A few weeks ago we visited the Birmingham Sea Life Centre for our first visit as 2016 ambassadors. We are delighted to have been chosen to support the Centre for another year, after loving being ambassadors last year.
Two exciting bits of news from our latest visit to the centre; they currently have a fun Mister Maker Creature Makes event running at the centre, and the new 360 degree ocean tunnel is now open!
The Mister Maker Creature Makes event is great fun and ideal for crafty kids. When you get to the Sea Life Centre each child gets a special paper bag and a leaflet with instructions. As you walk around the centre, you have to look out for three boxes full of Mister Maker craft supplies, and stamp your leaflet after collecting what you need from each bin.
At the end of the walk around the centre, in one of the activity areas they have, is a craft station where you can watch a video of Mister Maker giving you instructions, and then use some more craft materials provided by the staff to create a sea creature.
The craft materials you collect as you walk around the centre are yours to take home. You can create a special crab with a recycled bottle lid, along with the stickers, pipe cleaners and circles of card provided. We buy the wrong colour milk so our crab was green rather than red, but Lydia loved making it all the same!
The leaflet has a voucher on it too, bonus! It entitles one child to come into the Sea Life Centre for free when accompanied by a fully paid adult, and is valid until the end of June.
The other exciting new development at the Sea Life Centre is the new ocean tunnel which has been completely transformed with a new entrance area, and a new walkway through. Instead of a metal grid walkway with side rails, you now walk out onto a completely clear surface and can see all the way above, around and below you into the water.
It is amazing, the view of the sea creatures swimming around is unparalleled and watching the sea turtle swim beneath our feet was really fantastic. I could have stayed there for ages, just watching everything swim by. The tank feels so much more open to you and I felt closer to all the creatures than ever before. It was a little unnerving taking the first steps out onto the clear walkway though – eek!
As always, we were fascinated by everything we saw as we walked through the centre. Georgie was delighted to see “her” zebra shark that she has been checking in on since it was born has grown even more and begun to go spotty instead of striped. We got to see the octopus move around his (her?) tank for the first time which gave us a great view of how it moves around, which we all found fascinating.
The otters were awake and playful, which was fun to watch – they are often asleep when we visit so it was lovely to see them during an awake period. Also, Georgie stroked a starfish for the first time ever at the Birmingham Centre – having been too nervous to do it for a year, then surprising us by doing it at both the Great Yarmouth and Manchester centres lately!
There really is something new to discover with every visit, and the constant development of the centre makes it feel like there is something new to see almost every time.
The Mister Maker event is on until the 12th June, so why not get down there this weekend and have a go?
That looks like great fun, we had the pleasure of seeing Mr Maker live recently he was great!
I love your crab! we haven’t made ours yet, you’ve inspired me to get a move on now. I can’t wait to see the 360 tunnel at Birmingham, I just hope I can go through in my wheelchair, I’ll have to phone and ask. I’d love to see Molokia the sea turtle again.