The Seattle Aquarium

 The Seattle Aquarium, is well, like most aquariums. It features quite a few neat exhibits. We got our City Passes and this was one of the options so we all thought we’d come check it out. It is located on Pier 59. The website recommends making a reservation, which we did. But we arrived about a half hour early and were allowed in.

Location: 1483 Alaskan Way Pier 59
Time Needed: About 2 hours
Cost: Tickets range from $25.95 to $34.95 but you can save some money if you plan to do other popular destinations by using the CityPass (outside link).

The Seattle Aquarium entrance.

Across the way towards Pier 57 which is where The Seattle Great Wheel is located.

It’s kind of neat.

One of the tour boats. We’ll get to that eventually.

Interesting sea star.

The Crashing Waves exhibit is pretty neat.

The tide pools.

Sea Stars.

The giant octopus.

There was some girl that was either really high, or really weird that was being weird about it. I wouldn’t have minded but she was there for our entire visit today.

More tide pools.

Found an eel or something.

We moved on to the Marine Mammals exhibit.

They have sea otters and river otters. This was the latter, we could only just see this guy curled up in his little shelter.

A sea star and another eel or something.

In case you forgot what state you were in.

Yay! The sea otters are being super playful at the moment.

Super fun!

I think these are the Northern fur seals. Their actual tank is being cleaned right now so they were moved temporarily.

These guys are super cute too.

Back to the sea otters. I caught one floating on his back.

Ahhhh! They are so stinking cute.

I want to take them home.

Grooming.

Back to wrestling.

And floating.

More grooming.

Yeah, sorry buddy, I am totally watching. :-p

Water tension.

More wrestling.

Harbor seals.

These guys are a little harder to spot.

Looking out into Elliott Bay.

I’m not 100% sure what that old looking pipe is.

The city.

This random dude dressed like a Jim Henson monster was making all sorts of weird monster noises and screaming at people in a monster voice and the absolute absurdity of it made all of us laugh. Thank you random dude.

Back to the harbor seals. This exhibit it outside in case the other shots didn’t clue you in on that.

I thought this might of been how they recycled seawater, but I guess it is the Salmon Ladder?

You get a better view of the harbor seals from the inside. Wait, these might be the other ones, the fur seals. Sorry it's been a few days so things are a little fuzzy.

Either way it’s neat.

They are quite majestic.

Riding an orca.

The underwater dome.

Some anemone.

These ones were… caressing each other.

Shrimp!

I am blanking on what these are.

A tiny sad looking pufferfish?

Fish.

Anemone.

Then we entered the birds and shore exhibit. I figured out what this was based on their signs, but I am spacing it. I think it is the black oystercatcher.

Then we have I think the snowy plover and definitely a killdeer (we have those here at home) and I think a baby.

Another black oystercatcher.

Much better view of the black oystercatcher from outside.

In the Tropical Pacific exhibit we found a seahorse.

Jellyfish!

Shrimp. I want to say it was called a red striped shrimp. But I can't remember for sure.

Clownfish.

Big guy.

Uh… what in the world is happening here? Our best guess is that it is reproducing?

More fish.

Me as a seal.

The giant octopus. Unfortunately the weird lady was still being super weird with it, so I didn’t get a shot from the other side. Seriously lady, I get being excited, feeling a connection, whatever but you are ruining it for everybody else.

This doughnut shaped display is normally filled with jellyfish. However it is currently being cleaned.

Tide pools again.

Cormorant statue. We had a pretty heavy cormorant year so I recognized it immediately.

I even caught one in a similar pose on the Jordan River here.

The Seattle Great Wheel again.

Aquarium sign.

Yay. That was fun! I particularly liked the otters, and the seals. I am glad we came out to see them. We are having a lot of fun doing the touristy things on this trip.