Seattle Aquarium

Visiting the Seattle Aquarium is a bit of a roller coaster ride. When you first walk in, you see an impressively large tank in a beautiful lobby. What’s behind that is on a much smaller scale and a little disappointing. But then a whole second section features loads of fun animals, an underwater room, and a neat spiral layout. So, hang in there, and don’t let your first (or second) impressions fool you.

The Seattle Aquarium

It’s worth noting that the Seattle Aquarium is not large. It’s crammed on two piers behind Pike Place Market and next to the cruise ship docks. The aquarium, along with Pier 57 next door and the Seattle Great Wheel, makes up the most touristy area of downtown Seattle. So I’d say it’s a bit of a tourist trap. But (like the Great Wheel next door) it delivers a little more than you might expect, so I don’t consider it a waste of time. I just wouldn’t rank it as the highest highlight of Seattle touring.

The Seattle Aquarium doesn’t have a specific one-way path through the exhibits, but there is a way to walk through to make sure you see everything. Let’s travel that path together.

Tickets & Lobby

You enter the Seattle Aquarium on Pier 59, where the angle of the pier to the street makes lots of acute angles at the entrance.

Once inside, you face a soaring lobby and ticket counter, plus a cafe on an upstairs level. Rounding the corner into the exhibit space, you find a HUGE tank facing several benches. This is the Window on Washington Waters, which replicates the Washington State coastal waters from 5 feet to 60 feet. Later on my tour, I saw a puppet show playing here, and I think they have divers in the tank throughout the day.

The Rest of the Pier 59 Side

Behind the big tank is a large gift shop. And along the wall in the hallway outside the gift shop is a crashing waves tank. It simulates the Washington shoreline at the “intertidal” zone. It also creates a traffic jam with everyone looking at the tank in the comparatively narrow passage.

Once you get past that, you come to some really interesting exhibits in a really boring space. Seriously, it looks like an office space or a classroom. But in here are some cool touch tanks featuring starfish and other creatures you can carefully touch (not grab!) There’s a cylindrical tank with a popular octopus, and a cool jellyfish ring that you can walk through (and pose in, as is very popular.) In the back of the room is a staffed table with small wonders, like a crab exoskeleton and some small coral.

Behind the big room are some cool “caves” with coral tanks and other fish. A ho-hum Hawaii tank stands in the hall. Past the caves is an “aquarium nursery” area with some tiny critters not ready for the bigger tanks yet.

The Pier 60 Side

All that is fine, if a bit underwhelming. But the real fun comes next door on Pier 60. There are several doors that open to an outdoor walkway between the two, but let’s take the one at the back, nearest the nursery.

You can walk around the outside of the pier to the outdoor portion of the harbor seal tank, but I think it’s really hard to see them outside. The waterline is right at your feet and the sun makes it hard to see through the glass. Still, there is step seating around the tank if you need to take a breather. Instead, let’s go in the indoor entrance, to a trio of bird enclosures.

Inside are seabirds like puffins and auklets, and little penguin-looking guys called murres. Other enclosures feature shore birds like plovers, oystercatchers, and curlews. Farther along are salmon and other fish from Puget Sound. There’s even a salmon ladder built right into the wall outside.

Underwater Dome

The highlight of the Seattle Aquarium is the underwater dome. It’s from the 1977 creation of the aquarium and has that dated vibe that makes it even more charming, in my regard. In reality, it’s a dome inside a tank, but since you can’t see the walls of the outer tank, it feels like you are open to the bay outside.

Seats around the edges of the dome invite visitors to sit and stay for a while, watching what fish go by. It all has a very Epcot/Living Seas feeling to it.

Beyond the underwater dome, you come around to a room with a virtual reality experience about orcas (I believe) and the underwater viewing for the harbor seals. You can also pop out at this point to see the outside part of their tank, if you haven’t already.

Then you get into a really cute corridor with sea otters, river otters, and fur seals that are so fun to watch. I happened to catch a feeding for the sea otters and they are so cute! Floating on their backs, holding hands, flipping around – it is a treat for both them and us. Make sure to take note of the daily activities so you don’t miss opportunities like this.

If you exit from the river otter area, you can cross the outside walkway directly into the gift shop. It’s biggish and has a lot of fun shirts, toys, and souvenirs. Then you exit the aquarium across from the gift shop, toward the Seattle Great Wheel. (The exit is right there in the scrum around the crashing waves tank, which isn’t ideal.)

Coming Soon – Ocean Pavilion

The Seattle Aquarium is expanding in a big way by adding the Ocean Pavilion next to Pier 60. This structure will not only provide an overpass for easier access between Pike Place Market and public park space along the waterfront, but it will also house a new collection of sea life, including large-scale coral reefs, rays, and sharks. I saw the construction when I was there this spring, and it sounds like it’s due to be completed sometime in 2024.

Hours & Admission

The Seattle Aquarium is open 9:30-6:00 every day, with last entry at 5 pm. They occasionally have over-21 after-hours nights, like this one coming up on August 21 from 6:30-9:30 pm.

Admission costs around $40 if you walk up and pay at the counter. You can save by buying online, and save more by buying ahead of time. For instance, an online ticket bought for today costs $39 for adults and $27.45 for kids 4-12. If I buy for a week from now, it’s $34/$24. Price can be as low as $30/$21 if you buy far enough in advance, depending on the day. Tues-Thurs has the lowest prices. WA state residents get $2-5 off their tickets across the board.

Or, a popular option is to buy admission as part of the Seattle CityPASS, which is what I did. The Space Needle and the Seattle Aquarium are included in the $119 ticket, plus 3 of 4 of the following: Chihuly Garden & Glass, Museum of Pop Culture, Woodland Park Zoo, and an Argosy Harbor Tour. It’s easy to use at each location, and they’re very used to operating with it.