Newport Aquarium – Newport, KY

We took the girls to the Newport Aquarium in Newport, KY. Isabella had been asking for 3 days to go see turtles. They were incredibly excited to see all the sea life. There are giant aquariums that make you feel like you are right there with the sharks, fish, and giant sea turtles.

There is a small play zone called the frog bog. There are tanks with various types of frogs placed throughout the area, information about them, a giant game of Frogger (think dance, dance revolution style), large frogs to sit on, and tunnels to crawl through. Isabella did not want to leave! She had fun crawling around with the other kids. Ivy liked the buttons that play the sounds the frog makes. There are more buttons near the penguins that let you hear the different penguin calls.

I think one of the highlights of the aquarium is the petting areas. The first has horseshoe crabs, regular crabs, and starfish. The second area has small sharks and occasionally stingrays. Ivy talked about touching them nonstop! Isabella was so scared! She eventually touched the water on the shark one and was so proud of herself.

There are areas to sit and watch. This is nice because they only allow strollers at certain times. There is a large aquarium where they do shows a couple of times a day that has seating, the jellyfish area has seats, and the penguin viewing has huge benches.

My only true complaint is the fact that you must exit through the gift shop. It annoys me so bad when places make the gift shop unavoidable! We never buy anything. Over the 11 years that we have been taking Ivy places I can only think of a handful of things we have purchased. I remind the kids going in that we are not taking anything home and walk straight through. If that makes me mean, so be it.