Read my Georgia Aquarium sleepover review from when we visited in February 2024

I had fond memories of doing a sleepover with a school group in a museum, so I’d been on the hunt for an opportunity to recreate that with my kids. We recently got to sleep by the sharks in Atlanta, Georgia and I thought I’d write a full Georgia Aquarium sleepover review for anyone who was considering going! We visited in February 2024, and my kids were 8 & 11, for reference. They do host these for adults as well, no kids required!

If you’re wondering about the Georgia aquarium sleepover cost, I’m sure it varies depending on group size and different factors. However, we did our sleepover through the Traveling Homeschoolers travel agency and it cost $90 per person + $20 overnight parking. The Georgia Aquarium has general public sleepovers that anyone can join, and they advertise the current price as $110.99 per person; or you can gather your own private group and organize a sleepover if you can convince enough friends to join you!

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Pin this Georgia aquarium sleepover review for later with this link or collage image:

Here are a few aquarium & ocean related books if you like to read before you visit!

• Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau– a picture book about the famous aquatic explorer
• Science Comics: Coral Reefs – a non-fiction graphic novel about coral reefs
• Ocean Speaks: How Marie Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret– a picture book about how she mapped the ocean floor
• The Brilliant Deep: Rebuilding the World’s Coral Reefs: The Story of Ken Nedimyer and the Coral Restoration Foundation– a picture book about coral restoration, which is done at the Georgia Aquarium
• The Ultimate Book of Sharks– a National Geographic book packed with info
• Inky’s Amazing Escape: How a Very Smart Octopus Found His Way Home– based on a true story and a picture book; ask one of the volunteers how they keep their octopus in its tank at the Georgia Aquarium!
• Secrets of the Sea: The Story of Jeanne Power, Revolutionary Marine Scientist– a picture book about the scientist who invented the aquarium
• Dark Day in the Deep Sea– a Magic Treehouse series chapter book where the kids go back in time to explore the ocean
• Hawai’i Sea Turtle Rescue (Fabien Cousteau Expeditions)-a fictional graphic novel exploring sea turtles
• Plasticus Maritimus: An Invasive Species– an older kid picture book talking about how plastic affects the ocean and how to help

Georgia Aquarium sleepover review

What we packed:

• Sleeping supplies
  • They provide you with a foam mat – we also brought folding backpacking mats for extra cushion, & sleeping bags. My kids brought a blanket & stuffed animal.
• Clothes
  • Pajamas
  • A change of clothes for the next day
  • Hoodies even though it was warm outside- the aquarium was cooler at night
• Bathroom supplies
  • Toothbrush & toothpaste
  • Face wipes
• Miscellaneous
  • Snacks! Shelf-stable food to supplement what they offered
  • Water bottles! They have refills stations everywhere
  • Ipads/headphones/sketching supplies so the kids could listen to something and wind down at the end of the day

What the schedule looked like:

First, we parked in the parking garage and walked all our stuff around to the group entrance. Check-in was at 6:30 and we waited in a long line outside, went through security, got assigned a smaller group, and then dropped our stuff on these big shelves. The shelves didn’t move around at all; but I was glad that all our stuff was in zipped bags (these big ikea bags are amazing for sleeping bags etc. and then a duffel for clothes). I put a travel tag on all our belongings, just in case, and carried the electronics with us since this stuff was unsupervised.

From about 7:30-9:30 we started with an orientation, and then did a tour of all of the galleries with our tour guide, a retired teacher who was lovely. She took us from exhibit to exhibit and pointed out some of her favorite things, answered questions, and shared anecdotes. Our group had maybe 15 people in it, so it was a wholly different experience from visiting during regular hours. Really peaceful to watch the animals without being crowded out! All the small groups rotated sections so you always had it just to yourselves.

Half of the groups did the exhibit tours first and the other half did behind-the-scenes first – my only complaint with doing the exhibit tours first was that a lot of the tanks were dark! My kids actually said on the way home they *liked* that the tanks were darker, because it felt more natural, but I felt like it was harder to see things (obviously).

I didn’t take a picture, but next we had a group snack and then a nighttime talk to go over the rules. The snack for us was a choice of chips (Doritos or plain Lays) and a small bag of fruit snacks (Mott’s without the ingredients labeled which was frustrating for me personally since my kids are allergic to food dye and they didn’t have the box to see if it was in there). They also inexplicably had a ton of disposable water bottles out, which seemed hypocritical after hearing about how single use plastics harm the oceans – Coca-Cola donated the land for them to build but c’mon, tell people to bring their own reusable water bottles and use the filling stations.

