Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
From a rainbow reef to vibrant jellyfish, sharks, and stingrays, Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is home to thousands of underwater wildlife creatures from all over the world.
Watch the mesmerizing tanks from outside or jump in with both feet during a Discovery Dive into a shark tank. The aquarium prides itself on providing educational opportunities, like its Aquarist for a Day program, where patrons peek behind the scenes to discover how the aquarium cares for its animals and fish and how it keeps the tanks clean and functional.
The aquarium’s gift shop is an attraction of its own, full of adorable plushies of your favourite sea creatures and Toronto themed trinkets to remember your trip.
For up-to-date information and details on Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada, we recommend you visit their website. For information about other places of interest to explore nearby, keep scrolling to see what Destination Ontario recommends.
More about Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada hosts special events, like Friday Night Jazz, Sensory Friendly Day or Paint Nite.
Dive into the learning experience with a photography class or a morning yoga class in the aquarium. Throughout the day, make sure to catch a live interactive dive show, where an educator narrates a diver’s live plunge into the animal habitat. You can also learn about the creatures under the sea directly from an aquarist, with the aquarium offering feeding and educational talks each day.
For those looking for underwater entertainment, book a close encounter with the stingrays in the aquarium’s Ray Bay. Visitors could spend hours at Dangerous Lagoon, searching every nook and cranny of the enclosure for the magnificent sand tiger sharks, sawfish, green sea turtles, moray eels and shiny lookdown fish. Planet Jellies is another eye-catching exhibit, where bright alien-like jellyfish float around a backlit kreisel tank so they can be seen from every angle. Don’t miss the Life Support Systems gallery, which showcases the complex and surprisingly colourful pipes, tubes and chemistry that maintain all of the delicate aquarium environments.
Make sure to check out the Shipwrecks exhibit, which is a museum-style historical exhibit about famed wreckages like Canada’s infamous Edmund Fitzgerald shipwreck. The Discovery Centre, designed for children but certainly entertaining for visitors of all ages, gives patrons a hands on experience with some slimy, wiggly and dangerous creatures. Touch a spiky horseshoe crab, watch a wobbegong disappear in the sand and get an inside look into a replica of a marine research submarine. Kids will love playing on the clownfish slide, but they’ll also have the opportunity to learn about the Great Lakes, sea creatures and Canadian water animals.
Nearby, the iconic CN Tower offers exceptional views of the city. Steam Whistle Biergarten is a few minutes’ walk away from the aquarium and offers tons of stylish seating in an historic railway roundhouse. Watch a live show at the waterfront Harbourfront Centre. Alternatively, plan to end your aquarium visit with a sporting event at Rogers Centre, across the pedestrian SkyWalk, so you can cross the busy city street safely (and with a great view of downtown).
Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is fully accessible by wheelchair and offers sensory friendly events periodically.
Last updated: August 18, 2023