Shedd Aquarium

Shedd Aquarium is a large aquarium dedicated to the preservation and education of aquatic animals. Located 1200 South Lake Shore Drive on Chicago’s Museum Campus. The best place to park is at the Soldier Field Parking garage and then walk over to Shedd’s Aquarium.

What Shedd has to offer and how much it costs

Shedd Aquarium is huge! It is impossible to experience everything in one day, but that doesn’t mean they won’t try to sell you the ticket to do everything. To do see all of Shedd’s exhibit’s, a 4d movie, the aquatic show Fantasea Polar Play Zone and to see the Jellyfish exhibit, Jellies, you will have to spend $35 per adult and $26 per child. For my Family of five this would have cost $148. If you do have that kind of money to spend please also consider that you should probably plan to get there at opening and stay till close if you plan to see it all; it’s the only way to get your money worth. Also consider that if you are going to spend that kind of money that for $175 you could get a membership for the whole family for a year.

Many people opt for the general admission which cost $8 an adult and $6 a child. Do not let the website fool you. They make it sound like the general admission let’s you see very little in reality we stayed for almost 3 hours and we even skipped some stuff included in the general admission. We could have stayed for at least another hour but we were late for dinner.

The general admission gets you into see the Caribbean Reef, which is a huge circular aquarium you can walk alomost all the way around watching various ocean fish and animals including sharks and a giant sea turtle. Every side has something to see. Benches are placed all around it for those just wanting to sit and watch the ocean creatures.

General admission at Shedd Aquarium also includes the Amazon Rising exhibit which shows how the Amazon River floods every year and the changes this causes for the fish, animals and people of the Amazon. The exhibits start with the water being very low and showing the changes over the flood months. At the deepest you can see a hut showing why the Amazon people build their huts on tall stilts so that they can take boats right up to their porches during the floods. After flood waters go down exhibits show what the area looks like afterwards, the evidence of the flood that is left behind, mud, pools of water and fish stuck in mud.

Also included in the general admission at Shedd Aquarium is the Waters of the World exhibit. This exhibit has galleries full of aquariums with exotic creatures from all over the world. Some of the most popular exhibits featured jelly fish, sea anemones, star fish, a giant crab, frogs, eels and colorful fish. Waters of the World seemed to go on forever with one gallery after another; so many that we finally had to leave.

In conclusion, if you have never been to Shedd Aquarium the general admission is more than enough for a first visit. It would be nice if Shedd Aquarium allowed people to purchase tickets for individual exhibits, such as the jellies, but until they do many larger families cannot afford to see more than the general admission exhibits, luckily that is plenty for an afternoon of fun and education. Visit http://www.sheddaquarium.org for more information.