Blue Planet (near Chester) - UK's largest Aquarium, UK's biggest Rip-Off (Blue Planet Aquarium)

Member Name: luigi0778

Product:	Blue Planet Aquarium
Date:	09/02/09 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Walk Through is quite cool, Large Sharks

Disadvantages: Tanks look a little small for size of fish, poor layout, ugly site appearance, the LIST goes on.

We visited the Blue Planet Aquarium on February 8th, 2009. Two adults, and my poor little Niece. (who did not enjoy it).

-Outward Appearance-
I am not sure what I expected, it wasn't however what confronted me upon driving into the car park. To be honest I felt a little dissapointed. The Blue Planet (UK's largest Aquarium, they proudly boast). Looked to me like an uninspiring factory unit. All that corrugated metal on the roof, the shabby marquee type thing at the front. Lots of "do not enter" tape, masking off an area where some "work" was/would be taking place. It looked like some kind of temporary structure, or an in-build project.

-Cost-
My next gripe was the cost. £13.50 per adult. Which I thought was quite expensive anyway. However insult was added to injury when a flimsey 10 page guide, full of not alot. Which I had assumed was free was charged to us at around £3.50. What a rip off!! But It also contained "discounts".
However upon inspection these "discounts" they were only valid until December 2008. Thank you Blue Planet!

The cost to a family of 4 would be around 30 or so squid upwards! Which for what it is, is a rip-off!!!


-The inside-
After passing through a rather shabby looking open plan lobby, we then find ourselves plunging into a promising looking cave entrance. However once inside it was just a case of a few fish tanks, stuck inside a darkly lit room. A few "informative" plaques were ill-lit, and poorly placed. Alot of the descriptions did not even match what was inside the tanks.

Upon delving further inside it did improve, and was divided up into "areas" or zones, such as rock pools, coastal, Lake Malawi an so forth, but the transistion and floor plan between them was in my opinion chaotic and unclear. We even managed to wander off to an area which was supposed to be staff only. I assume as I did not see any staff or displays so I have no idea what that area was.

We recall seeing a sign stating that the "Rays" would be fed at 11:00am, it failed to mention where the rays were. Which was fun. Did we see this spectacle. NO.

The only saving grace for the whole place was the "walk through" in the underwater section. An I will say that was quite impressive. With the sharks and rays some of which were quite sizeable. I did however have a feeling the poor things were a bit stressed being inside such a small pool. An although the "walk through" is quite long, it just snakes around and your looking at the same part.

-Summary-
Not good value for money, it is quite fun for kids, but probably not the most fun day out they will have. AN for my money I would much rather have visited Chester Zoo instead.

There is also something sad about seeing large predatory fish, stuck inside small tanks.

Summary: Not great value for money, not the best day out you will have.