National Marine Aquarium, Plymouth

We had a super few hours at the National Marine Aquarium the week before Christmas. My children still love it, despite having been to many different ones over the years. As some schools had not broken up yet for the school holidays, it was fairly quiet and mostly filled with families with pre-school age children. All the displays were very child friendly, with different hands on activities to do. Although we did not eat in the cafeteria, it was very busy and well equipped with highchairs etc. My children particularly enjoyed a couple of the talks, and fell in love with an old turtle that lives in one of the tanks – it is blind and partially disabled and also has epilepsy. The staff at the aquarium had to replace all the coral in the tank with artificial coral, as the turtle continually bumps into things as it swims around, and real coral would not survive! The displays and talk on environmental issues are really good and gave the children food for thought. Highly recommended! Use Tesco vouchers and it becomes great value for a family day out.

The play area just at the entrance before you even go in for the aquarium is just brilliant as you can sit and have a drink while you watch your kids go bananas, climbing up and down and all over the equipment. I think you can get a season ticket for this, so if you live locally you can pop down regularly. My son thought the best bit was walking underneath the huge tank and seeing the shadow of a large shark approaching, and then being in darkness for a moment! Quite fascinating being underneath them, walking through and being able to see what's swimming above you. There's a great activity room here where there are child-focused lectures on the environment (just caught the tail-end of one, and kids looked interested enough) and also has craft items, colouring in, and different projects. We didn't take snacks in but we saw other people had, which didn't seem to be prohibited as it is at the London Aquarium. Instead of having snacks there, we nipped across the Barbican for fish and chips on the seafront, near the historic Mayflower Steps (boat trips available from here, to combine the activities for a day out).

Really nice aquarium, plenty to see. very relaxing environment. Activity room for children. Good food in cafe, plenty of highchairs.

The National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth is a great place to spend a couple of hours with children. It is renowned for being the UK’s largest aquarium and has a vast number of displays including three large tanks. There are a number of different zones with different sea life living in them including, Shallow Water and Atlantic Reef with local marine life, Atlantic Ocean with Sharks and Stingrays and Coral Seas with Turtles and Puffer fish. There is also the Discovery Zone where children can go to learn about the sea life, make models and fish and do drawings of the things they have seen around the aquarium.

My children loved their visit to the National Marine Aquarium. It’s ideal for toddlers and children in pushchairs too as they can see most of the tanks very well. The huge tank which is situated in an auditorium is very impressive, but even more breathtaking is a tank with a replica WWII plane wreck in it which is home to sharks, rays and a range of other fish. Part of this tank curves over your head so you can see the sharks swim right over you. My two young children spent ages watching this tank. Small ultraviolet lit tanks with almost transparent jellyfish floating in them are incredible too. It was busy when we visited, because we had a double pushchair with us we had to use lifts which meant waiting occasionally. The restaurant is quite small and the café wasn’t open so we had to wait for a table to become available. There is an outdoor picnic area for warmer weather. The restaurant has a soft play area which was closed for safety reasons when we visited. I’d definitely recommend the National Marine Aquarium for a family day out, it will entertain children of all ages. And adults too!