This branch of the SEA LIFE Aquarium chain is the only one in the United States and was opened in August 2008. It is located 30 miles North of downtown San Diego in Carlsbad, California, next to the entrance to the LEGOLAND theme park that is owned by the same company as the aquarium chain. The chain includes 26 other SEA LIFE facilities, most located in Great Britain and Germany. This location relies heavily on combination visits with the adjoining theme park because it is located on the edge of a large parking lot devoted to the park and is in a large sprawling low density suburban area. It also has competition from the nice similarly-sized Birch Aquarium at Scripps Institute of Oceanography 20 miles South, and the massive aquarium attractions of Sea World San Diego 25 miles South. I suspect that the company thought it could survive and compete in this crowded market by applying its existing facility model here, one which emphasizes bright small habitats and playful educational features to appeal to younger children. Indeed, this approach is different from Birch with its scientific and exclusively California exhibits, and Sea World with its large tanks and performing shows.
The aquarium is mid-sized and located in its own modern two-story building next to the theme park ticket booths, where tickets are purchased. It has no lobby, instead a small covered entry area leads to a small orientation room with a very short video before the doors open to the single exhibit path which explores the first floor, then ascends to the second floor, ending at a café before descending back down to the first floor and the exit through a small gift shop. Contrary to what I had heard previously, the exhibits are mostly satisfactory to adults, have plenty of informational graphics that are not overly simplified, are not upstaged by too many play elements, and are not overrun with LEGO characters…except the largest tank. There are LEGO characters made of the blocks to look like large versions of their tiny people, and they are used sparingly, usually with just one in each themed exhibit room and dressed appropriately to match the theme. The small rooms often feature painted backdrops to augment the theme and create ‘distant views’, but there is also plenty of quality three dimensional rockwork and theming. Most of the tanks are indeed on the intimate scale, but are filled with enough variety and interest and detail to make them a delight. Most of the exhibits are salt water and tropical, with an initial area of emphasis on California habitats. There are no birds, mammals, or large sharks.
The first room is Gold Rush River, with two curved open-top stream tanks on either side of a small slide through a tree stump in a simulated mountain forest. Next to this is a wall tank set in a rocky backdrop for fish from Lake Tahoe. These fresh water tanks are the only ones at the facility and are one of four rooms devoted to California native species. San Francisco Harbor is next, with a curved tank featuring leopard sharks which is one of the largest at the facility but is still quite small compared to other facilities, maybe 25 feet long. It is themed with pier pilings and a tanker ship bow that can be entered for a childs-eye view and a pop-up bubble into an adjacent open-top small fish tank. Two more small wall tanks are nearby, both with convex bubble windows that magnify the small occupants including mussels attached to a piling. Also here is a disappointingly small giant Pacific octopus tank. This room openly adjoins the next, California Coast, which has three open-top tidal exhibits, one of which is a nice linear wave tank with a sloping floor. A smaller curved fish tank is nearby, and a small rocky tidal pool is filled with anemones and sea stars. This last one is oddly designed, since it is low and appears to be an easily accessed childs touch tank, but is in fact not. The next room is a weak small maze-like corridor called Sharks Revealed, and only contains two small tanks for small sharks including young leopards and bamboos, a shark egg case display, a staffed education table, and some shark jaw wall graphics. After this, an exhibit which is the only truly abstract one here is called Shoaling Ring, a square room surrounded by a plain square tank with sloping sides that is filled with two species of small silvery schooling fish. The bench in the middle of the room is a great place to relax and tune out if need be. Although the aquarium was fairly empty when I visited, I can imagine its small spaces becoming a headache-inducing nightmare for adults when crowded. A small theater with a video is then passed in a hallway that leads to the last of the California themed rooms and the only outdoor one. This is the Southern California Tidepool, a sheltered central staffed touch tank beneath an overhang with beach themed graphics on the walls and a ‘sandcastle’ made of LEGOs to which visitors can add bricks. Back indoors, SEA LIFE Lab is next, which looks like an exotic industrial underwater lab with three round wall aquariums for moon jellies and lionfish and others, a square wall aquarium for neon colored fish, and a shelf aquarium for sea stars and shrimp. The next room is a curving tunnel through Lost City of Atlantis, by far the largest tank of the facility. It is filled with a wide variety of larger tropical fish, cownose rays, reef sharks, and the largest fish, a zebra shark. It is also filled with LEGO divers and submarines and a giant statue of Neptune with a trident which all the inhabitants weave around. These figures are piled on too heavily and their presence does little to augment the tank…it would be a nice exhibit without them. I asked a family nearby if they thought the figures were fun, and their lukewarm response suggests that by the time they were in the aquarium after being in LEGOLAND all day, they were burned out on this device. However, the figures do not ruin the tank and are viewed two more times in the next area, Shipwreck. This nicely themed room has a small amphitheater seating area facing the big tank, as well as smaller aquariums with sunken ship parts for clown fish, eels, scorpionfish, and others. The room itself has a successful arrangement of planks and hatches and crates that cradle the exhibits.
