When Macaroni Kid was invited to the VIP press party for the Grand Opening of Via Aquarium, I was beyond excited! My girls LOVE fish tanks and aquariums. We were not able to make the ribbon cutting, but we made sure to get to opening day as soon as we could!
We arrived at about 2:45 and the line was across the entire mall! That is what i call a GRAND opening! What a great turn out! I did a little happy dance when I realized that was the ticket line, and we could head right into the aquarium since we already had our tickets. Online ticket sales should be up and running soon!
Start your aquarium adventure with some freshwater river fish. Here you will love the giant trout tank, filled with brookies and brown trout. You can also find a tank with Piranhas! 
Continue on and you will head to the jewels of the sea. Before you get there, let the kids stop and jump on the interactive sea lights. Let the fish swim by, but be quick and kick all the litter out of the water! The girls had fun with this! You can crawl into the center tunnel, and when you stand up you are surrounded by fish! Walk around the room to find jelly fish, seahorses, lion fish, cow fish and more!
Enjoy a few more tanks before entering the hands-on discovery room!
The discovery cove was a lot of fun. Here we got to touch a few sea creatures (if we dared) and feed some too! Sea stars, horsehoe crabs, hermit crabs, koi fish, and sting rays are all available in here!
Also in Discovery Cove was the Interactive Sand Topography station. This was really cool. Here grown ups and kids can all play! As you build up sand hills, the topography map adjusts. If you hold your hand over, to make a shadow, rain will also show on the map!
The next room is where my girls were obsessed with finding Nemo and Dory. Here was a giant tank filled with all the favorites from Finding Nemo! It is also the room where I almost had a panic attack, I looked over and I almost lost it when I saw my kids ripping pieces of the wall off. Turns out it is a GIGANTIC underwater reef magnetic wall. PHEW! haha it was so cool. I could feel my heart racing though. This was our second time passing by this room when they discovered the magnetic wall. I had NO IDEA! It was fun rearranging it. And you could tell that others did not realize at first either!
This is also where you will see the biggest lobster I have ever seen! Just beyond you will find more colorful fish filled tanks, and a giant scuba diver shark cage. Which is a fun photo opp for all!
End your trip by walking through shark alley! (or turn back around before heading through the gift shop, which is what we did... twice... I'm telling you my girls are obsessed with aquariums!)
We happened to walk through while a feeding was going on. Which was a neat thing to watch! Fish and the small sharks were grabbing food right out of the workers hands, and trying to steal the food from each other too!
We enjoyed our time at the aquarium! It is perfect size for a mini day trip. We ended up spending about 2 hours wandering through the 25,000 square foot area, before we headed over to the mall food court for dinner!
VIA Aquarium
Ticket info:
Adults: $16/$19 + tax weekday/weekend
Children 4-17: $10+ tax
Seniors (62+), first responders, college students with ID: discount $14/$17 + tax (weekday/weekend)
buying tickets online is coming soon.
Hours of Operation:
Open everyday except Thanksgiving and Christmas Day
10am - 9pm Monday - Saturday (last admittance 7:30)
11am - 6pm Sunday (last admittance 4:30)
The museum is fully accessible, and wheel chairs can be reserved at the mall's service desk.
I received complimentary tickets to the Via Aquarium in exchange for my review! All opinions are my own.
