So educational and fun! - What a great tour to learn so much about the beluga whales little white and little gray! These guys are really lucky to have such a dedicated team working to get them back into the ocean!

It was very nice to go through... - It was very nice to see the belugas through the window and after a while we discovered that they saw us too. Then we'd spin around and jump and they'd do it really crazy and squeak with pleasure. I've never seen that before. Also the puffins were mega cute. The staff of the Centre were very helpful and answered all questions.

Smiling belugas and puffins too. - Small, well organized sanctuary. several puffins in stages of recovery, workers are extremely kind and helpful. The two belugas were playing with a ball when I was there, apparently In Response to a young girl giggling and laughing at their antics. They seemed to be playing to her…I was lucky to be up close at the same time. these whales are inquisitive and enjoy interaction.

Sad way the animals are kept. - A bit disappointing and quite sad. The Puffin sanctuary is small and limited in scope. Though it is wonderful to see then, their containment space is lacking and sad. The Baluga Whales are equally in a small, contained space. They were 'rescued' and provided an actual cove in the ocean, but are being kept in a 'fish tank' of sorts. Again, wonderful to see them, but it is a sad way to keep these beautiful creatures. The Aquarium is small and doesn't offer a lot, but what they do offer is interesting to look at an read.

Don’t bother buying the behind the scenes tour - We booked the behind the scenes tour and, while our guides were absolutely delightful, there was nothing behind the scenes about our tour. We saw everything you could see with regular admission, plus the inside of a freezer. We got a bit more colour commentary on specific fish, etc. but didn’t get to see them working with the whales as expected. All we saw of the whales was through the same dingy viewing window as everyone else. I also don’t feel like we learned anything about the whales that we didn’t already know from visiting the website and/or reading the signs. Possibly the puffins would have improved the experience and given more behind the scenes access, but unfortunately the exhibit was closed for renovations. Bad timing on our part. Overall, I respect what they’re doing here, and don’t mind paying the regular admittance but I wouldn’t bother with the behind the scenes fee.

Don’t go to this. - Don’t go to this. Not only is it a ridiculously expensive ‘donation’ to get in, but you’ll leave as unhappy as the beluga whales being held captive here. There are a few exhibits of starfish and sea anemone that you’d expect from any Sea Life centre, and some extremely sad looking puffins (they never do well in captivity, losing all their colour from their beak and feet) and s single Guillemot in a tiny enclosure that’s hard to see in to. There’s a lot of information on how the beluga whales got to Iceland from China in 2019, and beaming photos of John Bishop, but little on why after 6 years, they are still in an indoor tank or why the outdoor ‘sea pen’ has failed. Now Little Grey & Little White do repeated laps around their restricted space and you can peer in through the filthy glass of a ‘animal welfare observation window’. Handily, the centre has decided to keep all the lights on in the corridor where the window is, so there’s a better chance of seeing just your own reflection. The whole thing takes less than 15 minutes and lacks any of the charm of the old natural history museum that preceded it. Don’t think that this is a ‘sanctuary’ of any sort, or that Little Grey and Little White have been rescued. Instead, they’ve just been moved from one tank to another and Sea Life (Merlin) are just after your cash.

Sanctuary to save the whales from an aquarium which seems a lot like an aquarium - The tour was £20 a head and tells the story of how the money is for charity and is used to save the beluga whales from a life in captivity. A story is told about how whales aren’t supposed to live in captivity and that it is horrible for an animal. Around the corner from this is the two whales living in captivity in a pool with a window that you can observe them. Seems a lot like an aquarium to me not a sanctuary.

Skip this! Waste of money and sad experience - Very disappointing. We had some time to fill between other activities on the island. For the cost (about $100US for a family of 4) we spend MAYBE 20 minutes there. There were no puffins, some tanks with small coral, starfish and other sea plants. And then a sad, small window to see the 2 beluga whales swim by. It was hard to see much because the window is in a hallway and very hard to have more than 5-6 people looking at once. It mentions that they have a large area to live in the bay- but from talking to locals. That doesn’t happen anymore and doesn’t sound like there is much of a plan to move them there. Yes, the money supports the “sanctuary” but it really just feels like a money grab to support to pretty gift-shop and not actually better the lives of these whales in their possession.

Does not feel like a sanctuary. Way overprized. - Well. They need to pull up their pants. We've been there twice. We were very happy with our first time. The belugas were wonderful, and still are. Our first time there were staff there, who explained to us that the beluga whales' sanctuary was being repaired, so they were temporarily housed there in this tiny pool. However, it is now apparent that the sanctuary is not being repaired, or for whatever other reasons, this tiny pool is the belugas' permanent home. All the signs, etc, however, indicate that they actually live in the sanctuary in the sea, so we feel lied to. I would have asked a staff member about this, but there was nobody except the ticket sales person. The small beluga window is in a hallway, and there is room for just a handful of people. First time we came there, you could get right up to the window, which meant a lot more people could view the whales. There was also a bench for those with trouble standing, and there was a guide stationed there, taking questions and explaining. This time the window has been roped off, leaving just space for a few people behind the rope. The lights in the hallway are full on, which means that you mostly see yourself and the other visitors in the window. And no staff to be seen anywhere outside ticket sales. There is also this very silly sentence ON the window, ANIMAL WELFARE OBSERVATION WINDOW, both in Icelandic and English. It takes up about a quarter of the window. I suppose it is there to really punch it in that the animals are not on display - which they of course are, they are this place's only attraction. Combined with the light in the hallway, this meant that these two long, big sentences were cast on the animal's bodies each time they passed by to be viewed through the hazy fog of all the people's mirror images. The beluga whales would come against the window and let their bodies hammer the glass, then turn around and "bite" at the window. I don't know beluga behavior well enough to know if this is playfulness or trauma, but they did not behave like this a couple of years ago when we first came. The puffin hospital is very cute, when it is open. You can see the puffins swim. But it's a tiny tiny area. There really is nothing else of interest there, and it's extremely expensive for a tiny place, although the money does go towards supporting the sanctuary. I would feel better about paying this huge amount for very little if this actually felt like a sanctuary.

Disappointing - Very disappointing and a waste of $45USD for two seniors. No puffins there at all, despite the fact that there are signs outside saying Puffin Rescue Center. Only one small window to view the Beluga whales. After you pay and enter through the door, only then do you find out there are no puffins there and their habitat is under construction. Do the Puffin and Volcano tour with Ebbi instead - it was fantastic!