Sea-Life Brighton

Please accept my sincerest apologies for this one hitting the stands just as the children return to school, but for our own personal enjoyment of this particular attraction, that is just the way we like it - quiet!

Do not be fooled, I have nothing against children, indeed on my very first visit to the Dolphinarium as it was then, I was one myself! On that occasion I had the pleasure of seeing the dolphins sing 'happy birthday' to some ...
...I remember nothing of the place from the late 1960's primary school trip.

We live in a different age now, performing dolphins being about as politically non-PC as you can get! Sorry, I am aware that for some of you that was an offensive remark, it was not intended that way, I just wanted to highlight by use of (dubious) humour just how much times have changed since my childhood. In terms of nature conservancy we now live in far more ... more

Please accept my sincerest apologies for this one hitting the stands just as the children return to school, but for our own personal enjoyment of this particular attraction, that is just the way we like it - quiet!

Do not be fooled, I have nothing against children, indeed on my very first visit to the Dolphinarium as it was then, I was one myself! On that occasion I had the pleasure of seeing the dolphins sing 'happy birthday' to some delighted child - apart from that now long distant memory, I remember nothing of the place from the late 1960's primary school trip.

We live in a different age now, performing dolphins being about as politically non-PC as you can get! Sorry, I am aware that for some of you that was an offensive remark, it was not intended that way, I just wanted to highlight by use of (dubious) humour just how much times have changed since my childhood. In terms of nature conservancy we now live in far more enlightened times, an age where in many respects education has taken over from entertainment, the dear old Aquarium or "Dolphinarium" as many of we Brightonions still refer to it, illustrates this even more poignantly than places such as London Zoo.

The historic Brighton Aquarium, situated at the very most southern termination of the A23, London to Brighton road, opposite Brighton Pier, is now part of the National Sea Life network, itself belonging to the Merlin Entertainment Group of Poole in Dorset.

After a gap of over 35 years, I have made two return visits during the course of the last two months.

Klaudia, my wife's 11 year old sister, had been longing to visit the Sea Life Centre each time she came to Brighton from Poland during the summer holidays over the last three years. Along with the majority of the locals here, I was of the mindset that this was an expensive attraction to visit and frankly without the beautiful dolphins, gone since 1990, could not imagine that there would be that much to see for the £10.95 adult admission charge.

Yes, you did read that correctly: £10.95!

Well thanks to Donnattello's restaurant handing us a two for the price of one Sea Life Centre voucher at Easter (thanks Mr D. - glowing review of your establishment to follow!) and Klaudia's imminent arrival, coinciding with her 11th Birthday, we planned the Saturday Birthday treat.

Myself, being too mean to pay even half price admission for Mrs R and I, as well as paying to park the car, we parked in Brighton Marina's free car park and walked along the beach (passing the nudists on the way) to the pier - on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of this summer. Upon our arrival at the Sea Life Centre just before midday, not only was there a queue of individuals waiting to pay for admission, but also several groups of foreign students being admitted through the pre-booked party gate. We waited for about ten minutes in the queue to get in.

It never ceases to amaze me just how much a day out - especially with kids in tow - costs these days. For the three of us, two adults plus a child and the guide book, my credit card took a hit for £21.95, the child's ticket had cost £7.00.

Even with Mr D's BOGOF voucher I was still reeling from the cost of it, particularly the world's most expensive guide book - 6 sheets of paper (24 pages) for £4.00. I thought that I had been handed a "freebie" and returned to the cash desk to ask for the guide book, only to be told "you've got it in your hand"! Of those 24 pages only 4 of them are specific to the Brighton Sea Life Centre, the poor layout map being two of those, the whole layout of the thing is along the lines of a cheap comic. A more savvy consumer than me would have returned the "Souvenir Guide", as it is grandly entitled, and asked for his money back!

Seathing is not the best way to approach any particular attraction, and parallels with the Windsor Castle experience are inevitable here. Only there is a big difference once inside the Victorian aquarium building, unlike at Windsor, the atmosphere, the history, the sheer ambiance of the place all combine to work their magic and were capable, after about ten minutes, of completely reversing my mood.

