Atlanta City Adventure 2017

This year has been crazy and with the move to our new home in May, we really did not plan on a summer vacation for the family. Devon & I both had vacation time to spend but did not want to just sit in the house working to fix it up. <Although, we are still ‘moving’ in as we put it.>

We decided to take 3/4 days and go to Atlanta. A quick drive that we would get to do some fun things in the town. Although we have driven through multiple times, we never have seen some of the attractions. We wanted to see the World of Coca-Cola, The Georgia Aquarium, see a Atlanta Braves game at the new Suntrust Park, and just experience the city.

What an awesome spot! At first, we both thought how much fun could the kids have at a place about soda! Well, the four of us had an absolute blast! The entrance is an inspiring exhibit that leads to the Coca-Cola anthem. They really did a phenomenal job at bringing the Cocoa-Cola storyline together and making you feel part of it.

When you arrive you select your Coca-Cola Beverage of choice and meet your intro guide in the first room. She gives you some history, shares some artifacts of Coca-Cola, and then leads you into a theater where you see an awesome video. You are then off to the museum. The kids really liked the interactivity of finding the recipe, the design your own bottle, and writing letters on what Coke means to them. Then of course the end where they get to taste Coca-Cola from around the word was a huge hit.

The entire experience was pretty spot on and for a Coca-Cola Family like ours it was something cool to learn and interact with. Check it out!

Often told by friends that this was the best aquarium we were excited to tackle it. The entire floor plan is segmented into section so that you can visit each one and learn about it. Always trying to expand our kids horizons we took the time to go through each section and they do a very good job at teaching about not only the exhibits but how you can take part in the conservation efforts.

The star was really the Whale Sharks! There is nothing like it and we sat in awe of them for a good half hour (would have been longer but Kennedy had to visit the ladies room).

As you all know I love Greek food. I saw this highly rated restaurant in the Atlanta area and decided to visit. We called this the adult dinner of the trip. It is a very nice restaurant but we could have skipped the kids visiting. They were weary of the food and although they love certain greek foods they did not really enjoy the evening. However, I LOVED the food.

I had the lamb shank and it was out of this world. The first bite transformed me back to Greece where we had lamb in the mountains on one of our family vacations. It was perfect. This is a must visit but maybe without kids that are loud and break glasses. LOL!

Maddox and I have a thing where we visit ballparks yearly and track them. This visit to Atlanta gave us a chance to check out the new SunTrust park. We are almost to a dozen parks at this point and are pretty critical of the experience. SunTrust does deliver. A bit of a drive from our downtown hotel, we arrived during a lovely rainstorm. The whole area was built around the park and had plenty of restaurants and bars. The park alone is beautiful and had an array of gourmet food options, friendly staff, and easy navigation. I really could not complain about the overall experience. It was a lot of fun.

On the way home a colleague recommended we visit the Wild Animal Safari park. <https://animalsafari.com/Georgia/> It is about 45 minutes south of Atlanta, we decided it would be a fun thing to do on the way back home.

This MADE the trip! We arrived to the park and although it was raining we decided to go through anyway. I stopped at the entrance, paid our admissions, and bought food. Now, they reccomend one back and I do not know how I exactly bough a case but we had enough.

I opted to drive our own vehicle, my truck even thought they warned about possible damage. We rolled down the windows and drove in. Now…..if you are a Walking Dead fan and recall all the episodes with the countless zombies swarming you. This was it just with animals. The truck was surrounded by buffalo, bison, giraffes, cows, etc.

The start of the adventure had Devon getting slobbering on by a buffalo and the rest of us laughing. But then Kennedy wanted to feed the giraffe. This massive, beautiful animal walked to her window and my little girl went to give one pellet of food. The Giraffe sensed weakness and went for the entire bag on her lap. A blood curling scream occurred and Kennedy darted across the truck. Needless to say, she was done for the day.

We enjoyed the park with two drive throughs and a ton of fun photos. I highly reccomend it for young families.

That was our trip. Let us know if you have any specific questions but it is totally worth the drive to get away for a long weekend. ~The Nickolaou Family