Austin Aquarium

My dad and I had a blast! My dad is in his early 70s and I’m 30-some but we both had a great time letting our inner-kid come out and be curious! I recommend going during school hours if you’re able to. (I believe the tokens for animal experiences are a bit more affordable that way, and there’s not much of lines like we were expecting.) We really enjoyed all the aquatic animals, and all the interactions, but Nellie and Matthew deserve a shout out. Nellie is their Pacific Octopus, and Matthew was the handler during our interaction. He was super knowledgeable and friendly and you could tell Nellie loved him, which was what made the experience such an experience! She even tried blasting him with water a few times. I’ve never heard of an octopus doing that. Also feeding the parakeets was adorably hilarious.
My dad and I split 25 tokens and that was more than enough for what we wanted to do! The sloth experience was significantly more tokens, so that’s the only thing I was kind of interested in but skipped.
All the staff was really friendly and knew the animals well! There might be some wait time and searching for a staff member to do an experience. Definitely plan for 2-3 hours here if you’re the curious type and want to do a lot of the experiences.