The Monterey Bay Aquarium Rebuilt Its Family Gallery Around the Penguins

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's second-floor family gallery, next to the Kelp Forest, has been rebuilt twice in 26 years. The penguins came through the 2008 rebuild as a returning favorite, and this fall's rebuild puts them at the center of the room. Ocean in Motion / La Danza del Mar opened on Saturday, November 7, and replaces the Splash Zone. Its centerpiece is a much larger African penguin habitat. It sits among a coral reef, seahorse towers and leaping fish, and all of them ask children to move like the animals in front of them.

Some of the birds in that habitat are older than the gallery around them.

A Temporary Room That Never Left

The Splash Zone opened in April 2000. According to the Aquarium's own history, it was the first children's museum ever built inside an aquarium. It was meant to be temporary, but it was popular enough that it became permanent.

Eight years later the Aquarium rebuilt it as "Splash Zone: Ocean Homes," which opened March 17, 2008. The 2008 press kit said the expansion doubled the family space and split it into three habitats: the Enchanted Kelp Forest, Coral Reef Kingdom and Rugged Rocky Shore. The same release promised that visitor favorites would stay, and the first one it listed was "the colony of blackfooted penguins."

The three versions of the room line up like this:

The 2008 room was built for exploring. Children could crawl through a coral reef cave, make waves along the rocky shore, and look into a 40-foot touch pool at the entrance from the Kelp Forest. The 2026 room is built for copying. When Monterey County NOW toured it, Emily Saich, the Aquarium's vice president of exhibitions, said the team had planned the project for several years and built on the earlier gallery while adding newer research. Monterey County NOW reported that tour on October 26.

The Birds That Outlasted Two Rebuilds

The Aquarium's Meet Our African Penguins page profiles 17 birds, and it now sits under the Ocean in Motion section of the website. Several profile dates go back further than the gallery being replaced:

• Durban's profile is dated February 7, 1992, eight years before the Splash Zone opened. His page says he has the softest bray in the colony, swims in circles waiting to be hand-fed capelin, and is good at collecting rocks for a nest.
• Dassen's profile is dated December 29, 1998. The page says he has one of the loudest brays and lists his brother Seekoei and his uncles Durban and Karoo as family. He is paired with Rey.
• Bee's profile is dated March 23, 1999. She is named for South Africa's bumble bees, she darts after silversides at feeding time, and the page notes she is good at guarding her nest.
• Gerry's profile is dated November 30, 2022. She hatched at the Aquarium, moved to another facility as a juvenile and met her mate Obsidian there. Both now live in Ocean in Motion.
• Calypso's profile is dated February 7, 2024, and she is one of the colony's newest birds.

The bird the Aquarium has introduced most often is Rey, whose name is short for Monterey. She hatched at the Aquarium on June 4, 2014, and has lived there ever since. She is visually impaired and was one of the colony members reporters met at the October preview, according to Monterey County NOW.

The colony is part of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums' Species Survival Plan. The program works to keep penguin populations at accredited zoos and aquariums healthy and genetically diverse. The wild population makes that work matter. The Aquarium's African penguin species page lists the bird as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List and estimates about 9,900 breeding pairs in the wild as of 2024.

Labels That Read Like a Cast List

The penguins' names now appear in the exhibit itself. A November 6 Aquarium article, "Waddle, wiggle, care," explains that the labels beside the new habitat introduce each penguin by name and describe its personality and the way it moves. The Aquarium calls this approach "critical anthropomorphism," which means showing children how penguins resemble people and how they differ, without turning the birds into cartoons.

All of the gallery's labels are written like a children's book, with the animals as the main characters, so a parent can read them aloud. The labels are bilingual, as the exhibit's two names suggest. In the Aquarium's September 8 release, CEO Jenny Gray explained the reasoning:

"By inviting children to move their bodies like a penguin or a leaping blenny and mirror their behavior we're activating their brain's empathy engine through play, and creating a deep and joyful connection with ocean life."

The "Waddle, wiggle, care" article says the exhibit draws on research from the ACE for Wildlife Network. The network is a group of 31 accredited zoos and aquariums that test ways to build empathy for animals. This also explains why the penguins take the center of the room. A child is more likely to care about a bird with a name, a family and a favorite fish than about a species described on a sign.

What the Rest of the Room Asks Children to Do

The gallery was designed for children ages two to six and is open to visitors of all ages. Each animal comes with a movement children can copy:

1. Leaping blennies. Stepping-stone shapes on the floor lead to an open-top habitat at eye level. There, dozens of blennies hop across wet rocks as water washes over them.
2. Big-belly seahorses. Oversized seagrass towers reach toward the ceiling for children to hold, next to a live habitat where seahorses wrap their tails around green seagrass.
3. The coral community. In one of the largest single habitats, bluespotted ribbontail rays glide over a 20-foot living reef while a custom wave machine moves the water. Clownfish shelter in anemones nearby, and an accessible coral play area beside the reef lets children climb up, over and through it.
4. African penguins. Projections of waddling and swimming penguins lead to the habitat. Digital silhouettes beside it invite children to waddle, flap and shake their tails.

Some of these animals were in the old room too. The 2008 release listed pot-bellied seahorses and both splendid and spotted garden eels as new additions to Ocean Homes. In the new gallery, seahorses hold on to seagrass, garden eels sway, and flamboyant cuttlefish flutter and march across the seafloor. Each one now has its own movement to copy.

The play area beside the reef has textured surfaces, engraved letters, squishy "sand" flooring, glowing bubble coral and soft, oversized anemone tentacles along a winding wooden path. The room has natural light and eight original soundtracks matched to the animals' movements. Composer Douglas Morton and Kar Labs, a collective that supports young composers working in Africa's wildlife industry, oversaw the music, and Kar Labs focused on the penguin tracks. Saich told Monterey County NOW that the team composed "while watching live animals or live footage of the animals we have on display" and tested the music with young children.

The gallery's major leadership gifts came from the Acton Family and Connie and Bob Lurie. The Susie and Gideon Yu Family sponsored the penguin habitat.

Visiting Between Now and New Year's

Ocean in Motion is on the second floor at 886 Cannery Row, in the space the Splash Zone used next to the Kelp Forest. The Aquarium's ticket page lists these prices for admission sold through December 31, 2026:

• Adults: $65
• Youth ages 5 to 17: $50
• Seniors 70 and older: $50
• Children 4 and under: free

At $65 per adult, Aquarium membership is worth a look before the holidays. It includes unlimited visits all year plus member-only hours and events. Members got the first look at the gallery during previews from October 31 to November 3, as the Monterey Peninsula Post reported. Through the Museums for All program, a valid SNAP/CalFresh EBT card and matching photo ID get the cardholder and up to three guests in free. Those tickets are issued in person.

Between visits, the Aquarium's exhibit page lists two live cams for the gallery, the Penguin Cam and the Coral Reef Cam.

At Meza Properties, we believe every place has a story worth telling, and the Splash Zone's 26 years on Cannery Row are a good example. If you are planning your own next chapter on the Monterey Peninsula, let's talk about how to start your home's bespoke launch.