Spread Some Awesome

Duration : 1 day

Bummers : long walks, large crowds

Ocean Park Hong Kong

If people say you cannot have too much vacation, don’t believe them because you can. On day 6 of our 7-day stay in Hong Kong, we went to Ocean Park. It was a fun-filled theme park and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Hong Kong. If you are torn between Hong Kong Disneyland and Ocean Park, and most of you are grown-ups then choose Ocean Park. However, we did not get to enjoy the rides so much because we were already quite burned out from the past 5 days roaming around Hong Kong mostly by foot.

Ocean Park is divided into two major areas – The Waterfront and The Summit. The Waterfront contains most of the animal shelters and kiddie rides while the Summit has the adult thrill rides and the Ocean Theatre. To go from the Waterfront to the Summit, you need to take the cable car or the train. I think you can also walk through the trails but it might be a very long walk. You need to do the same thing to go back from the Summit to the Waterfront.

I told my friends that if I see a panda, I am okay and we can already go home. Yeah, I was that tired already. Good thing I stayed for more and saw more than a panda. Since I wanted to see a panda, our first stop was the Hong Kong Jockey Club Sichuan Treasures. Here we met a giant panda named An An. He was born in 1986 and he is described as an agile and active panda.

Giant Panda

We tried our luck to see more pandas in the Great Panda Adventure. We saw 2 more here but they were sleeping. We also saw 2 red pandas here which are also known as firefox. I was amused to learn that a firefox is actually a panda and not a fox.

Red Panda or Firefox

In the Grand Aquarium, we saw lots of other water creatures that I usually only see on Nat Geo or Discovery Channel. I saw sharks, sting rays, starfish, schools of fish, large fish, small fish, fish that might eat other fish, and more fish after that. Oh, I also saw a hammerhead shark.

Sharks and Sting Ray

Some School of Fish

After seeing these amazing animals and watching an acrobat show, we went to the Summit. There were lots of people in the cable car station and if I remember correctly, it took as an hour in line before we got to a car. The view at the cable car ride is awesome. Mountain on one side and water on the other. It was a bit scary too. If you have acrophobia, I suggest you take the train. All you see with the train is total darkness. We took the train on our way back.

Upon reaching the Summit, it was perfect timing because the Dolphin Encounter is about to start. We rushed our way to the Ocean Theatre because we wanted to catch the start of the dolphin show. We arrived on time and we still managed to get good seats. Here is our view of the Summit from our seats.

View of the Summit

Those structures are some of the thrilling rides in Ocean Park. You can hear a lot of screaming when the rides are turned on.

Though some of the dialogs in the Dolphin Encounter were in Chinese and we did not understand them, the dolphin exhibition was amazing. I wonder how they train them. I hope the trainers are not harsh on the dolphins. Here are the dolphins taking a bow after the show.

Dolphins

We got a bit hungry with all the walking so we decided to eat. We shared a snack of octopus – the first time I ever tried this dish. The octopus was too tough. Maybe it was overcooked but we were really hungry that we finish the entire serving. Would you try it too?

Octopus

One of the thrill rides that you should not miss in Ocean Park is the Mine Train. The Mine Train is located at the Adventure Land in the Summit. Adventure Land is an isolated area in the Summit. It is about 3 long escalators down. The Mine is designed like a train going inside a mine then going out at the side of the cliff with the sea below. It is 500 meters of track with 85 meters from the ground at its highest point. It looks rusty and sounds squeaky but that is part of the design as well. You need to be at 4 ft. to ride this train.

Mine Train

After the Mine Train, we decided to leave early and go home. Maybe someday if I get the chance to pay Hong Kong a visit, I can see more of Ocean Park. If you have been to Ocean Park, what other rides should we try or places should we stop by?

For more information about Ocean Park, check out its website here. You can check out what’s new about Ocean Park, book a reservation, and see upcoming events from this website.

Spread some awesome..ness..

Tags: dolphins, firefox, fish, octopus, panda, shark, theme park