Diving into Animal Crossing at Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium

In 2025, a unique collaboration was announced between Sea Life Aquariums and Animal Crossing, which followed on from similar events in other countries and just a few months ago, they announced it was coming back. After the event ran in Sydney through July and August, it has made its way down to the Melbourne location and we were invited to go in and check it out.

The event started in Melbourne on September 16 and will run through until November 8, so you do have plenty of time to go, should you want to check it out for yourself. If you want to learn more about the location, you can do that here.

The event is not a complete redo of the aquarium experience, but is instead an additive one. This means as you walk through, you will come across signs featuring Blathers, as they provide more insights about some of the aquatic life that lives around them. As you first enter you are given a special booklet, which has the stamp rally and other things inside. One of the activities directly connects back to those signs for Blathers, each sign has a letter on them, that provides an answer to a question in the book.

As you explore you will also encounter stamp locations, these are not ink based stamps but are instead embossed stamps, if you collect all 10, then you will get a bonus stamp in your book at the end, along with a collectors postcard. Gulliver has also found himself washed up somewhere in the aquarium and his location is also something to mark down in the book. For those Isabelle fans, she does meet throughout the day, just know that the location is not the best and photos may come out darker than you would like.

Something you need to be aware of, this is not an Animal Crossing event, this is an aquarium that has a few Animal Crossing posts, stamp stations and cardboard cut outs around the place. Which is why you might have to keep an eye out because some are just in weird spots. Isabelle is just sitting in a corner, with very little around her.

It would not be an event for Animal Crossing without merch and there is a lot of it here, including a lot of plush. While I would not suggest you buy anything from the event, this is due to two specific reasons. The first is that there is nothing branded for the event, which does mean that you can get most of it elsewhere. The second reason is that everything that is there has been given a steep mark up. For example, there is the twin pack of Timmy & Tommy in their Aloha form, which are $41.50 from the Nintendo Store, but at Sea Life they are $65.

On the upside, they do have the amazing dioramas that have been out of stock on the Nintendo Store for months now, but again at a slightly higher price. If you are a real fan of K.K. Slider, Tom Nook or Isabelle, they do have the 53cm plush, which is a rare thing to find here in Australia, but they are a little under $100 each. Beyond plush, they also have keychains, mugs, pencil cases, puzzles and even some of the Animal Crossing Lego.

Of course, all that said and done the aquarium does have some actual fun things to see, being all the sea life that calls it home. There are fish, sharks, penguins, seahorses and more, with walking around being the real joy. The aquarium has themed areas, including one full of frogs and snakes, so just know you can skip that if you want.

In what I thought was kind of funny, the second character in the stamp quest is actually the last one you find, simply because it’s Aurora, who is a penguin, with her stamp stand located in the penguin room.

If we are being honest, going to Sea Life just for the Animal Crossing content is not something we can recommend, it is again just some posters and character cut outs. However, if you were already planning on going, then getting to do a few quests along the way and getting a photo with Isabelle, well that is a nice bonus.

The event is on now and will run through to November 8.

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