Ok, I know I’ve already made a post about Sea Life in Auckland, New Zealand and when I went to Sea Life in Melbourne with my best friends after graduating high school. But I’ve never been to Sea Life in Sydney when they had an Animal Crossing event on! One of my friends has come down from Brisbane, so my partner and I are taking her to meet Isabelle; as well as all the marine life!
Sea Life is a chain of aquarium attractions and conservation groups across the world, with the aim of keeping marine life and their habitat safe and healthy for future generations. Sea Life wants people to find a love for the ocean by allowing them to get up close to its weird and wonderful creatures. Their Sydney location is no different, often hosting special events to bring in more visitors and funds for their cause. The most recent event was “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, where you could collect stamps of characters from the Nintendo game, as well as meet the one and only Isabelle, your in-game secretary and assistant!
Like I said before, one of my friends who normally lives in Brisbane has taken a well-needed break from work, study, and general life struggles recently. We don’t get to see her very often, so when she’s in Newcastle, we try our best to hang out as much as possible! The Animal Crossing event at Sea Life was the one thing she was super excited for while she was here, so we made a day out of it. Plus, it’s an aquarium and we all love animals! So, we all stuffed ourselves into the car, drove 2 hours to Sydney, were greeted by some very friendly cockatoos outside of a petrol station, before finally arriving at Sea Life Sydney.
It was fairly busy, but it’s Sydney, so that’s to be expected. Especially when there’s an event for a very popular video game. But this didn’t stop us from enjoying our time looking at all the underwater and water-loving animals! The first stamp we collected for our Animal Crossing characters was with the Little Blue Penguins. You may remember these little guys from when I visited the International Antarctic Centre in New Zealand. They’re honestly so adorable and very playful with each other!
We kept moving past a very eerie but very cool Moray Eel tank. Honestly, if I could, I would love to own a pet eel. But I already have 2 snails, a bird and a sailfin pleco, which, if you didn’t know, is a fish that’s going to grow to be a foot in length. But hey, I want to work with animals in the future, so let’s hope I get to come across some animals as cool as these guys! We also found a black clownfish, or “emo Nemo” as I called it. I’ve never seen one of these before, despite my love for aquariums and zoos. Apparently they are fairly rare in the wild!
We all got to see one of our favourite animals in person at Sea Life! My partner showed me what a mudskipper was, a funny little amphibious fish that can skip and flip on land as well as swim in water. Our friend was able to see her favourite animal that she has tattooed, the Port Jackson Shark. These guys are actually really pretty for sharks, and a lot smaller too, so they’re not as scary. I can see why it’s my friend’s favourite! Now I have a lot of favourite animals, but one of the residents stood out during our whole visit: the dugong! His name was Pig, and he was adorable, even for his larger size. When we visited, he was eating lettuce and making a lot of… noises. I’m not sure what they were but they sounded like giant farts! It was very funny to watch, but I think it just made him cuter!
Sea Life lets you see so many of these special animals up close, and some of them you can even touch! At the rock pools, you can reach your hand into the water to see what starfish feel like (they’re a lot tougher than you think)! I left this one up to my partner and friend, however, since my hands are still stained from recently dyeing my hair, and I didn’t want to harm any of the inhabitants. I’ve already experienced this activity at Kelly Tarlton’s Sea Life in Auckland, New Zealand, so I wasn’t missing out on anything. Some more animals we get to see up close are the sharks and rays, not so close as to touch them, however. But you get to walk through a tunnel underneath the enclosure while some of the most misunderstood creatures swim over you.
Obviously, we were having plenty of fun. Some of the enclosures were decorated with animal crossing themes and characters, like the lungfish enclosure, which had a sleeping Gulliver on top of the rocks. But it was finally time to meet the one and only Isabelle! She came out from behind one of the staff doors, guided by a member of Sea Life who was there to take photos. The line went fairly quick, each person handing over their phone or camera to take photos with their beloved Animal Crossing assistant! You could see how happy and excited everyone was to be in this moment by the smiles on their faces. Trust me, after so many years of posing for photos with a fake smile, I can tell when one is truly genuine. And it means a lot that my smiles are now genuine too.
Well readers, that was the Animal Crossing event at Sea Life Sydney! It was fun, even more so with the people I went with! To remember the time we spent there, I bought a dugong plushie for the very cute and funny dugong, Pig. They also had Animal Crossing souvenirs with a sign specifically stating “only 3 Animal Crossing items per person”. I’m not sure if they were planning ahead or if this was inspired by a past incident, but I found it funny nonetheless. Anyway, the day is done, and we have to go back home. I can’t wait to look through all the photos I took with my camera! See you next time!
All photos in this post were taken by me.
For more information about Sea Life Sydney, visit https://www.visitsealife.com/sydney/?
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