Ticket prices for Bristol's new £4 million aquarium will be among the most expensive in the country for an attraction of its type.

The Post has learned that a single adult ticket to the Blue Reef site will cost £13.50 – almost double the cost of entry into some of the company's other aquariums in the UK.

It will cost £9.20 for a child to enter the attraction, which opens next Friday.

A family ticket for two adults and two children at Bristol is £43.40, compared to just £27.50 at Blue Reef's Hastings aquarium.

The company told the Post a Bristol ticket includes entry into the Imax cinema on site, which shows 3D nature films. Customers cannot pay a cheaper price to enter the aquarium only – the ticket price includes entry to the Imax whether people visit the cinema or not.

Blue Reef insists the ticket price is "genuinely good value for money" and says it is significantly cheaper than the combined cost of visiting predecessors Wildwalk and the Imax.

The company has four other aquariums across the UK, in Newquay, Hastings, Portsmouth and Tynemouth.

In Tynemouth, tickets are £7.95 for adults and £5.95 for children, while Hastings prices are £7.75 and £5.75.

Entry to the new Bristol attraction also costs more than Weston-super-Mare's SeaQuarium, which costs £6.25 for adults and £5.25 for children, and the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth, at £11 for adults and £6.50 for children.

More than 7,000 fish from 250 species will be on display across 40 different attractions at the Bristol site.

Forty jobs have been created, including tour guides, gift shop staff and maintenance workers.

Four tunnel sections, as well as a 4.5m by 2.5m window, have been installed in the aquarium's new 200,000 litre seawater coral reef display, which includes zebra sharks, stingrays and pufferfish.

A Blue Reef spokesman said: "Admission to the aquarium and the IMAX 3D Cinema is significantly cheaper than it was when the building was operating as Wildwalk and IMAX more than two-and-a-half years ago, and we believe offers genuinely good value for money with an unrivalled breadth and scope of visitor experience.

"The scale of the visit is entirely different to that of the other Blue Reef Aquarium sites around the country.

"For example Bristol is approximately four times larger than the Blue Reef Aquarium site in Hastings and is able to showcase a vastly increased array of marine and freshwater creatures from around the world.

"The pricing structure is also below that of every other comparable aquarium in the UK, for example the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham (£16) and London Aquarium (£16).

"It is also the only aquarium outside of the USA that offers the IMAX 3D Cinema experience alongside the aquarium visit."

The Wildwalk/Imax site, next to @Bristol, closed in 2007 after operators revealed it was losing £1.5m a year.

The combined cost of entry to Wildwalk and the Imax before their closure was £15 for adults and £11 for children, or £20 and £15 respectively when combined with admission to the Explore science centre.

Price list for Bristol attractions

Family prices based on entry for two adults and two children

Bristol Zoo

Adult – £11.36

Child – £7.04

Family – £33.18

Noah's Ark

Adult – £10.50

Child – £8.50

Family – £35

@Bristol

Adult – £11.90

Child – £7.70

Family – £34

Bristol City (watching a home league game)

Adult – £25

Child – £10

Family – £70

Bristol Rovers (home game)

Adult – £17

Child – £7

Family – £40

Odeon Cinema, Union Street

Adult – £4.95

Child – £3.75

Family – £17

ss Great Britain (Unlimited visits for 12 months)

Adult – £10.95

Child – £5.95

Family – £30