Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center, Virginia, United States

4jln1992 5:00 PM Sep 8, 2021

Nice place to visit
The aquarium was very nice, however a little crowded and pricey like all other aquariums. Before you visit either get your tickets online in advance or you can get them when you get there, but there are time slots that you have to wait to get in. When you first walk up the the aquarium you see seals in an outside enclosure which is pretty cool. Once inside there is quite an array of animals to see and some areas of learning and touch activities to do. We would have liked to do the Dolpon

4thinktankjp 5:00 PM Dec 30, 2020

Nice indoor option, good animal exhibits
We went during Covid and the aquarium did a good job with reduced capacity, timed entry tickets to keep the crowd low and spaced out. We had a 9am entry and it almost felt like we had the place to ourselves. Most of the interactive elements, including touch tanks, were off limits for now, but our visit spanned over 90 minutes which was a pretty good timeframe. One building is closed for renovation, opening in 2021, which was a little disappointing, but the parts that are open are well-crafted exhibits with a great variety of animals and fish. I would imagine with the reopening of the second building a visit would be 2+ hours. The facility itself is older, but kept in good shape. Lots of keepers and volunteers were on hand to answer questions. Even at the touch tank with sting rays where we could not currently touch the animals, there were volunteers to tell us about them and learn how to tell them apart. Note there are no food options available at the facility right now, so bring snacks if needed (did not even see a soda machine). Also, due to COVID there is a one-way path through the facility so don’t rush it; there is no reentry once you finish.