Sea Life Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium, Auckland

Last updated on 4 June 2024

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Taking a trip to Kelly Tarlton’s Auckland

Growing up, the SEA LIFE Kelly Tarlton’s Aquarium was always something that my friends visiting the Big Smoke (aka Auckland) would talk about. They would come back to my home town talking about the beautiful things that they saw, so when I moved to Auckland in 2014, I knew it was something I wanted to check out.

Turns out I had already been haha. 🤣 But when you go to these sorts of places as a kid, there’s not heaps you remember. When I was told I had already been to Kelly Tarlton’s, the images started coming back to me … but I did know that I wanted to go a gain as an adult.

I’d been to the London Sea Life Aquarium and had the best time with a blogging friend, so if it was going to be anything like that one, then I was in for a treat. Did it live up to my expectations, revisiting it as an adult and after I had been to the London Sea Life Aquarium?

Sort of … ? It’s definitely a lot smaller (just like everything here in New Zealand) than it’s London counterpart, but it was still a lot of fun to visit.

My best friend was up over the weekend from our home town, and so we planned to do some of the things in Auckland that she hadn’t done before. She had arrived on Wednesday night, and so on Thursday, we headed to Kelly Tarltons.

I think we spent about 3 hours there, although having said that you can go around the entire place and still read all the signs and enjoy all the fish in about an hour and a half, I reckon. We arrived just in time for the penguin feeding, which was pretty neat. It was my friend’s favourite part – she loves penguins- so that in itself took a wee while.

After the penguins, you follow the path through to the stingray area, and we went back there again a bit later on for the stingray feeding. More on that soon.

After that room there’s a travelator/conveyor belt thing (you know, like at the airport, and all your luggage comes out on them…?) that you can jump on (or you can walk beside it) and it takes you through this glass tunnel where the fish and sharks swim all around you.

When we got that room, that’s when I really started to remember my time there as a kid. Some things do stick with you, apparently.

After that, there’s just a room with lots of little tanks with various sea life creatures in them, including a section of funny-looking seahorses (yup, they were long and skinny ones…and only a couple of ‘normal’ looking ones), and also an octopus, and, of course, a Nemo and friends tank.

Scott’s Base at Kelly Tarlton’s

At the beginning of the aquarium, there’s a whole section on Scott’s base and trip he took down to Antarctica back in the day. My friend loves reading all the signs and things like that, so we were there for a while.

Gift shop

At the end, there’s a gift shop, and while I didn’t buy anything this time round, there were several things that I was tempted to buy.
My favourite part of Kelly Tarltons was the jellyfish. Boring, I know, but they were awesome!

My favourite sea life creature at Kelly Tarlton’s

You may remember me being excited about the glowing/changing colour jellyfish at the London Sea Life Aquarium, and these were sort of similar in that they were lit up with a blue light, making all the jellyfish glow blue. Nature is amazing.

So that was our time at Kelly Tarltons!

If you’re in New Zealand and you haven’t been before, do check it out. It’s a lot of fun, and there were several school trips while we were there, and they had like a quiz they were carrying around, which I’m pretty sure was provided by Kelly Tarltons. There are also kid-friendly questions you can find the answers to around the aquarium.

Have you been to Kelly Tarlton’s in Auckland? What did you think?