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Wilhelmshaven Aquarium

Florian Buechting Museums & Exhibitions No Comments

WIlhelmshaven Aquarium

15 EUR
WIlhelmshaven Aquarium
3.5

Rating

 3.5/5

Flyctory.com Pros

  • Great prehistoric ocean collection
  • Nice location

Flyctory.com Cons

  • Rather average aquarium
  • Bothering Covid-19 measure

The Aquarium is one of the attractions of Wilhelmshaven. During a visit in summer 2021 under Covid-19 conditions, I visited the place. Here is my review.

 

Wilhelmshaven Aquarium – Location & Admission

The Wilhelmshaven Aquarium is located at the Südstrand, a peninsula at the Jadebusen coast of the city. The Deutsches Marinemuseum / German Naval Museum is in short walking distance. The parking situation around the place can be a bit of tricky if you are not arriving the morning. In that case, public bus line 8 is likely the best option.

The aquarium is opening daily, 10:00 to 18:00 hrs. Adult admission is 15 Euro, there are discounted tickets and family group tickets. We had significant queues at our visit. The estimated waiting time was some forty minutes, but we finally had some 30 minutes before we could enter the attraction.

 

Wilhelmshaven Aquarium – The Visit – Fossils

The first part of your visit is a collection mainly of fossils, which is also branded as Urzeitmeer-Museum, Prehistoric Ocean Museum. To me, this part of the best part of the visit. The fossils are really fascinating and cover a wide range of the historic maritime life. Furthermore, there are some still existing animals, which illustrate the transformation of aquatic life over time.

 

Wilhelmshaven Aquarium – The Visit – Aquarium

While the structure of the Urzeitmeer-Museum part worked very well also under social distancing conditions (and also: people unfortunately did not care that much about this first section of the visit), Wilhelmshaven Aquarium struggled with the measures in the aquarium part. They went for squares in the ground. Every part may just stay in one square and only move on when the next square is free. Vice versa, this means, everybody is waiting for the slowest visitor. On the one hand, this is bothering, as a lot of the visit time has been waiting time. On the other hand, you feel under pressure if there is a gap in front of you, but you still want to invest some more moments in the current exhibit.

The number of displays of Wilhelmshaven Aquarium, though, was really nice. They show a wide range of different kinds of life in the water in several parts of the world. In later displays, there are also amphibians and reptiles, including snakes. Last, but not least, there are some displays with seals and penguins, before you leave the aquarium. The total visiting time was about one hour – with a significant amount of time, however, waiting to be able to enter the next square in the aquarium section.

 

Wilhelmshaven Aquarium – Service

At the end of your visit, you pass a gift shop, which is not only dedicated to the Aquarium, but also sells a wide variety of general touristic items. There is also a restaurant, which feels to be very popular among the visitors.

Part of the normal aquarium visit is an action playground, which is a kids’ favorite. During my visit, the aquarium was not allowed to offer this area to the younger guests.

 

Wilhelmshaven Aquarium – My View

I would rate the aquarium to be average. Unfortunately, most of the visitors did not value the excellent prehistoric collection and display as much as it should be. This is definitely the best part of visiting the Wilhelmshaven Aquarium. If you are at the Marinemuseum anyway and the queues are not too long, watching some fishy friends is a reasonable option in Wilhelmshaven.

 

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