JEN and her family tell us what they thought of a trio of London attractions. Hang on to your hats, it's a bit of a bumpy ride…
The London Eye
How can you take a trip to London without going on the famous London Eye?
When is a "trip" not a trip?
You guessed it…on the Eye, it used to be owned by British Airways, so you could say we undertook a flight!
We had prebooked tickets, so just had to collect them from the priority queue and the assistant was really helpful as he also changed the times for our river cruise at the same time.
You are allowed to join the queue for your flight 30 minutes before your ticket time, so we did.
Now, it was a sunny day and we thought the queue was rather large, but I have to say, it moved along very speedily and the minimads, who are four and five, didn’t get upset about the wait.
They were far too busy asking us questions about the eye itself.
- When was it built? (Answer 1999)
- How tall is it? 135 meters (443 feet)
- How fast does it spin? 0.6 mph
- How long does it take to go round? Approx 30 minutes
Yes my boys are all about the statistics, so it was a good job I had looked them up before going!
We were at the front of the line before we knew it (you can get a drink and sweets in line, but you are not allowed to eat and drink inside the capsule).
The wheel doesn’t stop to let people off and on, oh no you have to put a shift on and get in whilst it is still spinning, that is once they have checked for explosives.
The weather on the day we went was hot, clear and bright and my oh, my views were spectacular and changed as the wheel revolved.
We got a great perspective on Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament (the boys' favourite), we could see Buckingham Palace, Battersea, in fact we saw most of the London landmarks. We bought a guide book for £3 before we went in which highlighted what you could see at each point of the compass, which was a really cool idea.
Our 30 minutes on The London Eye just flew by, it was a real hit with all of us.
The river cruise is a 40 minute circular sightseeing tour along the river from the pier nearest the London Eye.
We disembarked from our flight and had a drink and the boys had a play in the park before we went to get on the boat. I would suggest that you turn up 30 minutes prior to your cruise as we turned up the recommended 15 minutes and didn’t make it on to the top deck of the boat, but we didn’t let this spoil the cruise.
The cruise went to just beyond Tower Bridge from the Houses of Parliament and we loved it.
The commentator was brilliant, he struck just the right note between informative and funny. The perspective of the buildings you get from the water is superb and it was a real insight in to some of the wonderful architecture and places along the river Thames.
It kept the boys fully occupied for the entire 40 minutes and then they wanted to do it again.
The boys were really looking forward to the aquarium and they had a scratch off question card to complete on their way round, which made the trip even more exciting for them.
However, I think we were all a little disappointed with the size of the aquarium. We all expected it to be larger than our local sealife centre (as it is classed as the country’s flagship centre), so maybe our expectations were a little high.
The fish were stunning and the boys adored the fact that they got to touch and stroke starfishes, which are surprisingly sponge like.
I found that the toilets were pretty dirty and left a lot to be desired and the shark walk took all of 30 seconds!
We also spent a good 10 minutes looking for question number 7 and guess what, there wasn’t one and the prize the boys got at the end, it was a plastic medal.
Our whole visit to the aquarium took only just over the hour and is not somewhere we will be revisiting.
Have A Lovely Time let the marketing team at the aquarium know about Jen's experience. Here's their response in full:
We would like to reassure you that we take all of our guests' comments very seriously and that your comments are very important to us. We are sorry to hear that your experience of our toilet facilities was not a more positive one.
We will be passing on all of your comments to our cleaning contractors immediately so that they can investigate why the presentation of the toilets was not to the required high standard.
The SLLA’s status as the flagship SEA LIFE Aquarium is not purely due to its size, but rather its extensive collection of species from around the world.
The attraction takes visitors on a journey along the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt meeting thousands of marine creatures in exciting themed settings, (including 11 species of shark, one of Europe’s largest collections of Cownose Rays, rare green sea turtles, plus a new rainforest area featuring a crocodile, Poison Arrow Frogs and Piranha Fish set amongst rainforest foliage and waterfalls.
It is also a centre of excellence in education and conservation.
Shark Walk is all about the thrill of walking over the floating glass platform with the sharks swimming inches beneath your feet!
Guests are welcome to go round and try out the experience more than once, and overall our visitors love Shark Walk and customer satisfaction scores for this are consistently high.
Question 7 on the trail was taken down for maintenance work, and due to the large footfall the sign explaining the missing number got knocked down by a visitor.
However the question is now back up on display in the rainforest area. The free quiz trail is designed to be a fun way of exploring the aquarium and encourages kids to engage with the information on display – the medal at the end is a token to congratulate our young visitors who complete the trail.
A visit to SLLA can take as much or as little time as you like. Many of our guests spend hours looking round the attraction, and there is plenty to see plus family friendly talks and feeds at selected times throughout the day (check the website for details).
The average visit time at the SEA LIFE London Aquarium is one hour 30 mins and guests also have the option of retaining their ticket and coming back throughout the day so they can experience the London Aquarium at their own pace.
Fact Box
Jen Walshaw and her family were guests of Merlin Entertainments Group.
London Eye tickets cost from £52.15 for a family of four booked online and you can get a combination ticket for the London Eye and the river cruise for £73.40 (online price) or the London Eye and London Aquarium £97.
Check out the links in the titles above for more information and news of special offers.
Also, if you'd like, you can see an earlier Have a Lovely Time report of what's on offer at the London Aquarium.
This is one of a series of a Great British Days Out reviews. Reviewers receiving complimentary stays/attraction tickets are asked to make a donation and we also hope readers can support children's cancer charity NACCPO. If you enjoy this review or would just like to support this much-needed charity, please visit our JustGiving page.
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