SEA LIFE Weymouth Value for money or extortionate rip off?

Unfortunately this is near typical for most aquariums (and all Sea Life Centre's).

Personally I find them pretty poor value for money when you consider how long (even a very interested person) can spend looking around at these places. I've not been there but guess you'd struggle to spend more than two, three at max, hours there -which looks very bad when you consider that a small/medium zoo is typically around a tenner (for half a day's worth of "entertainment" and the larger zoos are roughly the same price (or slightly less) for a full day out.

I know there's sometimes vouchers out there that diminish the price a little (especially for family groups) but that's not the point -the "headline" entrance fee is appalling.

On a personal level I rarely visit these places. About every three years my memory fades and I go round one only to come out thinking, "why did I do that, I should have known better" and "I could have had a whole day at (insert major zoo) for the price of those two hours".

I suppose there is some argument that £17.50 for a couple of hours entertainment isn't bad compared with, say, the cost of 90 minutes for a Premiership football match, but conversely a couple of hours at a cinema is around half that -I'm amazed these places survive (and seemingly thrive).
 
The National Marine Aquarium, which i personally think is head and shoulders above Weymouth sea life Centre, is only £11 for an adult.
 
Scarborough Sealife centre is £14.50 or £47 for a family ticket. It does work out cheaper if you buy on-line though. For comparison Flamingo Land Zoo & Theme Park is £25 or £90 a family ticket. :eek:
 
The Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, receive a significant amount of funding from other sources which they use to benefit the whole operation. Whilst £11.00 is cheap compared to others, it is still a lot of money.

Anyone on here remember the old aquarium, when it was on the old site?
 
I just got back from Scarborough and thought the Sealife was incredibly expensive for whats there, instead we went to The Deep in Hull which was fantastic, I cant get the sites website to work but I think the prices were pretty good. We also did Flamingo Land which is a little overpriced for whats there, especially if your going just for the zoo.
 
I went to Weymouth last year with discount vouchers, I think my husband and I paid around £11 each. I thought even at this reduced price it was a bit of a rip off. It was a nice place to visit but we were finished within a couple of hours. I left thinking that we should have gone to Monkey World, which would have cost about the same, but we would have spent the whole day there!
 
Go to your average aquatic store (pet fish) and you can see most of the small stuff for free!!

Saw some nice archerfish, arowana and a large variety of salt water fish last time i went to my local including a shark egg (guessing nurse shark) pipefish and seahorses.
 
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