Nauticalia

When you’ve enjoyed all you can of the Beatles, the Titanic & the various museums & just want to taste the sea air, visit a few shops & perhaps enjoy a bit to eat, do visit the Albert Dock for its many shops, restaurants & attractions. For souvenirs & trinkets to take home, I might recommend Nauticalia, where the theme is of course the sea. Clothing, postcards, life preservers, ships in bottles & all manner of other things you might think of are available.

Nauticalia seems to have forgotten one of the only rules about owning a shop. Sure, you can make your range of products fantastic to look at, but if it’s so expensive that people will run screaming, you’ve failed at business. Then again, this place has been here for years so I’ll hush ma mouth.
Selling everything to do with the sea, this is a great shop to stroll around and browse the bottled ships, maritime clocks, diving helmets and miniature twin cylinder engines (every home should have one) but, as I said, unless you’ve recently discovered pirate treasure, the chances of you buying anything whose price you can justify are going to be slim.

Ahoy there!
Nauticalia is appropriately located amongst the array of touristy type gift shops in Albert Dock.
If you are an admirer of seafaring, then this shop is definitely for you. There are a wide amount of ornaments and collectables, some of whom might consider odd if you’re not familiar — if you’re like me, it’s kind of difficult to describe them! Although, I did manage to recognise a barometer — an instrument sailors use to measure atmospheric pressure. Some items may be pointless but you can buy products such as strong weathproof clothing, and thermals all of which are fairly expensive. The member of staff whom greeted me was cheerful and I actually enjoyed the browsing experience which was quite unique.
From my visit, I saw a gift cloth with a very interesting description and I’d like to share those sayings about why a ship is called «she».
A ship is called a «she» because…
There is always a great deal of bustle around her
There is usually a gang of men about
She has a waist and stays
It takes a lot of paint to keep her good looking
She shows her topsides and hides her bottom
She can be all decked out
It takes an experienced man to handle her correctly
And without a man at the helm, she is absolutely un-​controllable.
It takes a lot of Paint to keep her Good — Looking.
And the main reason… It’s not the initial expense that breaks you, It’s the upkeep!!!
When coming into port, always heads for the buoys.
Fascinating!!!

As you would expect in the Dock side area there had to be one store which is dedicated to all things to do with the sea and the maritime way of life. Nauticalia is that shop and to be honest it is better than I expected.
When I entered this establishment I expected to be greeted by an array of tacky rubbish which no one would really be interested in but as it turned out I was quite wrong in my pre conceived opinion. The shop actually had some good quality products in particular some of the models of ships which were on sale.
The shop itself was decorated very nicely and was very loyal to its nautical theme which was good to see. The staff were helpful and it was actually quite a pleasant place to shop.
On the whole I was very impressed by what I saw and experienced, good job.

This shop stocks, as the name suggest, all kinds of gifts that are marine, ship, and pirate related. Some odd novelty items I spotted: a ship’s when nut cracker, a champagne cork key chain, «captain’s socks,» and pirate coins. Also, there are ships in bottles, pirate board games, rhinestone studded frogs (why?!), flags, nautical related books, and a neat variety of relaxing CD’s.
All in all, this is a high quality, tasteful gift shop and fun to browse. It’s a great place to find gifts for the guys on your list.

Not sure this is everyone’s cup of tea, and not sure it is really mine. However, it does stock products that very few other shops stock. Good for gifts for men (my dad in particular, probably his dream shop) though. Clothing e.g. waxed jackets, collectables, technical toys, watches, sailing goodies etc. I think his favourite would be the model planes.
Nauticalia supports charities such as RNLI, HMS Victory, Cutty Sark, Gipsy Moth, King George’s Fund for Sailors and The Mission to Seafarers.

If you’re Olive Oil looking for your Popeye, then this is probably where you would find him. Nauticalia really does cater for ALL things nautical (they have a wall full of those gauges which make you feel like you’re on the Titanic), it is extremely gimmicky and full of stuff which I have no idea who buys it or how the shop can stay afloat (sorry!) it’s so expensive.
But it’s really fun to look around and if you have time to spare definitely have a mooch, just don’t get drawn in to buying a Sailor hat on the way out. Tempting, but no!

The Albert Dock is starnge place. There are two worlds that seem to co-​exist next to each other like rivaling siblings at a party who get on with the night for the sake of gran but refuse to even make eye contact with each other. Those two worlds will be that of the Dock’s des-​res abode, champagne at Blue crowd and then all the tourists and the attractions that come with that.
Nauticalia comes under the latter. But even with Liverpool’s strong maritime traditions is anyone really going to head here and spend £200 plus on a replica diving helmet?
I enjoyed coming in here, some of the stuff is bloody mad. Captain’s hat anyone? Brass horn? Ship’s Telegraph?! Well I guess boating shoes are back in it’s only the logical step to get the full outfit and accessories.