SEA LIFE Weymouth Weymouth Sea Life visit

gentle lemur

gentle lemur

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
I had been meaning to go to this Centre for some time, and I finally got round to it yesterday. I was surprised to find that it is not like the other Sea Life Centres that I have visited: I was expecting a fairly large aquarium building with a couple of outdoor enclosures attached - but this a compact park dotted with small exhibit buildings, outdoor exhibits, a few natural areas, several children's play areas and a couple of fairground stalls. I think it largely caters for family parties at the seaside, which is fair enough. I deliberately chose a weekday in term time, although the Centre was only open from 11 to 4: there was a queue at opening time, mainly of family groups with preschool children, but it was quite quiet in the afternoon.
I ignored the fairground stuff (although I noted that the model boating lake is called 'Jurassic Galleons' which is rather a mixed message) and I didn't bother with the Rock Pools. The variety of buildings produces a mix of exhibits. The Turtle Sanctuary and Ocean Tunnel disappointed - the shark tunnel is the shortest l have ever seen, but I don't like them anyway. Unfortunately there is no escape from the SLC 'house style' - dim lighting, sometimes with funny colours, and jingling muzak. The Tropical Lagoon reef exhibit suffers horribly from both. The outdoor enclosures for common seals, ASCOs and Humboldt penguins are good to middling. The highlights for me were the Congo salmon and the four-eyed fish in the freshwater Rainforest building, the common octopus and the range of scorpionfishes in Shipwreck and the seahorse, shrimpfish and filefish tank in the Seahorse Nursery. But of course I didn't really go to see them, I wanted to see both weedy seadragons and fairy penguins again, and I wanted nice photos too of course. The animals didn't disappoint me, indeed they were splendid, but although their exhibits were nice, they were not particularly suitable for photography. I am certainly tempted to work out how to do better and then to visit again.
 
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Update
I visited again on 18th July 2023.There have been no major developments since my previous visit, reported above. The fairy penguins seem to be doing well, 6 chicks are currently being reared. I saw the eldest three in a small pen beside the indoor pool and near the door to the outside enclosure; they only have a few tufts of down left and are being introduced to the adults. The other significant breeding is the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi, sometimes called the slender seahorse. The fry were 'born' in October last year and are now more or less adult. This is a good result as this species produces very small fry which are consequently harder to raise than many other seahorse species. In the next tank some young pot-bellied seahorses were also doing well, but I don't know where they came from. I counted seven weedy seadragons in their tank in the same building, but I noticed that only the two largest specimens spent all their time at the front of tank, most of the smaller ones stayed at the rear. Photos to follow.
 
gentle lemur said:
Update
I visited again on 18th July 2023.There have been no major developments since my previous visit, reported above. The fairy penguins seem to be doing well, 6 chicks are currently being reared. I saw the eldest three in a small pen beside the indoor pool and near the door to the outside enclosure; they only have a few tufts of down left and are being introduced to the adults. The other significant breeding is the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi, sometimes called the slender seahorse. The fry were 'born' in October last year and are now more or less adult. This is a good result as this species produces very small fry which are consequently harder to raise than many other seahorse species. In the next tank some young pot-bellied seahorses were also doing well, but I don't know where they came from. I counted seven weedy seadragons in their tank in the same building, but I noticed that only the two largest specimens spent all their time at the front of tank, most of the smaller ones stayed at the rear. Photos to follow.
Click to expand...

Was the little penguin walkthrough open?
 
gentle lemur said:
Update
I visited again on 18th July 2023.There have been no major developments since my previous visit, reported above. The fairy penguins seem to be doing well, 6 chicks are currently being reared. I saw the eldest three in a small pen beside the indoor pool and near the door to the outside enclosure; they only have a few tufts of down left and are being introduced to the adults. The other significant breeding is the longsnout seahorse, Hippocampus reidi, sometimes called the slender seahorse. The fry were 'born' in October last year and are now more or less adult. This is a good result as this species produces very small fry which are consequently harder to raise than many other seahorse species. In the next tank some young pot-bellied seahorses were also doing well, but I don't know where they came from. I counted seven weedy seadragons in their tank in the same building, but I noticed that only the two largest specimens spent all their time at the front of tank, most of the smaller ones stayed at the rear. Photos to follow.
Click to expand...
Were there still hagfish on display??
 
Planning on visiting in the coming weeks so as to see the Little Blue Penguins - is their enclosure still accessible (sure it is, but with avian influenza, I wanted to clarify this before visiting just to see them and being disappointed)? May I also ask if they still have spider crabs, and if there are any other must-see exhibits or species that I don't know of (I assume the hagfish are still offshow)?

Apologies for asking this here, but as the collection lacks a designated news thread, I wasn't sure where else to post it.

Thanks for any help!
 
Kalaw said:
Planning on visiting in the coming weeks so as to see the Little Blue Penguins - is their enclosure still accessible (sure it is, but with avian influenza, I wanted to clarify this before visiting just to see them and being disappointed)? May I also ask if they still have spider crabs, and if there are any other must-see exhibits or species that I don't know of (I assume the hagfish are still offshow)?

Apologies for asking this here, but as the collection lacks a designated news thread, I wasn't sure where else to post it.

Thanks for any help!
Click to expand...

The blue penguin should be fine to see even if they have to take bird flu precautions.

They didn't have any spider crabs when I went a couple of years ago, the hagfish weren't on show when we went I asked about them and got greeted with what are they, so I'm guessing unless they have some more then they are gone.
 
Kalaw said:
Planning on visiting in the coming weeks so as to see the Little Blue Penguins - is their enclosure still accessible (sure it is, but with avian influenza, I wanted to clarify this before visiting just to see them and being disappointed)? May I also ask if they still have spider crabs, and if there are any other must-see exhibits or species that I don't know of (I assume the hagfish are still offshow)?
Click to expand...
I'm sure you'll see the penguins as they have a latge indoor area. The fishes that you must not miss are the weedy sea dragons! They are in the 'Seahorse Nursery' - remember that there are several small buildings inside the SeaLife compound, rather than a typical single large aquarium building, so keep checking the map. Many of the other fishes are pretty standard SeaLife species and the displays vary from good to rather disappointing. The freshwater section in 'Rainforest' is nice and there are some interesting scorpion fishes in the 'Shipwreck'. I don't recall seeing any spider crabs, but I might have overlooked them.
 
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