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| - 2nd Friday of the Month, Ripleys has a Jazz night, with cash bar. We went for their first one, with expectations of something similar to Friday Night at the ROM. They still have a lot of work to do.
Price is still $25 ($5, off after 7pm) and they are open til 11pm.
I learnt a couple lessons here.
1. Life will be easier of you buy tickets online. But you don't need to. They have kiosks where you can buy tickets, but then you'll have to outside and to the back of the huge line up to get in. So close, yet so far.
2. Don't go exactly at 7pm. Crap loads of people, but when we were done at 8:30pm, there was almost zero people. We went around the aquarium again - it was a completely different experience. It only takes about 1.5-2 hrs to go around, come at 9pm and you'll have a great time.
Definitely avoid any time before 8pm if you dislike being around tourists.
3. You can get drinks and alcohol at the beginning and in the middle. Don't be a jerk and leave your empty glass on some random bench, or garbage can. It's not safe for the kids
There's lots to see here and it's catered towards kids, but there needs to be more interactive learning experiences, that aren't hidden in the dark, or require so much reading that kids would actually try to pay attention instead of just pressing buttons.
And since it's so dark in there, I guess they decided that using flat tv screens would be a good way to show information - but it got really frustrating. Either they scrolled too fast, or too slow - and it reflects off the other glass of the exhibits, so annoying.
It was fun, but not overly impressive like Vancouver or Monterey Aquariums I've been to. I also wonder why there weren't staff around to talk about the animals, or feedings etc. It was very sterile feeling and not as educational as it should be.
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