Generally speaking, I love aquariums... and I had a bit of time one morning during my recent…read morevacation, so I decided that I'd check this place out (despite seeing the reviews online). Mind you, I wasn't interested in any of the rides or anything else. I was solely interested in walking through the aquarium buildings itself and seeing their exhibits. The additional benefit was that I was going relatively soon after they opened AND on a weekday... so it was a bit like I had the place to myself during my visit (I think I saw maybe 5 other visitors MAX during my time there).
I purchased my ticket online and arrived at the aquarium, but was stopped by a young worker at the door who told me that I needed to visit the ticket window to get a wristband. Okay, noted. Got my wristband on and walked into the building. The aquarium itself? Small. I made a couple stops to intentionally watch specific animals for a while and it still only took me maybe 30 minutes to walk through the entire place. I will say, when I stop to watch the various fish exhibits, I always try to get a photo of what looks like the fish watching me back. Got a couple fun photos along those lines.
I watched the axolotls for a bit, and the armadillo (though, gosh, the thing acted so stressed in its enclosure). The tanks were generally fine, though some appeared to need to be cleaned a bit. The tigers at the end of the aquarium bring about a lot of complicated emotions as well... because for a lot of zoos and aquariums, animals in them were often born in captivity. I don't know for sure if that's the case with these tigers, but the idea that these tigers could just be removed from a zoo or aquarium-type environment and reintroduced to the wild isn't likely (and you hear this kind of reaction a lot from people who say they hate zoos and aquariums - "they should be back in the wild!" Well, yes, in an ideal world the animals would be in the wild; unfortunately, that's not always possible). That said, I do wish they were somewhere that provided much more space and was designed as something closer to their "natural" type of environment. While the first tiger I saw was in an enclosure with grass and a waterfall-looking feature, the second tiger was in an enclosure that was mainly tile (again, it had a pool available... but it was provided just a bit of straw in the enclosure otherwise - and a cardboard box, which, I don't know, was related to some kind of enrichment? Seems very lacking though, and everything else was tile). I love tigers, and they're gorgeous animals on display... but I was also sad, especially for the second tiger.
Again, I didn't go to the restaurant or any of the other rides/etc. that were on-site. Because of that, it made the ticket cost seem a bit much... but I'm also writing it off mentally as assisting with the cost of maintaining the aquarium.
TL;DR I do really love aquariums, and I probably would have been sad if I hadn't decided to visit while I was in Houston. That said, it *IS* quite small, and some may not feel the cost of a ticket is worth it for just the aquarium experience.