Self-guided visit request
Thanks for your interest in a field trip to the Seattle Aquarium!
The request form linked below is for school groups requesting self-guided visits only. Homeschools and colleges/universities DO qualify for the school group visit rate. Please refer to the group visit request page for all corporate, public and other non-school groups.
A self-guided visit provides admission to explore the Aquarium at your own pace without any additional scheduled programming. We encourage you to refer to our daily activities schedule to add educational components to your visit.
Self-guided visit requests must be made at least two weeks before your desired date. Please see the “2025–26 school year availability” section below for details about our current availability.
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2025–26 school year availability
As of January 26, 2026, general access to our 2026 field trip availability is now open to all schools! Self-guided visits can be requested from 9:30am to 2pm, Mondays–Fridays, February 9–June 19, 2026.
Bookings are now open to all education groups including King County public/private schools, homeschools, colleges/universities and other education-related organizations; and non-King County public/private schools, homeschools, colleges/universities and other education-related organizations.
Please do not contact the Registration team to ask about your specific weekday field trip date. We receive an extremely high volume of inquiries, so we do not have capacity to answer individual visit requests. Instead, please refer to our convenient live calendar of availability for when future dates become available.
Generally, we do not accept field trip requests for weekends, but some exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis for college/university and out-of-state groups. Reach out to Registration at registration@seattleaquarium.org or (206) 693-6196 with questions.
We are not yet taking requests for summer break field trips scheduled for after June 20, 2026. Information about when summer bookings open will be posted to our website as soon as it’s available. You can receive updates about registration and other news for educators by signing up for our Seattle Aquarium mailing list and checking the “educator newsletter” box.
What is general access registration?
For the first few months of 2026 bookings being open, we granted early access to book field trips only to public schools (pre-K through 12th grade) in King County and Washington State tribal schools.
By providing early access to our local audience, we offered greater accessibility to schools that may not otherwise have been able to participate in our programming. In a time of limited staff and resources, this meant reassessing previous programming models to both design a more sustainable capacity load for our education team, while also improving the services we provide for the communities we are part of.
We are so grateful for the flexibility and understanding of our school partners outside of this early access window. Now, we are excited to welcome all school groups to begin scheduling field trips through the end of the current 2025–26 school year.
Before you book…
Effective September 2025 (ongoing): Please be aware that educators in multiple school districts have encountered an error message when trying to access our booking calendar, which is hosted by the third-party service You Can Book Me. This ongoing issue seems to be caused by school districts soft-blocking access to You Can Book Me on their secure networks.
As a workaround, we recommend accessing the booking calendars from a personal device not connected to your school’s network (such as a mobile phone or home computer). We apologize for any inconvenience. If you’re unable to get through to our calendar and booking form after trying on a different/personal device, please contact our Registration team at registration@seattleaquarium.org for support.
We understand that educators undertake a lot of preparation when planning field trips. Here is our suggested checklist of information to have ready BEFORE you view our calendar and submit your visit request:
At least two preferred dates and entry times for your group (in case your first choice isn’t available).
The highest possible student attendance your group may reach (we can adjust your actual attendance later; this helps us plan staffing needs for high-traffic dates).
We require a ratio of one adult for every five students (1:5) for preschool through 8th grade, and one chaperone per 10 students (1:10) for grades 9–12. Groups without sufficient adult supervision may not be admitted, so please plan to confirm a minimum number of chaperones equal to our ratio requirement.
Does your group have any students with special needs or additional accessibility considerations? (The Seattle Aquarium may be able to provide some support; let us know in the “accommodations” section of the form).
Are you the day-of-visit teacher or contact who will be attending this field trip to the Seattle Aquarium? If you’re booking on behalf of someone else, or don’t know for sure whether you’ll be joining, please prepare a secondary contact who WILL be attending the field trip so we can make sure they also receive important details like parking and lunch areas.
- We are NOT able to change self-guided visits to on-site class programs after a self-guided visit has been booked. If you want your students to attend an educational program during their field trip, please fill out the request form linked from our On-Site Classes page instead.
If you’re interested in applying for our free admission and bus reimbursement scholarships, please read our pricing and scholarship information for details about qualifying criteria. King County schools, please check 4Culture’s website to see if your transportation can be covered by 4Culture instead of Seattle Aquarium.
Preview our Field Trip Code of Conduct and School Group FAQ so you’re aware of details like where buses can unload, where to eat lunch, and behavioral expectations for both students and chaperones.
