Greybeard
2500 Club Member
Hi folks,
Wanted to post a short bit on the new Bass Pro aquarium tour. Went yesterday... sorry, I didn't take photos, but...
$30, kids $20. Expensive? Yeah, I thought so too. Happily, a friend and fellow reefer has season passes, and we were able to get through without the minor inconvenience of actually having to pay for it :)
Lines: At 10am on a rainy Sunday morning, we walked right in. I understand lines can be around the building... guess we got lucky.
Entryway has several fairly impressive tank views, many of the same tanks are visible from different angles throughout the half mile or so of walkways.
Big tanks... many of them... and various 'other' things to look at.
The highlight for me was a large circular tank with a big school of silver baitfish. Dimly lit. A pair of small scalloped hammerheads in with them. Very dramatic. No idea what sort of baitfish they were... herring, perhaps. View-able near the top, near the bottom, and from a dome directly under the tank.
Unexpected: Otters, always fun. Black bear, beaver... odd to see these critters in such a display. A few snakes, alligators, other reptiles and amphibians. Bald eagle, a pair of owls... One osage copperhead in a small, dark corner, with his cage BELOW floor level, a bit of acrylic over it, so you can walk over him. Since we have osage copperheads around my house, it was a bit disturbing :)
Shipwreck room, cylinder tank, probably 20 feet in diameter, 30 feet tall or so. All sorts of marine fish. Surrounded by a large, low, open top stingray 'petting' tank.
Freshwater: Gar, spoonbill, sturgeon, peacock bass, large mouth bass, crappie, walleye, muskie... from huge catfish to tiny neon tetras. Some very nice planted display tanks.
Marine: From Goliath groupers to various sharks (a very pretty leopard shark), to common marine tank features (cardinals, clowns, etc) to some that I can't identify (there was one school of small, odd looking long nosed, heavy bodied fish in a crab tank with some giant deep sea spider crabs that I'd like to ID...) Even some common fish at not so common sizes... a dog faced puffer about 2 feet long, a clown trigger that had to be 18". Gorgeous queen angel in full, adult scale and splendor.
Kids stuff: Many 'photo op' points, acrylic bubbles to stand in for pics, a big set of artificial shark jaws, that sort of thing. At the end, there's a place where kids can color a picture of a fish, have it scanned, and then it's projected on a huge screen swimming around. My four year old grandson had a blast.
Stuffed/Simulated Lots of very, very large tuna, sharks, swordfish, sawfish, et al. All the way up to a pair of full sized humpback whales.
Fishing exhibits, including President Bush's 'Bass Force One', tackle and gear from many generations, I didn't spend much time examining it, but there's a lot of it, if that's your thing.
I wasn't willing to spend the $30 per... after walking through, it would have been worth the price. Took us just over 2 hours, with a 4 year old that has a normal 4 year old attention span :) I'd have probably stayed about twice that long, had he not been along.
I did not do the other 'side' of the museum, which focuses on mammals. I probably will at some point. I understand there is a penguin exhibit...
Years behind schedule, cost overruns are something of a local legend, but I must admit, it's an impressive exhibit!
Wanted to post a short bit on the new Bass Pro aquarium tour. Went yesterday... sorry, I didn't take photos, but...
$30, kids $20. Expensive? Yeah, I thought so too. Happily, a friend and fellow reefer has season passes, and we were able to get through without the minor inconvenience of actually having to pay for it :)
Lines: At 10am on a rainy Sunday morning, we walked right in. I understand lines can be around the building... guess we got lucky.
Entryway has several fairly impressive tank views, many of the same tanks are visible from different angles throughout the half mile or so of walkways.
Big tanks... many of them... and various 'other' things to look at.
The highlight for me was a large circular tank with a big school of silver baitfish. Dimly lit. A pair of small scalloped hammerheads in with them. Very dramatic. No idea what sort of baitfish they were... herring, perhaps. View-able near the top, near the bottom, and from a dome directly under the tank.
Unexpected: Otters, always fun. Black bear, beaver... odd to see these critters in such a display. A few snakes, alligators, other reptiles and amphibians. Bald eagle, a pair of owls... One osage copperhead in a small, dark corner, with his cage BELOW floor level, a bit of acrylic over it, so you can walk over him. Since we have osage copperheads around my house, it was a bit disturbing :)
Shipwreck room, cylinder tank, probably 20 feet in diameter, 30 feet tall or so. All sorts of marine fish. Surrounded by a large, low, open top stingray 'petting' tank.
Freshwater: Gar, spoonbill, sturgeon, peacock bass, large mouth bass, crappie, walleye, muskie... from huge catfish to tiny neon tetras. Some very nice planted display tanks.
Marine: From Goliath groupers to various sharks (a very pretty leopard shark), to common marine tank features (cardinals, clowns, etc) to some that I can't identify (there was one school of small, odd looking long nosed, heavy bodied fish in a crab tank with some giant deep sea spider crabs that I'd like to ID...) Even some common fish at not so common sizes... a dog faced puffer about 2 feet long, a clown trigger that had to be 18". Gorgeous queen angel in full, adult scale and splendor.
Kids stuff: Many 'photo op' points, acrylic bubbles to stand in for pics, a big set of artificial shark jaws, that sort of thing. At the end, there's a place where kids can color a picture of a fish, have it scanned, and then it's projected on a huge screen swimming around. My four year old grandson had a blast.
Stuffed/Simulated Lots of very, very large tuna, sharks, swordfish, sawfish, et al. All the way up to a pair of full sized humpback whales.
Fishing exhibits, including President Bush's 'Bass Force One', tackle and gear from many generations, I didn't spend much time examining it, but there's a lot of it, if that's your thing.
I wasn't willing to spend the $30 per... after walking through, it would have been worth the price. Took us just over 2 hours, with a 4 year old that has a normal 4 year old attention span :) I'd have probably stayed about twice that long, had he not been along.
I did not do the other 'side' of the museum, which focuses on mammals. I probably will at some point. I understand there is a penguin exhibit...
Years behind schedule, cost overruns are something of a local legend, but I must admit, it's an impressive exhibit!
