Sea Life Melbourne is a great place for young children under 12 years old. There are plenty of interesting areas to explore and many opportunities for young children to learn and be immersed about sea creatures.
The aquarium is a nice getaway from the bustling city, though its in a location that is less bustling than say around Bourke Street and Swanston Street.
Before the day, we reserved our tickets through their website. Given it was a special day, one of the adults was free, while the other adult had to pay AUD$47 to get in. (It’s pretty expensive for just one person, but someone needs to help pay to feed the fishes.) Children under 3 are free, while children between 3 and 15 years are $32.
On the day, we saw quite the crowd lining up to get into the aquarium. It’s best to pre-purchase your tickets otherwise you risk having to line up twice. Plus, before you enter the actual aquarium they will usually gather the group for a photo which you can access digitally for free (or you can purchase a physical copy with their special booklet and frame for $45+ at the end of your journey. We decided not to purchase this.)
There is a maze of things to see and activities for the kids to take-part in. Plenty of places for the kids to crawl around and stick their heads into. It can get quite crowded near the entrance, but otherwise there are some sections where you best off moving on because there are different angles of the same water tank on offer, e.g. the main tank with the sharks and stingrays.
My two year old daughter had a great time putting her hands in the water and bopping her head from one glass panorama to the next. The whole aquarium is full of colorful signs and pictures to keep kids intrigued, and there are even electronic, interactive activities at certain points.
We managed to take a photo with Peppa Pig, who happened to scared my daughter for no apparent reason, up in the upper sanctum area.
We were really impressed by the 180 degree tunnel because we could see the sea creatures up close and it seemed to be a great place for people to take photos/selfies.
The final part of the aquarium is the penguin area where its spacious (and you can see the penguins being fed) and a theatre for performances (if you are interested). At the very end, there is a door that won’t let you back in once you pass through it to the store on the other side.
Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium is located on King Street, Melbourne VIC 3000 closer to where the bridge meets southbank and is literally along the Yarra River (the marker on the map below is off by a lot):
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