After my wife and oldest daughter had a down day at the cabin they were anxious to hit the road and check out the Downtown Aquarium in Denver. From the outside this place looked huge, and it was owned and operated by the Landry’s Company who you may be familiar with as they also run all the Rainforest Cafe restaurants. I was curious to see how it looked inside.

We had quite a bit of a drive from our cabin to the aquarium, so once we arrived and got inside we needed a quick pit stop. There was a long hallway where the restrooms were located and as you may guess I ran into two pressed penny machines. Always nice to start things off with some new coins for our collection.

The first machine was a standard 4-design manual model. It has been updated to the new price point, and also accepted credit / debit or digital payments. I’m not sure if I even need to mention this anymore since this certainly seems to be the majority of machines now.

A little further down the hallway was the second machine, this time the larger 8-design version. Touch screen, all the standard payment options. The coin designs were cute but seem to be similar to many other aquariums but these did include the location on each coin which I always like.

With those freshly pressed pennies stashed away in my pocket it was time to head in and see some marine life. Some of the rooms had really high glass ceilings that brought in a lot of natural light which was great. The exhibits were well detailed but some of the pathways were a bit narrow causing some congestion with guests.

The machines kept rolling at this place. We had barely left the first area of the aquarium and I came across a collectible medallion set. The cabinet design was cool and I really liked the different shades of blue. The medallions have images of a Coconut Crab, River Otter, Tiger and a Mystic Mermaid.

The reverse side of all the coins was the same and had the Downtown Aquarium Denver, CO logo along with the Shark mascot and a couple sea stars.

We continued enjoying each section of the aquarium. Some of the tanks were enormous with amazing panoramic views inside.

They did even have a pretty big section for some land animals including a couple tigers. The theming in some of these areas honestly reminded me of the Rainforest Cafe dining rooms. I’m pretty sure the foliage was real, but some of it did seem like it could be fake just for ease of maintenance I guess.

My kids found a touch tank that is always a favorite of theirs. Plus we found some smaller tanks with some very unique creatures I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Eventually we came to an area that had a stingray “petting” area, a little snack bar and more importantly for me at least the last two pressed penny machines. The designs in this set included the shark mascot, an Eel, some type of big cat, and a couple turtles.

I quickly passed by the creepy looking shark donation container but tossed some money inside just to make sure he didn’t attack me. The last machine had penny designs of an octopus, scuba diver, snake and a couple sea horses.

At this point we had finished the entire aquarium but their restaurant had been calling my name. Earlier in the day I checked online and was able to secure a reservation just to make sure we could eat there. Our timing was almost perfect but the kind staff were happy to seat us anyways.

The restaurant was themed to look like we were in among some a coral reef. You could see a bunch of smaller tanks along the entrance walls, but inside there were very large tanks for our viewing pleasure during our meal.

My wife enjoyed a friend shrimp platter, and I decided to stick to land and ordered a chicken tortilla wrap. These were fine, nothing special but as we have become accustomed to at our local theme parks it seems like we were more paying for the ambience than the food. After our meal we checked out the gift shop for a few souvenirs and then hopped back in our car to head home for the day. I was pretty impressed overall with this aquarium and was happy with the total number of pressed pennies and medallions I was able to pick up as well. Now it was time to enjoy some quiet time at our cabin before heading out on our next adventure. Stay tuned and Keep on Pressing!

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