23 April 2018
There are many attractions and theme parks in Zhuhai and Chimelong Ocean Kingdom is one of the most popular ones. As one of the world’s largest marine theme parks, it has many superlatives and won a few awards too.
After enjoying a surreal experience of watching whale sharks swimming in a giant tank at the Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan, it was hard to resist another chance to see whale sharks again.
The Ocean Kingdom’s 68-metre-high Whale Shark Aquarium is the world’s largest ocean aquarium, at 31,000 tons of water. In comparison, Osaka Aquarium’s whale shark tank is 9 meters deep and 34 meters long
with 5,400 tons of water.
In addition, I wanted to see the Beluga whales and rare Chinese White Dolphins.
Getting to the park was not easy from Zhuhai city as it is located at Hengqin, quite a distance away. There are plenty of information on how to get there provided in the Chimelong Ocean Kingdom website, even from places like Hong Kong, Macau, Zhuhai airport etc.
We thought it would be easiest and fastest to take a taxi from the Angsana Zhuhai Phoenix Bay Hotel directly to the park. The journey took more than one hour and cost us 240 RMB (including 13 RMB toll for the highway and 30 RMB booking fee to get the taxi to our hotel). On hindsight, we could have saved some money by taking a taxi to either Gongbei train station or Juizhou Port and then use the shuttle bus services to the park.
Our taxi driver alighted us at the Chimelong Penguin Hotel. The Penguin Hotel, located closest to the entrance of Ocean Kingdom Themed Park, is a good hotel to stay in for those planning multi-day visits to the park. This is also where the entrance tickets are sold. I was glad we could use our international credit cards for the entrance tickets which cost 350 RMB per adult on a weekday.
Tip: it is slightly cheaper to visit the park on a weekday and it was less crowded too.
The Penguin Hotel is buzzing and crowded with park goers. Statues of penguin are everywhere in this themed hotel. There are good signage to lead us to the entrance of Ocean Kingdom from the hotel.
By the time we entered the park, it was already 11.30 AM, one and a half hour past the opening time. We had no intentions to take every ride or see everything, so we were not hurried.
English and foreign language versions of the theme park map were not readily available at the entrance, but could be obtained from the Customer Service Office located in a building next to the entrance. Another thing that could be improved would be to make the information for show timings more easily available in the park. The park expects visitors to scan a QR code to view the daily show times and forgetting that not all visitors, especially oversea tourists, have smartphones with data roaming or mobile Wi-Fi access.
Aside from this few setbacks, we were quite impressed with what we saw at the entrance of the park.
Ocean Avenue at the entrance with giant LED screens under the manta ray shaped roof.
We entered a giant structure with a roof shaped like a manta ray and was immersed in a sight and sound of an underwater world, made possible with giant overhead LED screens.
The avenue's sidewalks are lined with souvenir shops and decorated with vibrant corals and rocks reminiscent of the ocean floor.
We stood and watch the screens showing manta rays soaring overhead, cute penguins strolling across the ice and schools of colourful fish darting about.
Once we passed through Ocean Avenue, a prominent giant leaping statue of a whale shark caught our eye.
The signature whale shark statue is 68 m tall and marks the location of the Ocean Beauty themed zone.
Ocean Kingdom is designed like most western theme park, with several Themed Zones. Each zone has its combination of themed rides, shows, aquatic or animal exhibits, shops and restaurants.
We went to see the beluga whales at the Polar Horizon Themed Zone first and also checked out the timing for the shows at the Beluga Theater since we were not able to view the schedule online.
I had never seen live beluga whales before so I was quite thrilled. The white belugas whales live in arctic and subarctic regions. They looked like chubby dolphins, with a perpetual smile on their cute faces.
Since the first show at the Beluga Theater only starts at 2 PM, we went to the Ocean Beauty Themed Zone to do the Deep Sea Odyssey ride and thereafter see the giant aquarium with the whale sharks.
We viewed many varieties of exotic fishes. We passed through curved underwater corridors with overhead dome where sharks, rays and exotic marine creatures swam above.
A chance to see the underside of a starfish.
The jelly fish exhibits are always fascinating for me, although I had seen similar ones in Hong Kong’s Ocean Park and also Osaka’s Kaiyukan.
At Ocean Kingdom, several varieties of jellyfishes are housed in a giant tank and nicely illuminated with changing coloured lights.
From the small beautiful but dangerous jellyfishes, we moved on to see the gigantic but gentle whale shark. The whale shark is world’s largest fish and feeds on plankton. The aquarium has several whale sharks in the same tank! This is the star of Ocean Kingdom and one the main reasons for my visit.
The aquarium is home to about 20,000 rare fish of different species such as manta rays, sharks and sea turtles.
The huge tank came with an awesome acrylic viewing panel that is the world’s largest (39.6 m x 8.3 m x 0.65 m), seamlessly welded using cutting-edge technology. It was not obvious that the panel is 65 cm thick to withstand the tremendous water pressure at more than 8 m deep.
