Blue Planet Aquarium (Blue Planet Aquarium)

Member Name: malvern15

Product:	Blue Planet Aquarium
Date:	06/03/09 (143 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: The Main tank and tunnel

Disadvantages: The Cost

Visited the Blue Planet Aquarium today with my daughter who's two and my wife. Thought I'd put down in words what we thought of the place.

Location:
Ellesmere Port

Blue Planet Aqaurium is easily accessable from the M53 (Junction 10) and we found that it was clearly signposted on the motorway. Once you have exited the motorway it is about 5 minutes drive to the aquarium.

The place:

There is ample free car parking available with disabled spaces available nearer to the entrance. No parent and childs spaces as far as I could see.

The entrance to the aqaurium is covered by a giant canope and music is played externally. (I presume this is for busy times when queues to enter are lengthy). In our case there were no queues.

The price:

We paid £14.50 each for adults which is quite expensive. Children under 95cms in height enter for free. Price for children over 95cms £10.50.

The aquarium:

We entered into the aqaurium and the first thing you see is hugh sharks mouth (Skeleton) which must stand at least 10 feet tall. (A great picture opportunity). One other thing to mention is that there are a number of games machines and childrens small rides located around the main entrance. It's a bit naughty really as you've just paid a small fortune to get in and they they want you too start throwing money into machines.

The aquarium itself is split into a number of different sections such as:

Reef Magic - A number of tropical/Colourful fish (Inc every kids favorite, Nemo. Actually a tank containing hundreds of Clown Fish)
Rivers & Streams - A number of british fish. (Pike etc)
Rocky Shoreline - This contains rays that you can stroke. Our daughter who is two loved dipping her hand in and the rays come to the surface and let you gently stroke them. There are staff around to show yo how to stroke the rays correctly and there are also designated feeding times clearly detailed on the wall. Facilities to clean your hand after touching the fish are provided and are very clean.

Each of the tanks above are viewable through large glass/perspex windows and also from raised platforms above the tanks.

There are also a reptile and insect tanks including scorpions, frogs and toads. The frog collection is quite large with a number of brightly coloured frogs which keep your young ones interested.

The main attraction in the aqaurium (as with all aquariums) is the sharks. There is a tunnel which takes you under the full length of the main tank, in which are a number of large sharks amongst other fish. You can get a really clear view of the fish as they swim above and along side you as you make your way through the tunnel. On our visit there were two members of staff cleaning the glass on the inside of the tunnel, one of which gave a friendly wave to my daughter much to her amazement.

Once you exit the tunnel you find yourself in the restaurant which again is dotted with a number of childrens rides. Although we didn't eat in the restaurant I had a look at the menu and it seemed quite reasonable with childrens meals around £3.75. One thing made me laugh which was the Haddock and chips on the adults menu which somehow would just seem wrong to order.

Before exiting we called in the shop to get something for our daughter, the shop has a massive selection if soft toys, pens magnets etc. Some of which were quite pricey. We got a small soft toy for £4.99.

All in all it probably only took us around a hour and a half to walk through the whole aquarium, but if you want you could take the whole tour again.

At a total cost of around £40 for two paying adults and one free child it is an expensive day out for something that may only take you 2 hours to see everything. I don't think it is somewhere you would want to visit again for another few years once you have been.

Summary: An expensive day out. Not sure you would return again.