Continuity: In the first scene involving Ursula, the shrimp don't appear in her opened case until she reaches down for one.

Continuity: When Flounder swims through an anchor at the start the anchor has round edges, but when the shark bursts in the anchor has flat edges.

Continuity: When Ursula turns King Triton into a seaweed thing, his crown is a normal crown design. When Ursula then picks it up it has turned into a tiara and stays like that for the rest of the film.

Continuity: When Ariel is singing to herself in the bathroom, she swims to a mirror on the wall and plays with her hair and there's no flower next to the mirror on the wall. But in the next shot there's a flower on the wall which she puts in her hair and then gives to her father.

Audio problem: When Eric and Ariel swim to each other, she says, "Eric, you've got to get away from here." He replies, "No, I won't leave you," but his lips don't move. (Regardless of the reason, still a mistake.)

Factual error: When Louis the cook chases Sebastian in the kitchen, Sebastian hides in a cabinet full with plates and bowls which reflect the rabid cook's image. However, in both real and mirror-reversed image, his actual right arm (with the mallet) is raised up high.

Continuity: When the crown falls off Triton's head it has eight prongs, instead of the usual five.

Other: When Ariel is at the dinner table with Eric and Grimsby, Ariel takes Grimsby's pipe and blows it in his face, yet when he wipes his face there isn't any black stuff on his hankie.

Continuity: When Ariel and Flounder are going into the shipwreck at the start, Ariel goes through the porthole and Flounder follows. In the frame where he gets stuck, his front fins are trapped firmly outside the porthole but in the next shot inside the boat, they appear inside instead of outside.

Continuity: Before her wedding to Eric, Ursula talks to herself in front of a mirror and then steps on the makeup table, cracking a perfume bottle. The problem is that the bottle wasn't on the table on the previous shot.

Continuity: In the scene where Sebastion is arriving at the concert, he gets pulled upside down by his Goldfish. When he flips his shell back over and sits in it again, on his left side he has two legs sticking out... then as he starts moving one of the legs just disappears.

Continuity: Ariel's hair is the same in just about every scene except one: when Flotsam and Jetsam come into her treasure trove when she's crying, and convince her to see Ursula. Then, the ends of Ariel's hair (even her bangs) take on the same spiky appearance as the eels' fins.

Continuity: In the scene when Ariel saves Eric after the ship has exploded he has boots on yet when Ariel has brought him up onto shore they are off, they couldn't have fallen off since they in that time period men wore boots that have to be taken off to at least to the heal and Ariel is tying to save him so she wouldn't take the time to get them off, and leather tends to tighten up when thoroughly soaked so that is another factor to why they shouldn't have come off this also happens at the end of the film after Ursula has been killed.

Continuity: In the scene when Ariel is struggling to walk, but then suddenly out of the blue she is able to run away from max.

Deliberate "mistake": While trying to rescue Ariel at the end of the movie, Eric harpoons Ursula's arm, leaving a black cut. But in the following shots of Ursula, the cut is gone. (Due to Disney's practice in not leaving injuries onscreen).

Continuity: When Ariel goes to the surface to show Scuttle the fork, he first sees her through the telescope (which is the wrong way round). When you see Ariel through the telescope, she appears to be surrounded by the sea but when Scuttle takes away the telescope she is close up and right next to the rock he is on. Surely the rock would have seen through the telescope underneath Ariel not ocean.

Deliberate "mistake": When Eric's ship blows up, his statue bobs up and down. A statue this weight would not be able to bob up and down for even a second. It would just sink straight to the bottom.

Continuity: When Ariel and Eric are in the boat together before their attempt to kiss, Ariel's hair is down. But in their shadows on the water, her hair is in a ponytail.

Continuity: In the scene when Vanessa gets covered in starfish, she then is bounced up and down by a seal, the star fish are gone.

Continuity: After Scuttle takes the fork to his feathers his feathers are all puffy but then a few frames later they are suddenly back to normal without him doing anything.