The giant aquarium requires 65 cm thick acrylic panels to withstand the tremendous water pressures imposed on the huge viewing surface.
We stood for many minutes, mesmerised by the slow and graceful whale sharks, rays “flying” in all directions and schools of trevally swimming in unison.
We could have stood there the whole day, but we had a beluga performance show to watch at 2 PM and other attractions to visit.
Leaving the giant tank, we walked through another undersea tunnel and dome with views of the giant sharks, rays and fishes swimming above us.
Family of moray eels.
We have to be seated about 15 minutes before the start of the Beluga performance, one of the highlights at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom.
The white beluga whales and trainers gave an awesome and flawless performance.
It always amazed me how the trainers could get the whales to do what they did. I have problems even training my own dog to walk next to me.
Waiting for the show to begin at the Beluga Theater, with seating for 4,000 persons and a climate-controlled environment.
Eight performing beluga whales.
The belugas are intelligent mammals and able to interact with the trainers who used high pitch whistles.
The front seats in the theatre are the wet zone but the small beluga whales don’t throw as much water compared to amount of water thrown by the tail flukes of the Orcas at the Sea World in California.
Some lucky members of the audience were given the chance to pat the belugas.
Dances with whales.
The other exhibits at the Polar Horizon Themed Zone include the polar bears from the North Pole and penguins from the South Pole. There were other varieties of bears outside the polar bear enclosure. For a ocean-based theme park, the brown and black bear exhibits seemed out of place.
Brown bear taking an afternoon nap.
This brown bear is able to catch pieces of apple that are tossed into its enclosure with its jaws.
Angry looking black bears.
The polar bear had an icy cold enclosure that mimics the arctic environment with artificially generated snow, ice and a swimming area.
Getting a close up view of the polar bear.
Other Arctic animals such as the arctic foxes and wolves could also be seen next to the polar bear enclosure. Compared to the lone polar bear, they seemed happier with their pack.
A family of cute arctic foxes.
Arctic wolf
Ocean Kingdom has one of the largest penguin exhibits in the world. It features the emperor penguins, the largest penguins on earth, and the cute and lively Adélie penguins. We could get different views and perspectives of the penguins.
These birds are fast swimmers and could “fly” in the water leaving a trail of bubbles as they exhale.
The most interesting experience for me was looking at them from the undersea tunnel.
We did not intend to take the thrilling roller coaster rides. So we gave the Polar Explorer ride a miss, had lunch and moved on to the other themed zones.
Watch the musical fountain dance to the rhythm of the music at the musical fountain performance alongside the Hengqin Ocean as we moved to the other zones.
Happy family of sea lions – bull, cow and calf.
Walrus and trainer interacting.
The Walrus Splash thrill ride at the Mount Walrus Theme Zone.
Sea lion performance at the Sealion Theater.
The sea lion performance was quite funny and entertaining, although the commentary was presented in Chinese language and we had seen similar shows in other zoos before. The agile and intelligent sea lions made the audience laugh with their antics and showed off their natural abilities in the water.
The last themed zone we visited was the Dolphin Cove. The key marine exhibit in this zone is that of the endangered species of dolphin only found in local waters. The Chinese white dolphin is also called “giant panda in the water”. They looked white to me but supposed to have a pink colouring and a bewitching smile that is a characteristic of most dolphins.
A pair of Chinese white dolphin – mother and calf.
It was great to see a pair of dolphins swimming together, a mother and its calf. The smaller baby dolphin is light grey in colour, while the mother is white. Another lone dolphin was in the pool as well, probably a male.
Mother and calf swimming together.
We did the Dolphin Round Ride, a “kiddy” ride that is still fun for adults. We could control the up and down movement of the dolphin-shaped cabin we sat in, as it spins round and round, and try to avoid getting wet from the water guns that shoots out jets of water intermittently. We still got wet in the end.
We skipped the dolphin performance at the Dolphin Theater and went to see the show at the 5D Castle Theater. The 5D Castle Theater is a super huge 5D special effects theater that has over 1,000 motion seats and a 1500 square meter semi-circular 3D screen. We put on 3D glasses and get treated to a show that triggered all 5 senses as we were immersed in an amazing on-screen adventure with cartoon characters. We could feel wind in our hair, water sprays and even smell penguins as we soared into the sky, dived into the ocean and visited the south pole and fought with the bad guys! Quite fun and I almost wanted to go for a second round.
We did not stay for the Chimelong Ocean Parade and the drones, fireworks and laser displays at night. We had seen what we came for and left the park at about 6.30 PM just as it started to drizzle.
This time round, we took the shuttle bus from the Chimelong Penguin Hotel to Jiuzhou Port (fare was 25 RMB/person) and then travelled by taxi back to the Angsana Zhuhai Phoenix Bay Hotel (fare was 40 RMB). This is much cheaper than a direct taxi from the park to our hotel. We arrived at 8 PM, just in time for dinner at its Rice Bowl Restaurant.