S.E.A Aquarium Singapore Review

A complete guide to the SEA Aquarium which includes videos, photographs, directions and detailed information on the water tanks and what to expect at this “water zoo” which will inevitably draw comparisons to Sentosa’s Underwater World and the newly opened River Safari by WRS. Make sure you check out our exclusive River Safari feature too!

Directions to S.E.A Aquarium:

Simply put, head to the main RWS area where the USS globe is located and look for the Marine Life Park entrance.

As seen in the video above, there are two distinct paths when you reach Marine Life Park. The first path on the left leads to the Maritime SEA museum and the second on the right will take you to Adventure Cove. The S.E.A Aquarium is nestled at the back of the Maritime Museum all the way at the end and one level down.

S.E.A Aquarium

So after enduring the Maritime Museum, I finally reached the S.E.A Aquarium. The beginning of it was a short “underwater world” like conveyor belt. After that it becomes more like a Sea Zoo with different themed water tanks everywhere. The aquarium is divided into 10 different zones and it is huge, especially if you consider the fact that there is water everywhere you go. That is a lot of water. And fish!

Some of the zones are named after locations so you will see a “Straits of Malacca” zone and a “Bay of Bengal” zone where they feature animals from specific habitats. I liked that they had a tank built in the floor and I managed to take a picture of a baby stingray. Or so I thought. Turns out it was a mangrove horseshoe crab!

The touch pool was a bit underwhelming in terms of variety, we were only allowed to touch starfish. Now that I think about it, these starfish spend their whole life getting felt up so I shall not complain anymore. The staff at the touch pool were attentive and you could see they genuinely cared about the animals.

I nearly missed the touch pool near the entrance due to this attention catching display in the centre. When I was there two Japanese girls let out a warcry and ran towards it and pressed their faces against the glass.. like they have never seen something like this before. In view of the absence of any animals shows, that was the best performance of the day.

Towards the end there was another “Underwater world” tunnel, this time it was full of baby sharks and that was a nice sight.

The Ocean Dome & Restaurant

The crown jewel of the attraction had to be the “Ocean Dome” a fish tank of epic proportions it will be unlike anything you’ve seen before. You can just sit on the benches infront for hours mesmerized by all the different stuff going on in front of you. I know these people were! I particularly liked the large school of fishes meandering collectively around the tank as one purposeful unit while the small deadly looking mantra rays hovered at the bottom.

Unfortunately, unlike the promo shots there were no giant rays anywhere to be found or anything exceptional for that matter. The biggest creatures inside were the divers who were cleaning the tank!! Apart from the main viewing area, the tank has another viewing area to the right and even one on the outside.

One of the more interesting attractions here was the baby stroller car park. Appearance times may vary.

And near this water tanks is also the Ocean Restaurant by celebrity chef Cat Cora of Iron Chef fame. I heard the food is okay but the view is magnificent because you get to see the sides of the above water tank.

In summary the aquarium is a lot bigger then underwater world, because hey, this was made 20 years into the future. Given that Underwater World has admission fees of $25.90, it makes this $29 + $5 off food coupon seem like an absolute steal, even with the disappointing $11 museum factored into the price.

However, I feel it lacked diversity and eye catching animals from around the world that I was expecting to see, given there are supposed to be over 800 species of fish. I wanted to be blown away by out of this world luminous deep sea fish or see some dolphin shows or species I have never seen before. Gardens by the bay captured that idea perfectly with their flower dome.

But everything here turned out surprisingly normal and mundane. Fish, sharks, more fish, lobsters, crabs, jellyfish displays – meh we have seen it all before at underwater world 20 years ago. And did I mention there are no shows here? I enjoyed the “Ocean tank” but that was about it.