Day out at London Sea Life

Well, Ron and I had planned to meet up with my parents and two nephews today so we decided to treat them to a visit to the London Sea Life centre.

A word of warning - if you decide to visit this, or probably any other London attraction on a school holiday weekend, be sure to take snacks, water, a fold-up seat and be prepared to queue!

I should have known better, and although I expected to have to queue a little I really didn't expect it to be like queuing for the most popular ride at Disneyland!  So, an hour and a half later we finally made it to the front of the queue and made our purchase, 4 adults and 2 children.  Even with the 2 for 1 vouchers that I got, I had to steady myself with one hand on the counter when I was told the price!  I guess, I'd forgotten how much everything costs since moving out of London.

We walked around the freshwater exhibits, and saw some freshwater pipefish, although I'm not sure what species they were as I couldn't see an information sign.  

They kind of look  like alligator's, but if that's the case they were in the wrong section!

We then walked around to the touch pool where they had a number of starfish in a little rock pool type thing and where people were encouraged to put their hands in the water and touch them.  In the space of just a few minutes at least 10 different pairs of hands must have been in that water.  Sadly, the sink by the side of the touch pool was out of order and so no one was washing their hands before taking the plunge.  I wonder how safe that is for the animals?

By this time, we had been walking around the exhibition for around 15 minutes and  just before going through the Ocean tunnel (leading to the seahorses) we stopped so that we could sign the Save the Shark petition, and my youngest nephew, Ciaran, could draw a picture of a round, yellow shark!!  Just as we were about to head through the tunnel the fire alarm sounded and we were all evacuated. NOooooo!  Thus, my mission was ruined

On the way out we managed to share a few moments with a rather friendly ray who wanted to say hello!  How sweet!

I have to say that I am so proud of my little nephews who are only 5 and 7 as they refrained from putting their hands in the water when the opportunity arose.  The youngest one pointed out to me why it wasn't good for the fish :)

Regardless of not being able to see the seahorses, we still had a fun day!