Atlanta Diaries - A weekend in Downtown

Atlanta, the capital and biggest city in Georgia. And if you are an outsider and just old enough (like me) you know it from the Olympics games in 1996. My wife and I visited Atlanta on a quick trip this February. We limited ourselves mostly too the downtown area and famous attractions (Ahem..No night life tips below). To save on time and tickets, we bought the City Pass, which incase of Atlanta, covers all the major attractions. 

Travel
We chose to travel by local metro MARTA to avoid parking hassle and it was a good decision. The per cost trip in MARTA is just 2.5$ and one time Breeze card is 2$.  The Peachtree Center station on North-South line and is closest to downtown attractions.

Atlanta Zoo (4.5/5)
We visited on a surprisingly warm February day. Even though the car parking was full, the ticket lines were short and fast. The main reason we visited this zoo was to see Pandas, and they are worth it. You could watch them eating bamboo shoots for a long time. 

Pandas enjoying sun and bamboo in Atlanta Zoo

 The zoo has many other attractions like animals from African Plains which has Giraffe, Rhinos, Lions and Elephants, and from African and Asian rain forest like Gorilla, Orangutan, Tiger, Leopard etc. The wetlands exhibit is interesting too. The zoo is not big and you could easily walk around in few hours. The ticket prices are reasonable and Pandas are worth it.
Tip - In case the Pandas are sleeping, just come back after making a round of zoo. They get hungry real fast.

The Centennial Olympic Park(3/5)
Simply call it the center of everything in Downtown Atlanta. All the key attractions in Atlanta are build around or near it. This was built during the Olympic games in Atlanta in 1996. There is fountain of rings and other water features, and few statutes. People interested in Olympics trivia may find some cool stuff here. For others like me, it offers a good nice walk in the park. The park offers pretty good view of downtown buildings. A large Ferris wheel (Sky view Atlanta) is located nearby to have the top view.

CNN Center(2/5)
It is famous, but definitely NOT a must go place. The tour starts in the building lobby where filled with large cafeteria and few shops. One of the very few places with tight security procedures for entry. The tour starts with going up on the long escalator with a really good view of all floors and the flags on top.Fun fact It is world's longest freestanding escalator, 196 feet long and eight stories high. 
This raised my expectations, but after this the whole tour was just plain and monotonous. The first stop was to have your tour picture taken at CNN desk. No personal pictures allowed here. After this our guide took us through various sections of news center telling us mostly trivia information. Frankly, you could find better information about CNN or news business/technology on Internet. The tour was around 40 minutes and the last 15 minutes about digital presence and other CNN affiliates felt really stretched. 

World Of Coca Cola (4.5/5)
It was a Saturday so ticket lines were long, thankfully we bought city pass earlier so we got quick entry to the lobby. We were served with souvenir red coke bottle. Next, a cheerful guide took our group to a hall adorned with coke ads from various countries and provided us general instructions for a self guided tour. We started our tour with a short emotional movie (or a long advert) about coke, after which we were free to go anywhere. The 4D movie about secret formula was interesting, The coke adverts from past and different countries was fun too. We took photo stops at Polar Bear, Coke couch and near big bottles. At all three places the camera person offered to take photos from our camera after taking it from his own. It was interesting to see different type of enlarged coke bottles from different countries and different adverts and art made our of coke cans and bottles. The best part was the coke tasting areas, where we tasted different coke brands from 5 continents (Africa was too sweet, Europe too bland for our taste) and different type of coke flavors, and that's not all. As we were exiting to the gift shop they gave us another souvenir bottle. The staff was amazing. Every member was helpful and has smile on his face. The world of coca cola is an interesting place to visit and spend a few hours.
Tip - Their photo deal was sweet. We bought all of ours. It had some 10 photos in a pen drive plus print copies of 3 of them. 

Georgia Aquarium (5/5)

Whale shark in the Ocean Voyager exhibit

This is one place you just cannot miss. And doesn't matter how much i try to explain in words, this is something one must see for to feel it. We visited this place on a Sunday. After seeing the long lines I was afraid that we may not be able to enjoy it fully, but how wrong I was. After photo op in front of green screen we entered the lobby, which was bustling with adults and kids alike. The best exhibit is ocean voyager with its giant glass window where one could spend hours watching whale sharks and other big fishes. The cold water quest with beautiful belugas are close second. I was amazed to see an albino crocodile for the first time in River Scout exhibit. The tropical Diver exhibit was interesting too. The Aquanaut exhibit is more informational and less interesting that other exhibits. Overall, Georgia aquarium is the best place to visit in Atlanta. We loved it.

Underground Atlanta(1/5)
We were expecting something like Reading Terminal market in Philly, but this was different. This is not a tourist place and is nothing like as promoted in tourism brochures. It is short walk from Five Points Metro station. Just a walking strip underground with shops on both sides. Most of the shops selling clubbing clothes, sneakers or accessories of different kinds. The upper level had no open shops. The underground market is called historical, but it looks just plain old and dim. The place was mostly empty for a late Saturday afernoon and frankly, we did not feel comfortable in this place. You will not miss much anything if you cross of this from your plan.

It was a good weekend trip. Most attractions other than the Zoo and Fernbank museum (which we missed) are around Centennial park, so it was easy to plan and City Pass was definitely helpful.