Next up was sleeping! We got a sleeping area randomly assigned – so each small group had their own gallery/room/space. This felt a lot more secluded and private than I expected, as you can see, although I obviously can’t speak for the other galleries and how they were laid out.

We had about 30 minutes to get into pajamas and ready for bed, which was a challenge with how many women were trying to use the bathroom to do so. The official ‘lights out’ was at 10:30- my kids listened to audiobooks and sketched to wind down and you’d definitely want to bring headphones or ear plugs if you’re sensitive to sound, other folks were loudly facetiming still. The lights obviously didn’t turn completely down either; bring a sleep mask if you’re sensitive to that.

This was my favorite part of the experience! It felt really special.

Less special was having to wake up at 6 am! We had to get dressed, pack up our stuff, and lug it all the way back to our vehicles in the parking garage before coming back for breakfast. Breakfast is pictured above – the french toast sticks were inedible for my crew; the foil is a cheese & egg croissant that was tasty. Drinks offered were apple juice and coffee. I was glad I’d packed some extra food! We then had to sit and wait until everyone had eaten; we’d been some of the first to eat and ended up just lounging for 30 minutes. In retrospect, if I’d known, I’d have let us hang out in our sleeping bags longer.

We rejoined our small group and got to take the behind the scenes tour from about 7:30-9:45! This was really exciting and my family loved it. Similar to the previous day, we rotated around in locations so it was only our small group in one space at a time. Above you can see the classroom we went into and looked at a bunch of ‘bone mold’ replicas and specimans, and then where we got to see the coral propagation center and learn about their efforts to reintroduce it into the wild.

Above was seeing the big, whale shark tank from up above and watching them feed the whale sharks! This was really exciting. We also walked behind the scenes to see how they make all that ocean water- those big white bags are literally called ‘Instant Ocean”, ha.

Lastly, a few other highlights were seeing how the animals are transported (huge sling & trapdoor near a tank pictured on the left) and the medical team working on an animal! We also saw where they prepare the food and some other operational sections.

At 9:45, the general public had filled the aquarium and we were released to enjoy the aquarium for the rest of the day. We went to the dolphin show (our tour guide had reminded us to sign up for a seat after breakfast), revisited a few favorites with the lights on in their exhibits, and then headed out.

Overall thoughts/reflections:

• We thoroughly enjoyed this visit and my kid asked when they could do it again! It was definitely worth the price for us, although I wish they had a “no-food” rate. I would’ve much rather paid less and brought our own food to eat (exclusively – we did bring our own food to eat because I always travel with food).
• I wish we had had more time just vegging out in our sleep area. I didn’t feel like I could let my kids stay up very late when we had to wake up at 6 am the next day! But, if we ever did it again, I wouldn’t rush in the morning to get everything packed and back in the car only to sit in the cafeteria (and I understand this is just the nature of group travel/events, not a complaint).
• If you’re wondering, there was no “special merchandise” for the sleepover event- a missed opportunity in my opinion! I would’ve loved “I slept with the sharks” woven patches or tshirts.
• There wasn’t a sea lion show for the day after our sleepover – and after looking at the calendar, I didn’t realize how much their public hours range! If you’re choosing a date, look at how late everyone else will be there, and what shows are available the next day if you want to maximize “time without hundreds of other people” and/or see certain things.
• The staff were all friendly and patient! My main complaint was something out of the aquarium’s control – kids in our group were really distracting; shrieking when they went in the tunnels in some exhibits, play-fighting, interrupting and of course a very hands-off parent. The minimum age for the general sleepovers is 7 and that’s fine, but I would’ve really loved for the small groups to be broken out by age. Again, of course this is a risk with group travel, but it was a bummer because we missed out on seeing one section in part due to the hands-off parent delaying things.
• You walk a lot, at night and in the morning! We visited Zoo Atlanta during the day before the sleepover night, which was also a fair amount of walking, and I’d probably have done something less active during the day if I’d realized.
• They told us about a TV show that was made at the Georgia Aquarium, with more behind the scenes action: The Aquarium. At the time of this blog post, it was streaming on Max.

I’d definitely recommend this experience if you’re considering it! Please feel free to ask questions in the comments and I’ll answer them if I can. I couldn’t find much information out there when I was trying to plan.