San Antonio Aquarium in San Antonio, TX

It was more petting zoo than aquarium. Almost half of it was an arcade and play area. There were literally two house cats in a cage and more fake alligators than real ones, make that just one real alligator! The four penguins had no water in their enclosure and roughly half of the small aquatic displays were empty.

Had soooo much fun... we were able to touch and feel so many different species that I would have never thought to have touched. From feeding gators to feed alpacas. Touching sharks and stingrays just wooow!!!

This aquarium is very unique. If you are willing to pay additional money for various encounters with animals you can pet and touch almost anything in the entire building. That being said, there are roughly one hundred different places to spend tokens on encounters, fish food, or other things that could end up being very costly even after you have paid the admission. There are touch tanks in every room almost and most of them are free with admission unless you want to feed the animals. This aquarium is large though it does not seem so from the first room you walk into after buying tickets.

OMG!!!Recommend to everyone! As you enter it doesn't give you the wow factor...rather disappointment(the smell and medical condition of an animal(she had skin issues) was uneasy to me)...regardless...the wow factor builds up as you get farther into the attractions. You can see how caregivers attend to animals and watch the interactions including that sickly animal is priceless. They take their animals for a "walk" and you can interact with them too...for a price but still. Then as you go into the sea life section, you encounter stingray and shark tank...you can feed them if you buy some little fish or just pet them for free!!!! Same with iguanas, tortoise, sharks, petting zoo outdoors, and many others. I'm an adult and I had a blast!!!

As a traveler from the Carolina's, and was staying in San Antonio with my significant other, this was at least one of the worst places to have paid for to visit. This place seemed to be a hole in the wall place that just happens to hold animals. The service from staff was semi-decent at best and the animals are beautiful. But the animals don't seem to be in some sort of enclosure and seems like they are just sitting in cages. Enclosures are too small for the fish and amphibians and the majority of their space had gone to placing a freaking arcade and bouncy house area. As an adult, I was expecting an "aquarium", which is what it is called, but it should be considered an overpriced petting zoo for children. I had spent OVER $119 dollars for TWO people, tickets costing $35.99 each, and tokens for us (over $35 easily). Not only did I pay for 12 tokens, but I had also only received 10 TOKENS before leaving the counter. Thankfully a staff member letting us into the penguin enclosure let it slide because I had shown her my phone WITH screenshots of the purchase. Once in the enclosure with my significant other, we barely had any room to stand us, the one employee, and 4 penguins. I will say that it was nice seeing that the penguins will eventually be given a 'slightly' larger space inside this facility. I emphasized 'slightly' because it is only probably adding 2-4 more feet of moving space, which in my opinion, is still not enough. Getting to pet the penguins and feed them was definitely nice, although halfway through, they started biting myself and my girlfriend while refusing to receive food from us; only accepted food from the staff. I will say this, although the spacing of enclosures for all animals, besides the shark and stingray exhibit, it was nice getting a chance to pet certain animals and interacting with a penguin. I did notice after leaving that this place is more meant for children but has a false narrative to tricking adults into thinking it is just another aquarium to receive more potential travelers, or random adults needing an interesting day off. This place is so small, only had an intention for an aquarium visit, and just is not up to par on what I had expected. In conclusion, I will never be bringing my business back here due to slight false advertisement, being completely overpriced, does not give animals a proper showcase/living space, and completely does not bring an aquarium environment into place. If I wanted an arcade, I would have gone to Dave & Busters. If I wanted bouncy castles, I would have found a carnival. Spending the excessive amount of money I had AS A COLLEGE STUDENT, and not having knowledge from anything of potential student discounts, is disappointing. We were not there for maybe an hour because of the presentation that we had received. I would only recommend this place for children between the age of 4-13. But be expected to pay SO much more for the "tokens" to feed and interact with wildlife. It is an interesting and potentially fun experience to interact with animals if you have won the lottery, so that you are fully capable of gaining this access. That is all and thank you for coming to my TedTalk.