Under The Sea

I received complimentary admission to Kansas City Sea Life Aquarium in exchange for writing a review about the aquarium on my blog. All opinions and observations are 100% my own.

Via

As I mentioned in Tuesday's TIOT post, Philip and I went to Kansas City for the day last Friday. I hadn't been to KC (as the locals call it) yet, so it was a fun experience for me to see more of this new state I call home. There's a neat little area of the city called Crown Center that is home to a several family friendly attractions and activities, but my favorite was the SeaLife Aquarium. I love aquariums; the blue tones and flowy rhythms always sooth and calm me, so I jumped at the opportunity to visit SeaLife. Philip had never been to an aquarium before, so it was awesome to be able to watch him experience the awe of the underwater world for the first time.

SeaLife is super kid friendly with all sorts of fun facts about the corresponding aquatic life on the walls. We learned a lot of tidbits about the creatures we saw and you even get the chance to touch a few of the animals if you like that sort of thing.

Philip liked the large salt water tank, where the sea turtle lives, best. I watched his face light up as he walked though the tunnel seeing the sharks and rays glide overhead. We spotted a clownfish laying on an anemone and a few royal blue tang swimming around aimlessly. I could sit and watch the fish swim all day and just be at peace.

Look closely to see Nemo and Dory!

There is a relatively new exhibit called Claws where we saw two 14 foot (FOURTEEN!!) Japanese Spider Crabs and a huge lobster looking crustacean. Seriously, those things were pretty cool to see in person. And there was this nifty open pool of rays and skates where you can climb up to a platform to view them through the floor! There's also a kid sized crawl space Philip wanted to squeeze in to so I could take a picture.

There are some pretty neat things to see and some nifty photo opportunities towards the end of the self guided tour, including a sweet little play area for the kiddos. The last stop is the gift shop where you can buy pirate hats, T-shirts, and shot glasses. Who doesn't want to own a pirate hat and drink rum from a shot glass with tropical fish on it?

Aren't our pirate faces awesome?

As I was writing this post, I asked Philip what he thought about his first experience at an aquarium, here's what he said:

I liked it, it was a nice place to get out of the house to, even though it's kinda small. That big tank you could walk under was really cool. There was something that said there was over 260,000 gallons of water. You can touch the starfish and spiky things (read: sea urchins) if you want, which is kinda cool. I didn't know you could do that.

We had a great day and if you're ever in the Kansas City area, you can get a discount if you purchase your tickets online ahead of time here. They also validate your parking if you park in the Crown Center parking deck, which we didn't do because we were taken in the totally wrong direction by our GPS, but that's ok because we really enjoyed our walk around the city.

Have you been to a SeaLife Aquarium? What was your favorite part?