Underwater in Times Square with National Geographic

Over spring break, the girls and I checked out National Geographic's Encounter: Ocean Odyssey in Times Square. What a fascinating experience! I'll be honest, we had no idea what to expect, especially because I knew there wasn't suddenly an aquarium in the middle of Manhattan. But I'll get to that in a moment.

For starters, it's worth mentioning that this is a popular activity. Combine that with a holiday week, and the venue was quite crowded. That said, I think the staff did a good job of maintaining crowd control, and separating everyone into groups of 20 or so people made it feel like we'd be able to see everything and not get squashed in the process.

Thanks to some truly amazing technology, we went "underwater" and experienced all sorts of sea life on our tour: from coral reefs and kelp forests to a battle between two Humbold squid. In one room, we put on 3D glasses in order to witness a Humpback whale's feeding frenzy (I'm still dazzled by that one). There are plenty of touch screens for kids that need to reach out and tangibly experience things, including the last room which showed us the environmental factors that are damaging our oceans and their inhabitants. I felt like we left having learned some cool new facts about ocean life as well as our responsibility to protect it.

Due to the "underwater" factor, photo taking was a bit challenging, but trust me when I say this is a very cool, immersive and educational experience that the whole family will enjoy. At the moment, National Geographic is offering a family 4-pack deal at $99 for visits this spring. Enjoy!

Disclosure: We were given complimentary tickets to attend Ocean Odyssey. All opinions herein are my own.