Having had a family membership for more than a decade and a half, I can safely say that I've spoken to more FORMER members since its renovation than a I have new members. on a personal note the crystal is still hideous, and on a a practical one, due to its natural lighting excludes an awful lot of display space for UV sensitive exhibits and is a truly horrible use of floor space.

Do we need to go through this again? The renovation was a huge expansion of floor space and exhibits. The parts of the new ROM space with natural light exhibit dinosaur bones. The renovated exhibit spaces and new crystal additions make the ROM finally a coherent museum where you can walk through the galleries in a circular fashion. The most confusing part of the museum these days is the temporary exhibit space on the top floor of the old building, which cuts off the flow every time they put something in there.

I know that there are lots of people who don't like the look of the crystal. But the renos that went on with the addition (light years better restaurants; bigger, more coherent temporary space in the basement, huge new galleries for Asian artifacts and the native gallery (instead of Druxy's(!)) and moving the Canadian gallery into where the temporary exhibits were before, etc., etc., etc.) make the museum way, way better. Do you really think that the old dinosaur dioramas, without the biggest and best skeletons exhibited because there was no space for them, were better than the current, light-filled gallery with better EVERYTHING? C'mon.
 
Wow thanks for that TOCG! The inside of the tunnel is looking a lot bigger than I imagined.
 
Was that artificial coral in the main tank?
 
Yes. I'm sure that removing that amount of live rock needed to recreate a "reef" directly from the ocean would be an impossible and/or very controversial/illegal undertaking. Don't think that would fly in 2013. I'm sure the ocean would like to keep some. Once the tanks are filled with water, and fish and lights turned on, the artificial reefs will look spectacular.
 
Yes. I'm sure that removing that amount of live rock needed to recreate a "reef" directly from the ocean would be an impossible and/or very controversial/illegal undertaking. Don't think that would fly in 2013. I'm sure the ocean would like to keep some. Once the tanks are filled with water, and fish and lights turned on, the artificial reefs will look spectacular.


Many aquariums avoid using live rock (from various regions) because of the Peacock Mantis Shrimp...they hide in live rock and can kill just about anything that shares a tank with them....that and they can bust right through plexiglass. Seriously, look these little guys up on Youtube.
 
Thanks! Fiesty little guys. I'm sure that they would need their own (concrete) aquarium lol.

I think one needs ballistic glass to keep them contained
 
haha, yes! That would make more sense. I learned something new today, thank you. I can't wait for this to open. Little kids are much better than me, however, at retaining information, so I will be sure to bring along some nieces and nephews who can make fun of me for remembering nothing except seeing the beautiful fish @ Ripleys :p
 

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