Went to Newport AQ yesterda...

[Viggen]

I haven't been there for a long time & in the past I wasn't very impressed.  Well this time all the inhabitants looked nice & healthy plus their giant octopus was out & roaming around the tank. 

They did change a few things around mostly for the better

Now I need/want a bigger tank just that much more. 

[micki]

Cool!  Did you see Scuba Santa? 

[Secondgen]

You didn't bring home any live penguins did ya?

[Viggen]

yea, saw scuba-santa, my GF's kids really enjoyed that! 

The penguins were cool.... however the shark exibit where you pet them was better  

[micki]

So would scuba santa be worth the trip down?

[Viggen]

My GF's kids really enjoyed it however they haven't been to the AQ in 2+ years, they are 5, 6 & 8 yrs old.  The 2 boys favorite thing was the shark petting areas & they also thought the octopus was cool (which was my favorite thing) due to it moving around at feeding time.

All it was is santa in a sleigh & he talked about the tanks inhabitants.  He had another diver in a elf outfit.  I wasn't able to stay for the entire show (only about a minute of it) due to having to meet my brother & since phone service doesn't work I had to leave the show to track him down.  His 2 kids (2 & 3.5) both enjoyed Santa as well.  They were there the prior weekend & didn't do the show but saw santa swimming in the tank.

 

[aquavista99]

So would scuba santa be worth the trip down?

No, but the various shark (including some nice small hammerheads and larger reef sharks) and various tang exhibits (lots of fat, healthy powder blue, unicorn and achilles tangs on display) make the trip worth it. I visited the Newport Aquarium recently and really enjoyed it. It was my third visit since the Aquarium opened.

It would be nice to see a real living reef exhibit. They did have some fire coral and a clam in one large exhibit from the Red Sea (although fire coral are not true corals ...  more closely related to jellyfish and other stinging anemones)

Nice mangrove and freshwater river/planted tank exhibits as well. Still no Discus displays, but the large freshwater angelfish display was very nice as well.