In a crash of waves, descend into Wild Reef and get a diver’s-eye view of a diverse marine metropolis.

Get as close as you want to sharks. Explore underwater gardens of iridescent corals and — yes — garden eels. Wander through a lagoon and mangrove forest and visit a fishing village where residents saved their reef from destruction — all in this award-winning exhibit.

Take a 360-degree tour of an underwater reef community.

Follow a green sea turtle. Peek at a moray eel in a rocky crevice. Watch regal rays glide by. Get eye-to-eye with parrotfish and sharks. Visit Caribbean Reef, Shedd’s award-winning 90,000-gallon circular habitat in the grand rotunda.

Take an exotic journey in the Amazon, home to one-third of all living things.

Watch out for anacondas and piranhas, spiders, rays and crocodiles. In churning river channels, still lakes and even flooded treetops look for tetras, turtles and fruit-eating fish called tambaqui. See how the region’s animals, plants and people adapt to the water’s dramatic annual rise and fall.

A Holiday Fantasea features the Pacific white-sided dolphins, beluga whales and a California sea lion showing off their beauty and natural behaviors, accompanied by holiday music and festive backgrounds from around the world.

A Holiday Fantasea is a "must-sea" for your holiday season.

Discover the reimagined Oceanarium. Your favorite animals — plus new ones. The Pacific Northwest coast — expanded. And just for kids, Polar Play Zone, where little imaginations can run wild — and grow.

More than ever, the Oceanarium immerses the visitor in the vibrant coastal ecosystem of beluga whales, Pacific white-sided dolphins, sea otters and sea lions. Visitors will also find a host of fishes and invertebrates that make their homes, where freshwater flows into the ocean or where tides turn seascapes to landscapes and back again each day.

Kids have a place at Shedd that they can call their own—Polar Play Zone. It’s cool as ice and twice as nice! The penguins think so, too.

Play! Splash! Pretend! What would you like to be? A sleek sliding penguin? A deep-sea explorer? How about both? In Polar Play Zone, you can slip into a penguin suit and try being a bird in the Icy South play area. From there, head to the Icy North to explore the belugas’ Arctic waters in a kid-sized submarine. Don’t forget to shake hands—or is it arms?—with colorful sea stars in the touch pools. In Polar Play Zone, you’ll learn about polar opposites—big and small, fast and slow, shallow and deep, even north and south—while you play.

Travel the world in 80 habitats.

Dive into Oceans, from coastal kelp forests to the seafloor. Explore the self-contained ecosystems of Islands and Lakes. Visit Rivers -- big and small -- and learn more about our own Local Waters. Meet hundreds of amazing animals, from tiny mantella frogs to a a giant octopus, from Grand Cayman blue iguanas to Nile knifefish, and from moon jellies to sea stars. The Shedd even have maps turtles, in case you get lost.

Dolphins soar and belugas dance in Shedd's new aquatic show.

Our marine mammal presentations have showcased the awesome natural talents and learned skills of the animals - and their trainers. It's been pure magic. Now, with enhancements we've made to the Abbott Oceanarium's ampitheater, things are going to get a lot more magical.