ABQ BioPark Botanic Garden

Really spacious and lots to see. Spent 2 miles walking around. Lots of areas- Japanese, Mediterranean, High Desert. A butterfly area and a big area. Had a great time!Discounts for residents and seniors! Lots of parking and comes with free admission to the aquarium too!Pro.tip is to buy your admission to the garden first so you don't wait on line to buy a ticket for the aquarium

Warm weather brings out all kinds of of flowers and animals. This would also include some insects as the bees were around as well. It is a fun relaxing place to be.

The River of Lights Christmas exhibition is really amazing. It really starts up the Christmas mood for me. We went on a Wednesday at 5 and did not have a problem getting parking but I can imagine it is tough later in the evening--we noticed parking at the Biopark was closed off when we left. It was nice to see some of the changes from previous years. A great part of Albuquerque.

The botanical garden was very beautiful. Lots to see plenty of shade, and you can take your time to see everything. It's up to you how long you want to stay. There's a lot of construction at the moment to make it better and more fun for family and kids. It doesn't say how long before it's done but still worth going.

While looking online for things going on in Albuquerque while we were there, I saw the Albuquerque BioPark botanical garden was having a fall harvest event. I love botanical gardens and fall events. I had to go.The park is misleading. It is much bigger than you think it would be. We walked around, thought we had done it all and then realized we missed a whole section. We are from Pittsburgh so we're used to botanical gardens with tons of flowers all over. This one was cool because it had so many cool plants appropriate to the SW. We saw all kinds of cacti, a beautiful lake with ducks, a beautiful mosaic, roses (which I didn't know grew well in the SW) and some beautiful plants from the Mediterranean in one of the buildings. The nicest surprise was the Japanese Garden in the back. Loved all the sculptures, buildings and fall plants. So cool!The fall festival was nice. There were musicians playing all different kinds of music all over. There were also a few different booths with local artisans selling all different kinds of beautiful items. I bought some nice souvenirs for myself and family for the holidays.Definitely go check them out. They also have a zoo. We didnt have enough time to see it.

The Mediterranean section was very cool (temp). I almost thought I felt a mist. It was a nice break from being outside in the heat. The variety of plants was numerous and beautiful. The area showing desert plants was wonderful.  I didn't know there are different types of barrel cactus. Education!There's a fun section with small trains running on different tracks through small towns and commerce. It's fun to watch and a big draw for children.There is a lovely green park-like area in the center of the gardens. On my visit, students were there, very loud. There was a group of young children playing football too.The gardens would be a good place if you could find a time when there wouldn't be school groups or camp groups. The sounds of screaming and laughing are all over the park. It's impossible to find a peaceful place to enjoy nature.

This year the fall fest was very packed with so many tourists from all over that come and visit the balloon fiesta. Plenty of local shops selling inside the botanical garden for the fall fest. They had alcohol and drinks and many items to purchase. You aquarium pass allows you to enter the botanical garden. Plenty of restrooms throughout the facility to use. Overall clean throughout and security and police was at site to keep the festival safe.

The ABQ BioPark Botanic Gardens is awesome! For just ~$14 for out of state residents, you can get access to the botanic gardens and the aquarium together. They are right next to each other with the same entrance so very easy to hit both in 1 stop.The botanic garden however is by far the better of the two though, and maybe even one of the best botanic gardens I've been to. The lands are kept gorgeously clean, well trimmed, and there are just so many different themed gardens throughout the park that make you feel like you are being transported all over the world.They have a Japanese garden, a Koi pond with so many fish, a greenhouse with cacti, and even a beautiful area for a wedding if you want it to happen here. This place is so serene, it was incredibly empty when I went, and a whole lot of fun. You could easily spend hours here walking around and taking in the calmness. Highly recommend if you have some extra time in the area and don't know what to do with it

This was our third time here, and each time we learn and see something new. The last two times were in December (2015 & 2018). In 2015 we did quick tours around both the Aquarium and Garden. In 2018 we came to see the light display in the Gardens. Both were great trips. It was also much cooler! This trip we decided to go through the Gardens first so we could appreciate the air conditioning of the Aquarium last. It was SO hot! We saw so much, but loved the butterfly area and bugs most of all. In the Aquarium, we loved the large window areas with sharks, rays, and big fish, as well as the river otters. We look forward to our next visit with our family!

We are big fans of botanical gardens, and decided to make Albuquerque's gardens one of the stops on our return from a recent road trip. We are glad we did. We arrived around 2:30 pm only to find out that the gardens closed at 5. We also found out that our admission fee to the gardens included a visit to the adjacent aquarium. We definitely missed a lot; to properly see the gardens and aquarium would take much more than 3 hours. My favorite part of the garden was the large pond with beautiful wood (and other varieties of) ducks. We enjoyed the butterfly house, and bug areas. There is a children's garden area that looked very nice, but we didn't have time to explore. In the aquarium, don't miss the reef area, manta rays, moon jellyfish and seahorses.We plan to return, both to revisit our favorite spots and to see what we missed!