Monday 5th March
We were at the park when it opened at 1000, so I guess we got up "early". We had breakfast in the hotel before we left, and we took the MTR from Causeway bay changing at Admiralty.
The MTR station is right opposite the entrance to the park. As we arrived on the MTR we booked tickets via Klook saving us HK$80 each and also allowing us to bypass the queues for tickets, we even hit the group queue so we pretty much walked straight in without any waiting. There were people queuing to get in, but that was the last queue we saw until almost the end of the day.
We picked up a map of the park, and decided the strategy should be go to the farthest point in the park and work backwards; there's a cable car ride to the far end of the park, so we headed for that. There's also a shuttle bus and a ride called the Ocean express that links the two ends of the park, but unfortunately the Ocean express was down for maintenance this week, and who wants to take the bus when you can ride a cable car?
Home from Home, UK red telephone box!
Looking back onto the park entrance
Looking forward to the other end of the cable car ride
great view of the coast (although a little misty)
The view of the coast and the islands rising out of the sea mist was pretty magical.
When we reached The Summit, we got a bit switched around, the map is a bit deceptive, since there were no queues we just acted like kids and hit the first ride we saw which was The Rapids; it says you will get wet on this ride, and we did, with a vengeance, we were soaked. The sun was out and the place was warming up so we weren't too bothered.
Once we'd got off The Rapids we headed to the next big ride, Hair Raiser; an awesome roller coaster that is built over the edge of the peak that this part of the park is carved onto.
From the roller coaster we headed to the Polar Adventure zone, to see animals from the north pole, walrus and seals, then on to the South pole to see king, gentoo and rock hopper penguins. On the way out of the penguins there's a small detour from the shop that takes you through a arctic fox den.
the walrus was magnificent
walrus swimming on his back
viewing was also underneath
walrus swimming viewed from below
walrus viewed from above
seals
seals swimming
arctic fox all curled up
All pretty chilly places, when you're still wet from a ride on the rapids.
All through the marine animal exhibits there is a strong message about not polluting the oceans and how plastics are bad in the oceans.
We'd got detoured from our plan to do the furthest reaches of the park first, so now we tried to find our way down to Adventure land to do the VR roller coaster, this is at the bottom of the mountain that the park is carved into, so a series of long escalators takes you down the side of the hill, a bit too far as it turns out, because then you have to walk back up!
We were aiming for the entrance to the VR Mine Train roller coaster, but we came across the entrance to the Raging River log ride first, so we jumped on that (no queues again).
and we got wet again!
The place was very empty still, none of the concession stands were open, on the way down the escalators it had been quiet with just the usual looped warnings about riding escalators properly.
We found the entrance to the VR Mine Train and got on board. It's a real roller coaster and it hangs off the side of the mountain too, so I guess it's pretty spectacular, (people were riding the coaster without headsets) but with a Samsung VR head set on, we were going on a different adventure, no worries about being in the front here, we were all in the front of our own planet exploration craft. I could hear Karen next to me but couldn't see her in the VR, and we were off climbing out of a jungle with monkeys chasing us, before racing around loops with stuff falling from vehicles in our path, then diving into the sea before a close encounter with a volcano (and some heat lamps, you could really feel the heat from the lava!). The VR headsets really emphasised small movements so we felt we were plunging and flying much deeper and higher than the rollercoaster actually was. Awesome.
After the mine train we headed back up the escalators, passing the nice gentle tower ride where we could see most of the park laid out in front of us, and up to the Summit with the idea that we'd get some lunch and explore marine world, and also get some times for the shows and animal feeding times.
view from the tower ride
we could see more rides being built
Since we were passing close by we went to see Pacific pier, and checked out the sea lions and the harbour seals. Karen got to feed the very noisy sea lions.
Because not a lot of the concessions were open and the one we'd passed that was open (The Boardwalk) only had one vegetarian option (chips with corn on the cob) we headed up to the restaurants by the gondola. It was a bit expensive for a simple meal, but when you're in a park you expect it to be a bit pricey, they were big portions and there was a free ice cream bonus.
We decided to ride the cable car back down to the beginning of the park to see the Panda's and some of the other animals. While we were down there we noticed there was a bird show on so we sat in for that too.
the bird show was good, loads of exotic birds very close to us.
the monkeys were very cute especially the 1 year old scampering around
Some friends to sit next to
Then we went through the Grand Aquarium, before taking the cable car back up to the summit to catch the dolphin show.
we like rays
moon jelly fish, we had seen and touched these in Picton when kayaking
While we were in the aquarium we noticed a message from Matt, unexpectedly back in Hong Kong, and did we want to meet up for dinner! So we said yes.
The Abyss ride
We had some time before the dolphin show so we managed to fit in another ride (The Abyss is a free fall drop, and Karen went on it :D). She is decidedly not a fan of free fall!
We watched the dolphin show which was a story with an environmental message about not throwing stuff into the oceans, then we got another ride in, before walking up to the shark exhibit. Sharks are very cool.
The end of the shark tanks there's a bit about not catching sharks for their fins and not using sharks and other endangered animals in medicine, and a fantastic xray machine overlay display that lets you se inside a shark.
After the sharks we took the cable car back down for the last time to see the light show.
The light show was amazing, the pyrotechnics synchronised with the fire dragon were awesome, the projection onto the fountains too was fantastic.
We got back on the MTR, Matt had suggested a bar to meet at near central, it took us a while but we finally found him!
View over the harbour as we sipped our drinks
The rough guide had suggested Cantonese place to eat, fast food and good, so we headed there, navigating walkways between sky scraper shopping malls.
After dinner we dropped Matt off at Wan Chai MTR and continued on to Causeway Bay.
When we got back to the hotel we investigated our strange fruit.
It was interesting sort of a cross between a lemon and a pear but took a lot of cutting away pith.
After the mine train we headed back up the escalators, passing the nice gentle tower ride where we could see most of the park laid out in front of us, and up to the Summit with the idea that we'd get some lunch and explore marine world, and also get some times for the shows and animal feeding times.
Since we were passing close by we went to see Pacific pier, and checked out the sea lions and the harbour seals. Karen got to feed the very noisy sea lions.
We decided to ride the cable car back down to the beginning of the park to see the Panda's and some of the other animals. While we were down there we noticed there was a bird show on so we sat in for that too.
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