A plain stairwell then leads up to the second floor exhibits, beginning with Surf Break. It has a small open-top tank and a curved mangrove tank, neither of which is very instructive to the idea being conveyed here, it seems like a leftover space. There is also a window into the Atlantis tank seen from below earlier. Next is Ray Lagoon, a room with a single octagonal open-top tank for rays and small sharks with a sandy bottom that is high enough to discourage ray petting! It is a nice tank and is situated in a well-detailed South American temple ruin and forest setting. This leads to Kingdom of the Seahorse, four small wall aquariums in an extension of the temple theme. The last room along the exhibit path is Discovery Zone Touch Pool, with another staffed touch pool and two round aquariums with pop-up windows for tropical fish and a few more porthole windows into the previously viewed Atlantis exhibit. This room is cruise ship themed, before leading out to the Ocean Journey Café and its modern cafeteria-style serving and dining areas and an outdoor terrace. The café also has one final open-top aquarium, set within the dining area. Then a stairwell leads back down to the generically decorated gift shop and exit.
The lack of standout exhibits, the small size of most of the tanks, and the neurotic jumps of theme and focus combine to place this facility fairly low on my list of 33 aquariums I have visited. It is number 25. However, I can still recommend a visit to any aquarium fan because it is a pleasant collection of species in professionally designed habitats, some of which highlight their inhabitants very well. See it only after seeing Sea World and Birch Aquarium when in the area. Adult general admission is $18.95, which is 7 dollars too expensive for the experience. Many visitors buy combination packages with the adjacent theme park that I will not detail, so admission can be more ‘affordable’ if interested in a kids park. I have posted photos in the United States gallery called ‘Carlsbad Sea Life Aquarium’.
The aquarium is mid-sized and located in its own modern two-story building next to the theme park ticket booths, where tickets are purchased. It has no lobby, instead a small covered entry area leads to a small orientation room with a very short video before the doors open to the single exhibit path which explores the first floor, then ascends to the second floor, ending at a café before descending back down to the first floor and the exit through a small gift shop. Contrary to what I had heard previously, the exhibits are mostly satisfactory to adults, have plenty of informational graphics that are not overly simplified, are not upstaged by too many play elements, and are not overrun with LEGO characters…except the largest tank. There are LEGO characters made of the blocks to look like large versions of their tiny people, and they are used sparingly, usually with just one in each themed exhibit room and dressed appropriately to match the theme. The small rooms often feature painted backdrops to augment the theme and create ‘distant views’, but there is also plenty of quality three dimensional rockwork and theming. Most of the tanks are indeed on the intimate scale, but are filled with enough variety and interest and detail to make them a delight. Most of the exhibits are salt water and tropical, with an initial area of emphasis on California habitats. There are no birds, mammals, or large sharks.
