CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Texas State Aquarium reached an exciting milestone Tuesday as they welcomed their 15 millionth guest.
“A pretty remarkable event, you know, the aquarium opened almost 30 years ago and who would have thought since then over five million people would have visited, that's roughly half the population of the state of Texas," said Tom Schmid, President and CEO of the Texas State Aquarium.
Schmid said the TSA has been looking forward to this moment for a few months.
He said the aquarium tracks their attendance daily, and although they expected the 15 millionth visitor to take place in June, it came quicker than they thought. Their attendance has been higher than usual. In fact, Schmid said there were 3,000 guests who came in Monday.
“We are actually having the best year we have ever had," he said. "We are setting records in attendance. We set records over Memorial Day weekend, and this will be the busiest June we have ever had."
According to Schmid, the success in attendance is from visitors from all over the state and out of state making their way to visit the TSA, including Tuesday's lucky family from San Antonio.
The family said they had plans for a boat charter but that was canceled due to the weather, which led them to the aquarium and being those 15 millionth and counting, guests.
“They received year memberships, a chance to meet some of our animals, a basket full of TSA gear, they were very surprised and very excited,” said Schmid.
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