Not worth the money (London Aquarium)

Member Name: kamal

Product:	London Aquarium
Date:	14/04/09 (121 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Lot of Fishes, Sharks, Ray Fish

Disadvantages: Too expensive, Dark and crowded, Accessibility issues

We visted London Aquarium during Easter weekend with my 2 year old baby. Whenever I think about any aquarium, the imagination runs from small colourful fish-tank up to huge undersea aquarium of Singapore shown in National Geographic chanel. But visit to London aquarium is going to change that perception.

Location
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It is located near London Eye, which is one of the least directly accessible area in London. You have to walk a lot with the pushchair, and be ready to carry pushchair over long stairs, as sight of lift is rare. We used Waterloo train station, so had to cross long distaince including many stairs.

Booking
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Luckily we booked online previous day, so it was a big relief that we did not have to join very very long queue. The price for adult was around £13.76 with online discount. (£15.70 normal price). I think it is very very expensive for any aquarium.

Inside
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The interior was quite dark and with the ghost sound (probably whale talk) playing from speakers all around, it looked more like dungeon. Our little baby was bit scarred and it took time to settle him.

As it was easter weekend, it was very crowded and given that it is not spacious at all, we struggled to push through the crowd. You can hardly get a chance to get near the tank due to lot of people trying to reach there first.

The queues were everywhere, even for some silly "Shark Walk", which was a big joke, we had to stand in a queue for 20 minutes. My baby gave up and went to sleep.

The big tank was ok, with lot of sharks and ray fish. But it was very dark and with artificial blue shades in the tank, I could not wait to come out and see the natural day light.

Also, there were very limited information near each exhibits. So Adults would not enjoy either.

Accesibility
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Some crucial lifts were not working, and whatever was working were in horrible condition. They rattled mid way and my wife thought that we are all going down with the broken lift. The signs were not very helpful. It made it very tought to browse through the aquarium. The worst part was the narrow final "WAY OUT" escalator where we struggled to take our pushchair out.

Finally
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It was very dark and crowded, not anywhere near to my imagination of beautiful fishes in colorful coral fish atmosphere. It was too big for little kids to enjoy and too silly for adults to admire. This is way too expensive and I would not recommend this to anyone.

Summary: Buy fish aquarium and/or subsribe to National Geography chanel instead.