A family day out at Bristol Aquarium

What can you expect from a visit to Bristol Aquarium?

An ideal outing for a rainy day, Bristol Aquarium is a great educational and sensory experience. And to make it even better, I took advantage of a ‘child goes free’ offer, using my free 12-month Kids Pass membership that comes with Boundless membership. My children, aged five and two years old, arrive full of excitement to see all the weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit our seas – and look for Dory and Nemo!  

We arrive at Bristol Aquarium at 11am and show our pre-purchased tickets from Kids Pass before venturing in to explore the attraction. Following the one-way layout, we love that you’re free to explore the aquarium at your leisure. Although it was busy with weekend visitors, with multiple tanks to view, we had plenty of space to watch incredible sea creatures in the different zones. 

We kick off our tour at the Sunken Shipwreck exhibit, which is inspired by the UK coastline. My children love spotting sea creatures, and are delighted to see a big octopus and catsharks, before clambering into a boat for a photograph. 

Next we visit the Urban Jungle area, where we see Bay of Rays and tortoises sunning themselves. We love the tropical feel of this area and admire the dinosaur models and waterfall. It has a bench, too, so is perfect for a drink and snack stop.

Continuing on, we find the Ocean Floor exhibit and spot a variety of deep-sea dwelling marine animals, including the Bull Huss shark, sea bass and Atlantic wreckfish. It has a huge, deep tank that we look down on from above, plus a couple of smaller tanks where we spot our favourite creature of the day – starfish!

In the Learning Lab, we watch tiny seahorses bobbing around, and are delighted to spot a couple of pregnant seahorses with their fry (baby seahorses). My children love climbing underneath the display to pop up in the middle of their tank. What a cool view! This area has some great interactive educational activities for older children too.

There’s another huge tank at the magical Edge of the Rainforest exhibit, which is home to piranhas and bright blue poison dart frogs. 

One of our favourite displays is the glass tunnel in the Coral Seas area. Here, we watch sharks swimming over our heads! After that, our final stop for the day – a floor-to-ceiling tank containing several unusual and enormous fish species. It’s a memorable end to the underworld experience.

Moving at a leisurely pace, it takes us around 90 minutes to do the full Bristol Aquarium tour. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our morning there, and plan to visit again using the offer that comes with Kids Pass as part of our Boundless membership. 

Rose’s top tips

Check out the event schedule on the main display. There are talks throughout the day where you can learn about Bristol Aquarium sea life from an expert, and there you can watch feeds taking place in the Coral Reef and Amazon areas. There is also a host of special events throughout the year – see the Bristol Aquarium website for further details. 

Where to eat and drink

We finish our tour in perfect time for lunch at the onsite cafe, which serves a selection of hot and cold drinks, pizzas, toasties, baguettes, ice cream, cakes and other snacks. Children’s meal deals are also available. This is a very family friendly and colourful area with fun activities to entertain children – on our last visit there was a dinosaur dig near the cafe.

If you’d rather go somewhere else to eat – Bristol is a great city to explore, after all – don’t forget that if you’re a Boundless member you can take advantage of your tastecard including Coffee Club membership. It gives you 2-for-1 dining or 25% off food and drinks at chains like Prezzo, Zizzi, Bella Italia, Revolution and Burger King, plus thousands of independent restaurants.

How to get there

Bristol Aquarium is easily accessed by public transport. By bus, use the ‘The Centre’ bus stop on St Augustine’s Parade, close to Bristol Hippodrome. 

By train, it's a 20-minute walk, a 17-minute ferry ride or a 10-minute bus ride from Bristol Temple Meads.

If you’re coming by car, Millenium Square Car Park is closest, and a two-minute walk away. College Street Car Park enables you to stay for up to four hours and is a seven-minute walk, while Trenchard Street NCP is a 10-minute walk. There’s a Clean Air Zone in Bristol City Centre, so check whether you'll need to pay any charges.

Do more with Boundless

If you're working in or retired from the public sector or civil service, Boundless has two great membership options to choose from: Boundless and Boundless Plus. With Boundless, you get unlimited access or discounted entry to many of the UK’s top attractions, including Kew Gardens and Wakehurst and WWT centres across the UK, as well as year-round deals on restaurants, holidays, shopping and much more. With Boundless Plus, you can enjoy additional benefits including unlimited access to Historic Royal Palaces sites, National Trust for Scotland places, access to the Ramblers' extensive walking community, and peace of mind with roadside assistance and local recovery by LV= Britannia Rescue. 

*Please note that Kids Pass offers may change from time to time. With this offer, children are classed as under-12s (those under three get free entry as standard). 

Photos: Rose Fox (Bristol Family Blog)