I love how children adore facts. My son informed me this spring that the world’s largest aquariums were in Okinawan, Japan and Atlanta, Georgia. Japan is not even on my radar let alone my bucket list, but Atlanta, Georgia now that is a place I love!
Elijah loves sharks, “great whites” in particular. Unfortunately great white sharks can not be keep in captivity and MY HUSBAND does not want to go to South African to go shark watching. But in Atlanta Georgia there is a true national treasure, the Georgia Aquarium, with 600,000 square feet this massive building holds 10 million gallons of fresh and salt water and over 100,000 animals.
Going to see it by day is exciting, but what about a sleep over!? I can hear all you Mom’s groaning. I did too at first! We were vacationing 5 hours away on Dauphin Island, Alabama. Being from Colorado we were not likely to get the chance to “run up” to Atlanta anytime soon after this vacation. I started adding up costs for food, hotel and the Georgia Aquarium itself. A pricey trip to say the least.
Then I stumbled on the Sleep Under the Sea package.
For $100 a person you get:
Two days admission to the museum and all the shows,
Spend the night in the Aquarium,
Dinner,
Breakfast,
Full Guides Behind the Scenes Tours (4-5 hrs).
Listen closely, the Georgia Aquarium runs this program almost 365 days a year so choose your date wisely. You could wind-up sleeping with 300 of of you closest new friends.
We opted for a Tuesday night after the Georgia and Alabama kids had resumed school for the fall. Only three other families were there that night, 11 guests and 4 guides. This is still not what put the destination on my bucket list. Sure my children got the guides full attention and complete run of the 600,000 square foot facility, with numerous hands-on exhibits,
But what really did it for me was the silence.
After the Aquarium closed the guides kindly cut the sound track and all was quiet. No crowd noise or piped in music, and the animals, except for the playful Beluga Whales, were quiet.
As we bedded down on foam gym mats in front of the main exhibit, the Ocean Voyager, a huge glass wall filled with 4 whale sharks, I was a little uneasy–a little creepy sleeping with the fishes. As the lights dimmed and our companions stopped talking, I began to relax.
Mezmorized by the peaceful swimming back and forth of the fish, I fell asleep.
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Feeding the Whale Sharks At the Georgia Aquarium (Video)
Our Five Favorite Kids Museums
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