This was kind of a spur of the moment day trip. It got booked a day or two in advance before we went (yes this is spur of the moment for us) and off we went. I randomly found out that it was included in our merlin passes through a facebook page I am on and people were generally speaking very highly of it. A quick look on google maps, an hour and half drive (it lied it was two hours), fantastic, booked. It was just me and the kids this time but I figured since Riley would be in his wheelchair, they would be easier to manage on my own. Spoiler: Thankfully this was correct.
We travelled down to Weymouth, luckily hitting no traffic. The drive was a bit of a slog and took longer than expected as google had apparently lied to us, but we arrived with no drama.
We parked in a local council car park, this is where the satnav will lead you to if you input sea life centre. It is a chargeable car park. It cost us £4 for 4 hours parking. Our blue badge gave us an hour extra parking free, which gave us 5 hours in total, which to be fair was perfect. However they do also do 10 hours parking for £10, these are summer charges the winter charges are considerably less.
Entry was quick and easy. We were given some animal identity guides and a Peppa Pig scavenger hunt. The kids hate Peppa Pig but love this kind of scavenger hunt so were really torn with indecision. However, they decided to go ahead and do it in the end. The prize was a Peppa Pig poster which they declined and sealife centre pop badges which they had for their lanyards.
It was a great day all in all. The staff were really knowledgeable and had a huge amount of time for both the animals and the children. Always putting the animals safety above anything and anyone else. The park was clean and tidy. There was a huge amount to do and the children were enthralled by it all. We generally did it all twice. We went to all the animal talks, we played in the park, we went around all of the displays.
During our visit to all of the tanks, we learned lots of new facts about the animals which were eagerly imparted to Dadda and Lela as soon as they walked through the door. We played with lots of hands on displays, including the rock pool, where the children got to gently touch a starfish and anemones and when we thought we had done it all we did it all again.
It had a fantastic play area for the kids to have a run around in and time and space for the parents to sit down for five minutes to recoup.
We left exhausted but knowing we would return to do it all again.
Unfortunately in the early hours of the next morning Riley began vomiting. Over the next three days he continued to vomit and due to dehydration had night terrors and hallucinations. We believe he had (through no fault of the Sealife centre) picked up a bacterial bug from the sea life centre which had made him very very poorly. We don’t think it was a stomach bug/virus as no one else in the house was sick including me who was in very close contact with him the whole time he was ill. We were just at the point of taking him to hospital when he finally picked up. Unfortunately as Riley is orally fixated due to his autism, he constantly puts things to his mouth. During our trip to the Sealife centre, even being constantly vigilant I caught him putting his hands in his mouth before washing them after touching starfish and sea anemones and then caught him with his mouth over a fence next to the seals and these are the things I saw, I dread to think what I may have missed.
The life of an autism Momma.
