The Aquarium is fully accessible to visitors with disabilities. We have ramps, elevators, and handicap-accessible entrances and bathrooms throughout the facility.
The Long Island Aquarium does not have a dedicated parking lot, but the facility is part of the Riverhead Parking District, which allows our guests to use free, municipal parking lots throughout the town. There are multiple handicap parking spaces within these lots around Main Street. We advise guests with disabilities to get dropped off at the main Aquarium entrance and their companions to park the car in one of the surrounding municipal lots, when possible. Guests can be picked up at the end of their visit at our half circle entrance as well.
For the safety of our animals, Service Dogs are welcome but are the only animals permitted inside the Long Island Aquarium.
From the ADA National Network: A service animal means any dog that is individually trained to do work or perform tasks for the benefit of an individual with a disability, including a physical, sensory, psychiatric, intellectual, or other mental disability. Tasks performed can include, among other things, pulling a wheelchair, retrieving dropped items, alerting a person to a sound, reminding a person to take medication, or pressing an elevator button.
Emotional support animals, comfort animals, and therapy dogs are not service animals under Title II and Title III of the ADA. Other species of animals, whether wild or domestic, trained or untrained, are not considered service animals either. The work or tasks performed by a service animal must be directly related to the individual’s disability. It does not matter if a person has a note from a doctor that states that the person has a disability and needs to have the animal for emotional support. A doctor’s letter does not turn an animal into a service animal.