the dive log books because we had to big of a group. I thought that was insane being that we all paid full price to get in. Second we were also stopped from going into the play area because they were "short on staff" . Shouldnt they have been prepared being that they had these big groups of kids coming? Third we proceeded to the eating area/food court to eat with the children who by the way are all differently challenged some in Walkers some autistic etc they had the nerve to tell us we had to go outside the facility to eat on the floor in the heat and oh with rain. When we asked why they said because we were taking space for the people who werent in groups and bought from the food court to eat. Meanwhile most of our people bought food at their food court. We went back inside because it started to rain heavy the kids again ate on the floors and the security told us we couldnt block peoples walk ways or the doors. Okay so why in the world would you book so many groups if you dont have a spot for the people with children to eat especially kids with disabilities or have enough staff to let them play in the play area. Its not like we werent gonna watch them. They treated us poorly and they were rude. I would never ever go there again. It was way to small, staff was rude , money waste place! Dont waste your money ! Dont be treated like trash by these horrible people.

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