The Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk Reviews

Did not have alot of things to see but good for kids

My 21 month old grandson had a wonderful time... Love seeing him so excited!

It was beautiful, with a large amount of animals. Highly recommend for anyone with children

My wife and I have visited several aquariums it's a fun thing for her to do. I do like how they reuse old factory space and made a unique and different type of aquarium. one downside is because the ticket requires a purchase of an IMAX the times didn't work out and my wife and I didn't get a chance to see one, it felt overpriced for what we got.

My clients enjoyed it. Just come on a day with less kids.

Great place for kids. Most of the staff is friendly. Unfortunately the high chairs in the cafe are all broken, the straps won't secure a baby. The food is awful but they went let in outside food

Fairly standard aquarium with CT prices, along with CT potholes to welcome you as you come and go. Nothing really memorable and went through it pretty quick. Can t say we ll be back even if I did live in the area.

Fun place for the kids and interesting exhibits. You can also see a movie! Sweeeeeet.

The aquarium is highly rated according to the billboards. I've been to aquariums on Coney Island, Atlanta, and in NC. Compared to those, this one is lacking in animals and exhibits. However, the jellyfish are amazing and their social media is funny.

The aquarium was lovely alot to see...do NOT ask the young vomunteers a question....the young man by the seals never got off his phone or even looked up!

My kids never get tired of coming and the times it's free for Norwalk residents with get free IMAX tickets and each movie is different and it's the icing on the cake for my family. And parking is close to the aquarium.

Amazing place for little kids! You can most likely complete the whole thing in 2-3 hours. A member pass is more then worth it.

My favorite Aquarium ever! I've been coming here since I was small and I still love it. They have so many interactive exhibits; their new updated Jelly exhibit is so amazing

The best aquarium in Connecticut. Such a fun place for families or a nice weekend trip. There's so much to see and learn

Great place for kids. So many jelly fish to look at.

Alway a great place to take children for a few hours.

I would give it 5 stars but it was expensive for what it had.

Went here with my wife today. Great aquarium, spent a total of 2.5 hours looking at all of the exhibits(except for the Shark and Ray touch pool, which was closed). Our favorite exhibits were the seal tank, jellyfish section, and we absolutely loved the blue macaw they had there. Giving it 4 stars because some of the exhibits(a small number of them out of 75) were done with entirely fake props and that didn't seem fair to some of the animals. Overall wonderful experience, would recommend to other lovers of aquariums. Side note: They have not only marine life but several birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other wildlife as well.

Medium-sized aquarium with a great variety of animals. Multiple touch-tanks, and three amazing seal shows a day (generally 11:45, 1:45, and 3:45). If you don't have much time you can cruise though relatively quickly, but I recommend taking your time, as there's so much to notice and appreciate.

Love this place! If you take the time to walk around, you learn everything about the sound. Take very good care of the tanks and habitats

Great place to come with the family but gets a bit crowded.

It's good for 1 or 2 visits but it is small you can see everything in 1 day. Children can learn allot in a little time. It has nice unrelated movies but only a couple. A little of the main streets, so it is a little different to find.

Nice Aquarium. Not to big and not to small. Perfect for kids.

What a wonderful time we all had. The Chocolate festival wad so good. All of the vendors were so generous so helpful everything tasted fabulous I will definitely do it next year

Nice but small aquarium. Gift shop is real expensive.

We really enjoyed it here. We were also glad to find out that the animals are recovered and well taken care of.
The shark swim, seal feeding and IMax theater were all awesome.
We're not much for 'caged' animals but it felt different here.

We love this aquarium! The stingray touch tank is awesome as is the jellyfish touch tank. There's lots of fish to look at, big and small. We've taken our infant daughter here twice and she loves it! Plus, there's changing tables in both bathrooms.

Great place for kids of many ages. My young children had so much fun. Great size and lots of animals to see. Cafeteria was great too!

The staff is knowligible and enthusiastic about the Marine life and Animals that live here. They do a Very Good job of creating a fun and Educational enviourmant for the kids. I really Wanted to have a good time here but i guess its much harder as an adult now that i understand that Just becouse we love to look at animals doesn't mean they feel the same Way about us. Im By no means Condemning the people that work here i just think as a Society of intelligent animals we need to start Moving away from Learning about Earths other Creatures in such a way. Beeing here just Made Me feel Bad even though i got to see a Meerkat up close and it was the cutest thing ever!

Lovely place!
Nice place!

Great place to take the kids. Fun exhibits for kids and adults.

Decent size aquarium for weekend exit. Summer time visit will alow more outdoor active in nearby lake and small toddler swing and slide at walakble distance.

So much fun was had by all. Not sure what meerkats & bearded dragons have to do with oceans, but still fun. Touched jellies & sharks & starfish, oh my. Beautiful butterfly from Costa Rica exhibit. Great hands-on for kids of all ages.

If you want to watch intelligent animals like seals cooped up in a tiny pool or otters and meerkats with no access to natural light you ll love it. However if you like animals it s just a depressing exhibition of cruelty masquerading as conservation.

