The Downtown Aquarium

Today, we took Andrew and Nonna to the Downtown Aquarium. We purchased the day pass giving us access to all the attractions. We started out with the Shark Voyage train. Andrew has loved the Hermann Park train so we thought he would really enjoy this one. He started out liking it until we got to the tunnel where you see the sharks. I don't know if it was because of the darkness or what, but Andrew wasn't too happy. He did start to look around and watch the sharks, but he wasn't too enthused still. However, Andrew was fine for the rest of the ride though.

Next, we headed to the Aquarium Adventure Exhibit. Andrew enjoyed looking at all the fish and other animals and made his newly learned fish face a few times for us to boot. One of the highlights was the stingray pool where you could touch them!! I have to admit that I was nervous at first and not big into the idea of petting them, but mustered up enough courage to do it. I am not a big fan of stingrays, but was comforted by the fact that the facility had removed their barbs or whatever so they couldn't sting us. It was okay, they just feel like regular fish. But Mommy was still anxious nonetheless.

We continued on through the exhibit seeing lots of other animals until we came to the part that we thought Andrew would really like--the white tigers. And we weren't wrong! He really dug them and said "roar" numerous times. There were two of them; and they were so pretty and so amazing!!

After we went through the rest of the exhibit, we headed back outside and played in the dancing water fountains. Andrew was tentative at first, but got into it some after a little bit. Then, Andrew kept signing for train. I guess he must have not been scared off from the first ride becase he seemed to want to do the train again so we obliged him. He still got scared during the tunnel part again, but was fine afterwards. Then, we took Andrew on the carousel. Andrew was okay at first and sat nicely just like he sits on his rocking horse. But as the ride went on, he became more fussy and wanted off his seat. So, we sat in a little chair for the rest of the ride and he was fine. I just don't think he likes how fast it ends up going because he did the same thing at the carousel at the zoo. Our little scaredy cat! The man has some weird phobias!! After, we were going to take him on the ferris wheel, but the line was too long and it was much too hot to wait.

It was a fun time; and I think Andrew had a good time. We will definitely have to take him back another day.