California Academy of Sciences With Steinhart Aquarium Admission Tickets

In addition to the date for which you purchased your ticket, your purchase is also valid for any available date with the same price.

The California Academy of Sciences is the first scientific academy founded west of the Atlantic seaboard. Established in 1853, the Academy opened the first public museum in California to share its research with the public. The building houses the Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, Kimball Natural History Museum, and the Osher Rainforest, a four-story indoor living rainforest in the heart of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

The Academy lost its museum and many artifacts in the Great Quake of 1906. Ten years later, the Academy reestablished itself in the Golden Gate Park. Here, the Academy expanded to include different exhibitions, including the Morrison Planetarium and the Steinhart Aquarium.

In 1989, the Loma Prieta Earthquake hit and served as an impetus for a remodeling of the Academy. After decades of work, the new Academy opened its doors on September 27, 2008.

Note: The Osher Rainforest is closing to the public August 21 through November 17, 2023, for infrastructure maintenance, but don’t let that stop you from visiting because there are endless discoveries to be made at the California Academy of Sciences.

What to Watch For

• The Steinhart Aquarium is home to 60,000 animals, including an African penguin colony, a Pacific octopus, and Claude, an alligator with albinism. A California Coast exhibit boasts a 100,000-gallon tank that recreates the coast’s ecosystem. An interactive tide pool exhibit allows visitors to connect with the diversity of the ocean.
• Inside the 75-foot dome of the Morrison Planetarium, visitors enjoy up-close, personal encounters with planets and stars. The immersive planetarium shows share the latest in scientific findings while taking viewers on a journey through outer space, displaying visualizations that are out of this world.
• Visitors step into another world when they enter Osher Rainforest. The dome teems with exotic animals, free-flying birds, and even an Amazonian tree boa. Take the canopy plunge, an elevator ride, to the floor of a flooded Amazonian forest. The four-story glass dome rises 90 feet above the rainforest as visitors step into the recreation of the unique ecosystem.
• The Kimball Natural History Museum is a world-class museum complete with an 87-foot-long blue whale skeleton suspended from the museum’s ceiling. Visitors are greeted by a T. Rex before journeying on to see other exhibits of fossils, gems, African landscapes, and California’s natural phenomena.