Terrible I didn't like the way the octopus was treated

Cute aquarium, great for small children. Very walkable. Wasn t too crowded the day we went. Parking is affordable and close. We didn t do the iMax our daughter is still a bit too small. But we did watch the seals get fed. There are quite a few touch tanks, but the one with the sharks was closed when we went. There are also some mammals, you can get very close to them, unlike the zoo. Overall a nice aquarium for children up until 6ish.

Tbh this place was a waste of time and money. Me and my family went thinking we would at least take half the day to walk through it rooms us an hour. It s us longer than an hour to wait in the parking lot just to open. This place was trash.i spend more time in a mall than here now bye I don t like u. This place was definitely a Felica so bye Felica. WE GOT APRIL FOOLED

Took my wife and son here and we all really loved it! As an aquarium goes it's about as good as it gets, really worth a visit if you are anywhere in the area! Neat jellyfish & shark tanks on multiple levels with handicap accessibility, tons of clean restrooms and even a food court on site (although I can't rate the quality of the food as I didn't eat while there). If you have kids or just animal exhibits you will definitely want to check this place out!

Not terrible, and some nice things for kids to see. However, compared to other aquariums we've visited in Boston and Baltimore, this one falls way short. We were lucky and went on a day where tickets were steeply discounted. We would have been disappointed if we paid the normal full price.

Amazing view of God's creation. The jellyfish are beautiful. The aquarium had a wide variety, and every stage of growth. You can see little ones the size of a pinhead swimming around. Everything is well-displayed, you can really get good views of all the creatures.

I have been enjoying the Maritime Center for decades. I remember the first time I went there, they had shipwright (shipbuilding) exhibits and one of the Solo-North Atlantic crossing sailboats on display. Since they the Center has expanded by leaps & bounds to vastly increase it's buildings and become a full-sized Aquarium.

My more recent visit included enjoying the Horseshoe crab & Stingray encounter, the octopus and jellyfish exhibits (which is NOT easy, as it requires very expensive cutting-0edge rotating tanks to keep the fragile jellies from hitting the sides of the tanks), feeding-time for the harbor seals, dozens of the most colorful, beautiful (and deadly) Poison-Dart frogs, and the 43 minute IMAX film: "National Parks Adventure" narrated by Robert Redford.

And that's not including their 64-foot catamaran tour-cruses and their School/Scout/Camp programs. All located in the heart of Norwalk on the banks of the Norwalk river, and connected to Oyster Shell Park, right next to a convenient parking garage.

This is a FanTASTIC museum/Aquarium for parents to take their kids, and teachers to take their students. with many "hands-on" exhibits and projects. With this in mind, I am boggled by the 1% of reviewers who give 1-star and hate "noisy children" or say the Aquarium is tiny"... take a second look, the Aquarium is approximately 38,000 square feet in size.

Grrat place to spend the day. Everyone is lovely and super helpful. Wonderful Halloween party for members!

It is nice place to visit with kids. You can touch different types of rays. Even seal feeding is nice event. They have specific timings for seal feeding. Nice to spend a half day not more than that.

Wacksauce. Spend the extra money and gas.... go to Mystic. The 3rd star is for the cuisine options in the area.

Great place to visit with your kids! Perfect for rainy days!

Took the family here. The hands on exhibits were great for the kids. Parking is a bit awkward, but once inside, it is a great aquarium that can be completed in a half day.

This place was a lot of fun. Brought my kid here and we both had a great time. The jellyfish section was awesome. Great place to spend the day

Very cute aquarium. Big on the inside. Like the petting tanks and the jelly fish.

Love the place I came back again after 3 years looks much better, keep it up!

Nice small aquarium in downtown Norwalk. All exhibits were open. Good place to take the kids if you're looking for something to do for a couple hours.

Nice place. Pricey but we all had a great time. Great shark tank. My kids 6 and 7 loved it.

I feel the tanks are too small, fish don't have enough room to be comfortable

A great place for kids and adults to see and learn about many interesting sea creatures. Fun touch tank.

The aquarium was very well maintained with lots of things to see and do. The reason for 3 stars instead of 4 was the lack of employee investment. Many times my kids were at the touch tank areas and would ask questions to be met with blank stares and a spaced out employee. Same with during the Lego event, my 5 year old wws confused on how to put something together and the employees walked away to socialize with other employees every time we tried to talk to them. The only exception the Jellyfish tank, she was was wonderful. The extra more interactive activities would have been a lot better if the employees were more invested.

Nice friendly environment would recommend anyone to go there.

My daughter and I love The Maritime Center!! We cost on a weekly basis.

It's a fun little aquarium. It is a bit expensive but the exhibits are informative and engaging. Ive been twice so far this year and it's is a great Sunday activity with the family.

Nice sized aqaurium. Traveled from NJ and it closer than Camden. it's also safer than Camden. Took us about 2 to 3 hours to see everything. Perfect size for a small kid. Food was good too. Not to bad on pricing.

Great day trip. Lots to see and do. Admission also includes IMAX ticket. Food court was very good as well.

A great aquarium lots of fun. The cafeteria is out of control expensive so don't go there hungry, you can eat at a nice restaurant for the same money before or after you see the fish.

Great place to bring the kids and learn about our beautiful marine life.