We visited the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific on Tuesday, June 23, 2009. By "we," I mean my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my niece, and I. We were able to buy the tickets online (with a $5 per ticket discount) and planned to arrive in Long Beach at around 1:40pm. We actually managed to estimate the getting-ready and the driving times appropriately.

It's hard to believe that the Long Beach Aquarium has been here for over 10 years, and I had never been there. It is quite wonderful. They have several galleries with huge tanks of fish and other creatures from different areas of the Pacific Ocean. Fish and creepy-crawlies are interesting, but my favorites are the mammals. They had gorgeous sea lions and really cool otters. (We even managed to catch some sea lions mating, but I'd rather not think about that.) There are many touching pools outside--rays, tide pools, sharks. The aquarium also has a lorikeet forest, which is a lot of fun, if birds don't freak you out. You can purchase nectar to feed the birds, but we didn't do that.

We had lunch in the restaurant, which was terribly overpriced but wasn't too bad. There was a nice variety, at least, so we all found something to eat. We had a nice view of a seagull family (very large babies!) while we had our lunch.

Annie loved the aquarium. She couldn't get enough of each exhibit while wondering what was in the next one. She had a great time and even came home with a stuffed puffin toy to show for it.

I really liked the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific. If I didn't have to brave the 5 and the 710, I might have thought about becoming a member. But I will definitely be sure to visit more often from now on.