UShaka Marine World, Theme park and aquarium at Golden Mile, Durban, South Africa.
uShaka Marine World is a theme park and aquarium at Golden Mile in Durban, South Africa, combining different family attractions across 16 hectares. The facility includes a marine aquarium with sharks and rays, a water park with slides and wave pools, and an enclosure for reptiles and amphibians.
The complex opened in April 2004 after a three-year construction period and brought a large leisure facility of this kind to Durban for the first time. Specialists awarded the thematic design with an international prize already in the opening year.
The name comes from the Zulu word for reed or papyrus, a plant that grows along the coast. Visitors move through areas designed to look like shipwrecks and old harbor buildings, while children splash in shallow pools and adults enjoy the deeper areas.
Most visitors arrive in the morning or early afternoon when the weather is calm and the sun does not heat the pools too much. On site you will find changing rooms, lockers, and places to eat in different parts of the park.
The aquarium holds several tunnels made of clear acrylic that run beneath the tanks and allow a view from below of the fish. At some points sharks swim just a few centimeters above the heads of visitors.
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