The St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station, St. Louis City

photo credit to stlouisaquarium.com

 Location: 201 S. 18th St., St. Louis, MO 63103

Website: https://www.stlouisaquarium.com/

We have been to several aquariums in the country before visiting this one because my family just loves aquariums. We've been to Shedd's in Chicago, Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg, Wonders of Wildlife in Springfield, the aquarium in Branson, and Sea Life in Kansas City. While this aquarium is the smallest of them all it was still a very fun experience that we enjoyed. I'll lay out all this aquarium has to offer so you can know what to expect. 

When you first enter, you ride a virtual train to get to the exhibits. They let groups a few at a time into a space that mimics the grand lobby of Union Station complete with an amazing laser show on the ceiling. They also have a replica of the clock tower, complete with discus fish which have round shapes like clocks. 

The first exhibit is called Confluence and takes you to the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. These tanks have gar, bass, catfish, paddlefish, and more. 

Global waters is another freshwater exhibit that has doctor fish. We loved this exhibit, where you stick your hand in a tank and the fish nibble on the dead skin of your hand. It's a funky sensation.  

Bumblebee dart frogs

The river otters were all sleeping the day we were there so we didn't get to see them play, unfortunately.

The schedule changes daily but they have a lot of informative "Creature Features" each day. The show we caught was the sugar gliders and it was fun to watch them glide from the rope structure to the animal handler. 

Ocean Shore has several touch tanks and a huge water table. They give each child a boat and they can watch them float downriver and manipulate valves and doors. 

The turtle tank

Chocolate chip sea stars, sea urchins, horseshoe crabs, and sea cucumbers live in this touch tank.

The stink ray and shark touch tank was a huge hit with my kids. We were here a good 30 minutes while the kids enjoyed petting the rays. They were even given some fish and were able to feed them.

Next to the sting ray table is Lord Stanley, the rare blue lobster donated by a bar in Massachusetts.

This cute area has several activities for kids and it's enclosed with a gate and an attendant so you don't have to worry about your kids running off. There were paper hats you could color, rocks to stack, a tunnel to climb through, and a Splash and Bubbles display.

Cutting out his hammerhead hat

After this, it's time to head to Shark Canyon. They saved the best for last.

The walk there is dark and has Jaws-inspired music playing. There are also shark videos on the overhead screens. 

This is their largest tank at 250,000 gallons. You will see sandbar sharks, lesser devil rays, goliath groupers, and sea turtles.

The last area is the Deep. Here you will see sea dragons, octopuses, jellies, and eels. 

I could watch jellyfish swim for hours!

You can easily make a day of it at Union Station by visiting the other activities here including the mirror maze, the Wheel, mini golf, the carousel, and the ropes course. There are also several restaurants including the Soda Fountain and the Train Shed. 

Raging Rivers Waterpark, Grafton

 

Location: 100 Palisades Pkwy, Grafton, IL 62037  618.786.2345

Website: https://www.ragingrivers.com/

Amenities: In addition to the water park they have concessions and a gift shop. 

This waterpark is one of the most expensive around, but if you go after 3pm you can get a discount. Their normal hours are 10:30 am to 6 :00 pm.  It costs $5 to park. 

They have 8 attractions:

1. Breaker Beach Wave Pool- An 18,000 sq ft. wave pool that creates waves up to 4 ft. high. It seemed like the waves didn't happen as often as the waves at Six Flags. I feel like the kids were constantly waiting for the waves to start. I can't find anywhere what the times are. It felt like it went for 10 mins and then 20 mins off. Just in case you're curious this wave pool is half as big as Six Flags Hurricane Bay. 

2. Cascade Body Flumes- 500 ft. dual water slides that twist and turn down the big hill. 

3. Itty Bitty Surf City-  This area for littles features a small water slide, rain tree, splash pool, and tunnel. 

4. Treehouse Harbor- An interactive play area that has a bucket that spills water, has a tunnel slide, and lots of ways to manipulate the water. 

5. Endless River- 700 ft. long lazy river. It's not very deep and it's slow and relaxing. You must be in a tube. 

6. Shark Slide- You must have a tube, and you enter the shark's mouth and fly down a 45 ft. tunnel into a pool of water at the end. 

7. Runaway Rafts- A 600 ft. long slide through swift water and wild rapids to 3 pools. I didn't get to ride this because it's a 12-5pm attraction so keep that in mind. We got there right at 5 and they said sorry we're closed. I was pretty upset because no one told us that and we would have ridden it when we got there if we knew that it closed early. 

8. Swirlpool- Ride the tunnel flume into a giant vortex and then get dropped into a deep pool of water. One is enclosed and one is open. 

Height Restrictions:

Breaker Beach Wavepool - No height restriction.
Runaway Rafts - Must be able to carry own tube. One person per tube.
Shark Slide - Must be able to carry own tube. One person per tube.
Treehouse Harbor - Fun for all ages. Slide only for children.
Swirlpools - Must be 48" and taller and a strong swimmer. Deepest water in park, 7'.
Itty Bitty Surf City - For our small guests 42" and under.
Cascade Body Flumes - Small children may ride on parent's lap without a tube. Single riders may ride with or without a tube.
Endless River - Fun for all ages. Small children may ride with parent.

Here's my personal opinion on Raging Rivers. It's very overpriced. There are only 8 attractions, and we couldn't do 2 of them, so there were only 6 things to do, and we paid $67 to get in and $5 to park. There are several other places that have a wave pool, including the Lodge at Des Peres, Collinsville Aqua Park, and Six Flags. Just about every pool around has a lazy river and flume slide so they didn't really offer anything unique that would command such a high entrance price. It also took over an hour to get there from my house. I'm glad I can say that we've been there but we'll never be back. There are much closer, much more reasonable pools in the area for us to visit.  

I sorted pools by price last year and Raging Rivers is the 2nd most expensive behind Six Flags. The way they do pricing here is everyone over 48" pays $30 to get in. Most kids hit 48" around age 7. I had an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old so I would have paid $90 for the 3 of us for the normal daily rate, but we went after 3pm so we paid $22 per person instead of $30 per person. So we got 3 hours of fun on 6 attractions (one was closed and one was only for kids under 42"). The kids had a great time but the wave pool was really the only place they wanted to be. Keep in mind this place is built into a hill so it's a very steep walk to get to the slides.  They didn't want to keep walking up the hills.  It was very clean and the employees were very polite. I supposed if you live in the area and get a season pass it may be more reasonable, but for a one-day pass it's not worth it in my opinion.