1. Long Island Aquarium

    1. Long Island Aquarium

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    Riverhead, NY

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    Long Island Aquarium

    3.5 (357 reviews)
    Closed 10:00 am - 4:00 pm

    Long Island Aquarium Photos

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    Tarantula
    Natasha P.

    We stayed at the Hyatt West End because it was recommended if we wanted to spend the day at the Aquarium. We were so disappointed at how small the Aquarium was. The entire experience took 25 mins max. There was morning special and it was so crowded. I wouldn't recommend driving hours to come visit or doing a staycation here.

    Samantha C.

    We made our yearly trip to the aquarium to celebrate my niece's birthday. Fun fact is that no matter how old you are, you could get in free for your birthday. Reminder: bring proof of date of birth. Since my sister and my niece are days apart, they both got in free. Planning it out this way is great because it helps offset the cost. An adult ticket will run you $50. A child above the age of 3 is about $32. Is it worth it for the kids, totally. We loved our visit and got to actually see the penguins this time! One of the things to definitely do when on the Island.

    Turtle
    Salvador Z.

    I'm in town on a business conference and our planners organized an after work event at the Long Island Aquarium which included dinner appetizers and an open bar. We had the entire aquarium to ourselves. We were informed to walk around at our leisure and there would be appetizers in various locations within the aquarium. I got to see turtles, sharks, sea lions, and various species of fish too. Very cool venue to be able to network with colleagues and have an ice breaker discussion about the aquarium. Everyone had a blast.

    Brittany T.

    High prices, but worth a full day of seeing the awesome sights & shows and different fun things to do!

    Meri L.

    Hard to say. I found it to be expensive, $50 per adult. I highly suggest getting discount tickets at the library. You can finish your entire time in about two hours or so with seeing everything. It can also be very crowded with strollers everywhere so it's hard to navigate and look at different exhibits. As soon as you walk in you can pet stringrays and feed them. Just be careful as they do splash water. There's things to see both inside and outside. There's also shows to attended as well as different experiences for an extra cost. Overall, the day was good. I just feel it's a bit overpriced.

    Barred Rabbitfish
    Harris L.

    BLUF: 3.5 out of 5 stars. A good experience, best for pre-teens and younger. Long Island Aquarium (LIA) is a solid regional attraction. While not as impressive as larger aquariums, LIA can still fill an hour or two of one's time, or longer, depending on one's enthusiasm for the exhibits and attractions. Long Island Aquarium offers some personal experiences that some larger world-class aquariums don't. Subject to extra cost and seasonal availability, it is possible to feed stingrays, dive in a shark cage, and get personal photos with penguins, seals, and sea lions. Feeding / petting stingrays -- generally characterized as the ocean's puppy dogs -- is the lowest cost and most accessible of these experiences. The stingray pool is straight in from the aquarium's entrance. Long Island Aquarium also has a number of attached attractions, including a gaming arcade, and a giant play tree set. Most of LIA's displays are compartmentalized short experiences, which makes it easy to go exhibit to exhibit with breaks in-between. The aquarium is pricey, with adult tickets costing $48.99 per person plus tax and credit card fees. Discounted tickets are available for locals at local libraries, and for those staying at the attached hotel. AAA New York offers a minor discount ($2 per ticket, up to 5 tickets) for those unable to take advantage of other discounts. The cost is mostly understandable, as it takes significant resources to maintain healthy and enriched environments for all the lifeforms at the aquarium. Long Island Aquarium has its own parking lots, about two blocks north. LIA does have a cafeteria, but those not visiting as part of a school trip should consider dining elsewhere, as there are several options within walking distance, including some with riverfront seating.

    Sea Lion Presentation
    Tracy D.

