UPDATED Thursday 26th of May: Due to matters beyond our control, we have had to postpone our scheduled reopening this weekend and will now be reopening sometime the following week (week commencing 24th of May). We’ll let you know exactly when once we’re able to. Apologies for any inconvenience called.
It’s been a long and painful few months for everyone, but we are DELIGHTED to announce that we will soon be throwing open our doors once again and welcoming our lovely visitors back into the aquarium.
A lot has changed since we shut our doors after Christmas but our dedicated zoo team have continued to work hard behind closed doors caring for our 3500+ aquatic animals and reptiles throughout the lockdown period. If you’ve passed the aquarium on a lockdown stroll and peered through the blacked-out windows of the aquarium, you will have noticed that renovation work has been happening during the lockdown period as we have used the time as an opportunity to give the aquarium some much needed TLC. We have completely renovated our reception, gift-shop and café areas as well as replacing the toilets, bringing everything bang up-to-date.
Aquarist Lauren cleaning the turtle tank ready for opening 
One of our Blue Tangs
Not only that, but if you’ve been following Blue Reef TV, you will know that our Ocean Tank Project has been in full swing, completely restructuring our enormous 133,000-litre South-Pacific tank and underwater viewing tunnel. Our much-anticipated mystery animals are on their way to the aquarium however due to quarantine delays caused by the pandemic, they will unfortunately not be ready in time for our re-opening. We’ll let you know as soon as they’re ready.
In the mean time, all of our other animals are waiting to see you. Baxter the Giant Pacific Octopus is here, our two Blacktip sharks have been months without visitors and we have a whole host of new tropical fish that have just entered our nursery tanks.
We know everyone is ready for a great day out but our priority is to re-open safely and responsibly, in line with the Government roadmap. So we will have social distancing in place and a reduced capacity inside the aquarium. We are expecting lots of visitors once we re-open so please be patient while we try to get everyone in safely. We can’t wait to see you!