Monterey Bay Aquarium Visit

Time to get back to posting about my parents' recent visit. They've already been gone over a month. This Summer is just flying by.

You may recall that in previous posts I mentioned that we'd be going to Monterey Bay Aquarium. This was definitely one of the highlights of my parents' visit. We had visited Monterey Aquarium back in 2012 and the girls loved it so we've been keen to head back there again. You can see our previous visit here. It's such a wonderful place to spend a day so I knew that my parents would enjoy it too.

Vancouver Aquarium

One of the girls' favourite places that we visited in Canada was Vancouver Aquarium in Stanley Park. Both Ava and Lola are pretty obsessed with sea creatures so I knew that the aquarium would be a big hit with them.

There were plenty of familiar sea creatures to see and a few that we hadn't seen before, including our new favourite, the beluga whale. Beluga. I love that word!

First up for the day was the beluga whale show. The keepers demonstrated how they interact with these majestic creatures on a regular basis, explained how these whales came to be at the aquarium and taught us a little about their environment, the perils they face in the wild and the research that is being done to learn more about them. 

The beluga whale show

Monterey Bay Aquarium

My list of places to take the kids in the Bay Area has some pretty cool destinations on it: farms, museums, playgrounds, galleries... There is one place on the list however that we anticipated visiting more than anywhere else; Monterey Bay Aquarium.

From a young age Ava has been enthralled by anything to do with life under the sea. When she was two years old we visited Underwater World in Queensland and instantly she was hooked on anything and everything fishy.

During Ava's recent Spring Break we took a trip down south to beautiful seaside Monterey. The big drawcard there being the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Monterey Bay Aquarium from one of the viewing decks