Shark Reef Aquarium

This aquarium is not your typical aquarium. Visitors will have a total experience designed to transport you to an undersea ocean of sights, sounds and encounters. The Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Bay features dangerous and unusual animals from the world’s tropical waters and takes visitors on a journey.

Fourteen exhibits show dangerous aquatic predators. The largest exhibit is the 1.3 million gallon shipwreck where visitors experience an almost 360-degree view teeming with sharks and fish. The Touch Pool is a popular attraction, where guests can touch an ever changing collection of animals including sharks, rays or horseshoe crabs. More than 2,000 animals are displayed at Shark Reef Aquarium, over 100 different species featuring 15 species of sharks.

Completed at a cost of nearly $60 million, the themed facility was designed with the idea of sending the visitor into this underwater world. Since opening, Shark Reef Aquarium has inspired nearly a million visitors a year. The aquarium was built dedicated to establishing and maintaining the highest standards of animal care. So visitors are provided with an entertaining and educational experience.

Mandalay Bay Shark Reef Aquarium

Shark Reef aquarium is the home of over 2,000 animals. You have the chance to dive with a higher concentration of sharks than you’d ever find in the wild. You can also experience the newly opened Sea Monsters Revealed, the world’s largest exhibition to uniquely preserved sea life. Shark Reef has high standards of animal care, while providing an entertaining and educational experience. Visit us and enjoy a once in a lifetime experience right in Las Vegas.

This is the perfect attraction for any family that loves nature and animals. See some of these the sea’s greatest wildlife from a point of view that you rarely get at big aquariums, much less on the Vegas Strip. Children and adults can find out whatever they want to know about these majestic creatures from the experts on staff at this Las Vegas attraction.

Mission Statement
Shark Reef adheres to high standards of animal care, while providing an entertaining and educational experience, as well as contributing to education and research initiatives.

Conservation
Shark Reef Aquarium is committed to natural resource conservation and has implemented many initiatives to reduce our impact, including converting exhibit lighting to LED, installing variable frequency drive motors on our pumps, recycling exhibit water, sorting trash to divert for recycling and buying sustainable seafood.

Education
Shark Reef offers a comprehensive educational program for organized school groups of all ages, offering daily one-hour tours, as well as classroom sessions.

UNDERSEA EXPLORER VR THEATER
Have you ever dreamed of swimming with a humpback whale in Tonga or diving next to a 15-foot tiger shark in the Bahamas? Now’s the time to make that dream a reality. . . virtually.

A 36-seat motion-platform VR theater is at the heart of the experience. Put on your headset, sit back in the motion seats and be immersed in a world of undersea adventure. 360º 3-D virtual reality technology transports you to the South Pacific where a marine biologist takes you on a live-action journey to the nurturing grounds of the humpback whales, where you swim side-by-side with mother humpbacks and their new-born calves. Or if excitement is on your agenda, dive with tiger sharks and great hammerheads in the turquoise waters of Tiger Beach in the Bahamas.

A fully-realized experience that can be enjoyed by the whole family, the Undersea Explorer VR Theater engages the guest from its very start with an immersive and entertaining pre-show area, where guest learn about sharks and whales.

Take a selfie in the hyper-realistic shark cage, learn about the amazing anatomy of the humpback whale, track the movement real-time of sharks around the world and learn the secrets of the humpback whale songs, all as you prepare for your virtual adventure.

Included with Shark Reef Aquarium & Undersea Explorer package. VR films for ages 5 and older, younger children can enter the exhibit but must be accompanied by an adult. During VR experience children under 5 will need to rotate with a guardian or parent.

Shark Reef Aquarium is the first and only facility in Nevada accredited by the Association of Zoos & Aquariums. The AZA is dedicated to the advancement of zoos and aquariums in the areas of conservation, education, science and recreation. The AZA accreditation ensures that you are supporting an institution dedicated to providing excellent care for animals.