Surviving NJ

We went to Ripley’s Aquarium in Myrtle Beach. This was taken in the tunnel. If you’ve been to Sea World, it’s like the tunnel in the shark house, where you walk under the tube that is over you. I enjoyed this section of the aquarium, as it wrapped around in a circle of sort, and was a great display of fish, sharks, and even a big sea turtle. The turtle was massive!

I’ve been to Baltimore Harbor’s aquarium before, and I loved that one.

At Ripley’s, while the tunnel was cool, the rest of the aquarium just didn’t fill the bill. The frog and lizard section were two small tanks. One tiny one with 2 small frogs in in, and another with 3 iguanas in it. That’s all! Two small tanks, and they list it on their map as a big section! You could say we were disappointed in that section as well as the living seas part. There were FOUR tanks, three about 3 feet wide, one maybe 5 feet. An octopus was in one, jelly fish in one, sea horses/sea dragons in one, and the last had a combination. The section was about the size of my living room.

I understand that the big tunnel is their main thing, but they put so much effort into that, the rest of the aquarium feels like it’s missing something. One section walking down the ramp was one tank. It ran about 10 feet long, but they called that an individual section.

On the guide book/map they show lots of sections. In reality, some sections are TINY! You need to LINGER in there, because if you don’t, you’ll be out quite quickly.

If you’ve never been to an aquarium before, it’s a nice start. If you’ve been to a well done aquarium, you’ll want to skip this, because you may feel like it’s lacking.

$40 for the two of us, and we were out in about 30 minutes. We kept looking at the map going, there HAS to be more…but there wasn’t. We did laugh all day about the two small tanks in the frog/lizard section that “rated” it’s own section. At least the laughter from that was entertaining, so it added to our dollar value. Oh, and by the way, the guide and map book, which you should get with your tickets will cost you an extra buck.

Over all, it’s a neat place, but you need to G-O S-L-O-W to make it last.