Adventure Aquarium || Camden, New Jersey

Just across the Ben Franklin Bridge from Philadelphia, you’ll find the Adventure Aquarium on the riverfront in Camden, New Jersey. We decided to go on a Thursday morning with my brother and his family, thinking it’d be a bit less busy than on the weekend. Boy were we wrong. Apparently since it was the start of the summer, a bunch of camps/kids groups had the same idea as us…so it was PACKED. I was a bit overwhelmed, but my niece and nephew still seemed to enjoy themselves! I was honestly surprised by the ticket price difference between the Philly Zoo, which starts at $25/adult, and the aquarium at $33/adult. Not sure why, but I expected the aquarium to be cheaper!

Some Adventure Aquarium Facts!

AZA Accredited

Less than 10% of licensed US zoos & aquariums are Association of Zoos & Aquariums (AZA) accredited. This means the facility meets the highest operations and animal welfare standards.

15,000 Aquatic Animals

Adventure Aquarium houses over 15,000 aquatic animals, including the largest collection of sharks in the Northeast! It is also the only aquarium in the world with Nile Hippos.

V-Shaped Shark Bridge

The 81-ft long suspension bridge over the shark tank is the longest V-shaped Shark Bridge in the world!

First Up: Penguins!

Penguins are easily in my top 5 favorite animals, along with cats, giraffes, otters, and highland cows. Funny enough, just after I’d told Jasper that I didn’t need to see anything else (because I’d seen the penguins) I turned around to hear my brother say, “Alright, I’ve seen the penguins, I can leave now.” Now for all you other penguin lovers out there, you’ll be happy to hear that Adventure Aquarium has TWO penguin exhibits. One is inside, where you can see Little Blue penguins, and then outside is where you’ll find the African penguins. We were lucky enough to see the Little Blue penguins while they were being fed in the morning. It was a hot day, so the African penguins were just hanging out in the shade probably to try and stay cool.

Feed A Stingray They Said..

It’ll be fun, they said! The idea of putting my hand in the water freaked me out (my thoughts going straight to Steve Irwin) so I passed on doing the feeding. My brother on the other hand decided he wanted to give it a shot. For $4, they give you two small fish. Hoping to convince his almost 3 year old to try it, he went first to show her how its done. He placed the fish between his fingers, placed his hand on the side of the pool, and waited. After a minute or two, one finally saw it and came over. It apparently got so excited after eating that it almost tried to jump out of the tank and splashed us all with water! After which my brother gave the second fish to a random kid next to him, because my niece wasn’t having it. (Plus we didn’t want to risk it happening again). If you want to give it a try, you’ll find them in the Stingray Beach Club.

Other Exhibits

Besides the Hippos and the shark bridge, Adventure Aquarium in Camden is pretty similar to any other aquarium you may have been to. You’ll find piranhas, jellyfish, turtles, clownfish, and frogs, just to name a few. Along with touching/feeding stingrays, there is also a pool where you can “pet” different types of small sharks!