Sea Life Aquarium at Crown Center

The Sea Life Aquarium is a new attraction for Kansas City. It is located in the Crown Center at 2475 Grand Boulevard and is open 7 days a week. This place is designed for kids, although who doesn't love a good aquarium??

What I love about this place:
The "under the sea" ambience is really cool. Low lighting and beautifully decorated aquariums make it a really neat walk-thru experience.  It is kid-friendly. They have a touch station where children (and grown-ups!) get to explore a mini sea ecosystem with their hands and glass walls that go all the way to the floor so the little ones get a good view. Other kid-friendly notables is a "just my size" aquarium tunnel, "bubbles" that let kids put their heads inside a few of the tanks, and a colorful play area. You can also get your hand stamped at the end to go through again if you want.

What will you see? Several different tanks featuring sea life from different parts of the ocean as well as some freshwater fish. You'll see a few sharks, although they are small (don't expect to see Jaws!), seahorses, jellyfish, and a turtle exhibit. They have a large variety of brightly colored reef fish and some eels too.

Things to consider before packing up the kids:
Sure, you can bring a stroller. I brought mine and it worked okay, but it wasn't very crowded that day. This is NOT a huge aquarium, and some of the walkways are pretty narrow. On a busy day, strollers would really crowd it up!

The bathrooms are towards the beginning of the aquarium. If you think you'll need to go during your visit don't walk past them. I didn't see any other bathrooms, so you'll have to backtrack.

They do allow photography, but not flash photography, so the low-light makes it difficult to get good pictures. They do an optional "souvenir photo" at the entrance before you enter the aquarium that they will sell to you for $11.

Okay, so this place sounds neat, why wouldn't I want to go?
We went during homeschool week, which is important to note because we got deeply discounted tickets. Tickets are expensive to this attraction. A family of four (assuming your children are between ages 3 and 12) would have a walk up price of $68! The aquarium only takes 1 to 2 hours at most to wander through, so this seems steep to me. They do offer an online discount if you plan ahead, dropping that price to $52. This discounted price is still more expensive than the Kansas City Zoo, which is an all day affair, and is pretty stiff competition now that they have penguins and polar bears! We are also just a couple hours away from the aquarium located in Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo, which is larger and houses some much bigger sharks!

A new option they offer is the 1 parent/1 toddler combo ticket for $20. If you have just one child between 3 and 5, this isn't a bad deal. Additional tickets are $10 if parent #2 wants to join you.