UK Family Days Out: London Aquarium

by Suzanne Baum

Standing face to face with a shark is not something a toddler would generally choose to do, unless it's at The London Aquarium, perhaps. This is where we brought our two young boys, aged 2 and 3, to see sharks but also a whole range of other fish including piranhas, rays and jellyfish. Designed in a very child-friendly way, with many of the tanks built at low level so that children can see, the aquarium is separated into 14 zones incuding ‘coral reef’, ‘tropical freshwater’ and ‘rivers and ponds’.

Highlights for us included the ‘touch zone’, where kids can stroke friendly rays and starfish, and the Pacific tank with its tiger and brown sharks. Descending three floors of the building, the tank contains more than 1 million litres of water and can be viewed from every angle. At certain times of the day, you can watch the fish being fed; time it right and you can even watch divers hand-feeding giant conger eels. There are also daily talks by aquatic biologists, and the inevitable shop beside the exit – our kids would not leave without their own collection of small fish, fortunately of the inflatable kind.

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