Kelly Tarlton's Antarctic Encounter & Underwater World, Auckland

...that you experience when entering Kelly Tarlton's?

Located on Tamaki Drive, Orakei, Auckland, it is a beautiful 10 minute seafront drive to Kelly Tarlton's from downtown Auckland Centre. They have their own carpark that is usually extremely busy in the summer season but because we were there in the winter period finding a park was no problem!

Once you have parked the car or disembarked your tourist bus you make your ...
...fish that are available in Kelly Tarltons.
A little bit more about the sleep overs, you can choose whether you would like to sleep next to the piranhas, fresh water eels or the marine creatures in the tide pool.
You arrive at 7pm and you will be served supper, then a staff member will take you behind the scenes to help feed the fish and tell you about the different types of fish they have.
You also explore the the underwater ... more

Wow where do I begin with telling you about this amazing journey through the underwater world that you experience when entering Kelly Tarlton's?

Located on Tamaki Drive, Orakei, Auckland, it is a beautiful 10 minute seafront drive to Kelly Tarlton's from downtown Auckland Centre. They have their own carpark that is usually extremely busy in the summer season but because we were there in the winter period finding a park was no problem!

Once you have parked the car or disembarked your tourist bus you make your way to the entrance, this is a large walkway that spirals down to bellow street level! Straight away you feel like you have been transported to under the sea, there are paintings and pictures on the walls of fish and other sealife creatures.
You then go to the counter and pay your admission fee, this is normally $28 NZD per adult and $14 NZD for children, however keep an eye on special deals in backpackers, hotels, and tourist information centres because we managed to get a 2 for 1 deal which was brilliant!!
They also offer packages for swimming with sharks which is $175 NZD per person and the stinray splash which is $99 NZD per person.
Other than these very exciting offers which I was way too scared to participate in they also offer loads of other things, here are a few more that are fantastic for those of you that have children. Childrens birthday parties, sleepovers and watching the feeding encounters of many of the species of fish that are available in Kelly Tarltons.
A little bit more about the sleep overs, you can choose whether you would like to sleep next to the piranhas, fresh water eels or the marine creatures in the tide pool.
You arrive at 7pm and you will be served supper, then a staff member will take you behind the scenes to help feed the fish and tell you about the different types of fish they have.
You also explore the the underwater world by torch light, which sounds like it could be alot of fun!!
In the morning you will be served breakfast and your overnight stay ends at 9am.
The cost of this is $33 NZD per person, minimum of of 30 paying people and maximum of 70 people.
They do offer a special price, one adult free with 6 paying children.

Back to our little adventure under the sea:
Upon your entry you walk through a hallway of photos with dialogue next to it about the story and history of Kelly Tarltons, it is very informative and has lots and lots of amazing facts and stories about how Kelly Tarltons himself set about making this brilliant underwater world for everyone to see.
He was a deep sea diver and wanted to bring the Southern ocean marine life into the aquarium so that we all could enjoy what he was seeing deep down in the water!!
Amazingly now after 20 years of the aquarium being open there have been more than seven and a half million visitors, which means that Mr Tarlton's dream of showing people the Southern ocean marine life has most definitely come true, more times than he ever dreamed!
Next you move into a small walk through museum of living the life in the antarctic, this has Captain Robert Scott's hutt who was a great adventurer in the last century. The story of his living in such freezing conditions which is extremely interesting, however far to detailed to write in this review!!

Once you have gone through those two expeditions you get to the live sealife!!! First on your right is your chance to be a great adventurer just like Captain Robert Scott and go to the Antarctic.
This involves getting into a snowcat (no need to bring your woolies as this baby is heated!!) you then go for a drive into a tunnel, there is running commentary about the antarctic and the creatures that live there! You then turn a corner and there you have the beautifull penguins, you can see them swimming in the deep pool which has got glass sides so you are able to view them not only above water but also diving into the water and swimming around. On land is masses of snow and lots of penguins, when we were there the penguins had had their chicks so there were numerous little fluffly black penguins amongst the bigger yellow chested parents!!
The snowcat then takes you further past the penguin display to another pool where all of a sudden a killer whale surfaces with a seal in its mouth (do not panic this is not a real live whale, its only a fibre glass one!)

Once you have finished exploring the Antarctic you can then begin your adventure of living under the sea, first up is the stingray bay, this is a huge pool made with extremely thick glass walls so that you can look into it not only from the top but also from the sides (high enough so that children do not fall into it or can put there hands in) . It is truly amazing to watch these giant stinrays swimming about.

A little past the stingray pool are some benches set up infront of a tv screen, here you can witness for yourself the brilliant work that Kelly Tarlton put into opening this underwater world, from building the aquariums to catching the wildlife!! Sadly Mr Tarlton himself passed away 2 months after the aquarium opened, the same day he greeted his 100,000th visitor. He died of a heart attack, but his memory lives on! This movie is definately worth watching and does take about 20 - 30 mins.

Then you step onto the moving travelator and begin the encounter with the sharks!! You will see hammerheads and great whites and all sorts of different species of fish swimming all around you and above you!!
The tank is a large tunnel that you travel through and everywhere you look you are surrounded by sealife!
It takes you through the fish tank as well which has many different colours of fish to see and there is even a moray eel hiding in amongst the rocks.
There is no need to go round just once, if you want to travel beneath the ocean again you can just stay on the travelator and keep going round untill you have seen it all.
Personally we went round about three times and saw different things every time, we could have gone round a few more times but time was against us.

Next stop is seeing the smaller tanks with piranhas, giant octopus, seahorses and many more. There was even a big pool full of massive crayfish, unfortunatly they were not for sale otherwise one of those would have done nicely for dinner!

This concludes our adventure to Kelly Tarltons Underwater World, however if you were taken by any of the creatures of the sea you saw on you journey you could always purchase one to take home from there very well stocked gift shop, I have to say some things were a bit on the pricey side but generally we found it good value for money!

If asked by anyone planning a trip to NZ if this attraction was worth doing then my answer would have to be YES!!
Old or young there is something for everyone here and if your not a scuba diver like me this is the best way to experience something that you would not normally get to see when snorkelling!
We are now the proud parents of twins and we hope that one day when they are a little older to take them back to NZ and back to Kelly Tarltons!
 

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