As we traveled we heard about the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, Georgia. It was said that it is the largest inland aquarium in the Eastern US. Since it was just a few hours from where we were in Tupelo, MS and a few hours from our next major stop in Pigeon Forge, TN, we decided it would be a good time to visit the aquarium.
This is a nice aquarium, but not as good as others to which we have visited. It is probably a great place to bring young kids. We had a good time there and probably would have enjoyed it more if it was not so crowded. There were several large groups of young children and a few groups of teenagers.
The aquarium contains several different areas representing different aquatic environments. The highlights of the visit were the tank we watched beluga whales frolic and playing with large pieces of cloth and the walk-through glass tube that goes under the largest tank containing sharks, rays, and other interesting sea life.
The beluga whales somewhat resemble dolphins and play in the water like dolphins do. There were large pieces of colorful cloth in the water that the whales were playing with. One would catch a piece of cloth with its tail then gracefully tumble around before flipping its tail releasing the cloth. That whale or another would then catch the cloth and play with it. Occasionally a whale would grap a piece of cloth with its mouth and another whale would grab another corner for a tug-of-war. The tugs-of-war would only last a few seconds as we do not think their mouths are well-adapted for doing this.
Ernie in particular loves being in the walk-through tube watching the different sea creatures swimming up the side of the tube and overhead. His favorite creature to watch are the rays. There were other real small tunnels that Ernie crawled into and was able to lay on his back and take pictures looking up through a window in the tunnel.
There was a good dolphin show that we attended.
Most of the areas were made up of tanks with several kinds of fish in each tank. Though, as at all aquariums we have been to, there are signs stating what fish are in the tank we, as always, had trouble determining which fish is which. Since we no longer even have the signs to help us, a lot of the (Pictures) do not have labels.

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Last updated:   apr 01 2019