The first room is Gold Rush River, with two curved open-top stream tanks on either side of a small slide through a tree stump in a simulated mountain forest. Next to this is a wall tank set in a rocky backdrop for fish from Lake Tahoe. These fresh water tanks are the only ones at the facility and are one of four rooms devoted to California native species. San Francisco Harbor is next, with a curved tank featuring leopard sharks which is one of the largest at the facility but is still quite small compared to other facilities, maybe 25 feet long. It is themed with pier pilings and a tanker ship bow that can be entered for a childs-eye view and a pop-up bubble into an adjacent open-top small fish tank. Two more small wall tanks are nearby, both with convex bubble windows that magnify the small occupants including mussels attached to a piling. Also here is a disappointingly small giant Pacific octopus tank. This room openly adjoins the next, California Coast, which has three open-top tidal exhibits, one of which is a nice linear wave tank with a sloping floor. A smaller curved fish tank is nearby, and a small rocky tidal pool is filled with anemones and sea stars. This last one is oddly designed, since it is low and appears to be an easily accessed childs touch tank, but is in fact not. The next room is a weak small maze-like corridor called Sharks Revealed, and only contains two small tanks for small sharks including young leopards and bamboos, a shark egg case display, a staffed education table, and some shark jaw wall graphics. After this, an exhibit which is the only truly abstract one here is called Shoaling Ring, a square room surrounded by a plain square tank with sloping sides that is filled with two species of small silvery schooling fish. The bench in the middle of the room is a great place to relax and tune out if need be. Although the aquarium was fairly empty when I visited, I can imagine its small spaces becoming a headache-inducing nightmare for adults when crowded. A small theater with a video is then passed in a hallway that leads to the last of the California themed rooms and the only outdoor one. This is the Southern California Tidepool, a sheltered central staffed touch tank beneath an overhang with beach themed graphics on the walls and a ‘sandcastle’ made of LEGOs to which visitors can add bricks. Back indoors, SEA LIFE Lab is next, which looks like an exotic industrial underwater lab with three round wall aquariums for moon jellies and lionfish and others, a square wall aquarium for neon colored fish, and a shelf aquarium for sea stars and shrimp. The next room is a curving tunnel through Lost City of Atlantis, by far the largest tank of the facility. It is filled with a wide variety of larger tropical fish, cownose rays, reef sharks, and the largest fish, a zebra shark. It is also filled with LEGO divers and submarines and a giant statue of Neptune with a trident which all the inhabitants weave around. These figures are piled on too heavily and their presence does little to augment the tank…it would be a nice exhibit without them. I asked a family nearby if they thought the figures were fun, and their lukewarm response suggests that by the time they were in the aquarium after being in LEGOLAND all day, they were burned out on this device. However, the figures do not ruin the tank and are viewed two more times in the next area, Shipwreck. This nicely themed room has a small amphitheater seating area facing the big tank, as well as smaller aquariums with sunken ship parts for clown fish, eels, scorpionfish, and others. The room itself has a successful arrangement of planks and hatches and crates that cradle the exhibits.
A plain stairwell then leads up to the second floor exhibits, beginning with Surf Break. It has a small open-top tank and a curved mangrove tank, neither of which is very instructive to the idea being conveyed here, it seems like a leftover space. There is also a window into the Atlantis tank seen from below earlier. Next is Ray Lagoon, a room with a single octagonal open-top tank for rays and small sharks with a sandy bottom that is high enough to discourage ray petting! It is a nice tank and is situated in a well-detailed South American temple ruin and forest setting. This leads to Kingdom of the Seahorse, four small wall aquariums in an extension of the temple theme. The last room along the exhibit path is Discovery Zone Touch Pool, with another staffed touch pool and two round aquariums with pop-up windows for tropical fish and a few more porthole windows into the previously viewed Atlantis exhibit. This room is cruise ship themed, before leading out to the Ocean Journey Café and its modern cafeteria-style serving and dining areas and an outdoor terrace. The café also has one final open-top aquarium, set within the dining area. Then a stairwell leads back down to the generically decorated gift shop and exit.
The lack of standout exhibits, the small size of most of the tanks, and the neurotic jumps of theme and focus combine to place this facility fairly low on my list of 33 aquariums I have visited. It is number 25. However, I can still recommend a visit to any aquarium fan because it is a pleasant collection of species in professionally designed habitats, some of which highlight their inhabitants very well. See it only after seeing Sea World and Birch Aquarium when in the area. Adult general admission is $18.95, which is 7 dollars too expensive for the experience. Many visitors buy combination packages with the adjacent theme park that I will not detail, so admission can be more ‘affordable’ if interested in a kids park. I have posted photos in the United States gallery called ‘Carlsbad Sea Life Aquarium’.
