Ad disclosure: we were provided with free entry to Sea Life Birmingham for the purpose of this post.
This morning we were up early and headed into Birmingham City Centre for the Ancient Oceans event that is running at the Sea Life Centre this half term.
Ancient Oceans allows kids to become “Dinosaur Detectives” and complete different challenges around the centre. There are bones to hunt down – when you spot one, stick the corresponding bone sticker onto the dino skeleton. Visitors get a pretend paper magnifying glass, some stickers, and a little activity booklet with pictures to colour, a word search, and a space to draw your own sea creature – all with the Ancient Oceans theme.
The Dig Station in the event room was a particular highlight for both Georgie and Lydia this visit, with pits of sand filled with fossils to uncover. They each got a certificate to take home, and a real shark tooth too – how exciting! Their reward for completing the dino skeleton each was a pop on Ancient Oceans badge. These are so neat, they clip on safely to the kids clothes with no pins and no annoying plastic slides that have to attach awkwardly to necklines.
Of course, as well as the Ancient Oceans event, there is loads to see at the centre itself. It took us just under two hours to get around everything, and we could have easily stayed longer if we hadn’t have had to get home! The girls favourite creatures are without a doubt the Penguins, but it was great to see the occupant of the new Octopus tank in the revamped Clownfish Kingdom out and about – last time we were there it was hiding in the gloom at the back, so it was something new to see this visit.
One of my favourite things about the Sea Life Centre is that every time we visit – and we go a lot – there is something new to see or do, whether it is seeing how the young creatures are doing, or new creatures have been added in. The centre is constantly evolving and changing, and it never feels stale or boring. Creatures that were asleep or resting on our previous visit might be active on our next, and we’ve been able to catch different talks each visit.
About a year ago, they had some new baby Zebra Sharks and we have been spending a fair bit of time by their tank on every visit, ever since. Georgie calls these sharks “her babies” and checks up on them every time we visit, marvelling at them and being amazed at how much they’ve grown. She knows that they are going to lose their stripes and get more spotty as they get older, too.
Every visit is finished off with a second chance to see the penguins, a run around in the soft play area for the kids, and running the gauntlet of the gift shop – this is the girl’s favourite place to spend any birthday or Christmas money they have saved and we can spend quite a while there while they decide what they are buying!
The girls came home tired but happy with their stash of Ancient Oceans bits & gift shop goodies!
As always we really enjoyed our visit to the centre. You can probably tell that I love taking photos and get a bit snap happy while we are there! I’ve also put together a little video of our visit, if you want to check that out…
The centre celebrates it’s 20th anniversary this year, and 2016 is promising to be a brilliant year for the centre.
There are some great looking events coming up, with Penguin Week at the end of May, a Mister Maker themed month-long craftastic event in the spring, Turtle Fest in September, Spooky Seas in October, Shark Week in November, and Merry Fishmas in December. I’m sure we’ll be checking those out too!
The sea life centre is always worth a visit and you can get some good deals it you shop around.
Yes, it is great fun – and always popular with the girls. There are a lot of 2 for 1 deals for Sea Life around a lot of the time 🙂