Well, I was sitting at home bored yesterday (see this is what happens when you do not plan anything when you take a week off work). So I decided that it was time to go out and do another review.
The place of choice was was Sydney Aquarium in Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is only a 10 minute walk from Town Hall station in the Central Business District of Sydney. This means that if you are staying in a hotel close to the city this is a *very* easy place to get to.
Entry Prices (all in $AUD, correct at time of posting):
Adult: $28.50
Child: $14.50
Concession: $19.50
Senior: $17.50
Family: $68.00 - (2 Adults + 2 children)
The Review:
First overall impression, not a bad overall couple of hours. I feel that it is a lot of great fun for the kids. For a single 21 year old guy I don’t think it has the same overall appeal as it does for children and families. However there were a lot of great things that I saw while in there and really did enjoy.
There were a lot of themed fish areas such as ‘The Great Barrier Reef’ showing all the fish and wildlife that you would see while in that area. I felt this was a great way to show different areas and so that people could see the areas of Australian Aquamarine wildlife. For me having been here before I did not spend as much time looking at these individual tanks from the educational point of view, I was more just enjoying the visual appeal of a lot of the fish.
I have to say that even though there were some areas I did find a bit dull there were a lot of places that I really enjoyed as well. And for me this is the fun part as I took quite a lot of photos for this. The fist area of note was the crocodile ‘arena’ as I will call it. The crocodile arena was quite spectacular, unfortunately I could only get a photo of the back end of the croc as he was half hidden at the time that I went past however it was huge to say the least. This is the photos that I could get (the sign below quite amused me it is a little hard to read but hopefully you get the gist):
Next along the line were the penguins, sufficed to say I think that these were my favorite of all out of everything that I saw. These penguins are known as Fairy Penguins and are one of the smallest penguins. They were really cute and so I could not resist getting some photos and videos for you. Needless to say I don’t think I need to say anything more than what is below:
Videos:
Penguins 1 - (alternate link)
Penguins 2 - (alternate link)
Next stop on the adventure was the Seal habitat. This was awesome to watch as the Seals were quite frisky and playful when I was there. One of them kept going round and round in circles and showing off. *hehe* I was not at all complaining mind you. The first two images are from up on the top of the tank and the rest were from down underneath the tank:
The Videos:
Seals 1 - (alternate link)
Seals 2 - (alternate link)
Next on the trip was the Shark Tank - This had a lot of great stuff to view. Not only were there sharks in this tank but there were also a lot of other animals too. Including a great look at a turtle, loads and loads of fish. There is really no way to describe it except with a video so without further adieu:
Videos:
Turtle - (alternate link)
Shark Tank 1 - (alternate link)
Shark Tank 2 - (alternate link)
And finally last on the list was one of the largest windows to a tank that I saw while there. It truly was spectacular to see all the schools of fish swimming around together in their different groups. In this video notice on the left hand side there is a really large school of fish that always stick together, I thought it quite amazing:
Large tank at the End - (alternate link)
So there were quite a few things along the way that I really did enjoy… time for my conclusion.
The Good:
- Venue was easy to get to
- There was certainly a lot of variety of different types of fish and other aquamarine life to see
- Venue was not overly busy and was easy to move around in
- The penguins were very cute… they were quite a highlight for me as were the Seals
- The ability to see above and below several of the tanks was spectacular (see videos)
- Several opportunities to get up close and personal both through glass and also in the ‘Touch Tanks’
The Bad:
- Toilets were hard to find, there was only one set along the whole internal maze and they were right near the end… makes it difficult if you need to get there earlier in the trip
- Snack bar was the most expensive I have seen - $3.90 AUD for a 600ml softdrink, $3.80AUD for a 6o0ml warm bottle of water - Suggest you take drinks with you
- Personally did not like the structure of the maze inside, in that I prefer to be able to decide where I go and when, where as the way the Aquarium is structured you start at one end and finish at another, the path you take is predetermined… personal pet hate
- Aimed very much at families and children, would love to see them add a bit for the adult too
- Tickets I felt were a little expensive to get in
Summary:
So overall for families and kids I would say this is a great day out, plenty of good photo opportunities and excellent if you would like to get to see some of Australia’s native aquamarine life. For a 21 year old I felt there was less overall appeal however all in all I still enjoyed the day. On a scale of 1 to 5 on the overall scale (1 being not worth a visit, 5 being a must see) I would give this a 3.75/5. If you have kids then I would say easily that this is a 5/5 however for me being a single guy I am going to stick with a 3.75/5.
Well I hope you have enjoyed this one. If you would like to see more photos you can see the whole gallery here:
Sydney Aquarium 2007
Until next time… behave yourselves.
Stuart
