Review: The Blue Reef Aquarium Bristol – expensive, dangerous, families take their chances

* Since January 2010, renamed the Bristol Aquarium

There are few things that can make a Chopsy Baby reporter cry and leave them with a £43.40 headache. Congratulations then to the Blue Reef Aquarium Bristol, who provided us with the worst  day out we have ever had and at top whack prices.

So far, Chopsy Baby has not had the misfortune to give a negative review to anything we have tested and anywhere we have been. We had not planned to review the Blue Reef Aquarium as it was simply a day out on a day off. Unfortunately, it sucked, and after just two hours we just wanted to get out.

Bristol’s newest and most expensive tourist attraction opened on November 20 2009. It prides itself on being ‘family friendly’ and ‘specially designed for families and children’ with ‘multi-level displays’. The newest aquarium is the 40th such attraction owned by company Aspro and the 9th owned in the United Kingdom. It is housed in the site of the former WildWalk.

We visited the attraction for a child’s third birthday treat. Two adults and two three-year-olds paid for a family ticket costing £43.40. An adult ticket is £13.50 and a child above the age of three years is £9.20. Yes, that is £9.20.

Quite quickly, having to pick up children very regularly to enable them to see into tanks became painful and irritating. Little thought appears to have gone into the practical aspects of viewing some of the tanks and there were no steps or higher level viewing platforms for little kids. These types of steps are available at older attractions such as the City of Bristol Museum and even @t Bristol. which caters for toddlers by providing Ikea toilet booster steps.

Blue Reef Bristol, has installed ‘hi-tech lighting to imitate day and night’. Dingy dark areas of the sunken ship display were what accounted for the first of our head injuries, this one was the one to go into the attraction’s accident book.

Decorative pipes had ridges coming out at toddler head height, which unfortunately brained and cut the head of the first child just three minutes through the door. A further four painful, though not massively serious head injuries occurred between two children, all whilst trying to peer or access tanks that were set at awkward angles or high heights.

The Imax was showing a 3D film about whales and dolphins. Impressive, but what we were not aware of at the time was that it was not suitable for children under three. Ours were only just three. We also had no idea how long the film lasted for, assuming it would be about 15-20 minutes. It went on for 45 minutes. Needless to say we had to leave before the end. If staff were present to supervise the audience, they were not visible and those visitors who did leave early were left to leave unattended.

Communication and directions throughout the venue was poor. We wanted to let the children see the sharks being fed. The tannoy system told us this would be happening in tank one. Finding tank one was a guessing game. Luckily there was no staff to ask, as the Blue Reef Aquarium Workers Facebook group thinks our questions are ‘stupid’ anyway.

We were glad of a sit down upon finding chairs and tables in a dark area of the aquarium left with pencil crayons and pages to colour. The children immediately became frustrated and cross because every pencil crayon was broken and unusable and there was no sharpener.

There was no extra activities on that we were aware of and the fish feeding was quite informed and factual, boring the toddlers within two minutes.

The fish tanks were okay, but lacked wow factor. It felt in many areas like the ghost of WildWalk was still present and at the back of our minds burned the numbers £43.40.

Just when we felt more than a little disappointed with our (£43.40) visit, we were shaken to the point of nausea by the potentially deadly accident which could have happened. One of our toddlers  who requires close supervision, a baby harness and still under the careful monitoring of the wonderful Iseeka tracking device we tested recently, decided whilst supervised and held, to quickly clamber up a cargo net styled safety barrier. This was done in what parents will know as blink speed and it was only due to the safety harness that he did not dive bomb into a deep tank down below.

The netted off tank which we felt posed a danger

Whilst we are more than aware that children remain the responsibility of their parents, in a busy tourist attraction it is easy to lose sight of a child in a second, particularly boys, and boys that are sprinters. The ease with which the child could have plummeted into a deep, unsupervised tank was stomach churning and a concern great enough to bring to the attention of management.

We felt that due to the size of the venue, the open tanks and in places dark lighting,  it needed some staff supervision. The potential for illness, accidents and unforeseen events was relatively high, especially when aimed at a family audience.

Wooden barrier decoration coming away from the wall when leant on

Wobbled when touched
Pregnant women should watch their wonky centre of gravity shift walking by this one

The aquarium must have in place a Health and Safety Policy, which is required under the Health and Safety at Work act 1974 and the Zoo Licensing Act 1981. The presence of paying visitors is covered by their Public Liability insurance.

Manager David Laverty, who handled our accident report form and complaint said that children remain the responsibility of their parents at all times even when lost. He continued to say that despite 10,000 people coming through their doors the previous weekend, it was not necessary to have any staff at all working within the aquarium because staff are not needed to walk round with people on a one to one basis. He continued to say that should a person be taken ill whilst walking around inside, it would be up to a member of the public to call for assistance.

What we would reasonably expect from a tourist attraction:

If you charge an entry for children they should be able to safely access all exhibits without repeated injury.

There should be enough to keep them entertained and what is there should not be broken or unusable.

There should be staff supervising areas which parents consider to have an element of risk.

Hard or sharp surfaces should be well lit and not stick out at angles or heights to injure children.

Families should have clear signs telling them which way to go and not be wandering off into potentially dangerous backstage areas.

Cargo netting is simply not suitable as a safety barrier against height and water because even the most well behaved child toddler will recognise it from playgrounds and parks.

Members of the public should feel safe knowing that if there is a fire or threat, they would know how to get out of a building. Especially if they do not speak English.

Members of the public should feel safe knowing that if they happened to be taken ill very suddenly in the aquarium on a particularly quiet day, they won’t remain there until somebody else happens to wander through the area because there are no front of house staff working in the aquarium offering any help, or support for paying members of the public.

If you are charging a whopping £9.20 for children, put some child friendly activities on, visit Bristol Zoo, look and learn.

We don’t believe the Blue Reef Aquarium Bristol represents good value for money. We would not visit again, or recommend it to others. We feel that despite David Laverty’s assurance that the venue is rigorously risk assessed and meets health and safety requirements, we had big concerns about the safety aspect of some of the areas and feel it is highly unacceptable to open up a premises requiring a zoo licence and simply not put any staff on the floor. It is bad manners, bad customer service and frankly quite dangerous.

Oh, and if you are charging such high prices, at least put some locks on the back of your toilet doors.