Monterey Bay Aquarium, CA - Nov 2006

We had lots of folks tell us not to miss The Monterey Bay Aquarium -- and we're certainly glad that we didn't. It was a great place. We spent the whole day there and toured all three floors -- from end to end. By the end of the day, we were exhausted and we still hadn't seen everything. This attraction would best be covered over a series of days, but at $22/person +$8 parking, we decided to do it all in one day. I took dozens of pics, but my underwater-thru-glass photo skills are lacking, so not very many came out. Enjoy the ones that were sort of ok.

Almost every room in the aquarium had a huge wall of windows with views out to the ocean -- this is just one wall of pretty windows. Our favorite exhibits were: (1) The jellyfish displays -- absolutely awesome! (2) The "outer bay" tank with five-hundred pound tunas swimming full-speed ahead at feeding time -- fascinating. (3) The sea otters playful antics during their training session -- hilarious. (4) The hands-on tanks where kids (of all ages) could hold urchins, starfish, crabs and even pet a bat ray. How cool is that!

The most visually beautiful section in the aquarium was the one devoted to jellyfish. They had every size, color and shape you can imagine. They were all displayed with backlighting so you could clearly see their elegant and oh-so-graceful movements. It was as lovely as a piece of art. This tank was filled with bright orange jellyfish that glowed in the dark. Another exhibit had itty bitty baby jellyfish under a microscope -- showing how they develop in their first few days. Very interesting.

One of the exhibits was a huge plexi-glass bubble that was big enough for a dozen people to stand in and look out to the ocean. Then, every few minutes there was a huge wave that washed overhead -- complete with sound and fish whooshing by -- I swear that I expected to get wet at any moment. It was a real crowd pleaser.

There were decks all over the three story aquarium and each offered a different view up and down the bay. From the top perch, we had a beautiful view over Monterey Bay on a nice, clear day. This area of the bay was filled with kelp and we watched as otters came up with clams and ate their lunch using their bellies as a picnic table.

Frank clowning around at the penguin exhibit. The live penguins were almost as cute!