North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island, Manteo

This place is so awesome! They have incredible interactive exhibits and great prices. They have an amazing sea otter exhibit, HUGE shark tank exhibit, reptiles and amphibians, super cool touch tanks, and the jellyfish room is transcendent! The outdoor grounds area is scenic and peaceful as well. You can spend quite a bit of time both inside and out! The staff truly care about the animals, exhibits and are very willing to share their knowledge. Do recommend getting your tickets on their website, its easy and it can be extremely busy during the tourist seasons.

Great place for family visit. Location is terrific. Not a big aquarium but they have a diverse collection. Loved the jelly fish and the shark exhibits. The 20 minutes show in the Neptune theater was super educational. This show is not advertised enough so the administrators are reading, please make sure your website highlights this experience of this unique Globe screen and the information you provide. Very nice gift shop. Once you step out, there is the beautiful pier and a trail where you can see lots of birds. Recommend this place to all!

Our family loved this aquarium. You have to buy your tickets online in advance and select a time slot. It's right on the water and has a wonderful outside area for the kids to run around, a cafe to get lunch and a beautiful dock. The aquarium was the perfect size for my two young children age one and four. We absolutely loved the sea turtle rehab center. My four year old liked going to the different stations with his fake sea turtle and going through the different scenarios on what what wrong and how to help it. And what was even better, the real life turtle rehab center was right next door so we could watch the real life animals being helped. Will definitely be back!

When you get there, there is a circle to drop off people before parking. Parking can be pretty tight. I will say I would have given a 5 if not for our ticket lady. So, online you can get tickets early and if your a member at another aquarium get a few $$ off. We'll she wanted to see our membership card for the Shed aquarium but they don't have cards anymore just online qr code so this gal Felicity didn't believe us and we already showed our drivers license and we're standing with out 4month old in 90 degree heat... then she asked if we could let others through and stand off to the side. Unbelievable. Eventually she let us in but more difficult than needed. It otherwise a nice small aquarium can walk through in an hour easy. For bday kid parties they have a craft room area and a pier where staff help kids try fishing. Bathrooms are inside and outside which is nice. I wished there were more shaded spaces other than the nature trail.

We were staying down on Hatteras Island and decided to take a little trip up north and check out Roanoke Island and some of the attractions that they offered up there. They ended up eating and checking out the aquarium. This place isn't the biggest aquarium that you'll go to but we thought it had a lot of really great things to see. I think the sea turtle rehabilitation exhibit would be amazing to see but unfortunately it was under reconstruction when we were there. I think that would probably one of the biggest attractions. I would recommend checking this place out if you get a chance. The cost to get in is very low compared to a lot of major aquarium attractions like this and they have a lot of really nice things to see.