Aquarium in Phuket - which is more of a dull aquarium

The Phuket Oceanarium is located at the southern point of Cape Phanwa, ten kilometers from Phuket Town. Adjacent to the naval base and the pier, where a research vessel is permanently moored, which belongs to the aquarium. The full name of the attraction is Phuket Aquarium and Marine Biological Center. That is, they not only keep marine animals and fish for the amusement of the audience (well, this is not without it), but also conduct scientific work - conduct research and assess the marine and coastal flora and fauna in the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand.

The content of the article

Aquarium in Phuket

From Phuket Aquarium, as well as from Phuket Zoo, don't expect anything special. And the reviews about him, as a rule, are not very good, and personally I understand why. The oceanarium itself is made with high quality, civilized, modern, all the rooms and interior details are backlit, nothing is broken anywhere, there are cool fish and in some places there are quite interesting samples, in general, there is something to see. But it is very small! That is, in fact - this is one floor and you can go through it well, on the strength of minutes in twenty.

If you set yourself a goal and read all the inscriptions, look at and photograph each presented copy for several minutes - then it will take minutes ... well, forty, no more. In my opinion, Phuket Aquarium is a sight to behold. «along the way», that is, he quickly jumped in, looked and went to look for really interesting places.

The entrance to the aquarium is, of course, inexpensive, but still there are not enough admiration items for an attraction. For me, here it was possible to make everything somehow more interesting and catch more animals, since the sea is close by. When comparing, it immediately comes to mind aquarium in bangkok and in Kuala Lumpur, which are really huge, take a very long time and there is a lot of everything, but here - like a cat cried. Probably, if you have already visited the Phuket Zoo, where you have your own small aquarium, then there is no point in going here. It is clearly better than the zoo, but not to such an extent as to pay for a ticket - you will not see anything fundamentally new here..

Phuket Aquarium entrance

The parking is huge

Near the entrance you can touch the starfish

Aquarium in Phuket

There is pleasant music inside the premises, there is a cinema room where films are shown in Thai with English subtitles. An animated mermaid is commenting on something, everything is cool, but foreign children obviously won't read subtitles, especially non-English-speaking children.

In general, this whole place looks more like a scientific institution than a tourist attraction, which most likely it is. It is possible that the aquarium is an additional project of the marine research center to amend the financial situation.

Animated mermaid

Phuket Aquarium, inside view

The Aquarium has «type underwater tunnel» - a glass pipe, but this tunnel is only five meters long. At the same time, for some reason, they shoved a travelator there, as if these five meters were something insurmountable for a tourist.

I suspect that this was done so that the people did not crowd and create traffic jams on peak days of visits, which is understandable - the cross-country ability here is quite high and the people can be quite dofig. And it would be fine with all this, but - no one is under the water. I saw neither the promised stingrays nor the fierce sharks, passing at cosmic speed through the five-meter tunnel. The most interesting thing that I managed to see there was a turtle and some kind of fishy little thing. I don't know, maybe I was just unlucky and had some hour of sleep or feeding, but the fact remains - there was no life in the water.

All I could see in the tunnel

On the trail to the turtle pool

The exit from the attraction is organized through the souvenir shop, and if after the souvenir shop you do not go immediately to the exit, but turn left from the glass door, then there will be something a la «natural trail» with different plants. A walkway equipped for pedestrians along the sea with eerie posters with tortoiseshell dismemberment and various type signatures «trash kills turtles».

After about 150 meters at the end of the path you will find a pool with turtles just after the pier. And now it is worth looking at it because the pool is open, and huge turtles half a meter long swim at arm's length. I would say that I liked these turtles more than the rest of the aquarium. Moreover, you can see this pool for free - it is marked on my map.

This is what the pool looks like outside

Cape Panwa embankment

If you are in the oceanarium, it will not be superfluous to walk along the embankment. The beach is so-so, but the place is pleasant, atmospheric. Plus there are cafes.

If you look at the embankment from the pool with turtles

Information to visit

Entrance fee - 180 baht per person, child - 100 baht.

Phuket Aquarium opening hours: from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm, but the ticket office closes at 4:00 pm, so you shouldn't be late. At 11 o'clock, the feeding of the inhabitants, which was called the feeding show. Every half hour in the cinema they start to spin a tape about fish. There is a fish spa for 150 baht for 20 minutes. I recommend coming here closer to closing time, just have time to slowly examine everything, without a crowd. Although it may, on the contrary, be guided by the feeding time, it may be more interesting.

Before entering the territory of the aquarium, there are several good cafes where you can watch the sunset. From the nearby pier you can rent a longtail to the neighboring satellite islands.

On the map

Aquarium in Phuket and around

Aquarium in Phuket and around:

View Original Version
© All rights reserved.