In the city centre of Birmingham, on the edge of one of the city’s many canals, you will find the National Sea Life Centre. Though smaller than some of the other Sea Life Centres, like London for example, there is still plenty to enjoy and Sea Life in Birmingham has some real stand out moments that make it well worth a visit.
We visited Sea Life during February half term of 2024 and, like all big attractions in the school holidays, it was busy. Prebooking is advisable as tickets during the holidays do tend to sell out, and if you have a Merlin Annual Pass Sea Life is included so you can visit for free but you do need to prebook your space. Even though it was busy, we found that by taking our time and allowing the crowds to pass us by we still got a chance to see everything and to get up close to the many tanks and displays.
When you enter the aquarium, you are quickly meet some of the most popular resident of Sea Life, the penguins. There are some portals to look through as well as huge glass windows next to the penguin pool so that you can see the penguins swimming around and doing incredible dives into the water. Our toddler loved this zone and ended up laying down on his belly and getting nose to nose with a penguin on the other side of the glass. The penguins seemed as interested in him as he was in them!
After this, you come into a large warehouse style building with a winding path that leads you through various underwater worlds. The top of this area was a rock pool zone where kids can get hands on to explore a range of different shellfish. The staff were very knowledgeable, and my older son spent a lot of time here exploring and asking questions.
There were some unique animals to interact with at the Sea Life Birmingham that I think make it worth a visit, even if you have been to a Sea Life before, including the incredible sea otters. We got to see the otters at feeding time and it was very special to see them floating on their backs tucking into a lunch of frozen mussels!
We also loved the underwater tunnel which was much longer than any we have experienced before. Part of the floor of the tunnel is glass giving you a full 360 view of the aquarium around you. Within this tank are sharks and an enormous sea turtle. It was a big wow moment to get so close to such a magnificent animal. After the tunnel you enter into the jellyfish area and there is an area for children to do some crafts and colour-by-number sheets.
All in all, our visit took us about 90 minutes. In the area of Birmingham you will also find the Legoland Discovery Centre and some great restaurants (we went to Ed’s Easy Diner which was fantastic!) so you could easily make a full day of fun for all the family!
