Sea Life Aquarium is an add-on to Legoland California and is a cheap upgrade to your ticket if you want to come here. But should you do it?

Purchasing Tickets to Sea Life Aquarium

Our annual passes to Legoland gave us entry to the Sea Life Aquarium. Any Elite, Platinum, or Gold annual pass will give you entry. There are ticket bundles that include it for an extra $10 (Legoland California starts at $114/person and the package that includes Sea Life Aquarium is $124/person). While their FAQ says you can purchase tickets that only admit you to the aquarium, I don’t see the option online. But would you want to buy it if it’s not already included in your ticket? Fair question.

Let’s talk a little bit about what’s here and see.

A quick note on the hours of operation. From what I can tell, the Sea Life Aquarium seems to be consistently open half an hour after Legoland both opens and closes. I’d imagine this is intentional to draw a crowd who would otherwise leave the park at the end of the day. That it’s only open for half an hour suggests how long guests are expected to spend here.

Entry to Sea Life Aquarium

There are two entrances to Sea Life. The first is the most obvious, where you can access the aquarium directly from the parking lot. Just show your ticket and you’ll enter the holding area.

The alternative entrance is from inside Legoland. It’s tucked away right by front of the park behind the shops. In our experience, it would have been faster to leave Legoland and go to the main entrance. That’s because a number of Legoland guests were trying to figure out if their tickets allowed them to enter (only some of them were granted access). Not sure if that is a common occurrence, but it does happen.

Either way, you’ll end up in the same entry area, where you’ll wait for the doors to open and grant you access to the aquarium. But before you go in, be sure to chat with the staff to pick up a booklet for the kids to use. Aside from basic information, it also contains a stamp book for the kids to complete. If they find all the stamps, they’ll get a reward if they return to the employees at the front. (It’s a small wristband lanyard.)

Inside the Sea Life Aquarium

The last aquarium we went to was the Georgia Aquarium, which was massive and had plenty of different zones to explore. How does this one compare? Well, right off the bat, the aquarium is arranged in perhaps the most uninteresting way possible. It’s a single path through the aquarium. With any attraction, we prefer to explore at our own pace. Sometimes the kids want to go do their own thing if a zone doesn’t interest them.

Where this comes into play is immediately upon entering. They put a small indoor playground right at the start of the experience. If your children want to play now, that works. But if they decide they want to go to the playground towards the end? It’s a long, winding path to come back (or you will just have to re-enter if your ticket allows). We found the setup to be odd.

Before you get your hopes up, the indoor playground is really just a slide in a decorative area. There are some fishes in the area, but it feels a bit lacking. Legoland has some nice play areas inside the Legoland California amusement park but the effort doesn’t seem to be the same here.

The exhibits

Continue along and you’ll find some simple exhibits that you’ll standardly find in any aquarium. Like that bubble to make it look like you’re inside the tank with the fish.

Or the tidepools area, which is about halfway through the journey. Compared to other aquariums, this is on the smaller side.

There are exhibits, but many of them felt like they were lacking.. fish.

But the seahorses were cool.

Dining

There is a restaurant at the very end of the winding path after exiting the aquarium. That means that anyone could conceivably dine here, though it’s not advertised well. It’s set up to be more of a cafeteria style. We didn’t get a chance to dine here, but the options didn’t seem all too appealing (and no one else was choosing to dine). Perhaps on a future trip, we’ll check it out.

So does this have anything to do with Legoland?

That’s the question I have. I would have liked to see a little more integration since the aquarium is right there next to the theme park. The only reference we could find was one display near the start of the path where two Lego characters were hanging out. No other references to Lego at all throughout the rest of the journey. I would have had absolutely no idea this was related to Lego if I didn’t see the name of the aquarium.

And that’s the biggest shame because it would have been a bit more unique if they did something with Legoland to make this stand out more. Instead, the aquarium feels incredibly generic.

So is it worth it to go to Sea Life Aquarium?

From the start, I don’t think Legoland itself believes that the aquarium is strong enough as a stand-alone attraction. They say stand-alone tickets are available online (doesn’t seem to be the case) and that guests will take up to 1.5 hours to visit. But that seems optimistic given it’s only open for half an hour after the main park closes. And at only $10 to upgrade your ticket to include admission is smaller than you would otherwise expect–if the aquarium itself is an engaging experience.

Sadly, there’s not enough to hold interest for the adults or the children. The linear pathway through all the exhibits doesn’t help, but I’m not sure there is a better way to remodel it given the space. What this aquarium needs is more integration with Legoland. Make it less like an aquarium and more unique, something that encourages repeat visits.

I would say don’t go out of your way to come here. Even at a $10/person upcharge, I’m not sure I see the value in attending.

Have you been to Sea Life Aquarium before?

Suggested reading:

• Legoland California: An Excellent Option for Kids
• Beautiful and Yet a Major Blemish: A Review of the Park Hyatt Aviara
• Review: The Seabird Resort