Best USA Aquarium to visit?

[blide]

I'm going to have some extra time off the next couple of weeks and would love to visit a very nice aquarium some where in the US. Can someone recommend a great place?

 

[Kitty]

Monterey Bay Aquarium, California.

Monterey Bay: http://www.montereybayaquarium.com/

Long Beach, Callie: Aquarium of the Pacific:

http://www.aquariumofpacific.org/default2.html

I've heard the National Aquarium in Baltimore was good, never been there:

http://www.aqua.org/[/url]

 

[southernreefer]

John G. Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Il. They have an awesome display, i recommend it, but its like $25 to get in, plus parking.

 

[kwl1763]

I would say the Shedd and Monterey are the two best I've been to.

To be honest DWA since they redid it holds it's ground pretty good.

 

[Ptt]

@kwl1763 wrote:

When did they redo DWA? I has been 2-3 years since I've been there.

 

[melev]

Yes, it is really nice. I posted a bunch of pictures last year. Let me find the URL.

http://www.melevsreef.com/dwa_visit.html 09/03/04

 

[Meli]

We went to the one in New Orleans about 5 years ago and was really impressed. They have a really nice off shore drilling aquarium. In 1999 it was suppose to be one of the top 3 in the US.

Melissa

 

[Kc189]

The aquarium in Balto. is nice but they do not have many reef setups, but they have many large animals.

 

[melev]

There is some place on the east coast (Rick might know which one I'm referring to) that is just amazing. They SCUBA the tank to care for its needs, and it is 14 feet deep (from the front to the back!). Talk about a lot of fish... we got to see a presentation at MACNA by one of the caretakers. Maybe it is actually in Washington DC area.

The New England Aquarium (Boston) impressed me, but maybe not others. There are a few images on this page from that place. I wasn't in there nearly long enough to enjoy it properly, and it seems like I hardly took any pictures at all! http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/macna16/various_tanks.html

 

[Serk]

Maybe it's just me, but I've been to the Moody Gardens aquarium in Galveston a few times, and have been highly impressed.

http://www.moodygardens.com/aquarium-pyramid.html

Gotta love multi story tanks!

 

[Richard]

Shed Aquarium in Chicago?

 

[mwolek]

Yes the Shedd in Chicago. Its ok... A lot of native displays, lake michigan etc.. I may be biased since I grew up in the area and went a lot as a kid, but I thought the National Aquarium at Baltimore was much better then the Shedd. The Shedd has some cool things though, like the bottlenose display. Shedd is probably bigger though with more displays.

 

[southernreefer]

Actually the Shedd has changed quite abit since you and i were kids. i was just recently there about 5 months ago, and they had about 20 60gl reef displays,plus the new exhibit on the lower level, which has a 10Kgl tidepool with a 500gl per cycle wavemaker in the center. there is soo much to see there, and the Field Museum and the Planetarium are right there as well.

But i think if someone really wanted to see some spectaular reefs, travel to tonga, guam, hawaii or figi and scuba!

 

[Kitty]

Soooo....what have you decided? Where to?