Audubon Aquarium of the Americas

New Orleans, Louisiana: Along the banks of the Mississippi River sits one of the newest additions to the New Orleans riverfront, the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas. Under the watchful care of the Audubon Nature Institute, the aquarium is home to over 10,000 marine animals spanning over 500 species.

Your journey through the two story aquarium begins with an underwater journey to a sunken Mayan city. A walk through the tunnel surrounded by colorful fish leads you to a world filled with lion fish, eels, spiny lobsters and more sea creatures that live around the submerged city.

The trip though the Great Mayan Reef and the sunken city leads you upstairs and transplants you right into the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. This humid oasis is home to many jungle critters transported right from the rainforest into southeast Louisiana. In the canopy of the rainforest trees you get to listen to the sound of the macaws while walking through exhibits filled with piranhas, pacu fish and other rainforest fish.

Once you exit the rainforest, the exhibits begin to diversify a bit. First you encounter the African penguin exhibit. These warm weather penguins are a lot of fun to watch as they play in their habitat. The next room is the Living in Water area with galleries of colorful reef fish such as the clown fish, blue tang, lionfish and more as well as seahorses. But the diversity continues as we make a stop at the Frog exhibit, the touch tank, parakeet point and finally the sea otters.

Before we headed downstairs, we went through the last exhibit on the second floor, the Mississippi River Gallery. This one I found to be the most interesting as it was focused on local waters and the fish and wildlife found along the mighty Mississippi. Here you can see a white gator, the first one I’ve ever seen. Plenty of regular gators here in Florida but the white one was a first for me. Also be sure to look up as there are owls among the trees overhead.

As you left the Mississippi River gallery, the journey continued back downstairs and finished in the Gulf of Mexico exhibit. This exhibit also took a local theme as they recreated the floor of the Gulf around an oil platform. Here you say the sharks, rays and sea turtles that can be found in the Gulf of Mexico right off the coast of Louisiana.

In addition to the great aquariums and exhibits, there is a theater that screens wildlife movies on a giant screen. A movie screening is included with your visit and there was an interesting movie on Hurricane Katrina however with the other touring plans we had for the day, we did not have time to watch.

Speaking of Hurricane Katrina, the hurricane was a dark moment in history for the city and the aquarium. While the aquarium was spared by the wind and flooding, the resulting power outages caused catastrophic damage to the aquarium. The loss of power and generator issues caused a major loss of life to the marine life. The aquarium was closed for almost a year while they made improvements and repaired the marine exhibits. In May of 2006 , the aquarium reopened to the public.

If you work up an appetite while exploring the aquarium, there are several food choices within the aquarium. There is the Aqua Grill featuring sandwiches and salads, a Papa John’s pizza and Haagen-Dazs ice cream. If you are catching a movie at the theater, they have a concession stand that features all the theater favorites.

The Audubon Aquarium of the Americas is located at 1 Canal Street in downtown New Orleans, right on the riverfront and a short walk from the French Quarter. They are opened from Tuesday through Sunday from 10am to 5pm. Admission during our visit was $29.95 for adults with discounts for children and seniors. They also have combo tickets with the Zoo and Insectarium (both of which I will cover later).

Click on the photo above to view my Audubon Aquarium of the Americas photo gallery for more photos from our visit.