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Here’s one of my favorites………..
The Long Island Aquarium
Whew! The dog days of summer are here. If you are lucky enough, you have found a source of water to keep you cool. Maybe it’s the beach, the pool, a sprinkler, or an ice pop. When you need a change of scenery that has an enormous amount of water involved, all you need to do is head to the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead.
The Long Island Aquarium has always been a summer destination to take my children. I have so many fond memories of time spent together with my family here. It is a magical place where you can have hands-on fun and keep cool. I am always as excited as the kids to be able to enjoy a day exploring, relaxing and being absorbed in all that the aquarium has to offer.
It’s hard to be brief when describing the aquarium, but I will do my best to entice you into a day of fun.
Since indoors is where it all begins, the exhibits include countless fish, an Amazon rainforest, butterflies, amphibians, a monitor in a mangrove, crabs and corals, eels and seahorses, jellyfish, octopus and stingrays. In Ray bay you can touch the stingrays, so cool. If you’ve never been, you can see what lives on the local rocky shores of Long Island. And who knew; the LI aquarium has one of the largest all-living closed system coral reefs in the western hemisphere. Still indoors, you can find Poseidon’s treasure room left unlocked for you to view. Explore a shipwreck and walk underwater to see the lost city of Atlantis, guarded by many large sand tiger sharks. I thought there was a name for the largest shark, but I just couldn’t find it listed. Maybe there should be a contest to name the sharks !!
The outdoor exhibits treat you with scheduled seal and sea lion shows, a koi pond, a mother and son otter habitat, critters and creatures of the night and quirky little penguins wandering around in their pavilion. My children and I have enjoyed swimming with skates in the pirate snorkel adventure, which was so amazing. If you’re into being scared, you can do a shark dive in their 120,000 gallon tank. Maybe mermaids are more your speed, you can swim with them too. There is a 25 foot Poseidon peak rock wall to scale, a 60 foot activity tree called the “Eye Opener” and so much more.
When you need a little rest, sit outside and enjoy your lunch and then go take a selfie with a sea lion. Well, time for me to wrap this up. Be sure to take endless photos to remember your day and just soak it all in and Enjoy!