Whenever my wife and I travel, time permitting, we like to visit the local aquariums. We spent Christmas week in the Phoenix, Arizona area and visited the local aquarium in Tempe. The Sea Life Aquarium is owned an operated by a UK corporation, which owns multiple aquariums around the world. It is obviously a for-profit business, but does include advertising about it's conservation activities. It is located at 5000 South Arizona Mills Circle, Tempe, AZ 85282. Unfortunately this address just brings you to this massive mall with no signage telling you where the aquarium is located....it is in the north east corner of the mall. Overall, I will give this aquarium a B minus.
The pluses for this aquarium are:
* Not crowded...even on the Saturday we attended.
* Surprise rooms (I really liked the cylindrical room of schooling fish.)
* Able to get up close with many exhibits (see my turtle picture...and others)
The minuses
* Small
* Only one tank with coral....LPS and softies...and not the prettiest.
* Not easy to find (in a very large mall with no signage outside to let you know were it is.)
* As an adult, you don't want to be in this mall on a Saturday afternoon....over-run with teenyboppers....I mean thousands.
On a Saturday afternoon in Tempe, we decided to visit the Sea Life aquarium. The first problem we had was finding it in this very large shopping mall. We drove around the mall, stopping to ask people we saw, with many only speaking spanish. We eventually just parked and walked in. We were fortuante that we walked in only having to walk about 5 to 6 hundred yards to the aquarium. It is located in the north east corner of the mall....and you'd never know it from the outside of the mall.
Normal entrance fee is $18, but if you purchase the tickets online it's $15 during the week and $15.50 on weekends.....we purchased online and just let them know at the aquarium that we did and that was that.
Now here's the first great thing......no line to get in...even on this weekend. And no big crowds. It's one of the reasons I don't like Camden aquarium. This allowed my wife and I to really just mosey...no feeling of urgency to move along. The exhibits begin with freshwater fish and quickly got into saltwater.
A hairy scarlet hermit with starfish:
A puffer (with personality that followed us):
The second great thing was open topped tanks that allow close up photography. We then hit a room that was a touch tank room with star fish; urchins; this funny lobster that wasn't a lobster; and more......great for the kids.
Here was my first "surpise" room...a cylindrical tank that went around the whole room with flagtail fish....a schooling fish. My wife an I just chilled in this room by ourselves watching the fish school around us. Very relaxing.....until some boogger-nosed kids came running in with their parents.
As we walked into the next room, I told my wife, "Look, they've gone back to freshwater with a tank of tigerbarbs....a deja vu moment for me when I use to breed tigerbarbs. But as I got closer to the tank I could see that they were in fact bangii cardinals:
What was odd for me is that I've never seen a large school like this with minimal flow in the tank, so they just "hung" there like they were on a string. No movement whatsoever.
The next room had a good size tank with skates and small sharks....and my little friend here...a small sea turtle. Again, able to put the camera over the tank and get a nice closeup of the little guy as he cruised around the tank.
They also had a very large tank that was viewable from a couple locations....with one being a tunnel were the fish were all around you. Here is were I saw what I believe was a grouper, that gave me yet another deja vu moment to my Hawaiian sling spearing days in Florida in the early 70's:
This very large tank was filled with large fish....sharks and rays...to small fish....tangs and the like....and fish that I had no idea what they were.
They also had tanks with seahorses (captive bred), jelly fish, and a room with freshwater turtles.
And finally, the last room you entered was the gift shop with all the crap any kid would love.
Overall I'd recommend visiting if you are interested in fish or have kids. If you're looking for corals, you're not going to find it here.
The pluses for this aquarium are:
* Not crowded...even on the Saturday we attended.
* Surprise rooms (I really liked the cylindrical room of schooling fish.)
* Able to get up close with many exhibits (see my turtle picture...and others)
The minuses
* Small
* Only one tank with coral....LPS and softies...and not the prettiest.
* Not easy to find (in a very large mall with no signage outside to let you know were it is.)
* As an adult, you don't want to be in this mall on a Saturday afternoon....over-run with teenyboppers....I mean thousands.
On a Saturday afternoon in Tempe, we decided to visit the Sea Life aquarium. The first problem we had was finding it in this very large shopping mall. We drove around the mall, stopping to ask people we saw, with many only speaking spanish. We eventually just parked and walked in. We were fortuante that we walked in only having to walk about 5 to 6 hundred yards to the aquarium. It is located in the north east corner of the mall....and you'd never know it from the outside of the mall.
Normal entrance fee is $18, but if you purchase the tickets online it's $15 during the week and $15.50 on weekends.....we purchased online and just let them know at the aquarium that we did and that was that.
Now here's the first great thing......no line to get in...even on this weekend. And no big crowds. It's one of the reasons I don't like Camden aquarium. This allowed my wife and I to really just mosey...no feeling of urgency to move along. The exhibits begin with freshwater fish and quickly got into saltwater.
A hairy scarlet hermit with starfish:
A puffer (with personality that followed us):
The second great thing was open topped tanks that allow close up photography. We then hit a room that was a touch tank room with star fish; urchins; this funny lobster that wasn't a lobster; and more......great for the kids.
Here was my first "surpise" room...a cylindrical tank that went around the whole room with flagtail fish....a schooling fish. My wife an I just chilled in this room by ourselves watching the fish school around us. Very relaxing.....until some boogger-nosed kids came running in with their parents.
As we walked into the next room, I told my wife, "Look, they've gone back to freshwater with a tank of tigerbarbs....a deja vu moment for me when I use to breed tigerbarbs. But as I got closer to the tank I could see that they were in fact bangii cardinals:
What was odd for me is that I've never seen a large school like this with minimal flow in the tank, so they just "hung" there like they were on a string. No movement whatsoever.
The next room had a good size tank with skates and small sharks....and my little friend here...a small sea turtle. Again, able to put the camera over the tank and get a nice closeup of the little guy as he cruised around the tank.
They also had a very large tank that was viewable from a couple locations....with one being a tunnel were the fish were all around you. Here is were I saw what I believe was a grouper, that gave me yet another deja vu moment to my Hawaiian sling spearing days in Florida in the early 70's:
This very large tank was filled with large fish....sharks and rays...to small fish....tangs and the like....and fish that I had no idea what they were.
They also had tanks with seahorses (captive bred), jelly fish, and a room with freshwater turtles.
And finally, the last room you entered was the gift shop with all the crap any kid would love.
Overall I'd recommend visiting if you are interested in fish or have kids. If you're looking for corals, you're not going to find it here.
