Audubon Aquarium, NOLA…

The Audubon Zoo was such a hit that we knew the Audubon Aquarium would be fabulous too!  We surely were not disappointed!

The area in front of the aquarium is under construction (but it does not interfere with the entrance); a public water park is in the works.  😀

Right inside the entrance is a nice gift shop… (and the boys said to be sure to mention that there are 2 penny squishers – one downstairs, and one up )

This is a fabulous aquarium, one of the nicest we’ve been in, and Caleb was a very happy little boy!  He never wanted to move on, but would have spent every minute of the day at each tank! LOL!
Upstairs there is a walk suspended a story above the exhibits…

The kids loved the large tank of penguins, each wearing a name band.

The penguins were very engaging show offs!  LOL!  They would hover near the glass in front of the kids, or they would swim back and forth, up and down, right by them…

Right across from the penguins, is a big shark jawbone, and the little girls HAD to have their picture taken while they were being eaten.  😉  Caleb wasn’t sure what all the ruckus was about, but he’s always got to be in the middle of it…

There were quite a few colorful salt water tanks with beautiful and unique fish in them.
Saltwater tanks are the hardest to pry Caleb from – if he ‘recognizes’ a fish – look out – he jumps up and down, and yells, “Nemo!” or “Dory!”.  He’s pretty sure they are the real deal, right here to visit with him!  😉

We had to bribe Caleb from each saltwater tank by selling him on the next one.  He stood in front of the last ocean tank for a long time! LOL!  

There were lots of opportunities for fun pictures in the NOLA aquarium!  This area was dedicated to the seahorse…

which intrigue all of us!  They had several tanks with different seahorses in them, from over 6 inches, to little bitty.  There were also some hands-on, educational activities for the little kids…

Most of the tanks had plaques next to them telling about the inhabitants of the tank. 

There was an area dedicated to frogs, including this prince charming  😉

And upstairs there is a smaller but fun, pirate-y gift shop, and a quarter squisher!Also upstairs was a enjoyable and engaging area called…

Geared towards younger kids, mine had a ball checking out the hands-on activities.  The sting ray touch tank is here…

While we were there, on a Tuesday afternoon, there were few others, so no waiting line to touch some of the 16 rays that were in the tank…

The kids always enjoy a touch tank!  They lingered here for about 45 minutes, back and forth between this and the other activities in the oversized room.
Even if you did’t want to touch the rays, you could get a great view of them doing their laps through the window in the front of the tank….

In Geaux Fishing, there are several activities for the kids (some bigs had to try it too 😉 )…
The steering wheel spun on the boat, and in front of the boat was a screen with a view from the front of a moving boat – the kids could pretend they were driving through the swamp…

And in across from the boat where you can drive, is one where you get to go fishing…

This was a favorite with the kids.  

and the kids loved this tank in the Geaux Fishing area that had an observation tube.  Peanut really enjoys these…   Back downstairs is the Mississippi River area.  They have a BIG albino alligator…
and this section of the zoo is meant to look like a backwoods swampy area…

After we walked along the Mississippi River, we came to the ‘big tank’  and it is!  A huge indoor tank teeming with all different kinds of fish, including sharks.  This is the side view of the tank…

Across from the big tank are smaller tanks of jelly fish.

They had some that we had never seen before… Like these goofy ‘upside down jelly fish’…

The front of the tank has 5 large panels, and the room around it is darkened so the tank really stands out and the fish are very vivid… There are bleachers across from the tank so that you can just stop and watch it for awhile (there are 2 more viewing panels to the right of these).

We walked through the big gift shop near the front doors.
Molly came in with me (we don’t usually take all the kids through gift shops – as a generality, it seems to make employees nervous that some of them may have sticky fingers and we have too many to notice or something…LOL!).  This time Molly wanted to go in with me.  We scoured the shop for a bumper sticker for the RV.
They have a cute little toy/clothing area with nicer quality items; I picked up a sand pail set to check the price, and Molly perked up and asked, “Are you going to buy that?”  When I said that I wasn’t, she walked off to her dad, saying matter-of-factly, to no-one in particular, “Well, SOMEBODY’S no fun today!!!”.   😀

And while I was a stick in the mud and didn’t buy a toy, we did find a bumper sticker for the back of the toy hauler!  Yay!!!  <3  (it’s the little things in life…)

We loved the Audubon Aquarium!!!  If you go, just FYI – if you happen to have 4 kayaks on a carrier on top of your already tall 15 passenger van, you’ll have to pay $15 or $20 to park in the premium lot near the aquarium instead of the inexpensive aquarium-owned garages behind the building that you are way too tall to fit in (don’t say I didn’t warn you 😉 ).  Parking is convenient, and the all inclusive Audubon Nature Institute pass (that gets you into the zoo (and IMax), aquarium, and insectarium) is a good deal – you could easily spend an entire day at each of the 3 different locations!    Great clean, family-friendly, fun destination in New Orleans!!!