Sea Life Blackpool

TAKE A journey up into the ocean at a visitor attraction featuring stingrays, seahorses, sharks, clownfish and a host of other popular sea creatures.

In our recent visit to the Sea Life centre on Blackpool’s promenade I found a lot more to interest our family than during our last trip a few years ago.

From the first gallery with a host of fascinating and unusual fish to the specialist galleries later on, this was a satisfying visit.

Sea Life Blackpool is on the upper floor of a block on the Golden Mile, so there are no outdoor facilities for the seals, penguins and otters you’ll find at other Sea Life centres.

There are, however, the trademark rays in their shallow open-top tanks, sharks in the walk-through tunnel, and shrimps, starfish and shark eggs in little rockpools.

Each of these can keep you or your children occupied for a long time, either chatting with knowledgeable staff, touching little creatures or simply watching graceful fish repeatedly glide past.

The first gallery is almost like a traditional aquarium, lots of fish of many kinds, including some you might never have seen before.

Then it’s the shoreline and quayside which showcase fish from Britain’s own waters before moving on to more exotic fish from the world’s oceans and rivers.

Rainforest Adventure and Submarine Explorer take in the Amazon and Coral Seas respectively, while Kingdom Of The Seahorse offers several types of these fascinating creatures

I found Jurassic Seas, this year’s new addition, a little disappointing, though it was interesting to see the Nautilus, horse shoe crabs and mudskippers that have existed for so many millennia.

David Knights