The site itself is much larger inside than it appears from the outside, being arranged on multiple levels, which unfortunately means that this is one place that I could not recommend at all for the less able bodied amongst us. Also unlike at Windsor, we were not surrounded in people moaning about the admission charges - as soon as you get inside and see that first, grand aquarium hall the entry fee is forgotten.

You are going to have to forgive my woeful lack of knowledge in the marine biology department; there is far too wide a variety of fish, sea creatures and beautiful coral here to describe it all. What I am going to attempt to do is give you a brief walk through tour.

The main aquarium hall, which is 224ft (68 metres) long, is an architectural masterpiece in itself, being almost entirely original from its August 1872 opening date. The Aquarium complex was designed by a man with the wonderful name of Eugenius Birch - known, I hope, to all Brightonians as the designer of the late lamented West Pier. It cost the princely sum of £130,000 to build!

Welcome then, to the oldest operating aquarium in the world!

In the grand hall there is plenty to admire, its arched and domed ceiling and the ornate Victorian ironwork supporting the tanks themselves, cleverly lit from behind combine to create the unique, maybe slightly creepy atmosphere, indeed there have been many reported ghost sightings in the local paper, the most recent at Easter time by a young female Polish cleaner there! A local priest was brought in to exorcise the hall apparently. Not believing in ghosts my theory is that alone in this vast eerie space the fish play tricks with the shadows…..but who knows, maybe it is best to keep an open mind on such subjects.

RICHADA well of subject as usual, Klaudia wants to see the fish, lots of them, and she is not disappointed! We start off with large carp, as you may have read not my favourite Christmas dish and hardly an endangered species either, however they are of impressive size and it is rare to get such a close up look at them - apart from on a Polish Christmas plate of course! A huge conger eel half fills one tank. A tank full of piranha fish, of course with the obligatory phoney human skeleton. All have children rushing to 'ah' and 'aw' over. Down the centre of this hall are smaller tanks of various interesting shapes on raised plinths containing smaller fish and examples of local rock pool dwellers, star fish, crabs and the like.

According to the guide book the hall is segregated into themed areas; e.g. sandy sea bed, old harbour, summer visitors and colder climates. This is almost impossible to assimilate actually inside the hall. Each tank does have a descriptive panel next to it which is helpful in identifying the various occupants of those tanks.

In the centre of the hall is a children's play activity centre where the staff carry out face painting and clay modelling etc. A large open topped tank opposite contains many large flat fish, stingrays - all of which appear to have happy faces, as indeed do the visitors to this place!

Lion fish, sea horses, you will see them all in abundance here, very attractively displayed and contained too. In one corner of this vast hall as you enter a dark corridor "The World of the Sea Horse" there is a completely gratuitous display on the Titanic disaster - by far the poorest that I have seen anywhere. In this particular attraction it is entirely out of context and should be moved onto the pier across the road.

More tanks of assorted shapes and sizes, some containing cold water fish - the water being chilled. Here you will find rubber window squeegees to wipe away the condensation from the glass, enabling you to see into the tank - the children love playing with the wipers!

At the end of this corridor you enter a strange area supposed to be representing Captain Nemo's undersea vessel 'Nautilus' - again seemingly superfluous in this setting, before ascending a flight of stairs to a reception area. There are usually Sea Life Centre staff, or independent campaigners on hand, with various marine life related petitions to sign. It is also possible to obtain from them information on feeding times.

The first time that you descend the stairs the other side into the main auditorium area I will guarantee you one of those classic audible "WoW!" moments. From the top of these stairs is the most dramatic view of this, the largest such tank in the country, home to two giant turtles, a whole shoal of small black tip shark, plus tens of thousands of very colourful smaller fish. Mid-afternoon is usually feeding time, during our two visits we have seen the sharks fed at 4.30 and (twice) the turtles at 3.30pm. They do not eat every day, the smaller turtle is a vegetarian breed, whilst the larger is a carnivore - being fed on a mixed sea food diet.

Feeding time is the highlight of any visit here due to the staff member giving a talk on the various species in the tank whilst she tosses in the food. On our first visit, the young lady giving the talk was French and unfortunately difficult to understand. On our return visit several weeks later a very well informed young lady by the name of Bryony did a fascinating talk on the turtles to a packed house.

Marine music, clever, colourful lighting and a very attractive, if artificial coral reef - the turtles would eat the real thing - complete this, surely one of the most spectacular sights in Brighton.

