What to Know
- Shark Lagoon Nights
- Enjoy free entry to the aquarium's Shark Lagoon
- Aquarium of the Pacific
- Long Beach
- Jan. 31, March 7, and "select Friday evenings" throughout 2025
- 6 to 9 p.m.; check the schedule before heading out to the aquarium to confirm
The opportunity to gently place a few fingertips on a bamboo shark as it gracefully glides through a shallow touch pool is a moment long remembered, whatever your age.
For the opportunity to interact with a small and fascinating shark in an aquarium setting? This isn't a daily thing, or even a monthly or yearly thing, though imagine such an interesting encounter, we do.
But if you're a regular at the Shark Lagoon, the awesome outdoor area at the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach, then you know this terrific and tactile experience gill, er, will definitely happen and often, too.
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Sometimes, things get even awesomer around the Shark Lagoon: The aquarium welcomes visitors for free on select Friday evenings.
Those excellent, shark-touching evenings are swimming back our way in 2025, with the first event set for Jan. 31.
The hours for Shark Lagoon Nights are 6 to 9 p.m. and snacks — for the humans, we should add — will be available to buy, along with toasty drinks like coffee and cocoa.
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The sharks you'll touch are not large, of course, but you can view bigger beasties around the lagoon (they'll be behind glass, in their own sizable tanks).
Rays, too, are favorites of aquarium guests, so keep an eye out for these magnificent creatures.
For all of the dates and Shark Lagoon specifics, glide with ray-like grace by the Aquarium of the Pacific site now.