Oh hai!
As I said the other day I was going to an aquarium today! Blackfish had made an impression on me since I felt bad for half these fish.
I’ve heard that the line up were crazy since this place is still brand new, that was one thing we were worried about since we didn’t order of tickets early. You can do that by going online to http://www.ripleyaquariums.com/canada/.
When you first walk in there is this huge shark tank that isn’t covered and you can look down into the water to see all these fish swimming around. When I fish looked at this tank I got so creeped out because all I saw was this….
(It’s a sharks fin just going around on the top like what you would see in the ocean. It’s a bad picture because I was still trying to figure out what setting on my camera I should use.)
After that the fun begins like right away, there was fish everywhere you look and info all over the walls. Most of the time I just looked at the fish so later on in life I would like to go back and actually read the things and signs on the walls.
There was some pretty interesting fish. At one point we saw a huge crab and I mean huge! I would cry if I saw this in the ocean. There was also blue lobsters I think they were. My boyfriend was with us and he knows all the fish so most of the time he was telling us about them.
(This was the huge crab)
(Here is the blue lobster)
Alright lets be honest, everyone goes to this place because they want to see the sharks swimming over top of you and to pet the crab, sting rays and sharks. We did it all, I even went up into those crawl holes to end up inside the tanks but not get wet.
I do not like fish, one time I went swimming with manatees and I was dying. Touching these animals was actually such an accomplishment for me it’s insane. Throughout the whole thing I couldn’t find a puffer fish which was making me sad. I love puffer fish I even have my own dead one that I got from south carolina. All of the sudden there was a tank that just had puffer fish in them with a climb in hole. I was so happy!
(The teeth are the scariest part!)
(Puffer fish tank that I found! Love these little guys.)
(These are the crabs that you get to pet, I’m not going to tell you how they feel so go find out for yourself!)
(This is me petting the shark, you can probably tell I was completely gross out a little bit.)
Alright so the last thing that I’m going to talk about of what I saw is the jelly fish. Most of you probably have friends who have gone to this and have taken pictures of these fish. They are crazy and probably one of the best things they have there. The background is a dark blue so the water pretty much matches, the fish are bright colours but they also change colours. At one point they were the normal white/clear, then it went from pink to red to dark red to blue. It was the craziest thing to see so go check it out.(You’re welcome Ripley’s.)
(Jelly fish in the dark red colour)
Some tips for when you go.
1. Buy your tickets early. We had no idea if it was going to be packed or not and remember that there is a chance that multiple schools could be there on a field trip. We were lucky and only had one school there, plus all the other adults that aren’t in school or took off work.
2. Bring a drink. The guy at the front after you get your tickets will tell you that you have to finish any drink you have before you go in but just bring a drink and put it in your bag. There is no water fountains and you could get thirsty, we had our own drinks.
3. Coat check. The weather wasn’t back today so we had just our light winter jackets on but if you go on a really cold Canadian day you will probably wear a heavier jacket. They have a coat check right beside the tickets, it’s $2 a hanger which isn’t bad at all.
4. Read the signs on the wall. When you get there you get all excited and just want to see all the fish, this is what happened to us but we had my boyfriend that knows a shit ton about animals and fish since he owns them or has had them in the past. Like I said I want to go back again one day and read all the signs just so I know whats going on.
5. Pet the animals! There’s three spots that you can touch the fish, two of the spots have just the one type of fish but the last one with the sting rays has a couple of baby sharks mixed with them and you can’t touch those since they will bite you. I have no idea why they were in the tank that you pet animals but just avoid them and you’ll be okay!
7. Go to the gift shop. You would think they just have stuff from the aquarium but they other stuff. Like I said they had a random stuffed animal of a dart frog and they don’t even have frogs there. So go!
Another thing checked off my 2014 List, here’s the link to the list to check out what else is on there!
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