SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium: Discover An Amazing Underwater World

For our Sydney tour, we decided to add SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium on our itinerary since it would be my husband’s first time to visit a public aquarium. Yep! He lived in Manila for years and yet, he haven’t been to Manila Ocean Park. The closest was when we checked in at Hotel H2O, where Aqua Rooms shares a long, life-sized aquarium on one side.

Anyway, it would be great if we take his first time at a different country, especially in Australia, where the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef is situated. It is home to an impressive amount of marine life, ranging from fishes, snakes, ascidians, sea turtles, whales, dolphins and porpoises. SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium is a great location to discover these unique underwater creatures.

SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium is divided into nine exhibits: Day and Night on the Reef, Penguin Expedition, Shark Valley, Dugong Island, Discovery Rockpool, Darwin’s Lab, South Coast Shipwreck, Sydney Harbour, Jellyfish Garden and Jurassic Seas.

The journey started with South Coast Shipwreck, where a vast array of animals native to the Southern Oceans is set amongst a beached shipwreck environment, and Darwin’s Lab, where visitors can touch and learn more about shark eggs, teeth and others. The Sydney Harbour zone, as it name says, shelters the local species of fishes of Sydney. This includes Old Wife, Cray Fish, Boxfish and Lionfish.

The pathwalk continued to Jurrasic Seas, the house for living fossils. This is a new discovery for me. I didn’t even know that living fossils exist. For everyone’s information, a living fossil is an organism that has retained the same form over millions of years and represents a sole surviving lineage from an epoch long past. I know how rare these creatures are but I’m glad they brought Lungfish, Southern Pygmy Perch, Spotted Scat, Archerfish and Eastern Water Dragons to land.

Meet Pig at SEA LIFE’s Dugong Island! I’m not talking about the farm animal. I’m talking about the rescued and lone dugong of SEA LIFE. He is the one at this blog post’s cover photo. He is with Blue Tangs, Zebra Sharks and Eagle Rays. I love that there are two ways to roam around Dugong Island. There’s a boardwalk on top to see what’s on top of the water level and tunnel to see what’s underground.

At SEA LIFE, we were able to walk under one of the world’s biggest shark aquarium. Just like most marine-themed park, these are aquariums with domed tunnels for guests to pass through. Aside from Grey Nurse Shark and Wobbegong Shark, we also witnessed Smooth Ray and Black Cod at Shark Valley. Discovery Rockpool, on the other hand, is a borderless aquarium so we can have a direct contact to Pencil Sea Urchin, Hermit Crab, Sea Stars and Waratah Anemone. I saw kids having fun in this portion.

Opposite Discovery Rockpool were visitors in headphones and seated on blue-lighted egg-shaped chairs, who seemed to be enjoying their underwater tour. These people are those who availed the Virtual Reality Experience of SEA LIFE. They can choose between four different ocean and sea creature-themed experiences, may it be Swimming with Humpbacks, Shark Dive, Legend of Lusca or Drift.

For a more extreme experience, you can get a chance to go face-to-fin with the sharks at SEA LIFE, even though you’ve never scuba-dived before. This is a rare opportunity to get closer than ever to sharks and other marine animals. We spotted these guys in suit who took the plunge. I don’t know if these people we saw inside the aquarium are guest divers or just cleaners though.

Apart from the smiling stingrays, my favorite animal at SEA LIFE is penguin! There’s a lot of them here and they are so entertaining to watch. Some are flapping their wings while walking. Some are sliding down the sloped ice. Some are swimming. And some are just staring blankly. I wish I could just keep one of these cuties at my luggage. I think I was at the Penguin Expedition the longest because of this.

For a closer encounter with the aquatic animals, SEA LIFE offers boat tour for customers who will avail this upgraded ticket. SEA LIFE has a glass bottom boat, wherein riders can see colorful marine life as it glides across the water. There is also a boat tour that follows a lagoon inside the snowy enclosure of the spectacular King and Gentoo Penguins. I was able to see this group of boat riders. They seemed happy that they even smiled and waved at me even though I’m a stranger.

We passed through the Jellyfish Garden, which may attract new lookers because of the colorful tank lights and the graceful dances of the jellyfishes. But I’ve seem similar attraction in Manila Ocean Park already so it didn’t really amused me. It doesn’t hide the fact that these transparent marine wonders are truly amazing though. The Day and Night on the Reef is the next zone and beyond the 360 degree tunnel, we could perceive the Great Barrier Reef.

It was a tiring yet fun walkthrough inside SEA LIFE Sydney Aquarium that we couldn’t resist on grabbing food at The Wharf Kitchen, located at the exit foyer. I had a Cheese Toast and it was kinda bland. For more food options, Darling Harbour is filled with some of the best restaurants and bars in Sydney so you won’t ran out of choices. We headed to Helm Bar & Bistro and felt guilty that after having a visit at a marine rehabilitation center, we had a lobster for lunch.