We’ve been to some pretty impressive aquariums over the years, and the Mazatlan Aquarium (Gran Acuario) turned out to be right up there with the best of them.
Fresh off a US$100 million dollar renovation, it’s far more impressive than I imagined—which is a very good thing, as admission is not exactly cheap!
The boys have been wanting to visit an aquarium for years and at ages 5 and 8, the hope is they’ll actually remember some of this.
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The new central structure is nothing short of striking. Concrete and tiered tropical gardens, with 40-foot waterfalls meant to evoke a “flooded ruin” or “remnants of a retreating sea.” The Mazatlan Aquarium / Gran Acuario reopened to the public in mid-2023 and is the largest aquarium in Mexico.
This is an excellent article on the unique design aspects of the renovation.
Even here on a weekday we arrived a few minutes before opening. To our surprise the line was already pretty long. Fortunately, Lori was able to book our tickets online which meant we got to skip the queue.
🔥 HOT TIP 🔥
We strongly recommend booking online as we hear lines to get into the Mazatlan Aquarium can be very long. Here on a midweek at opening there were two dozen others in front of us waiting to buy tickets, but we were able to skip the line and walk right in with our online tickets.
We got ours directly from their website, but if you’d prefer to do the process in English with a non-Mexican (e.g. U.S.) credit card, you can buy the tickets through Get Your Guide for essentially the same price.
We were some of the first visitors in the doors and made a beeline for the aquarium’s most popular exhibits.
The stingray petting pool might just be the most popular exhibit in the whole place. When we got there, we were the only ones there and had all the creatures to ourselves.
We’ve been lucky enough to snorkel with these graceful creatures while living on the Baja Peninsula (and during our visit to the “World’s Aquarium” of Cabo Pulmo), but still the exhibit left a big impression on the four of us.
When we passed back through the room hours later, the place was a madhouse, and you had to pay extra for food to queue up to pet the stingrays. Getting to the stingrays early seems to pay off.
We might have been a lot more interested in the seahorse exhibit if we hadn’t just visited Seahorse Expedition on Stone Island days before. Still, its one of the best seahorse exhibits we’ve seen anywhere, offering a rare up-close look at these strange and captivating creatures.
No other single exhibit impressed the boys more than the enormous aquarium at the center of the building, which houses some striking residents.
I liked the shrimp tank. Nothing flashy, but man do they keep that water crystal clear. It’s like the shrimp are just walking around on land and the fish are levitating.
The boys also got a kick out of the shark tank, even if most of the sharks were just chillin’.
The eel tank was another one of my personal favorites. I thought it might get a bigger response out of Noe and Riley, but they just nodded and kept walking. Kids.
One of the top shows at the aquarium is the Sea Lion show.
Now, I’m not up on the ethical nuances of sea lion shows. I suspect there are groups out there who condemn these shows as inhumane and barbaric. All I can say is that the sea lions seem well cared for (they look healthier than most I’ve seen in the wild and get all the fish they can eat), and put on one heck of a show.
The boys certainly enjoyed it.
For those uncomfortable with these sorts of shows, here’s food for thought, particularly as it relates to conservation efforts in Mexico.
There are thought to be around 15,000 California Sea Lions in the Sea of Cortez. That number was 45,000 thirty years ago. The decline is largely due to pollution, fishing, tourism, and rising sea temperatures.
Mexican culture isn’t activism-oriented. If there is to be any chance of seeing sea lions in Mexico twenty years down the road, average people here need to care about them. These shows help to do that, as well as raise awareness of the larger ecological issues facing our oceans and the planet in general.
After the show, we went back to where we left off in the main building of the Mazatlan Aquarium to catch the impressive jellyfish exhibit.
There’s much more to the aquarium than I’ve touched upon here, including a large penguin exhibit, amphibian hall, and a number of other shows throughout the day, including one featuring birds of prey, and others we simply didn’t have time for.
We recommend devoting two hours at the bare minimum to take in the main exhibits and 1-3 hours in addition to that depending on the number of shows you want to see and whether you opt to eat at the onsite cafeteria.
Whether you’re a local resident or foreign tourist, a visit for a family of four to the aquarium is not cheap. But overall, we thought the experience was worth it for us, and found the aquarium to be one of the most impressive we’ve visited in North America.
More Reading for Your Mexico Trip
Pacific Coast
- Sayulita Beaches: Complete Guide to the Area’s Best
- Guide to Hiking Cerro del Mono (Monkey Mountain)
- Yelapa, Mexico: Why Visit & What to Expect
Central Highlands
- Xochimilco Floating Gardens: How to Visit + What to Expect
- Monte Albán (Oaxaca): Complete Guide to Visiting
- Isla de Janitzio (Patzcuaro): What to See & How to Visit
- Mascota, Jalisco: Detailed Guide for Planning Your Visit
Baja Peninsula