I wasn’t expecting much from Toronto’s new Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada. Its affiliation with the Ripley’s Believe it or Not entertainment chain had me worried it would consist of shallow touristy fare as opposed to an absorbing and educational experience. Its location — tucked next to the CN Tower downtown — suggested it would be small and cramped. And reports of lines so long over the holiday period that “children had to be turned away,” as one newspaper headline put it, and crushing crowds within sparked fears of a claustrophobic experience at a high price (adult tickets are $29.98, kids age 6-13 cost $19.98; meaning over $100 for a family of four).

I was wrong on all counts. Scared of lineups, my 10-year-old son and I showed up at opening time, 9 a.m. on a Sunday, to no queues, although crowds started to form early. We were immediately taken in by the aquarium’s warm hues, colourful exhibits and calming background music, and by the skeletons of a massive humpback whale and a toothy prehistoric xiphactinus killer fish hanging from the ceiling near the entranceway. Things would only get better, and I would hear the words “This is so cool” expressed several times by people around us.

Billed as Canada’s largest indoor aquarium, Ripley’s opened Oct. 16, featuring a collection of 16,000 marine animals from 450 species, everything from lobsters to octopuses to sharks, in a $130-million facility. The owners hope to recoup their investments by attracting 2 million visitors a year, which might not be a stretch considering early crowds.

The exhibits start on a relatively mundane note, but are well presented, with tanks featuring such fish of the Great Lakes as largemouth bass, walleye, white bass, brook trout and sturgeon, giving an idea of what sports fishermen are hauling in. There are also odd characters like the long-snouted paddlefish, which resembles a duck-billed platypus.

Red Alaskan crabs with bodies the size of volleyballs and massive pincers scuttle about in a separate tank, as well as Atlantic lobsters of astounding girth, some decked out in unexpected hues of pale blue and white. An octopus in all its tentacled glory swirled before us, suckers gripping the glass as its skin tone changed colour to match its background.

At the Rainbow Reef, all the colours of the rainbow were represented by flashy inhabitants normally seen on tropical vacations, like the clown surgeon fish and the blue ring angelfish.

But it was the next section that was the unanimous highlight — the Dangerous Lagoon, a glass tunnel cutting through a 2.5-million-litre tank, the aquarium’s largest, inhabited by 14 species of sharks including tiger, sandbar and reef sharks swimming close enough to touch. They were accompanied by sea turtles and huge rough-tail stingrays. Spectators are transported on a 100-metre-long moving walkway that reduces bottlenecks (they can also step off for a longer look). There are also underwater pop-up viewing bubbles for the kids, and a crawl-through tunnel that cuts across a fish tank children can crawl through for their own intimate visit with the marine life while parents snap pictures from outside.

Afterwards came a toddlers’ fun zone with periscopes and slides and a cafeteria. I figured the aquarium visit was all but done, but it turned out there was much more. The gallery featured a variety of venomous fishes and electric eels that can deliver a strong enough shock to knock a man over, a regal lionfish with poisonous spikes, and piranhas. There were stinging walls of jellyfish illuminated in everchanging pastel hues, and a section dedicated to the glory of sharks, including the fearsome great white. At the end, after three hours of awestruck happy wandering, open tanks let visitors touch the sandpapery skin of the small white-spotted bamboo shark, the tank-hard shell of the horseshoe crab and the slimy back of the elegant stingrays.

“This is so cool,” my son said. I had to agree.

IF YOU GO

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada is at 288 Bremner Blvd. in downtown Toronto, at the foot of the CN Tower. It is open seven days a week, Fridays and Saturdays till 9 p.m.

Check the website ripleyaquariums.com/canada/ for hours, ticket prices, and suggestions on where to park. Check the daily schedule for times of live shows, when divers feed the inhabitants while an educator gives talks. Our visit took three hours. It’s a good idea to arrive early because the aquarium fills up quickly, and is particularly popular with toddlers. Kids 2 and under are free.