“I love how they’re making everything look natural,” said zoo visitor Kelsey Seefeld, 32, of Omaha, who checked out the new exhibit on Labor Day. “It looks like they have a lot more space.”

The sea lions and their guests can get closer together than before, thanks to a nose-to-nose observation deck above ground and separate kid and adult viewing windows below the water’s surface.

The setup offers the six animals a much better experience, with more mental and physical stimulation, said Kristin Pehoviack, a senior zookeeper with responsibility for them.

“The sea lions see people,” she said, sharing that she’d just seen a swimming pup follow the finger of a young visitor across the underwater glass. “It’s constantly entertaining for them.”

Coronavirus-related restrictions still require online reservations to visit the zoo, but more than 32,000 people spent part of their holiday weekend walking around a socially distanced version of the zoo.

That’s above the zoo’s recent weekend average of about 5,000 to 6,000 visitors a day and far above the weekday average of about 2,500, a zoo spokeswoman said.

One reason for the uptick: The new exhibit, which Houser said stands out for its design. Omaha, he said, will now be the place global zoos send people to visit when they’re deciding what to do next.