    We took my daughter to the Long Island Aquarium when they were having their 25th Anniversary promotion where adult tickets were $25 on the 25th of the month in the summer months (which is pretty much half price). General Admission on a normal day is on the expensive side at $50.99 for adults and $35.99 for kids considering the small size of the aquarium. It had been quite a while since we had been to the aquarium since it opened so many years ago. You can easily find parking on the street in the neighborhood streets. The aquarium was nice with lots of sea animals to see. There are both indoor and outdoor exhibits. My daughter loved looking at the penguins and turtles. There was a short sea lion show, but I remember it being longer in the past or at least I remember them doing more tricks to impress the audience. On the other side of the aquarium there was a butterfly exhibit that was really fun. Lots of butterflies that flew all around and very close to you. It was funny that when we were trying to leave the experience room that there was two blue butterflies that were trying to make a break for it. They have a secondary exit room in case some butterflies attempt to escape and they can easily catch them to bring them back to their habitat. Overall we had fun time and my daughter took home an axolotl puppet home.

    Cafe
    Donathan D.

    We had a great time! We started off with the seal show. It was shorter than I remember but still a great show. Only two seals performed but my daughter loved it. After that we walked around he got to go in the crab pit and put them up. We went in a play area that was an extra $12 but it has slides and stuff a cool thing that was extra. We ate in the cafe chicken fingers fries and a drink was like $20 it was enough to share as I wasn't that hungry. After we seen everything we ended it with a shark feeding show which was mad cool!

    Sting rays
    Maureen C.

    I can't believe in my four decades of life I have never been to this aquarium! My son has been driving me crazy to touch sting rays, I saw the LIA had this feature and as soon as you walked in. So off we went! I got tickets from my local library at a 20% discount, so check your library before going! The aquarium is right on Main Street. There is a parking lot about one block away which is $12 to park all day (cash only). There is a shuttle between the parking lot and the aquarium which literally takes less than a minute, but it is nice that they offer that especially in the winter months. The aquarium was not busy at all on a Saturday morning, we were able to touch the stingrays as soon as we walked in, which made all the difference in the trajectory of our day because that was my son's one thing he wanted to do, and as soon as we walked in they were there. for three dollars you can get little mini fish to feed the stingrays. there was also an interactive turtle feeding that they had fun at. There are a couple of seals outside, which are really fun to watch. The aquarium is really cute themed and was easy to navigate. Outside there was even a treehouse play area whic was really nice for them to go up and burn off a little extra energy. There's a small café, we brought our own lunchbox of food, but we're able to sit in there and enjoy our lunch out of the cold. There is also a really nice butterfly area that was included in the admission, wear bright colors if you want the butterflies to land on you. My son wore an orange sweatshirt and they were literally following him around. There are a couple of gift shops that are also reasonably priced, overall it's a really cute day trip and if you wanted to make a night of it at one of the hotels for swimming or something in the winter, the Hyatt is connected right next-door. We will definitely be back.

    Amanda K.

    We loved coming to the aquarium! You can get a free ticket if you come within 7 days of your birthday so we were able to get one ticket free! Definitely keep that in mind as sometimes ticket prices can be a bit high. We spent several hours here and really enjoyed seeing the different shows/feedings and walking around on our own. I definitely recommend!

    Victoria C.

    10/10 experience for my sons 3rd birthday that we just celebrated this past weekend at the aquarium ! Jacqueline and Mary were super attentive via email prior to the party and when we got there everything was well taken care of, I did not have to think of a thing because it was handled. The food options were straight forward for the buffet and plenty of soft drink options. Our guests had a blast walking around and seeing the different animals/fish. We even had one of the staff come in with two critters for us to touch and educated on us on them. I would definitely recommend this venue for future parties and to friends/family. I think the price was very reasonable for everything that was offered and my 20+ guests stayed an extra hour to explore the aquarium with no additional costs.

    Andres A.

    A really interesting place, it seems small but they have a lot of areas and tanks to explore a diverse array of fish and sea life. Unfortunately, because we visited in January, some of the outdoor amenities were not available to visit (some were open, but it was too cold to see). One of the most interesting part of the aquarium was the butterfly display. They had many unique and beautiful butterflies flying around in a habitat which was conducive to their needs. Highly recommend this place if you are looking for something to do with either adults or kids.

