Blue Reef Aquarium Tynemouth

Today mainly due to watching our pennies before Christmas and also because we had been bought some tickets as a gift which were due to expire we decided to go to the Blue reef Aquarium in Tynemouth.

After a tantrum over pineapple and hair gel much excitement ensued from the children, not because we were going to a place where they could see the wonders of the sea, no no, because of a tunnel...., yes that's right, we had to go through the Tyne tunnel in order to get there, and pay £1.20 each way for the privilege!, as you can imagine when we got there they were bitterly disappointed.

But that's ok because they LOVED the Blue Reef even though it only took around 30 mins to walk around, our tickets were valid all day so we could leave and come back if we wanted.

There were plenty of different fish and sea dwelling creatures, including two amorous crabs, which led to the very naive comment from my boys of "ha ha look at those crabs giving piggy backs!"
For older children and (big children like me), there are descriptions of each fish/sea creature and their habitats and history which is quite interesting, but not really suitable for younger children.

There is even an amazonian feature which encloses pgymy marmosets and cotton topped tamarins which are brilliant to watch.

There are also otters there called Splash and Gizmo, who were very entertaining playing with each other, but not as entertaining as the seals, We were lucky enough to be right behind a children's party when we went to see them and got to see them jumping and waving which made up for the fact it was freezing outside the enclosure where we were

So overall a good day out, which can also be educational and interesting, unfortunately if paying yourself it's quite expensive, as it's £8.30 per adult and £5.95 for children although you can buy family tickets. You also have to pay 60p per hour for parking and depending on weather, you could have a walk on the beach, otherwise I would say you only need around 1-2 hours-maybe less.

More fun than the tyne tunnel at least.