Ripley's Aquarium of Canada

Back from Toronto and the family reunion that took place north of Toronto.

Battling traffic Saturday we made our way south to Toronto and then all the way downtown to tour Ripley's Aquarium of Canada!

One of the newest attractions in Toronto, this over 1.5 million gallon aquarium has an impressive array of sea and freshwater exhibits to explore.

Once you clear the lines you reach the lobby and the first thing you see is this huge fossil.

Then you move along and the aquarium proper begins with the Canadian waters exhibit.

Among the Canadian fresh and sea creatures were lobsters on display including this unusual blue one:

The main attraction, however, is the Shark tank. Named the Dangerous Lagoon, there's a moving sidewalk that takes you through a clear tunnel where you can see sharks all around you.

I think there's something coming up behind me.

Yep, it was a sand tiger shark.

It was pretty neat watching sharks swim all around and was the highlight of the aquarium.

A quite rare, and very large Bahamas Sawshark lazily rested on the top of the tunnel.

Here's the view of him from above:

The shark tank itself is full of 2.5 million litres (about 625,000 gallons) of water,and its being filtered at 2,649 liters per minute by a huge pump and filtration system.

Then there was a gallery of jellyfish of all shapes and sizes, including these cute tiny ones:

It was a great aquarium, full of very interesting aquatic life and well worth going to if you're visiting Toronto. There's lots of hands-on exhibits and the walls are crammed with information and facts about everything swimming in the tanks.

Some tips if you go:

1. Get your tickets online with an entry time beforehand, otherwise you will stand in line for hours to get a ticket and to enter the aquarium. Thanks to Tash, we had our tickets purchased online with an entry time of 7pm and they scanned us in right from her phone. It was a darn good thing we did so as the no-ticket line was huge and ertainly wasn't moving very fast.

2. There's a discount for 7pm entries and later, and while still crowded as all get out, it apparently is less crowded before this time.

3. Parking is a royal pain as is the traffic down there. Expect to pay about $30 Canadian to park once you can find a space.