Sea Life Manchester

If you’re willing to brave the Trafford centre this sea-​life is a good bet for somewhere to go. Yes this sea life is smaller than some off the places around, but I think that they have do well with the space that they have. However we did go there on a Thursday afternoon, when we knew all the kids would be in school. So we pretty much had the place to ourselves, with was pretty cool.
I can see this place, being a bit on the small side, would get packed, then seeing everything this place has to offer would be hard on a busy day.
The trip round starts with a little projection show about sea turtles (done by a very enthusiastic worker, for just the 2 off us) then you are free to move around the place by yourself and have a good look at things. There is panty of information around on everything and the staff there where quite happy to answer any off the question we had. I personally loved the jellyfish, which look best in the blue light :)
While this is not the best aquarium I have been to I did enjoy it and unlike the overs this is the only one where you can go and it be quite.

This is my overall rating. I understand that the cost of the investment to put this place here and the associated risk would have been high and the running and maintenance costs too are high. But the fact is that it is a comparatively small aquarium and there certainly isn’t enough to see or to do to engage visitors for more than an hour or so, unless children are put into the self — play area, which was overcrowded and a ‘war zone’ when we were there. Most people won’t see or consider the investment, the risk or the maintenance costs as they naturally only see the money demanded and what they get in return is so small it’s no wonder that they’ll say its overpriced (well it certainly is) especially given the fact that this isn’t even anywhere near a half day of engaging entertainment. As we were paying, the chap next to me was paying for his family group of a couple of kids and his wife without the benefit of internet booking or discount coupons and it was a swingeing £70 or so. I could tell it visibly shocked him. I imagine that had there not been a large crowd we’d have easily been in/​out in less than an hour. We managed an hour and forty minutes. The family that paid £70 were already in the shop at the exit in front of when we got there; £70 down and for about 1.5 hours. There is nowhere to sit and eat/​drink inside the aquarium and bearing in mind the biggest customer base is demanding children and young people this is a mistake, but the space just isn’t there but there is space for a shop and an empty ‘school room’. Thankfully there are toilets. There is effectively no meaningful engagement between the sea life and the visitors, just two staff members offering a single tiny live male crab to touch momentarily. My local fishmonger has live crabs much larger than the one here and live lobsters and prawns too, in other words I can interact with more live fish most days of the week free of charge. Yes it has small sharks and stingrays and one impressively large turtle and the turtle is the single star of this place. The staff are friendly but I saw one being obnoxious to a lady whose camera flashed when photographing some fish. He repeatedly shouted behind her back seemingly incapable of realising she was deaf. A chap challenged him in more polite tones but I didn’t wait to see the outcome. Getting in was chaotic because of poor training — till operatives were standing idle as customers were penned in behind ropes waiting for confused staff to let them through. Soon after gaining entrance there is the speciality Sealife photo shoot and your party will be corralled in, while possibly being told what is happening or maybe not — the slow queue would flow quicker if people had a choice but then people would be out much faster and possibly more peeved at the entrance fee/​time spent inside value equation. We took the £20 deal at the end — two 6×4 photos and 2 fridge magnets (could have had key rings instead of magnets) but as we stood there everyone else walked by understandably not remotely interested (bound to reap more £££ from a café surely?) I do not regret going, I’m glad we had vouchers but on balance for an hour and forty minutes I still feel that we were ripped off — Blue Planet it isn’t and this will not be a repeat visit

It doesn’t take long for the excitement of highly anticipated Christmas gifts to run their course of entertaining kids, and if yours are anything like mine, moans of ‘I’m so bored’ resonates through your home around January 2^nd (give or take a day). My first thought is to angrily tally up the cost of the presents purchased that will likely never be picked up again… ending up in the charity plastic bag for pick-​up after my annual Spring cleaning takes place. My second thought is ‘what the hell am I going to do to amuse this child?‘
When kids are about 4 years old, you can do virtually anything with them and they will be completely overjoyed. But as they get into the double digits, things change drastically and your options of an entertaining day out get limited. To add to that, I’ve got one of those non-​athletic kids; one who would rather draw a comic book or teach himself Photoshop than kick a ball around. This unfortunately further limits our options.
Enter Sealife. If you haven’t been yet, it’s a fascinating little aquarium making the very most of the relatively small space it occupies in the Trafford Centre. What you can expect upon entry is a darling little turtle tutorial (like most attractions, it’s a way of keeping crowd control inside while giving the people waiting to enter something to look at, although people will whine about it), after which you are free to wander through the 30 displays at your own pace, with clever little tunnels and holes for kids to stick their heads in to get right up close to the sea critters. There are interactive displays to learn about various species and, more importantly, efforts being made to save these beautiful creatures. My favourite is the underwater ocean tunnel, which culminates with a Mayan-​esque giant rock sculpture (you’ll have to be patient to get your photo opp as there is usually a pile-​up of folks with iPhones, snapping away furiously). There is also a place where kids can touch crabs and other urchin-types…not my cup of tea but the kids really seem to enjoy it.
One word of advice would definitely be to purchase your tickets online before visiting. It will save a considerable amount (about 50%) than showing up on the day.