cafe OCEAN BLUE

This is a MUST go spot in Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium! Food is not the best but who cares!!! Being in the front line enjoy the ocean view with no interruption is something else!! If you time it properly or lucky… you can also see the feeding show… Note that the line could be long… so get there either very early or late the day… I was there around 4 and the line was a lot shorter. Totally recommended!!!

This cafe is nested inside the aquarium facing the big tank holding the Whale Shark. Food choice is limited, a bit costly and does really taste good. You can choose to spend 500 JPY for a seat beside the tank for 45mins or spend zero on seat selection with 60mins limit. Food to be purchased separately. You will have a good close up view of the tank and its popular Whale Shark. Caught a video of the Whale Shark drinking water. For the view, it is worth spending the time and money having lunch there.

The Cafe Ocean Blue is located right by the main tank inside the Churaumi Aquarium. It gives an impressive view of the sea life while you enjoy some food including a few main course options, cakes, drinks - coffee/soda, and desserts. The food was surprisingly reasonably priced and decent. We got the seafood curry with soda (whale shark shaped blue rice with blue sauce), calzone pizza with soda, and soda flavor soft serve (blue soft serve) which cost us $23usd. Make sure to grab a ticket to get in line, extra cost applies to tables right next to the windows (500jpy). We waited about 20 mins on a Tuesday around noon in the middle of summer for a non-window seat.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT!! If you come from the same part of the world where I am from and have the expectation that if there is a F&B joint with fishes in tank, u can point to the one you wanna eat and you can have them. This place will disappoint you. I am not very rich so I pointed to a small Tuna (can't afford the fancy whale shark or manta rays) but was firmly told "No".. I was initially disappointed, but somewhat glad after I tasted the food this place offers. I ordered a cake and it was too sweet and so was the hot cocoa.. the other drink we ordered was coffee and it was too bitter, so the quality of food is quite poor. I am glad they refused my offer to kill the tuna; the tuna would be wasted in the hands of their cooks that produce 1 star food. However you do not come here for the food or service, you are here for the fishes.. I can't give the ambience more than 5 stars.. but this place dials the ambience up to such extremes it can average the total to a 4 stars in my eyes despite the poor food. Check out the videos I posted to see for yourself.

Paid 500yen to take a table next to the aquarium is worthwhile (40 minutes only). Watching the bug fishes swimming towards you is amazing. Visited early in the morning, only picked some snacks as breakfast. The food was ok as our focus was put towards the aquarium.

Very worthy to dine in at this café for the experience. The main set price was reasonable for it's design menu, quantity (very filling) and ambience. We have gotten the sofa seat instead of reserved seat, we viewed like watching real life movie. There was no reflection when taking pictures ans videos. It's very therapeutic to view this close up of sea creatures swimming. Well done for seat management and food service.