We stayed overnight at a hotel (my kids love staying in hotels) so that we could go to the Adventure Aquarium in Camden, NJ the next day. This is after hitting the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter & Paul for Mass in Philly. It was a beautiful church.
Unfortunately, our FONZ membership didn't get us a discount at this aquarium. My kids love animals and we've been to so many aquariums and zoos that we couldn't pass this up.
There is a view of Philly from across the bridge.
This aquarium had a lot of cool sharks, petting stations for various animals like sting ray, sharks (the small harmless kind) and starfish and some shellfish. You could even swim with the sharks if you were 13 years or older. I'm not sure how that worked, but I didn't see any volunteers! I wish I had better pictures, but I got a lot of blurry shots.
The start of my kids' fascination with animals was with Happy the hippo at our National Zoo here in DC. My kids were his biggest fan and it was a sad day in DC when they moved Happy to Milwaukee. No more hippo. My kids have moved on to sharks and alligators, but always hold a special place for Happy.
Adventure Aquarium had hippos. We didn't know what to expect, but they had the best place to exhibit their two hippos. It was wide and open and had a play area, a large indoor pool filled with colorful fish and toys for the hippos to splash around and swim in. They had a lot of birds of all types flying around the exhibit, too. If you kept on walking around the corner, you'd see a dark room with a window that showed you underwater - for when the hippos came and swam by. And that is exactly what these hippos did. My kids were face to face with two hippos and were in hippo heaven! It wasn't crowded, as what we're used to, so it was definitely the highlight of the visit.
I think the size alone of one of these creatures is just amazing. A picture really doesn't show that.
It was a good weekend trip! A lot to see.
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