Ocean Park

Ocean Park is a great theme park just outside the city on the south side of Hong Kong island. While Hong Kong Disneyland manages to pull a lot of visitors due to its international fame, this park has been around for much longer and is more popular with local Hong Kong people.

Actually, there really is a sense of rivalry between the two parks as they both attract approximately the same number of visitors. Ocean Park manages to lure more local customers but Disneyland makes up for it by drawing in more tourists. In fact, with over five million admitted every year, they are both among the biggest amusement parks in the world.

Obviously, Ocean Park cannot offer up the wide array of copyrighted characters and stories of the Disney brand, which is understandably considered a minus among many of the younger visitors.

Instead, my sense of it is that this park tries to use its nautical theme and animal exhibits to appeal to a broader demographic. As an example, it is a common dating destination among young local couples.

Location

The theme park is located on a mountainous peninsula on the south side of Hong Kong island, right next to Aberdeen. It can be reached easily by bus from several places in downtown Hong Kong, but the closest is the bus stop by Admiralty MTR station.

The 35 attractions are divided into a lower "Headland" and a "Summit" up at higher altitude. These two areas are linked by both a cable car and the world's second largest escalator system (beaten only by Hong Kong's own even longer escalator system in Central).

Wildlife

As an animal theme park they have a number of different animal exhibits making it possible for the visit to be something of a learning experience. Befitting the name of "Ocean Park", several of them are aquariums devoted to creatures of the sea, from a pair of dolphins to an extensive jellyfish display (hey, jellyfish are more fun than you might think!). At the same time there are also all sorts of land-based animals, including monkeys, birds, reptilians and so on.

But of course, their most famous animal exhibit is Hong Kong's only panda habitat, housing the four giant pandas that have been donated by the People's Republic of China to celebrate the reunification with Hong Kong: An An, Jia Jia, Ying Ying & Le Le. The habitat also houses specimens of a much smaller Chinese animal known as the "red panda", which in reality is not related to the giant panda at all, but they are pretty cute!

Halloween

Possibly the best time of the year to visit the park is during the Halloween period when several attractions are transformed into ghosthouses and zombies and vampires stroll around the site to scare people. It's a lot of fun, and a great date night.

You can find more information at Ocean Park's official website.

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