| The Deep 
About as far east in East Yorkshire as you can go, on the river Humber estuary bordering the North Sea lies Hull, and one of the newest Aquariums in the country, The Deep. There have been documentaries about it and countrywide advertising of it's impressive 10 m deep tank with glass lift up through the levels. I'm sure you can all appreciate how excited I was when my LAS (Pennine) decided to run a group trip there and I think I was one of the first to appear with my money. The advertising promises a trip through the evolution of the seas, mixed with plenty of interactive technology and loads of fish, with the 'DeepTank' and bubble lift as the crowning glory. Well...... There is definately information about the evolution of earths oceans although the place was so crowded with school children that it was impossible to hear the comenary, there were also quite a number of video screens and interactive games along the way the majority of which were aimed at children. The commentarys run automatically from speakers above and not once did I hear one from the begginning as there is no switch by which you can activate it to hear it all, it's a case of stand and wait till it starts over. Again the children running around and crowding round all these screens made it impossible to really enjoy them so we as a group moved on to look for the fish. The promised fish can be found about half way round the place which is run on a 'one way' basis the idea being that you follow the ramps down from the start three floors up in the cafe down to the basement where the main tank bottom is. The ticket you recieve on the door has a barcode on it which activates a turnstyle into the attraction The fish were excellent but there could have been more variety, most of the tanks were reef tanks containing many of the domestic kept marines. The majorityof tanks were also quite small. There is a touch pool for kids but on this particular day it contained only starfish. Perhaps the most impressive views were to be had through the windows into the main tank which are dotted along the route, some very big and very beautifull fish can be spotted through these. At the lowest level is a large interactive zone called 'Deep Blue One' which is a virtual sea bed research station. Here one can pilot submarines, gather shrimps for research and take command of the centre for a month among other things. Luckily we reached this zone before the children and had the chance to play, I have to admitt it was fun and I could have spent much longer there. Then came what should have been the climax the main tank tunnell........I should have stayed in the Deep Blue One zone, the surface of the water is not disrupted meaning that you can look up and view all the workings above the tank and the tunnel reveals how small and narrow the tank really is. The famous bubble lift was even more dissapointing lasting much less than the promised 30 seconds and again you get a wonderfull view of all the buckets and hoses lying round in the service area above the main tank. The worst was yet to come.....!! On reaching the top of the lift there is a 'NO RE-ENTRY TO THE ATTRACTION' sign which means visitors must exit through a turnstile. The cafe is the exit point, back at the beginning. Here was where we discovered the biggest flaw, despite being called a DAY PASS the ticket and code are NOT valid for a day at all but only work ONCE in the turnstyle, if you rush to the lift to see the sharks then tough luck you can't go back to look at the rest likewise the toilets and cafe are OUTSIDE the turnstyles meaning that should you need the loo you can't re- enter!! I felt that at £6 for adults and £4 for children this was DISGUSTING. In my opinion a day pass should be valid ALL DAY and allow re-entry to the attraction at any point in that day. This was NOT clearly stated at the ticket office in fact we as a group were told conflicting things. While some were told we could re-enter I personally was told that the barcode only works one time meaning that we could spend all day in the building but not in tha attraction itself. THE VERDICT Quality of fish  Approachibility of staff  Facilities Value for Money  Overall Satisfaction | 
