Austin Aquarium — Attraction in Austin

These. Poor. CREATURES. ALLLLL of them!! OMG. Okay, so. I went to this aquarium when it first opened several years ago. The worst thought I had about it at that time was "Nice TRY, capital city of TEXAS! It's too bad this is the best the CAPITAL OF TEXAS can offer folks." Same thoughts I have always had regarding the Austin ZOO (such a rinky-dink place).

But this LAST visit we just had at The Aquarium (April 2025)?????

O. M. G.

I PRRRRAYYYYY what we witnessed (not "saw"....."WITNESSED") was not something they do ever again.

The day we went, as soon as you walk in the door, you could hear at least one or two WAIIIIIIIIIILING voices, trying their hardest to belt out (karoke-style) DISNEY SONGS; this could be heard all the way from the front doors!!! The lemurs (yes.....at an AQUARIUM) at the front looked as disturbed as I FELT. This was not a peaceful habitat for ANY living creature, but even less so once you realize that this wailing was filtering ALL the way from the room that holds the STING RAY POOL. (About halfway through the entire aquarium!)

Aghast upon entering the source of the torturous wailing voices, I saw a cheesy display of "We wanna attract as many customers as we possibly can of all interests by trying to put on a very loud, cheesy, 'Disney-ESQUE', vaudeville experience that will attract only the most afflicted with ADHD, because - let's face it: animals be darned, WE LIKE MONEY!"

HORRIBLE. HORRIBLE.

Face painting stations.....a random crafts table.... extremely dusty/dirty display tablets next to each scantily-populated/extra tiny/certainly miserably-small "habitat" for each fish/creature.... and all in the same room as the three, cheesily-dressed, hired "Wannabe Disney-like-looking" women, dressed in COSTUMES (one dressed like a fairy, who was "dancing" with a 6 year old girl.... one dressed like a mermaid, sitting on the wall of the stingray touchpool with her "tail" in the water, gesturing with her right arm as if she was swimming gracefully with her exaggerated arm strokes in the air, looking high as a kite - off in some imaginary dreamworkd......all of this debauchery taking place while woman-in-costume #3 stood nearby, belting out the aforementioned audio assault on EVERY living creature in the aquarium that day.

WHAT. ARE. YOU. GUYS. DOING???

OMG.

The habitats are MISERABLE. I felt like calling CPS for the octopus, the penguins (who looked like TOTAL feces!!!!), AND for the poor wallaby in the windowless habitat in the KIDS CAFE (!!!) it has to share with at least another dozen VERRRRY random, totally unrelated animal types.

That....poor.....wallaby. It was showing signs of stress - boredom..... whatever: it never moved from its position. It stuffed itself in the tiniest glass-enclosed corner nearest the exit door, and spent the entire time, just licking the wooden 2x4 that frames the glass wall that imprisons it. Just licking and licking at NOTHING. STRESSED. HATING the "Disney production" taking place in the other part of the building.

With all the cheesy ways to make money peppered throughout the aquarium that are completely unrelated to aquatics, in general, this felt more like a roadside circus than an aquarium.

It was an insane asylum, and the carnies were ruining the whole experience.

At a minimum, the wallaby (plural???) needs a new home, as does the highly-intelligent, very depressed-looking octopus, whose habitat has never been improved from the first time I ever visited years ago (and it was substandard THEN!, and the penguins.....POOR penguins..... they didn't deserve the stress caused by the vaudeville production they had to endure. They looked stressed, too.

Look. Spend the money on improving the HABITATS. Give animals SUNLIGHT whose natural habitats incorporate sunlight (or give them away!!).

GIVE UP THE CARNIE ATMOSPHERE you've created, and let your visitors see the AQUATIC ANIMALS they came to see.

ADHD folks/parents can find overstimulation everywhere ELSE. This is not a place for this level of neglect...

