Dubai Aquarium

Oh wow, this aquarium was amazing!  Okay, it would be topped by the Georgia Aquarium, but this one is also very cool.  I would definitely pay to do the tunnel again.

We found a Groupon which saved us 30-40% says Stephen.  With it, we had access to the tunnel, the underwater zoo, and the behind the scenes tour.

Picture of us from the aquarium.

To set the scene, the Dubai Aquarium is in the Dubai Mall.  It takes up 3 floors of the mall in one area.  From the outside, you can see the two story tank.  Anyone can enjoy watching all the sharks, fish, rays, and divers.  We started here, ended here, and would occasionally swing by if we were in the mall just to stop and watch for a while.  It was really fun when they were feeding the sharks in the shark tank.  The sharks aren’t dangerous to humans, but they do use the precaution of the cage.  It was amusing to watch.  ALL the fish gathered around the cage, and then they follow after the sharks after they get some food hoping for something to be dropped, I’m sure.

Shark feeding time in front of the aquarium.

Your first stop after purchasing your tickets is to go through the tunnel on the first floor.  This is going inside the two story aquarium.  Oh wow!  I took so many pictures.  It was fun to see the guitarfish and sawfish just chilling on the top of the tunnel.  And I got some great pictures of the boys in awe of the fish.  They have cow nose rays, eagle rays, and at least one other ray.  They were surprisingly difficult to capture on camera as they move relatively quickly for the low light that I was working with.  What doesn’t move quickly?  The tiger sand sharks.  They swim at the whopping speed of 1-5 mph.

Entering the tunnel!

A guitarfish and a shark.

A saw fish

A ray minding its own business.

Another ray

After the tunnel, you go up to floor 3.  They were not ready for us to do the behind the scenes tour, so we went through the underwater zoo first.  They have more fish, turtles, jellyfish, seahorses, penguins, owls, birds, chameleons, and other animals.  As you can probably tell from the list, it is not all underwater.  That was a nice surprise.  You access the owls and birds by crossing over a wooden bridge that feels like you are crossing into a tree house.  Pretty cool, but it was so dark that almost no pictures came out well.  Like many aquariums, they have fish from different parts of the world.  They also had some of the oddest fish I have ever seen.  Oh, and a good sized octopus!

Love how this turtle was just chilling next to the glass.

A cool magnified view of a lobster.

Petting a bamboo shark

Going to see the birds

A chameleon

After the zoo, it was time to do our behind the scenes tour.  They showed us their kitchens where they prepare food for all of their animals.  They even have a menu board for the day!  They showed us shark eggs and baby sharks.  They were all bamboo sharks which are also down in the zoo in a tank where you can touch them.  They have a large, complicated system for algae growth for the animals that feed on algae.  They had a line up of tanks of various sizes of jellyfish to show how they grow.  Then you go down to where they feed these giant fish from Australia.  They will apparently eat anything.  Therefore, you don’t want to eat them because they would be toxic.  They are also quite aggressive with their eating.  AKA you will get splashed during this demonstration.

The menu board for the fish in the kitchen

Feeding the fish

Glass bottom boat view of a ray, a guitarfish, and a shark.

Last stop at the aquarium was a glass bottom boat tour of the two story tank.  It was fun to ride around and see everything from a different perspective, but this was the least effective way to see the fish.  I think it’s part of the behind the scenes tour, otherwise I wouldn’t recommend paying for that as an add on. 

The only thing I didn’t get to do?  Dive with the sharks.  Stephen reminded me that I hadn’t brought my dive card.  Maybe next time?  Probably not.