London Zoo, for almost every family, and it is not a close call. A family of two adults and two children pays from £94.20 at the zoo and from £106 at the SEA LIFE London Aquarium, and the zoo gives you four or five hours against the aquarium's one to two. The aquarium wins in exactly three situations, all of which involve small children, bad weather or a gap of ninety minutes on the South Bank.
Both are paid attractions in a city full of free ones, so the first question is whether either is necessary. If your children are happy with animals of any kind, London has free city farms and a free natural history museum, and we say so lower down. If the answer is that somebody in your family wants to see a lion or a shark, this page is the arithmetic.
Our full guides to ZSL London Zoo and SEA LIFE London Aquarium have the routes, the talk times and the booking rules. This page only compares them.
| London Zoo | SEA LIFE London | |
|---|---|---|
| Two adults, two children, cheapest | £94.20 (off-peak weekday, online, no donation) | from £106 (online, quiet day) |
| Two adults, two children, walk-up | £136.00 (peak, at the gate, with donation) | £148 (at the door) |
| Adult | £27.70-£34.50 online; £29.50-£40.00 at the gate | from £28 online; £39 on the day |
| Child | £19.40-£24.10 online (ages 3-15); under-3s free | £25 online, £35 on the day; under-2s free |
| How long | Four hours minimum, a full day if you want everything | One to two hours |
| Indoors? | Partly. Several heated houses, a lot of open air | Entirely indoors |
| Nearest station | Camden Town, 16 minutes' walk, or the 274 bus to the gate | Waterloo, about 5 minutes |
Prices checked in September 2026. Both attractions charge by the day of the week and the level of demand, so your figure will sit somewhere inside those ranges.
The cost per hour, which is the number that decides it
Divide the family price by the hours you get and the gap becomes obvious. At the zoo, £108 for a standard day booked online over four and a half hours works out at roughly £24 an hour for four people. At the aquarium, £106 over an hour and a half is roughly £70 an hour for the same four people.
That is not a criticism of the aquarium's contents. It is a straightforward consequence of one attraction being 36 acres of a royal park and the other being a walk-through route in the basement of County Hall. But it is the reason we send families to the zoo when they ask which one to pick.
Both places punish you for turning up without a ticket. The zoo's gate price is up to £40 an adult against £27.70 online before 10am on the day of the visit, and the aquarium charges £39 at the door against £28 online. For a family of four that is a difference of £40 at either place, for the sake of five minutes on a phone the night before.
Photo: WereSpielChequers · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons · resized
Where the aquarium actually wins
Three cases, and they are real ones.
- Under-fives. An hour and a half indoors, flat, in the dark, with tanks at toddler eye level, beats four hours of walking between outdoor enclosures. Buggies are easier here too. Our guide to London with a toddler makes the same argument about several other attractions.
- Heavy rain. The aquarium is completely indoors. The zoo has heated houses, but the walking between them is not covered, and a wet day there is genuinely miserable. See our list of what to do on a rainy day in London.
- A gap in an existing South Bank day. The aquarium is next to the London Eye at County Hall, five minutes from Waterloo and ten from Westminster. If you are already on the South Bank with ninety minutes to fill, it is there. The zoo is a deliberate journey.
There is also a combination ticket with the London Eye and the other attractions run by the same company, which brings the per-head cost down if you were going to do two of them anyway. Read the "save up to" figures carefully: they are calculated against walk-up prices, not against the cheapest online ones.
Where the zoo wins, which is everywhere else
The zoo is a full day out rather than an attraction you pass through. It is organised into walk-through habitats, with Asiatic lions, Sumatran tigers behind floor-to-ceiling glass, gorillas and a large indoor play area, and it runs keeper talks through the day that are worth planning around.
It also sits inside Regent's Park, which is free, so the day around it works whether or not the weather holds. You can picnic in the zoo — your own food is allowed — and walk up Primrose Hill afterwards, or into Camden Town.
For children aged roughly five to twelve, the zoo is one of the better paid days out in London. For teenagers it is a harder sell, and for adults travelling without children it is a pleasant afternoon rather than a priority.
The Reptile House from the first Harry Potter film is no longer a reptile house. ZSL closed the 1926 building to the public in 2023 and it is now ZooTown, an indoor role-play space for children up to about eight, which needs a separate £1 timed ticket on top of admission. Our guide to Harry Potter locations in London explains what you can and cannot still see.
