Today, I will be talking about the Georgia Aquarium, which is the biggest aquarium in the United States, and the sixth largest aquarium in the world, home to approximately 100,000 fish, from 500 different species. Often being shown as the highlight of Atlanta, it is certainly a place to visit when you come here. In this review, I will be telling you about the 3 things that I enjoyed about the aquarium.
Tips
Before I get into reviewing the aquarium, and sharing the 3 things that I enjoyed, I would like to share some tips about the aquarium. First of all, you need to book tickets for the aquarium, but something else that you need to do if you want to enjoy the whole experience is to book reservations for the shows that happen in the aquarium. Apart from all the different showcases in the aquarium, different shows occur during different times; some examples of this being the dolphin show, and the seal show, which I both visited and will talk about later, and personally for me were the star of the show. Luckily, my Uncle already reserved these shows, and people who are visiting should reserve these shows for a suitable time that they can make it (these shows occur 4 different times per day). This is because the cost of these events is already included in the ticket cost, you just need to reserve it so that the people have a count of how many people are coming to the show. If you don’t reserve it, not only are you missing out on a brilliant experience, but you are also losing money. Also, another tip for the Dolphin show is that you must arrive early so that you have a good view of the water, but also that you are not too close because then you would be in the splash zone, which is the first 10 rows. If you are in the splash zone, you have a near certain chance of being splashed with freezing water during the show, so you should sit in rows 11 onwards. We arrived early, so we sat in row 11, in the middle. If you do arrive early, obviously there is a setback, of waiting over 40 minutes, but the museum does provide videos on a projector at the front to keep you entertained.
3 Things that I enjoyed
1. The Dolphin Show
The first thing that I enjoyed about this museum was the dolphin show. We reserved the dolphin show for early in the morning (10:30 am). The showroom where this happens is very huge because of the amount of people that are interested in it. It has around 50-75 rows of seats, and a giant reserve of water at the front, like shown below. The start of the show was a spectacular beginning because, after a long time of waiting, it felt like everything came to life, like the projector moving back, the water spraying, and the light turning on. After that, the host of this show came out of a door in the middle, and started talking about the show, and what would happen in the show. Additionally, this girl, whose dream was to work with dolphins, got a chance to come out onto the stage and play with the dolphins. For the rest of the show, there were magnificent tricks such as four dolphins doing a 360-degree turn at the same time, their instructors being balanced on their faces in their air, or them splashing people vigorously in the first row. Apart from this scintillating performance, I also learned various lessons. For example, this performance showed how big teamwork is, and why fostering relationships is important. Without working together and becoming friends for a significant amount of time, the instructors and the dolphins would not have that much ‘chemistry’, and this show would not be able to occur. This also applies to real-life situations, as, suppose you have a group assignment, without communicating or working together, you may have done the same part or one part may have been left out, which not only defeats the purpose of working together but gives you a lower grade.
2. The information that I received
The second thing that I enjoyed about this is the information that I received. Throughout the tour, I received various amounts of information from the showcases, about various animals, such as sharks, dolphins, sea lions, turtles and small fish. Apart from the glass tanks that kept small animals in the showcase, we learned about how different features of the animals help them move. For example, I learned that the gills on the shark help it reduce drag and therefore make it move faster. I also learned that Beluga Whales’ big forehead allows them to make noises in the water, which creates noise pollution, which harms the different species in the water. Additionally, I learned that animals have a feature where they release sound waves, which hit an animal and bounce back to them. If it bounces back, they know that there is something ahead of them.
3. The lessons that I learned and the memories that I made
The final thing that I enjoyed was the lessons that I learned and the memories that I made. Throughout this whole journey, I saw different animal close-ups that I hadn’t seen before, and also saw different cute moments of animals, such as when the seals were posing during the seal show. Apart from that, also being able to go inside different experiences, such as being able to take photos with penguins, or seeing electrical eels and how they work was fascinating, and grew my enthusiasm for animals. Also, the lessons that I learned during this experience were a big positive. I learned why teamwork is super important to create positive partnerships with other people like the people who worked at the aquarium explained various times during these events.
Overall, this aquarium was a brilliant experience. Not only did I get some brilliant photos, memories and experiences, but I also learned various life lessons that I will implement into my life. Thank you for reading, and I will see you in the next blog. (Below are some videos that I got from my visit)