The National Aquarium is the absolute best aquarium that I have visited, and I've visited a lot of them.  You begin on the ground level and what is displayed are creatures who live in the salt water marshes and those closer to shore.  You then take a spiral ramp upwards and the further up you go the sea life displayed lives further from shore.  When you reach the penthouse you enter a rain forest, hence the glass roof.  As you leave the rain forest you walk down another ramp which makes sharp "U" turns.  This is called "Shark Alley" because during the whole decent you are inside a tank with large fish, sharks, swordfish, etc.  Outside is where the dolphins reside.  Enjoy your brief visit as you scroll down this page.

I took a lot of pictures but I'll only bother you with these two from the aquarium, colorful fish and a moray eel.  Moray eel's are reclusive and often are not visible, so I felt fortunate to photograph this one.  I haven't included a lot of water creatures here, for more you can visit the San Deago portion of the Road Trip section of "My Bucket List" web site.

One of the things that sets this aquarium apart is the rain forest. Not exactly “aqua” stuff and it’s entirely open, no cages or tanks. The sloth is excellent at hiding, a docent had to point this one out to us. The monkey is a monkey.

Click on YouTube for Sloth Video  33 secs              Click on YouTube for Monkey Video 35 secs

There were small things like the blue frog then huge bats hanging from the ceiling. The bats are in the Australian Exhibit, they are part of the Australian video below.

And then there were things in the trees hundreds of beautifu bromeliad and a snake or two.   Click here for video of bromeliads. 42 secs

It's difficult to describe the structure of "Shark Alley," but it's another thing that makes this aquarium unique. It's a long, oblong tank about a hundred yards long (at least it seemed that way) and as high as the aquarium itself with a ramp descending insde with "U" turns in the ramp to make it fit inside.  You leave the rain forest and descend down the ramp with large fish swimming around you.  I managed to get a good picture of the sawtooth (technically not a shark, but a ray).  The video is even better with sharks and sawtooths.  Click on the YouTube logo to go inside Shark Alley  2:11

After the Shark Alley we went to a seperate structure called the Glass Pavelian that had Australian creatures.  Shown here is a crocodile, Click on the YouTube Logo to see much more, including the fruit bats.  1:50

While we were waiting for the dolphin feeding time to roll around we perused the three types of Jelly Fish on display outside the dolphin's quarters.  Click on the YouTube logo for a video of the Jellys.   59 secs

Although they somewhat arrogantly bragged that they didn't have dolphin "shows" as if that was demeaning to the dolphin, but they posted feeding times, when they "exercised" the dolphins.  It was quite a show, the dolphins splashed the visitors, were kissed by the "keepers," etc.  The video is long so whatch what you wish and then move on.   7:34

As we left the Aquarium I snapped this picture of Baltimore.

Click on the gift to return to our invitation.	Click on the buggy to ride to Pennsylvania Dutch Country.	Click on the Chock Full o' Nuts Coffee can to return to My Bucket List Home page.