Welcome to my full review of SeaLife Centre Manchester.
You might have seen my recent social media post, which gave you all the practical information you need if you’re considering visiting SeaLife Manchester. I wanted to make this a full post, so it can hopefully help other people who want to visit.
LOCATION – 📍Trafford Palazzo in TraffordCity, Next to, The Trafford Centre, Trafford Park, Stretford, Manchester M17 8AS
PLEASE NOTE – Tickets were gifted in exchange for a review of our day. Some of the links contained on this page are affiliate links and if you go through them to make a purchase, I will earn a commission.
A few practical tips in you’re visiting SeaLife Manchester… Especially for #parents 👨👨👧
- There is free parking but it gets very full when you leave. We decided to park a bit away from the entrance, preempting this, & glad we did!
- Go to the toilet first in Trafford Pallazo – there are no toilets until halfway round!
- Walking round time 1.5-2 hours! Depending on how long you want to stay & let your little one have in the soft play.
- They offer photos at the start, which are chargeable – read on for more details on this. You can say no, some people in our time slot did.
- There is an intro meeting – be prepared for kids to stand for 10-15 mins (some people had babies & it’s important to be prepared for this part!) the meeting was very well organised & fun though ❤️
- The staff were really friendly & welcoming & it’s worth getting the Mission Pack for £5. Kids get a lanyard, and activity pack & the magnifying glass went down a treat with our little one.
- Staggering the entry times seems to work, as we were able to see everything with the group we started with. They also had a sign saying fully booked today – so you can be safe in the knowledge it isn’t too crowded.
- There are toilets & a soft play with vending machines halfway around the centre.
- The current #AnimalCrossing crossover is good – we had a photo with the characters, and there were signals to the game dotted around. & there are plenty of related toys in the gift shop.
- The gift shop is expensive, as you can imagine but we picked up a few bits. They had Animal Crossing Lego sets & teddies, then some really cute SeaLife-related soft toys. Some cheap options if you can convince your child to have one 🤣 we couldn’t!! When she was younger we could have (currently 5 years old)
- We ended up buying the pics because it’s a great memory & one is for my parents – it was 2 full-size photos with #SeaLife backgrounds, for £15.
TICKETS
If you want to book your tickets, click here.
This event is available between 8 February – 9 March 2025.
A bit about our day
Because it’s important, I wanted to give a bit of information on the location. Trafford Palazzo has its own free parking and is right across the street from the Trafford Centre. It is on the tram line, and pretty easy to drive to (we are about an hour away), and there are some budget hotels to stay at if you want to stay overnight.
Before arranging this visit, we had booked and planned a night at The Premier Inn but we had to cancel due to our circumstances. Therefore, I was pleased to have the opportunity to review this trip and check out the location of the hotels.
Budget hotels near Trafford Palazzo
The North Hotel has a great family-friendly pub attached. Swinging Bridge Table Table Restaurant in Lancashire. LOCATION – 📍Trafford Boulevard, Urmston, Lancashire, M41 7JE
SeaLife Centre review
I would say the centre takes about 1-2 hours to walk around, depending on how long you focus on certain attractions and how long you want to have a pit stop in the soft play.
In the soft play, there are seats for adults to sit down, which are right next to the toilets and vending machines, so it’s a good time to have a rest. I would advise packing snacks for the kids if there is something specific they may want to eat or drink, or you don’t want to spend money. Everywhere we go with our little one, we pack a small picnic bag!! Things are just so expensive.
The attractions are pretty mesmerising and there is a great range of species to keep the little ones entertained. There are also rooms for pushchairs, but as mentioned above, because the toilets are halfway around, come prepared.
You can check out all of my Family Day Out reviews here.
Our fave parts of the day
The absolute best part of the day was allowing the little one to play in the water and handle a starfish – she loved this!
Second to the above were the viewing pods in each aquarium – we got some amazing pictures of the little one looking like she was swimming with the fish. There was even a tunnel one which ran under one of the aquariums.
A personal favourite of mine was the Nemo & Dory tank, and the chorus of kids shouting “Nemo & Dory are in there”.
The gift shop – whilst I did try to dodge the gift shop due to trying to keep costs down on the day, I didn’t have the heart to say no to a teddy for the little one and we did come home with a very well-made and cute, Tom Nook teddy, which she adores!
Summary
Trafford Palazzo has some other attractions, which I will review at some point. Including Legoland Discovery Centre. If you want to visit more than one attraction, you can buy multi-attraction tickets.
Have you visited the SeaLife Centre in Manchester – let me know in the comments. I would love to hear from you.