Pricing & scholarships
Please note: As of January 2025, our self-guided visit rate has increased to $15 per person. This rate is for both students and teachers/chaperones (except for children ages 3 and under, who always receive free Aquarium admission).
Washington state schools with 40% or more free/reduced lunch participants, ESL/ELL students, special education classes and/or ECEAPs can apply for our field trip scholarships. Approved scholarship groups receive free Aquarium admission and may also apply for a bus reimbursement (as available) of up to $400 per bus rented to bring your students on their field trip.
Individual homeschool families do not qualify for school group scholarships but may benefit from other discounts. See our Hours, Discounts and Groups page for details about offerings for foster/kinship families and recipients of EBT/WIC and ProviderOne services.
Aides required and accompanied by students with disabilities can enter the Aquarium free of charge even if the rest of the group doesn’t qualify for a scholarship. If applicable, please let the Registration team know in your visit request form how many 1:1 aides you are requesting comp tickets for.
Our bus reimbursement scholarship is a separate application from the free admission application but uses the same qualifying criteria. As such, we can only offer reimbursement to schools who meet the above scholarship criteria. Bus reimbursements are not guaranteed to scholarship groups and are awarded on a first come, first served basis.
Bus reimbursement scholarship update
Due to funding constraints, we have reached the limit of how many of these scholarships we can provide. This means we will not be able to provide any bus reimbursement funding for spring 2026 field trips requested after January 29, 2026.
- Field trips which received their final confirmation messages prior to January 29, 2026—regardless of when the visit takes place—will receive bus reimbursement, pending accurate and timely completion of our application.
- Field trips whose requests were submitted after January 29, 2026, but have not yet been confirmed are not eligible for bus reimbursement. We apologize for any confusion. The Registration team will contact you directly to confirm whether you want to proceed with scheduling a visit without bus reimbursement.
Free admission scholarships are NOT impacted by this funding limitation. Your school may still qualify to receive free admission if you meet our qualifying criteria and submit a correctly completed scholarship application. However, we know the lack of bus funding will impact some schools’ ability to travel to the Seattle Aquarium, and we apologize for any disappointment.
If you do not know prior to submitting your visit request whether you’ll be unable to visit without bus funding, we can book a field trip for you now and cancel it later if circumstances prevent you from coming. We ask for at least two weeks’ notice for cancellation if possible.
Thanks for your flexibility and understanding. Whether we can see you for a field trip this year or not, we are grateful to all our educational partners for your desire to support our mission of Inspiring Conservation of Our Marine Environment.
For King County public schools only: Your bus transportation could be covered by 4Culture’s Curiosity Pass! Check out the 4Culture website for more information. If you are within one of the eligible districts, please contact your school district to learn more about how 4Culture may be available for bus reimbursement. Please note that schools listed as being eligible for coverage by 4Culture aren’t necessarily guaranteed funding.
Again, the same statement applies for schools who can potentially be covered by 4Culture: If you do not know prior to submitting your visit request whether you’ll be unable to visit without bus funding, we can book a field trip for you now and cancel it later.
We acknowledge that it is difficult to plan a field trip without the certainty of bus funding. If you would prefer to explore other field trip opportunities this school year, we understand and apologize for any disappointment.
Resources for planning your visit
After booking your program, you will receive more information to help your students prepare for their visit to the Aquarium. Please read all correspondence from registration@seattleaquarium.org carefully, as we try to cover what you need to know about what to expect from your field trip.
Please also review our school group FAQ, which includes information such as location of loading zones, lunch areas and more. On the preparing for your field trip page, we’ve included a video and social story that will help teachers prepare students for a visit to the Aquarium. This may be especially helpful for students with sensory needs.
Additional resources to be used both at the Aquarium and in your own classroom or at home can be found on our teacher resources webpage.
Take home the memories!
Send your students home with a personal photo keepsake from their field trip to the Seattle Aquarium! Photogenic, a division of Cherry Hill Programs, offers special plan-ahead pricing for student groups who schedule souvenir photos during their field trip.
Please note that you must register for these packages in advance of your visit date—but they can’t be booked until your field trip date and time are confirmed. More details can be found on our Shopping page.
Questions about already scheduled visits can be directed to our Registration office at registration@seattleaquarium.org or (206) 693-6196. Please note that while we continue to experience a high volume of incoming inquiries, it may take at least five business days for you to receive a response to any emails/voicemails. Our office hours are 8am to 5pm Pacific time, Monday–Friday.
Thank you!
