Georgia Aquarium Review: Disney + Fish

As part of our Atlanta vacation, we visited the Georgia Aquarium. I like aquariums–I’ve been to the ones in Baltimore, Charleston, Monterey, and Tampa. And don’t get me wrong, the Georgia Aquarium is pretty good, it’s just that I detected a malign Disney influence here that I can’t recall seeing in my other aquarium visits.

Let’s start with Deepo, the Georgia Aquarium mascot. Here’s a picture of Deepo:

Remind you of anybody you know?

Nemo? Well you’re way off base there, pal, because Deepo is nothing like Nemo, aside from being an adorable orange fish with a similar sounding name. As the interactive Deepo presentation informed us, Deepo is NOT a clownfish, he is a garibaldi damselfish. That’s TOTALLY different, and I’m sure they’ve made that very clear to the Disney copyright lawyers who may have noticed my two-year-old daughter repeatedly saying “Nemo! Nemo!”. The Disney lawyers may also have noticed this garish object…

..which has absolutely nothing to do with The Little Mermaid! Nothing to see here, folks!

Another way in which the aquarium left a Disney taste in my mouth was the lines. I don’t generally associate aquariums with waiting in line, but we spent a lot of time waiting in line (our visit was on a Monday, albeit the Monday before July 4th). Here is a list of the lines we waited in:

• The parking garage elevator en route to the aquarium (that garage is woefully under-elevatored)
• The line to pick up our tickets. We had bought Citypass tickets, which promise no waiting in line, but that’s not really true. The process for turning Citypass tickets into aquarium tickets is manual and labor-intensive.
• The security line. There’s one part of the aquarium where you’re walking underneath a very large fish tank, so I don’t have a problem with screening out nutjobs with explosives.
• The line to get into the aquarium. Four lines and I haven’t seen any fish yet.
• The long line to get into the dolphin show.
• The long line to get out of the dolphin show.
• The line to get into the food court.
• The line at each individual station within the food court.
• The line at the parking garage elevator upon leaving.

I took a picture of the last elevator line upon leaving just because I was kind of bored and tired of waiting in lines. Here you go:

Like I said, that garage is woefully under-elevatored.

Disneyfication #3: the dolphin show. My recollection of dolphin shows is that some trainers come out, tell the audience about the dolphins, and show off some cool dolphin tricks. Whereas this dolphin show was a lavish production about the “Star Spinner”, a re-telling of an ancient legend dating all the way back to the year 2005 featuring some guy who talked and sang like a Martin Short character. I think he fought some dolphin trainers to raise his ship of solid gold or something, and then maybe good defeated evil, I don’t know. But they couldn’t have done it without the help of all of you in the audience!

The point is, I would have expected to see this at Disney (though with some more fleshed-out characters and plot), not an aquarium. Most folks seemed to enjoy the show, which I suppose is why they do it.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I didn’t like the aquarium, because I did like it, lines notwithstanding. The part where you walk underneath the fish is very cool:

And there was the occasional opportunity for quiet contemplation:

So do visit if you’re in Atlanta. Just be prepared for The Disney.