Taylor—Couette flow is ideal for studying drag-reducing polymer additives because, unlike turbulent boundary layers, the instabilities are better understood. Video records of laser-induced fluorescence experiments with and without polymers will be presented. Polyethylene-oxide (PEO) ‘oceans’ were used in concentrations of 20 and 100 p.p.m. In the Taylor number range, 3 × 104 ≤ Ta ≤ 108, Newtonian flow consisted of Taylor vortices which span the gap between cylinders and much smaller Görtler vortices at the inner cylinder wall. Measurements of core-to-core separation between counter-rotating vortices were made to estimate the Görtler instability wavenumber. These measurements show that PEO addition increases the Görtler wavenumber for a given Taylor number. At the lower Taylor numbers, Görtler vortex formation was suppressed by PEO. This implies that polymers directly affect the evolution of centrifugal instabilities.