When we were in Boston, we knew there were so many things to see. But since we had a limited amount of time, we opted for some free/less expensive historic sites and combined it with the Boston City Pass that got us into Boston’s most popular attractions. Once of those was the New England Aquarium. It was a really fun aquarium and had some major perks that we really enjoyed and found helpful during our trip.
How to Get to the New England Aquarium:
The New England Aquarium is located right in Boston Harbor. It is on Central Warf, near Long Warfighters and not far from Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market. There are a few areas to park near the aquarium if you are planning on driving. You can find the closest parking areas here. But the easiest way to get there is either by walking, if you’re already in the area, or by taking the T (the local transportation system). The T has a stop called Aquarium on the Blue line. But you can also get off on the State stop on the Orange line, the Government Center stop on the Green line or the South Station stop on the Red line. For more information about getting to the aquarium, check out directions here.
What You Will Find at the New England Aquarium:
There are lots of fun exhibits at the New England Aquarium. One of our favorites was the HUGE fish tank that runs from the floor to the ceiling. There is a central ramp that you can go up and down on that spirals around the fish tank that lets you off on each level of the aquarium. I recommend taking the elevator to each level and exploring the levels first, then starting at the top walk down the ramp and around the fish tank. It give you some pretty neat views and lets you take it all in at once instead of in smaller bursts.
In addition to lots of fish and sea creatures, there are also penguins, seals and other non-fish sea life. We really liked seeing the penguins and really enjoyed the harbor seals and we were even able to watch part of one of their shows.
There are also lots of touch tanks which were fun. Lucy really enjoyed touching the starfish and the rays.
My favorite thing about the Aquarium
Now, one of my favorite things about the aquarium actually has little to do with the aquarium itself! It has to do with their baggage holding area. We had an evening flight out of Boston but we wanted to spend the whole day in the city exploring as much as we could. But we had our luggage and weren’t sure how we were going to handle carrying it all over the city. Luckily for us, the Aquarium will complimentary check your larger bags that don’t fit into lockers (the lockers you can rent for a daily rate). So we were able to have them hold our suitcases for free and we rented a locker for some of our smaller items we didn’t want to haul around all day. We were able to go to the aquarium when it first opened, drop off our stuff, explore about half of the exhibits and then we left to do other things for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. Then we headed back to the aquarium in the late afternoon/early evening to finish seeing the aquarium, pick up our bags and then we were only a few T stops away from getting to the airport. It was so handy and made our day in Boston so much more convenient!
Sum Up:
The New England Aquarium is a great site to visit if you have time in Boston. It had great animal exhibits, especially the floor to ceiling fish tank, the penguins and the harbor seals. It also had an area to hold our luggage and lockers to rent for smaller items. It is most crowded in the middle of the day so try to get there when it first opens or come when they are a few hours away from closing to beat the crowds.