When we entered, the place was very clean. The water in the tanks was very clean and was clearly cleaned and filtered often. There was fresh lettuce and salads left in enclosures for lizards and tortoises. There was fresh hay and bedding left for lemurs and other land dwelling animals. But, that was those were the only things good about this terrible place. Animals were held in insanely small enclosures and were stressed. Lemurs were constantly fighting and were aggressive, and they had no sunlight and were kept in darkness. The animals are clearly becoming so aggressive as they have zero access to sunlight. Lemurs are normally calmer than this. The fish are kept in overcrowded environments. Sturgeons can barely squeeze between all of the koi fish. The turtles couldn’t even reach the top of the tank because of how crowded it was. There was even a baby alligator kept completely in a tank that it would grow out of. There was an adolescent saltwater crocodile kept in an enclosure made for small lizards. That crocodile will outgrow it and start curving its jaw into absurd shapes that will ruin its life. The pool inside of its enclosure was full of dirt, mold, and was slowly drying out and was very very tiny for a crocodile. There was a random black jacket left on top of a tortoise in the tortoise exhibit, and was not removed from the enclosure the entire time. The stingray petting area was not large enough and did not give the bamboo sharks, hound sharks, and stingrays enough space and privacy for them to be comfortable. A few of the stingrays tails were bent in spirals, which is a clear sign in animals that something is wrong. When we went into the “shark room,” there was a Galapagos tortoise sitting in the dirty concrete floor. It was just sitting in a corner IN THE DARKNESS, not even surrounded by any sort of border, free to roam and able to be kicked or pet. It was clearly depressed and bothered, as children were free to crouch down to it and scream in its ears. It had a metal bowl of hay and some lettuce in front of it, as if that helped. The special petting areas for the kangaroos and wallaby’s was just devastating. The enclosure for them was tiny and poorly lit, and they had hay for substrate and could only roam in certain sections of the enclosure due to the benches on the sides. Children were free to pet them whenever they wanted, and weren’t instructed to give them any privacy whatsoever. The capybara being completely alone was just as devastating as capybaras are social animals and live in groups in the wild, and socialize well with others animals. The pool for it was drying out and TINY. They had an entire flock of budgies living in an under decorated enclosure, and so did their parrot, toucan and lemur. All the enclosures in this terrible “aquarium” were under decorated and barely had any enrichment. This aquarium is more of a petting zoo for toddlers than an actual aquarium made for educating children and adults on the beauty of nature. It sickens me to see animals kept in conditions like this. The fish, sharks, eels, and stingrays were so incredibly disrespected. Fish are constantly treated as stupid and deserving of no respect, and that is shown incredibly well in his excuse of an aquarium. The audacity to say you are the official “Austin” zoo is insane. This place was like a restaurant or a fish store where people can choose fish they’d like to eat for dinner. I could write so much more about the various reptiles. The snake at the front of the zoo is somehow the luckiest animal, at least it gets to see the sun and hope one day it’ll be saved and live in a better environment. Do not go to this “aquarium,” don’t buy anything from them, and...

We planned a party for the twins to have their party here on 03/22/25. We paid our deposit, selected that we wanted a mermaid back in February. I get the email approving our party and saying someone will be reaching out to us to go over the party details. As March 22nd approaches no one ever calls. We get to the aquarium and check in for the party and we are looked at in confusion as they tell us they didn’t know a party was occurring today and the beginning of to walkie trying to figure out where to send us. We are finally sent on our way and meet our party planner John who tells us he didn’t know a party was happening today but we proceed. The tables were decorated (which I will give credit I did love the decorations). We have 25 out of our 29 guest arrive and we head over to the stingray feeding which goes well. About 45 minutes in we are informed pizza is ready and we all go back to the tables. Pizza is passed around and as started on their website that every guest is able to have 1 soda, juice or water. They instead take 2 large waters out of the fridge and split it amongst the 29 guest we have. We were also then informed that they no longer offer dip n dots which the twins were looking forward to but they can get a popsicle instead. Then the mermaid comes out.. if I would have known the mermaid would just do a few tattoos and sit there for the hired time I would have not spent the extra $100 to hire her. The party planner then reminded me (probably around 3 times while I am wrangling 4 year old twins hyped up on sugar) to fill out a survey and within all the chaos I was not able to ask about the VR experience they also have party of the deluxe party package we had selected (and we also told we had to select as the base party package does not accommodate for 2 birthday girls). Overall the party was definitely not worth the over $800 we spent, this was our first time ever adventuring out of the home party area. I then decided to call to see if they could possibly offer a partial refund as what they had advertised on their website (dip n dots, the drinks for the guest and the VR for the birth guest and another party guest of their choice) I tried calling twice Sunday with no answer. I called Monday and was informed someone would call me, Tuesday and I still didn’t hear back. Wednesday and I call back and speak with the general manager, I explain to her all the grievances listed above and that if I was called as stated in the email and told how the party would go and what we should expect that I would’ve let them keep the deposit and just gone somewhere else. She “apologized” (in hindsight she said she was sorry I felt the way I felt) she stated that we should’ve been given token for the mow unavailable items and that our party guest should’ve been allowed to select a drink for themselves. She said that she could only offer me a refund on the $100 deposit, tickets for myself, husband and 2 children to return to the aquarium and 25 tokens. I then asked about possibly talking with the owners as we do not plan on returning due to this situation which she said was not possible. She then reinstated what she will be doing and apologized again (saying she is sorry I feel the way I feel) In conclusion I am extremely disappointed in how the party was handled by the staff and how the situation was handled by management. This was our first time at the aquarium and our first time having a big party like this and I opted for this as parties at home have also been stressful but this has definitely shown that this was way more stressful. I’m sorry for the long review but I would definitely take this into consideration when planning an event at...