Manila Ocean Park

My family and I went to the Manila Ocean Park today as part of celebrating my son's birthday.  We had to wait for a few moments in the parking lot because it was raining hard and we couldn't walk to the building.   When we finally got to the entrance were we paid PhP1500 ( about USD40) for 2 adults and 2 kids.  

      The exhibits starts off with river fish. The notable resident here are the river Arapaimas, giant fish about a meter long.  You then go up some steps, to a water fall and down were you can look at some reef fish and touch some starfishes. At this point you enter into the reef fish exhibit.  Here you see nemo, dory, a giant spider crab and some small rays. The next section ("laot") you find bigger fish swimming in tanks with makeshift wrecks.  Here you find meter long groupers, pampano and the like.  Theres also an overhanging circular screen showing underwater footages and WWF-Philippines Vice Chair Lory Tan talking about reefs and climate change.  Manila Ocean Park supports WWFs conservation efforts in various Marine Protected Areas in the Philippines.   Regularly, Obel Resurrection, education officer of WWF-Philippines stays at the park to support educational activities with guests.

     We then go to the exciting part...The "Buhay Karagatan" section is where you go through a "sea tunnel".  You see all this big fish, rays and sharks swimming around above you. This is the best place to take pictures because of the adequate lighting ( no flash photography allowed in the complex).   I took pictures of my family with rays and talakitok swimming behind.  After the tunnel, the next room leads to an overhead tank of rays and a tank of sharks on the side. You also get to some kiosks where you can play games.  In this section, you find another view of the tunnel tank. Here we took pictures of lazy, people-shy rays that wouldn't go near the tunnel earlier. 

   After this section, we went up to the second floor.  Here you find a "fish spa", where you can have fish nibble on your feet ( didn't find any floating despite the stink).  You also find an area to do crafts and a clear bottom both ride.  In this section, you will have to pay extra so we didn't do anything here.   You the exit through the Ozeano restaurant (yeah...they kinda want you to dine here) and the souvenir shop (kinda like other theme parks in the US).  When we were out we played some games in an arcade and went out of the building for picture taking in Luneta and dinner at Harbour View. 

 Overall the experience was fun.  My son and daughter loved it very much.  Pictures to be posted in the site soon...