Another of Brighton Sea Life boasts is that running underneath this tank is one of the longest under water glass walkways in the country. On that first visit, with Klaudia, we spent ages standing there just watching the turtles swimming above our heads, whilst all around us we were surrounded in sharks and smaller fish.

There may be other places in the country where you are able to do this, but I have not, and therefore, for me at least, this is a unique experience.

Leaving the marine tunnel you enter a small area dedicated to octopi, regrettably on our second visit the large octopus was missing from his tank - he is well worth seeing so it was a good job that he was at home the first time that we called. From here you re-emerge into the main Aquarium hall.

As you leave the main hall through the exit doors, next to where you initially entered it, there are on your right hand side good, clean, toilets. Through the doors in front of you and you are into a fairly large shop. On sale here is a wide variety of mostly marine related children's toys and gifts, all at reasonable prices - I found little to appeal to a more adult market though.

The exit from the shop is made via a small café, with a children's soft play area off to the right hand side. The cakes, sandwiches and biscuits on display looked of reasonable quality and were not over-priced. There is the option of eating al-fresco with tables and chairs provided on the terrace outside. The generally terribly busy atmosphere, plus it being the "exit corridor" from the Sea Life centre would put me off of having a relaxing cuppa here though.

Indeed on that first visit, having walked the sea front and spent a couple of hours in the Aquarium, Klaudia and I were hungry. The entrance fee does entitle you to an all day pass - the back of your hand being stamped as you enter with your ticket initially. We took an hour out for lunch - guess where? Donnattelo of course! Here we were presented with another half price ticket, expiring on 31st August - hence our return visit.

On our first visit, due to the lighting conditions and glass tanks, Mrs R. had struggled with our baby Sony digital camera and it's flash to take good photographs. I had remarked upon our first visit that this would be a much better environment for the video camera, which does not rely on flash and is a lot less fussy about lighting conditions. We had therefore intended our second visit as more of a photographic sortie than anything else, but we found ourselves enjoying the Brighton Sea Life centre all the more until…..

…..disaster struck!

Mrs R. wearing a very attractive pair of rubber soled leather flip-flops slipped and had a nasty fall in the main Aquarium hall on the way out. The floor is black and white checked lino and was that afternoon "sweating" badly due to the very humid atmosphere inside the old building. She even saw a wet floor sign on the floor prior to slipping, but the surface was like ice - I had leather soled shoes on and could barely walk on it. Yes, there are notices on the walls and in the entrance warning you to beware of slippery floors and that the Sea Life organisation bares no responsibility for injury to person or property. At the prices they are charging, surely they could afford, and the technology IS available, to provide a non-slip surface on the floors. Leaving a slippery, wet, lino floor, with or without disclaimers is simply asking for trouble.

My wife left the Brighton Sea Life centre on the second occasion with a painful and badly bruised knee, a completely destroyed flip flop and a filthy dirty (the floor was not even clean!) pair of trousers. It could have been worse - she could have had a broken neck.

Whilst this leads me to advise you to wear more sensible footwear (this building IS immediately adjacent to the beach, half of the visitors are wearing flip flops here), and dark clothing, there is rust everywhere inside the building - I had it on my trousers without falling over - I find this situation almost as intolerable as the idea of seeing performing dolphins here. After all as a company director I bear, by law, responsibility for the health and safety of our employees. I am not allowed to shirk this responsibility by claiming that I operate from in a historically listed building, nor by posting disclaimer notices on the factory walls, additionally the general public are not admitted to our premises anyway.

Despite that, we have to say that we really enjoyed the Brighton Sea Life Centre, but now have serious reservations about returning there. If we were to return we would go completely off season, there would be far less pushing and shoving and we would make absolutely sure that we were wearing more appropriate footwear and clothing.

The Brighton Sea Life Centre is undoubtedly an asset to the city and breathes continued life into these wonderful old historic buildings. The trouble is that they are in obvious need of some upgrading to become a serious visitor attraction in the 21st Century.

Currently one could only regard this venue as any sort of value for money with a special offer ticket.

Brighton Sea Life Centre is open every day, except Christmas day.
March to September (inclusive) from 10.00 to 17.00
October to February (inclusive) from 10.00 to 16.00

 

...less