It ended up being a really great idea to have a relaxing day between two such active days. We really hit the ground running on Monday!
Our first stop was the Georgia Aquarium. I had not been since it opened several years ago, and Steve had never been before, so it was a really fun experience. There are a few exhibits with "touch tanks" where a marine biologist tells you about a specific type of animal and you are actually allowed to touch the animal.
The first touch tank was full of manta rays. This one swam right up to Steve and kept opening and closing his mouth! Glenda said he was trying to wish Steve a happy Birthday. :)
It took us a few hours to see everything in the aquarium, but there were a few things (like the dolphin tales show and tree frogs) that we didn't take the time to check out. Instead, we spent a lot of time staring at the enormous ocean environment tank with the whale sharks and interacting with the penguins.
After the aquarium, we made our way over to CNN Center for lunch and a studio tour. There wasn't much to take pictures of, but it was neat to see the sets and production spaces for so many shows. Steve and I like a few different CNN and HLN shows and both of us have some background in journalism (mine was in middle school, but whatever) so seeing how the shows went from start to finish made our nerdy little hearts happy.
The grand finale was the World of Coca-Cola.
Fun fact, the World of Coca-Cola used to be in Underground Atlanta and moved to their new location in 2007. No one in our group had been to the new location, and I was the only one of the four of us who had ever been to the original location. This experience was totally new for everyone and we had a great time!
I feel like the World of Coke was particularly kid-friendly. The memorabilia was broken up into several smaller displays with a lot of interactive places and more modern things so that kids (and my ADD husband) won't get bored or burnt-out. There were also opportunities to get your picture taken with the Coca-Cola polar bear, huge Coke bottles designed by countries all around the world for the olympics, and an original 4-D movie with moving seats! I was very impressed considering the original location was basically a traditional museum where you just quietly walk through cases of old stuff.
Steve's favorite part of the whole tour was the tasting room at the end. There are fairly large hubs of fountain style drinks where you can taste all the Coca-Cola products produced from all over the world. Each hub represents a different continent and the drinks are labeled with the name of the drink and the country where it is produced. My favorite is from Peru. It's called Inca Kola and tastes kind of like bananas.
When you leave the World of Coke you get to choose a glass bottle of coke with a special label saying it's from the World of Coca-Cola as a souvenir. Pretty cool if you ask me. That's not to say they don't have a gift shop with tons of OTHER souvenirs for the coke fanatic, but those aren't included in the price of your ticket. :)
Once we finished drinking our fill of Coca-Cola, we made our way back to the car and headed home for burgers on the grill and home made banana pudding. All in all, the weekend was a complete blast! We are still recovering from all the fun even a full week later, but it was worth it.
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