Cabrillo Marine Aquarium

Happy September! School may be in session, but that’s not stopping us from exploring! For this adventure, we visited the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, located near the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. This was my first visit to the aquarium and Caiden’s second – he went there on a preschool field trip two years ago.

The Cabrillo Marine Aquarium is open year-round and admission is a suggested donation of $5 for adults and $1 for children and seniors. Cash only. The aquarium is smaller than the popular Long Beach Aquarium, so it makes it doable for me to go without Danny.

The aquarium will keep the kids entertained for hours with habitat halls, an exploration center, and an aquatic nursery. There’s also specials events that go on like an Art Corner and Beach Clean-up, so I highly suggest looking at their events page before you go.

The Tide Pool Touch Tank is where my boys spent most of their time. It’s located towards the back of the aquarium and the kids can touch rocky shore marine life, like sea stars and urchins. There’s also horn sharks and swell sharks to see (NOT TOUCH) on the other side. Make sure your future marine biologists ask questions for the touch tank experts to answer!

Their other favorite area was the Exploration Center. You can find the “Crawl In” aquarium and experience all the sea life underneath kelp paddies. There’s also a discovery area, where you can create a marine-themed craft to take home. For the older kids, there’s the Naturalists Corner, where Caiden got to look at organisms through microscopes. Don’t worry if you can’t help answer questions, volunteers are on deck to answer any questions about their observations.