Chimelong Ocean Kingdom — Attraction in Zhuhai

Nice multi-park resort overall, but purely targets mainland tourists and not user friendly to westerners.

It includes the Ocean Kingdom outdoor park with marine animal tanks and performance shows, plus 3 roller coasters. The three coasters are the Parrot Coaster, The Walrus Splash, and Polar Explorer. Parrot Coaster is highly recommended and has well supporting straps for large and small. It has a steep drop, loop, and barrel roll sections that are all enjoyable. The Polar Explorer was frequently broken and ended up getting everyone more wet than was enjoyable even with ponchos. The Walrus Splash was a better balance for a Splash Coaster, though ponchos still needed.

Next door to outdoor park is the newer Spaceship indoor park which has an Orca Killer Whale show, hammerhead shark tanks, dolphins, and various ecosystem fish displays. Then on the upper floor they have an indoor theme park with more kid friendly rides. Our 6 y/o loved this area more than outdoor park. The Bermuda Storm moving theater was the one ride that everyone could enjoy. The attached hotel has an infinity pool on the roof, but it is unheated and only useful for self indulgent glamor influencer pictures.

The 8pm firework and drone light show was fun to watch and impressive.

Most of the negative reviews are from people opposed to keeping Orca in captivity and putting on performances. While seeing such majestic and intelligent creatures made to perform is disturbing, the new facilities are miles ahead of the depressing SeaWorld facilities from the 1970's and 80's. The tanks are much larger than the "spacious" tank made in USA to rehabilitate Keiko the Orca after the movie Free Willy.

Please note that if you don't have alipay or wechat digital payments working on your phone, you will be unable to book or pay for anything. We ran into a problem where the total hotel resort bill was greater than the daily max 6600 RMB allowed on foreign accounts. We had to break bill into smaller payments.

There are very few English language brochures or fluent staff members at the hotels. Also, the area around is devoid of stores not connected to resort, so you are limited to the single beer choice...

Despite not having Disney , Universal Studios or Legoland inside it's brand name, this theme park in Zhuhai, China, has everything in it from the biggest oceanarium in the world, individual parks for dolphins, polar bear, penguins, walrus, sealions, seals, sea birds and etc to explore and learn about too, it also have dolphins, belugas and seals/walrus shows at different timings too.

There are many rides in the park too, from kiddie rides to high adrenaline rides like roller coasters and a few rides will even get u wet too. There are many different shows and parades going on throughout the day too but definitely don't miss the night parade, fireworks and drone lights show at 8pm too, it is a spectacle to behold..

You need 2 full days to explore this park fully, the queue for the rides when I was there on a normal working day is around 30mins to 45mins already and the different parks are crowded too, and so please avoid weekends and China school and public holidays.

Do yourself a favour and stay in the nearby Chimelong Circus Hotel or Penguin Hotel and also don't miss the Chimelong Circus show at 5pm or 730pm too. It is very entertaining and cater for international audience too. There might be some language barrier if you don't know Chinese but there are a lot of English signage inside the park, just that communicating with the staff might be difficult.

You can reach Zhuhai from HongKong, Macau, Guangzhou and Shenzhen via ferry or...

Misinformed Activists Need to Do Their Homework

Let’s get one thing straight, most of the people shouting online about Chimelong Ocean Kingdom haven’t stepped one foot inside the park or done any real research. They're quick to grab a headline or an out-of-context clip and suddenly become experts on animal welfare.

I've actually visited Chimelong Ocean Kingdom multiple times. The animals are well-cared for, with professional staff, clean facilities, enrichment programs, and veterinary support that puts most people's local pet care to shame. The orcas and dolphins are not just “locked in tanks” like activists love to claim, they’re in custom-designed environments built with their well-being in mind. This isn't Discovery Kingdom or Sif Flags. Is it the wild? Of course not. But neither is your backyard where you keep your labradoodle.

That’s the hypocrisy here. People who cry foul over marine parks have no issue owning dogs, birds, or cats, animals that were once wild themselves. If you’re against animal captivity altogether, fine. But if you’re cuddling your golden retriever while tweeting that Chimelong is “cruel,” you might want to check your logic.

Instead of blindly protesting places like Chimelong, maybe these activists should actually learn what goes into marine animal care. They might be surprised to find it's not abuse, it’s science, structure, and...