We arrived at about 2pm - the website advised that we would need around 2-3 hours, and so we were confident we would have plenty of time to look around.
The aquarium was split over 3 sections and we followed the markings to view everything in order of layout.
Tyne was really interested in the jellyfish, and seemed drawn in by the dark environment and bright lights of the tanks.
The wall-to-wall glass tank in the center of the aquarium is very impressive, and unlike anything I have seen before in other UK aquariums. It was quite spectacular!There was a large auditorium in front of it where I assume talks are given but there didn't appear to be any on the day we were there. We did take a seat there to give Tyne his bottle, and he enjoyed watching the fish as he had it!
There were lots of weird and wonderful sights to behold, and everything held Tyne's interest well - I had been worried that he'd fall asleep and miss everything but he stayed awake the whole time we were there and seemed to enjoy looking at all the fish.
The underwater tunnel was one of our favorite sections, although when we first arrived there was a group of about 30 French students who were sitting lined up along the length of the tunnel floor making it impossible for anybody else to get anywhere near - they rather rudely did not move despite being able to see us and other people waiting to get in.
I realize that this isn't the aquariums fault but I do think a more visible staff presence around the aquarium would be helpful, as I would have liked to have pointed them out to a staff member and ask them to make some room for other visitors but I couldn't see any staff around - the students were pretty disruptive and extremely loud throughout our whole visit actually, so I do think staff should have been more in control of the visit.
Tyne particularly loved seeing the jellyfish tanks....I found the layout of the aquarium attractive overall, and everything was very clean.
Overall, our day at the aquarium was fun but it did only take us about an hour at most to see everything - we did wonder if we had missed some so we went back through but we had seen everything. I was expecting it to be a bit bigger, and would say the 2-3 hour time projection is probably a bit over-estimated unless you are visiting on a day when there are lots of talks planned.
For more information on visiting the aquarium, please go to http://www.national-aquarium.co.uk/
*We were given free access to the aquarium in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are my own.
