Eurocamp day trip #1 – Nausicaa aquarium – Mummascribbles

On the Tuesday of our Eurocamp holiday, we got ourselves up and ready and headed off for a half hour journey to a nearby town called Boulogne-sur-mer where there is an aquarium called Nausicaa. It’s right down on the sea front and I was a little nervous about the parking by the sea, I know what a nightmare it can be in England! I needn’t have worried though because there was more parking than you could wish for and it was completely free, all day! Wonderful. Walking the short distance alongside the cute beach was lovely, if a little breezy!

We wandered into the aquarium which looked like it was closed but thankfully it wasn’t a wasted journey and it was indeed open, just rather quiet. We weren’t sure what to expect of it, we’d had a little look online and it looked pretty cool but you can never tell until you’re there. I can safely say we were not disappointed. In fact, the other half said that he could only think of Sea World in Florida being a better one that he’s been to. It was amazing. The size of the tanks and the range of species were incredible. 

      

Right near the start there was this giant moray eel that was pretty epic – it came out and swam from one side to the other, something that it apparently doesn’t do very often. The very silly other half jokingly told Zach to be careful else it might eat him and that set us up for a good hour of him being terrified of anything inside the tanks – despite our attempts to tell him that nothing could get out to him! In fairness, the eel did look pretty terrifying!

  

Walking round there were so many  tanks to see full of beautiful sea life. 

By the time we got to the Sharks, thankfully his fear had subsided and we were extremely impressed. They were huge and there was one beast that looked particularly terrifying! Zach didn’t seem bothered though!

We then wandered around some more tanks and staring deep into one to try and figure out what was in there, suddenly we spotted a massive crocodile! I couldn’t get a decent enough photo as it was so dark but it was fab to see.

There’s a touching area where you can stroke the stingrays and large fish.

  

And alongside it a small section of soft play. Of course, Zach had to make this into a choo choo train game and was asking all of the children and adults for their tickets please! 

  

There is a huge section for the sea lions which Zach (and we) absolutely loved. They were swishing around on their backs, doing roly poly’s and the floor was made of glass so we could see them swimming under us. It was mega cool!

There was also an outdoor section for them, where they did the sea lion show – we watched this and Zach was clapping and laughing throughout. They are such incredibly clever animals and are always a joy to watch.

Following this, we ventured into a boat room. The big screen showed footage of a stormy sea and the front of the boat was on view too. As the boat hit the huge waves, the floor moved so we could experience the terrifying feeling of being on a boat in a storm. It was really realistic and genuinely a bit scary! Especially when the waves were splashing completely over the windscreen! Zach loved pretending he was the boat’s captain!

After that we nipped to the Penguins but didn’t stick around too long since it was blimmin freezing in there!

We had such a wonderful day at Nausicaa. We did look around for a restaurant outside to eat in but there wasn’t a huge amount open so once Zach woke up from his very late nap, we headed on back to our Eurocamp park, grabbed a bite to eat in the bar and Zach had some fun play on the children’s equipment.

Things to note for Nausicaa:

The food is very expensive. One of the cafe’s overlooked the shark pool which was pretty cool but we did pay 18€ for the privilege of two sandwiches, a croque Monsieur (which was very basic) and a couple of drinks! It’s a good view though!

It is huge. We weren’t sure there would be enough to do there but we spent hours looking around.

Under three’s go free – yay!! Fantastic bargain if you go with your little one.

If you are ever in the area, I’d definetely recommend a visit.