Our second full day in Vancouver was supposed to be spent exploring Stanley Park and the city. But when we woke up to rain we had to reassess and come up with an indoor plan. Enter the Vancouver Aquarium.
Our family is aquarium junkies. We go to them pretty much every chance we get. So nobody was too upset about this change in plans. Plus the Vancouver Aquarium is actually in Stanley Park, which meant we were poised to resume our plans if the weather improved.
Like most aquariums, this one was not cheap. At $38/30/21 CAD for adult/youth/child tickets, it added up to a pricey morning out (about $90 USD for a family of 4). But very few indoor activities are free and this was the activity of choice on a rainy day for our family… as it was for half of Vancouver apparently.
We bought tickets online ahead of time and were stunned when we saw that the line for entrance with advanced tickets was as long or longer than the line to buy tickets. So we waited in the rain for about 15 minutes before we got in. (Yes, the line to buy tickets was not only shorter but also under cover!)
Nevertheless, we finally made it inside. The main atrium is called the Teck Connections Gallery and features giant video screens encircling the room. Digital butterflies flutter around the screens in promotion of their Amazon Gallery, which includes butterflies from Costa Rica. From here you can take the circular stairs to the lower level, exit to the outdoor exhibits, or enter either The Tropics or the Pacific Canada exhibits.
We headed downstairs first and came upon some live animal demonstrations in the Engagement Gallery. Three different stations were set up on the floor with a variety of turtles roaming around for kids to observe up close. It’s always fun to see animals out of their enclosures. After watching them for a while, we moved on to the Vortex exhibit.
The Vancouver Aquarium places a heavy emphasis on the problem of ocean pollution and the importance of addressing this global crisis. Vortex is an art exhibit by Douglas Coupland that is supposed to make you “think about plastic in a relevant, contemplative, and transformative way.” The centerpiece of the exhibit is a Japanese fishing boat floating in a sea of plastic trash. On the walls surrounding the exhibit are rows and rows of individual pieces of plastic trash that have washed up on shores of British Columbia. Seeing the trash on display like that was certainly impactful; the variety and magnitude of trash collected from one small area is staggering.
Also on the lower level is the Frogs Forever? exhibit. Featuring 22 species of salamanders, toads, and frogs, this exhibit addresses the perils facing amphibians today. The fan favorite was definitely the white and pink Axolotl salamander, also known as the Mexican Walking Fish. These unique creatures (who can regenerate lost limbs!) are only native to a lake complex in Mexico and are sadly near extinction due population growth in Mexico City, which has resulted in draining and contamination of the lakes.
One thing that we didn’t realize when we chose the aquarium as our rainy day activity is that many of their best exhibits are outside. Stellar sea lions, sea otters, dolphins, seals, and penguins have outdoor habitats (although some have indoor viewing areas of the underwater section of the tank). Luckily the rain had let up so we headed outside to explore the outdoor exhibits.
We heard the first outdoor resident before we saw him. A very noisy sea lion swam around in his tank, barking the whole time. The boys were fascinated to learn that Señor Cinco is a blind, rescued California sea lion (who is “sometimes quite vocal” as the sign says). The Vancouver Aquarium is home to the Marine Mammal Rescue Centre and is responsible for rehabilitating and releasing more than 150 marine mammals every year. The ones like Señor Cinco who cannot survive on their own get to call the aquarium their permanent home.
Next up outside was Penguin Point. The residents of this exhibit are African Penguins, the only species of penguin that lives along the southern coast of Africa. Like many of the animals featured at the aquarium, they are now on the endangered list. Penguins may smell surprisingly bad, but they are still one of my favorites to see.
While penguins are my favorites, otters top my husband’s list. Like many of the other marine mammals at the aquarium, the sea otters were rescued as babies and raised here. The 6 sea otters are thriving now. We watched the guy below swim backstroke laps for a while with perfectly executed flip turns.
And of course, no visit to an aquarium is complete without a touch tank. The Vancouver Aquarium’s was unique because it was outside but thankfully it was under cover because it had started to rain again. This colorful touch pool featured red sea cucumbers and green sea anemones and JB was in elbow deep before we knew what happened.
The rain started to come down in earnest now so we skipped the dolphins and walruses (such a bummer!) and headed back inside. We re-entered the building into the Canaccord Exploration Gallery, which houses jellies, both live and decoration. The ceiling is decorated with paper jellies that light up in different colors, and my kids were excited to discover the light pattern could be controlled from a touchscreen hidden off to the side.
But the jellies themselves always seem to have the best colors in their bright blue tanks.
We seemed to spend the least amount of time in the indoor fish exhibits and I’m not certain if it because they weren’t super impressive or because we missed some stuff or because we were a large group that was constantly getting separated and spending time trying to find each other again. (I never quite got my bearings in the aquarium.) But there were still some highlights from The Tropics, Pacific Canada, and Treasures of the BC Coast exhibits.
The final area we visited was Clownfish Cove. Don’t be fooled by the name – this is not where the actual clownfish reside like we thought when we headed there. It is the children’s play area. Like much of the aquarium, it has a conservation and rescue theme and offers fun, hands-on kids activities related to those concepts. My niece, the youngest in the group at 4 years old, had fun in here and enjoyed bringing her older cousins in to show them around. (The website says the area is designed for kids 8 and younger but I’d put it at closer to 5 or 6 and below.)
Overall, we really enjoyed the Vancouver Aquarium, although it wasn’t quite the amazing experience I had been hoping for. I think some of their strongest exhibits are outdoors, making them somewhat weather-dependent and giving us a less than ideal experience. I found the layout and flow somewhat confusing and we missed a few things we would have loved to see. (They had sloths?!?) I think under better circumstances (better weather, less crowded, led by someone with a better directional sense) we would have gotten even more out of it. But all in all, it is well worth while and an enjoyable way to spend 2-3 hours in Vancouver.
