I haven’t been to this aquarium since I was a kid. We wanted to take our 3 kids especially for the Animal Crossing crossover, but after seeing that it would be about $119 for two adults and two ticketed children for a day, we decided to just buy a family membership at $199.

As a forewarning, on a weekend, paying for parking is atrociously high. For the option over 3 hours, it was close to $40 dollars. This isn’t the aquariums fault, but I wanted to mention. It is Seattle after all.

Overall, the Animal Crossing displays and everything were very underwhelming. They had a good amount of cardboard cutouts of some characters, a downloadable bingo, a special Nintendo member QR code for a free 100 platinum points, a small section of AC merch in their shop, and occasional displays of animal information on little screens with information by blathers (which had a ton of info but unfortunately they scrolled so fast!).

I will say that regardless I’m just happy and grateful for any AC event or crossover as is. And to be fair, there was no extra charge to general admission for this crossover going on. But I would say, if you’re wondering if it’s worth spending admission to go and see, then probably not.

The aquarium in general was also disappointing. Understandably it was the weekend but my gosh, this place was packed. It definitely took away from the experience. And I guess that wouldn’t be so bad, except the aquarium is pretty small, and honestly a lot of areas are not meant for the capacity walking through or stopping to look. We also had a stroller, so it made it hard to navigate. We didn’t see as many animals as we had hoped for. And honestly, the animal crossing bingo got our hopes up for seeing certain critters, only to look up later that there are a handful on there that aren’t even available at the aquarium to see.

The cafe was decently priced, and the food was tasty. The cafe area in general was very nice but pretty small as well.

We already bought a membership, so nothing we can do about that. But had I known what I know now, I would have just bought one time tickets, and not a membership. I think if we are able to, we will try and go during a week day and see if we have a better experience. I would say overall, this place isn’t worth the price to get in. I’ve had a far superior aquarium (and zoo!) experience at Point Defiance Zoo, which is amazing every time. Not to mention, that zoo is opening a second aquarium there which is in the works. It is way more affordable and so much more to do, and you get to see see creatures and mammals and everything in between.