    Antoinette P.

    We visit the aquarium at least 12 times a year & the season passes make it so worth it! We love all of the exhibits especially the butterfly room & it's become such a fun family outing both my kids enjoy

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    3 years ago

    Amazing place for the family! Not a whole day adventure, but I'd say about 4-5 hours of fun activities!!

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    Fun way to spend some time if the weather outside isn't great. Would definitely come back

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    Page 1 of 9

    Ask the Community - Long Island Aquarium

    Does the aquarium have a cafe?

    Yes. There is an indoor cafe and outdoor seating. They also have an outside snack stand open in the summer

    When does reservations for the shark dive close? Im trying to reserve for Friday but it says no times available? I thought it was 11am friday-sunday?

    Give us a call. We're having some technical issues with our e-commerce. You do need 48 hours to reserve, so please call today. Our reservation team is at 631.208.9200, ext. 426. If you get the VM, leave a message, mention that you do want to… 

    I see that shark diving starts at 11am daily but when does it end?

    The program begins at 11, but the end time depends on how many participants there are. Only 2 people can dive at the same time, so if we have 10 people booked, and you go last, you won't be done for quite a while. You are in the shark habitat… 

    What hotels are in the area?

    There's a Hyatt attached to the building and the Preston House and Hotel is right across the street!

    How is the food at the aquarium?

    Overall, pretty bad. Bring snacks. It's got the basics, soft drinks, pretzels, French fries and a few other things but they don't taste very good and are on the expensive side.

    Is there a cafeteria where I can purchase food?

    Yeah! But you can also leave and eat somewhere else. There's tons of good places to eat around there.

    Don’t See Your Question? Ask Away!

    Review Highlights - Long Island Aquarium

    My husband did the shark dive as part of the celebration of the 145th anniversary of our church.

    Mentioned in 15 reviews

    Read more highlights

    Mystic Aquarium

    Mystic Aquarium

    3.7
    (680 reviews)
    48.3 mi

    We really enjoyed our experience at the Mystic Aquarium! The beluga whales were, as expected,…read moreabsolutely majestic. There was a large variety of really cool things there, including the variety of seals, the ray touch pool (totally worth the feeding experience), the African penguins, and of course all of the fascinating fish. The facility itself was well maintained and clean - unfortunately the ticket printing machine at the ray touching pool was broken, which resulted in a ~15 minute delay in line, which kind of sucked. One thing that didn't sit quite right with me was the seal show. Maybe I was reading into it too much, but a lot of it felt like the seals were trained for our entertainment, and not in the name of conservation or animal welfare; the experience felt closer to SeaWorld than for the benefit of the animals. Overall a fan of the aquarium though, great experience.

    I tend to have mixed feelings about zoos and aquariums, and that response seems to correlate to my…read moreperception of how well the animals are cared for or what their quality of life is. The Mystic Aquarium was small and dirty. Some of the environments seemed way too small for the creatures in them. The penguins seemed to be happy in their little group, and the seals seemed to enjoy just basking in the sun. Everything else felt way too tiny for the fish, and I mostly just felt sad the entire time. I'm also pretty sure I saw a dead jellyfish. As an adult, the ticket price is way too high for what you get. They also had a number of up-sell/add-on options not included in the regular ticket price. I think, if you have some young kids, you might be able to squeeze a little bit of magic out of this experience, but otherwise I found the Mystic Aquarium to be far too depressing.

    Photos
    King and Heir. Sculptor Kent Ullberg 9-6-1997 In memory of Roger Tory Peterson, Artist and Naturalist
    King and Heir. Sculptor Kent Ullberg 9-6-1997 In memory of Roger Tory Peterson, Artist and Naturalist
    Mystic Aquarium
    Mystic Aquarium

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    Long Island Aquarium - aquariums - Updated July 2026

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