Alright I was in the area, figured I'd get a pass to get in the place, and shortly after I entered I left.
First, I don't know what the hell was with today but the number of kids with parents was absolutely astonishing... did schools go to the 4 day a week schedule? These were kids that were of school age too. Lots of pushing around by the kids trying to get a better look, my temper rose quite quickly (btw this could have skewed my judgement of the place
) Either way, Friday, 10-11am? Why so many damn people!
Then the number of people pushing strollers nearly made me go bonkers! And half of them didn't have kids in them!! Strollers are a personal enemy of mine, I hate them, and I apologize in advance to those with kids who use them before I rant on them if you're easily offended skip to the next paragraph, they take up WAY too much damn room, the parents who push them think it's ok for them to just casually stroll in cramped quarters pushing them along, as a result major people traffic jams as a result. I realize the whole "Well when you have kids you're change your mind" approach, but I really don't see the point if you child is of walking age where they're quite mobile why you bring the stroller, if they get cranky and tired you carry them! You had the kid so you should have to suffer all the bad through it, not me!
Ahem, ok now that is out of the way to kind of place my mood
Overall, I wasn't terribly impressed with the whole academy, I don't know if it's me but it seems really damn small. Maybe I'm used to the older one with long halls that made you stay in one area, but I really don't like the open design they set up. I don't know if it was the crowds, the floor plan, or me not having a GPS but I often found myself back at the same place I started, I walked over most places 2 or 3 times before getting to the next area. I must have missed some turn somewhere because I didn't see any penguins (and I would assume there'd be a huge crowd near them), I didn't see the African Hall with all the stuffed animals. In fact there wasn't much I really cared to stop and look at.
The "space" area, couldn't miss the planetarium, however due to the long line of people I decided I'd hit the show some other date, however compared to the old place I didn't get a feel that there was anything "space like" around there, I loved the old place because it was a darkened area, with pictures and so forth on the wall, here? Nice design for a living room where you want nice floors and cabinets but the way everything was displayed just left me in a state of "Meh" ... nothing really caught my eye to excite me.
Rainforest, again super long line, I went by myself just to get a general check out, so didn't want to wait in a line by myself for what I'm guessing was over an hour (simply judging by similar people I saw in line from entering to leaving the place). Looks cool from the outside though. I'll have to see later. But again, everything over on that side of the place is just set up like a series of information booths, no real feel for "hey this is the rainforest area"
Aquarium, lets be honest this is the main reason I wanted to go. Well the big aquarium is nice. Honestly I thought it would look much larger, don't know if it's the way the rockwork is laid out or what, but I'm guessing there's a lot more you can't see as far as gallonage, but didn't seem like 220,000 gallons. Granted sense of perspective might start to get skewed at those levels. I did manage to go right to both of the large panes to get real close and while yes it did look nice, definitely needs some growing in as far as the corals, and I think some more fish. All the other exhibits though seemed kind of ho-hum, nothing terribly impressive, too many really small little boxes in the wall, a few nice sized exhibits that really stuck out as "wow cool" but overall I think I just may have expected to much, and I'm biased a bit because it's all stuff "I've seen before". Honestly though the with the exception of the large tank obviously the temporary location seemed to have more impressive saltwater displays. Plus more room to walk around, this is supposed to be a new location, some of those walkways needed a bit more space.
Roof display, again I had no idea how to get to the roof, maybe too many people, perhaps people blocking key signs that said "this way to roof" the little maps near the entrance were way too small to get a feel of the place.
Now I don't know if it was the crowds, or just me remembering the way the place used to look, or the anticipation, the lack of me being able to find stuff, but I was a bit disappointed. Sometime in the future I'll go back again on a weekday and hope that there are less kids, and maybe I'll find items and be able to just enjoy the place, today was not that day.
One last thing to gripe about, the center area that's this nice big open space, surrounded by glass walls, tons of natural lighting coming in and what is it used for? God damn chairs and tables to eat at? My god that was something that they should have just pushed to the outside and had something actually useful with that space. Out of everything there, I absolutely hated that part the most, I realize they probably make most of their money from food type stuff, but geeze that was just tacky.
One final word, I know quite a few people put a lot of work into the place and I am in no way putting them down, hell Matt and now Rich work for the place, and I'm sure they're doing a bang up job. I'm not expressing any animosity towards any of them, just giving a view of what my trip today felt like.
</end rant>
