Antalya Airport to Antalya Aquarium transfer
Antalya Aquarium stands at the Konyaaltı end of the city, a short way back from the beach, and its centrepiece is a long glass tunnel running through a tank of reef fish, rays and sharks. Around it are themed displays, and under the same roof sit separate attractions including a snow room and reptile house. Everything is indoors and air-conditioned, which is the whole point: this is where families end up when it is too hot or too wet for a beach or a ruin. It is also the rare outing you can decide on the morning of: the drive is short and the weather does not come into it.
From Konyaaltı it is ten minutes, from the Lara and Kundu hotels twenty to twenty-five across the city, from Kemer and Beldibi about three quarters of an hour along the coast road. Belek and Kadriye are nearer fifty minutes, Side an hour and a quarter, Alanya two hours — from there it is a stop inside a full Antalya day rather than a trip in itself. The obvious pairings are Konyaaltı beach, the old town or one of the malls. Nobody sells a coach excursion to a wet Tuesday; a private car is what lets you decide over breakfast and be inside by eleven.
Going straight there from the terminal is 21 km and about 25 minutes, which works if your hotel is in Antalya itself: two or three hours indoors with the cases in the car can fill an awkward afternoon before the room is ready. From Belek eastwards you would drive back past the airport afterwards, which nobody enjoys on day one, and a rainy arrival is the only real exception.
Visiting Antalya Aquarium
The route is close to linear, which is the thing to know before you start: you follow it through the themed rooms and into the tunnel, and going back for a second look at something means walking against everybody else. So let children set the pace from the first tank rather than steering them towards the sharks. The tunnel is where every group stops moving, and if it is shoulder to shoulder when you reach it, wait a few minutes instead of shuffling through — the crowd arrives in waves and there is usually a gap behind the one in front of you.
Inside, the light is deliberately low and the air cool, and both take a minute to adjust to after a car park in July. A flash photograph through glass returns your own reflection and spoils the tank for whoever is standing beside you, so leave the phone to do what it does in the dark. The quietest stretch is the first hour of the day; the crush builds when a rainy morning has convinced the whole coast at the same time, and on those days the tunnel is the slowest part of the route. Other attractions share the roof, and each one costs its own half hour.
What decides the arrangement here is not the aquarium but the day around it. The visit is short and the drive is short, and both of those argue for keeping one car for the whole outing rather than booking two separate rides. From the door the rest of the Konyaaltı side is minutes away: the cliff promenade above the shore, the water park up the same slope, the model park on this side of the city — a second stop costs almost no road at all. From Side or Alanya, where the driving is the expensive part, build the day so that the aquarium is its middle rather than the whole of it.
- The route runs more or less one way, so decide before you go in whether anyone will want to walk back for a second look.
- Low light and thick glass mean a flash gives you a photograph of your own reflection and ruins the view for the person next to you.
- The other attractions under the same roof each cost their own half hour, so a family that only wants the fish can be in and out within a morning.
- Coming from the far end of the coast, check the day before that everything is running, because an hour and a quarter each way is a long journey to make for a closed door.