Texas State Aquarium
My husband had an unscheduled day off last Wednesday. When their dad is home, homeschooling is difficult. ( While he tries to help, he is very distracting to my son. Lol!) We decided that we would drive to Corpus Christi which is about 2 hours away.
We started out with the intention of just going to the beach. As a family, we try to do the activity that doesn’t cost a whole lot of money. Usually we will go to the state park when we visit the beach here in Texas. We purchased a season pass for the Texas State Parks a few months ago when we were in the Houston because there are so many state parks in that area. Our intention for this trip was to just enjoy a day exploring the beach. We like to see what critters we can find at the different beaches we visit. Storms started moving into the area so we decided fairly quickly that we would probably be miserable at the beach because it was so rainy and windy.
When we decide to change plans quickly, I am so thankful for a cell phone that has internet access. I started running an online search for things to do in the Corpus Christi area. I came up with the Texas State Aquarium. It seemed like a good way to be mostly inside on a rainy day, yet still have some fun, and maybe learn something. I will say, if you plan on visiting this aquarium you would be wise to purchase your tickets online. You save $3 a person if you purchase online in advance and they will send you an email with a ticket link so they can just scan your tickets at the door to get in. I love anything that saves me money and helps me avoid a line. You can see more information on the admission prices and a link to buy tickets here.
My first impression was that this place was very confusing to get to. When you type Texas State Aquarium into your gps, make sure it is not the SeaLab location. That is an entirely different place about 2 miles away from the aquarium. Once you have the right place selected it is still a confusing place to navigate to. Eventually, after using Waze and Google Maps both, we just drove around the area and found it on our own. It is located under the bridge for Highway 181. We didn’t even see it when we came in. (Probably because the guys were distracted by the USS Lexington. That will probably be a stop on the next family trip to Corpus.
Once we finally made it there, we found a parking spot and headed into the aquarium. It was very busy with construction there. They are expanding the aquarium. It looks like they will double the size of it by next year. We would like to return to see it if we are near enough next year. If you can handle construction I would still recommend that you visit. It was a great place to see the different species of animals that are a part of the Gulf ecosystem.
They have several touch pools at this aquarium. They have the normal ones you expect at an aquarium like the sea urchins, starfish and horseshoe crabs. They also have a large stingray pool outside with plenty of hand sanitizing stations nearby. What really impressed me was the shark touch tank. Yes, I said that. You can touch sharks. Granted these are not gigantic sharks you are touching. They are the smaller bottom dwelling types of sharks. They take naps during the day, so they just lay there as you touch them. It was very neat. I can now say I have pet a shark. It makes me feel tough. If you go you will see how very safe it is to touch these animals, and you will not be very impressed by me.
In the Nearshore area they have all of the animals that you would see, well, nearshore. This Roseate spoonbill was so close we could have touched him. My son tried, I had to remind him that we should not pet animals unless there is an attendant or a sign saying we are allowed to. It was neat to see the fish and birds that we usually only see from a distance.
Outside there were several exhibits that were not very crowded. If it were a sunnier day I’m sure these would be crowded, but it was sprinkling. We had no problem with the sprinkling, because we are tough. It helps that most of the exhibits had awnings over them. There were otter, sea turtle, alligator, and bald eagle exhibits. Along with the sting ray touch pool.
As a whole, it was a wonderful visit. The construction made things a bit confusing. We ended up not paying for parking because we couldn’t find where the machine was that you could get the tokens to open the gate to get out. We ended up going out an open gate at the back of the parking area like everyone else that was leaving. The signs say that parking is $5 but they may have it disabled because of the construction. We will definitely be visiting again, once they are done with construction.
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