Voice of Travel

Stanley Park is so much more than just a park. There is a lot to do there, and you could easily spend days walking around trying to see everything. There are landmarks to see, really nice gardens, family activities, and the main reason I went to the park, The Vancouver Aquarium. While I would have loved to have been able to visit some of the gardens, I only had a few hours, and the aquarium was at the top of my list.

The aquarium is the best one I’ve ever been to. They had a lot of really cool exhibits, and it was a lot of fun walking through it. Besides all of the different types of fish, and other sea creatures that you would expect in an aquarium, they also had other animals as well, such as birds and different types of frogs. What I liked best though, was outdoors.

Outdoors they have “The Wild Coast”, which was where you could find sea otters, beluga whales, and more.

My favorite was the pool with sea otters, and I fell in love with them there, hoping that I’d see them again in Alaska. They were having so much fun playing in the water, and I spent quite a while watching them.

The Vancouver Aquarium also offers some really cool programs that you won’t find at other aquariums. While we didn’t get a chance to enjoy it, they offer personalized hands on animal encounters. You get a behind the scenes look at the animal’s habitat, and will be able to help the trainers either feed or train them.

The animal encounters available are:

• Amazon Birds Encounters, Dolphin Encounters
• Beluga Encounters, Sea Otter Encounters
• Sea Turtle Encounters, and Stellar Sea Lion encounters

I would have loved to have been able to do the sea otter encounter, but with so little time that afternoon we wanted to spend our time looking around the aquarium.

While there are a lot of Canadian inspired exhibits as you would expect, you’ll also find a lot of other interesting exhibits to visit as well. They have a whole exhibit dedicated to frogs for example, as well as a Amazon exhibit with birds, lizards, butterflies, and of course fish.

No matter what age you are, the Vancouver Aquarium is a lot of fun, and everyone will enjoy walking around looking at everything.

Here’s a short video I took while watching the sea otters. They were just too cute. I knew that seeing them in Alaska would be a long shot, so I was happy to get a chance to see them at the aquarium.

If you enjoyed the short video, I found something even cooler. The Vancouver Aquarium has 3 live cameras set on some of their favorite exhibits. I warn you though, once you open them, you might have a hard time closing them. Those sea otters are just too cute!

• Live Sea Otter Cam
• Live Beluga Cam
• Live Moon Jelly Cam

If you have a few days in Vancouver, I really suggest taking some time to go to Stanely Park, and visit the Vancouver Aquarium.

Enjoy,

P.S. If you’re ready to book your cruise to Alaska (or anywhere else for that matter), I strongly suggest using Cruise Compete. You’ll be sure to get the best price as different agencies will give you their best quote, and you can choose the lowest price!