Aquarium of the Pacific

The oceanarium in Long Beach may not be the largest in the country, but it is very popular. It was opened in 1998, and it took more than $ 120 million to build it. The opening of the aquarium was related to a change of city status. Long Beach has long been a naval shipyard, but it turned to a tourist site of the United States.

The oceanarium was designed as a cornerstone of a coastal shopping and entertainment complex. It should attract people to this place. The estimates were right, and the number of its visitors exceeds one and a half million per year today. 

The main idea of the oceanarium was to show the maximum number of underwater inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. More than eleven thousand animals live here now. All of them are represented by sectors. There is the gallery of Southern California and Baja, the gallery of the Northern Pacific, the Tropical Pacific gallery, Explorer's Cove, and others.

Buying a ticket to the aquarium, you can not only look at the fish through the glass, but also play with Magellanic penguins, feed colorful birds of the parrot family named lorikeets, get as close as possible to the bamboo shark, and see the rarest inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean hiding in the water column that are not located in other oceanariums. 

In the very centre of the aquarium, there are special digital panels that show visitors an 8-minute video about the inhabitants of the ocean. All kinds of special effects are used here, from the movement of the floor to the appearance of smoke. After that, guests can visit all the exhibition spaces that follow each other. 

The oceanarium is also famous for its educational programs. It hosts seminars for oceanographers, lectures for families and students, events including communication with animals. You can even feed the fish, for this purpose visitors are even taken to the closed part of the aquarium. One of the most unusual entertainments in the oceanarium is diving with underwater inhabitants of the Pacific Ocean. An experienced instructor accompanies you. Though there are no dangerous animals in that aquarium, this unforgettable event will remain in your memory forever.