Getting to each one, and the time that costs you
The aquarium is easy: Waterloo is about five minutes away, and Westminster, Embankment and Charing Cross are all a short walk across the river.
The zoo is not hard but it is not a doorstep either. No station is next to it. Camden Town on the Northern line is about a 16-minute walk, Baker Street about 21 minutes through the park, and the 274 bus runs along Prince Albert Road and stops at the gate, which is the answer with tired legs. Add 30 to 45 minutes each way from central London, and that is part of the cost of the day.
One thing to ignore: the canal boats from Little Venice no longer set down at the zoo. The London Waterbus says plainly that it does not stop there, and that Camden Market is a 15-minute walk from the zoo entrance. Guidebooks and blogs still promise a zoo landing stage that does not exist, as our page on Little Venice and the Regent's Canal explains.
The free version of each
Both animals and water can be had in London for nothing, and it is worth knowing before you spend £106.
Instead of the zoo. The canal towpath and the boats pass along the zoo's northern edge, where the Snowdon Aviary and a canal-side enclosure holding African hunting dogs and warthogs are visible from the water. London's city farms are free and let small children get much closer to animals than any zoo does; see our round-up of city farms and playgrounds.
Instead of the aquarium. The Natural History Museum is free, indoors, and has the blue whale skeleton hanging in its main hall. It is not an aquarium and nothing in it is alive, but for a rainy afternoon with children it is the better free answer.
If you are buying a sightseeing pass
Both appear on sightseeing passes, which changes the sums if you are visiting several paid attractions in a few days. The zoo accepts London Pass and Go City Explorer Pass holders at the gate. Whether a pass pays for itself depends entirely on how many things you really get round to, and our assessment of whether the London Pass is worth it works through the arithmetic for families, who usually do worse out of it than couples.
The other route in at the zoo is the two-for-one offer attached to National Rail tickets, which needs a paper National Rail ticket or a Travelcard bought at a National Rail station. Oyster, contactless and Travelcards bought at Tube stations do not qualify.
Our verdict, in one line each
Book the zoo if your children are five or older, if you have four hours, and if the forecast is dry. Book it online before 10am on the day of your visit, pick an off-peak weekday if you can, and plan on a full day rather than a morning.
Book the aquarium if your children are under five, if it is raining, or if you are already beside the London Eye with an hour and a half and no plan. Book online rather than at the door, and go on a weekday morning in term time.
Book neither if the budget is tight. Two adults and two children can spend a whole day at the Natural History Museum and a city farm for the price of the bus fares, and our guide to London with kids lists more of that kind of day.
Frequently asked questions
Is London Zoo or SEA LIFE London better value?
London Zoo, clearly. A family of two adults and two children pays from £94.20 at the zoo and from £106 at the aquarium, and the zoo takes four hours or more against one to two. On a cost-per-hour basis the zoo is roughly a third of the price for the same four people.
Which is better for a toddler, the zoo or the aquarium?
The aquarium. It is entirely indoors, flat, dark and short, the tanks are at a small child's eye level, and under-2s go free. The zoo involves a lot of outdoor walking between habitats, which is hard work with a two-year-old and worse in bad weather.
How much does London Zoo cost for a family of four?
Between £94.20 and £136 for two adults and two children, depending on the day and how you buy. The cheapest is an off-peak weekday booked online before 10am on the day of the visit without the voluntary donation; the most expensive is a peak day paid at the gate with the donation included.
Can you do both the zoo and the aquarium in one day?
You could, but there is no good reason to. They are on opposite sides of central London, the zoo needs at least four hours to be worth its price, and you would pay about £200 for a family of four to rush both. Do one properly and keep the other for another trip.
Do you need to book London Zoo or SEA LIFE in advance?
Not strictly, but you should. The zoo's gate price runs up to £40 an adult against £27.70 booked online before 10am on the day, and the aquarium charges £39 at the door against £28 online, and says it cannot guarantee entry to people who arrive without a ticket at busy times.
Sources
- ZSL London Zoo - London Zoo tickets (checked September 2026)
- SEA LIFE London Aquarium - Tickets and prices (checked September 2026)
- ZSL London Zoo - Getting here (checked September 2026)
- SEA LIFE London Aquarium - Plan your visit (checked September 2026)