Ocean Park, Hong Kong, Part 4 - Pandas Le Le and Ying Ying

Continued from Part 3

Before we could see the pandas, we had to get ourselves back down to the entrance area.  The Panda Exhibit was located just beside the Cable Car station, at the Entrance area and not the Summit.

Since the cable car queues were not too long, we decided to take the cable car back down.  While the Ocean Express (People Mover) would be faster, the views from the cable car were unbeatable.  The following video shows you why.


We headed for the Panda Exhibit as this was the highlight. The two pandas were called Le Le and Ying Ying.  Thankfully, we managed to catch a glimpse of one panda as you can see in this video. The rest of the time, the pandas were hiding.  The exhibit was pretty cool.


They had a Panda Cafe, selling food to go, but we didn't buy anything to eat.

After the Panda exhibit, we were pretty tired already as it had been a long day.  But we still found energy to take a walk around the Emerald Trail (supposed to see birds, but didn't see much), a kiddy area as well as a very large aquarium.  The large aquarium was pretty neat, with a lot to see (huge fish tanks), but by now we had seen so many aquariums that it wasn't that special anymore.

Some snippets from the large aquarium, which was the last attraction we visited before we left the park.

So, after a long day, it was time to head back to Hong Kong and get some food.  We got to Ocean Park slightly after 10am.  We left at around 5pm.  We took the CityBus and found our way to Central, to have a well deserved meal of Tim Ho Wan!

Thanks for reading.

Ocean Park Hong Kong Part 3 - Dolphin Show, Shark Exhibit

Continued from Part 2.

After the Mine Train ride, we took the many escalators back up to where we came from.   Passed a place called Pacific Pier, which I didn't really know what this was about.



Near this Pacific Pier sign, I spotted a Hong Kong style take-away eatery. Here is a photo of the prices, if you are interested.  You can get BBQ Pork Buns for HK$32.


We made our way to the Ocean Theatre for the 3pm show. It was easy to find. When we got there, it was rather full, but we still managed to get seats that were sheltered, though a bit far away. Suited us fine.

This is the video I made of the Ocean Theatre show. Worth watching.  The show lasted about 30 minutes.  The Dolphin jumps were fun to watch. 

After the show, we visited some Shark exhibit as well as a Sturgeon Fish exhibit. All of them were pretty near the Ocean theatre. The Shark exhibit was definitely worth visiting. A huge indoor exhibit with many sharks in a huge fish tank. Good stuff. Check out this video for a short clip.


This was taken outside the Chinese Sturgeon Aquarium.  I remember seeing very huge sturgeons.  Interesting.


Move on to Part 4 - see the Pandas!

Ocean Park Hong Kong Part 2 - Penguins, Walruses, Lunch, Roller Coaster

We continue from Part 1.

After the amusement rides, we headed into the South Pole Spectacular.  I wasn't entirely sure what we would be seeing, but the exhibit looked large from the outside.

There were no lines and we headed straight in.  This was to be an Antartica exhibit.  The air-conditioning was a welcome change to the hot weather outside.


Pretty neat.  The penguins were all very playful, much to the appreciation of the human visitors.


This exhibit was well worth a visit.  In fact, it was one of the highlights of our visit to Ocean Park. We got to see Penguins, pretty up close.  What else did we see?  These huge creatures in the video below, I think they were Walruses!  Better still, the Walruses were putting up a performance for us to watch.  I think they must be very playful creatures.  And looking at their enormous size, they must be very well fed!


After the cool respite, it was time to move on.  Before we had lunch, we tried the Ocean Express.  It looked like a ride but it turned out to be a people-mover with two stops, one at the Summit and the other at the Entrance.  We sat the Ocean Express to the Entrance and then took it back up to the Summit against.  If the cable cars are full, you should consider using the People Mover.  Much faster.

Here is a video from the cabin.  Almost empty.


Lunch
It was time for some food.  We headed to the Bayview Cafe, which was next to the Cable Car station at the Summit.  The food prices here were rather expensive, but we needed some food for the kids. We ended up getting two kids' combos. See the video.


Thankfully, we went to the restaurant early.  It quickly filled up.  Given the cost of the meals, I didn't feel like eating! (Seriously).  We had some buns with us (brought them in with plain water) so the adults ate those instead.  Anyway, the plan was to head to Central for a Dim Sum dinner at Tim Ho Wan, so we could go without food for a while.

After lunch, our next ride was to take this Ocean Park Tower.  This is a safe, easy-to-do, very comfortable ride that brought you high up into the sky and you could get very good views of the Park, in air-conditioned comfort.  Check out the video,  which also shows us taking a long flight of escalators down to another part of the theme park, where there was some roller coaster which my kids took.


Along the way to the escalators, we found a Boardwalk cafe.  The food looked a bit cheaper compared to the Bayview Cafe.  Example, Roasted Pork with rice combo was HK $108.  However, the place was not air-conditioned, so it could get rather warm.  We saw many school kids eating there, probably as part of a school excursion.


The roller coaster in the video above was called Mine Train.  The kids enjoyed it but the adults refrained.

The day was turning out to be rather busy, with many things to see and do.  This review continues in Part 3, follow me!

Ocean Park, Hong Kong - Part 1 - Travel to Ocean Park, Cable Car Ride, Whirly Bird, Bumper Car

Our day out to Ocean Park, Hong Kong.  Ocean Park is a famous amusement park cum conservation park in Hong Kong.  Opened in 1977, the site is built on two sides of a mountain.

This is a 4 part blog post.  Here are links to Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 (See the pandas).

We decided to take the MTR and Citybus to Ocean Park.  This seemed to be the most common way. From Eaton Hotel, we walked to Jordan MTR and took the Tsuen Wan line to Admiralty, just two stops.  At Admiralty MTR, there were clear signposts (Exit B).  The fare was $10.6 per adult and half price for kids under 12.  Check out the following video for the journey.

Video - Citybus 629 from Admiralty MTR to Ocean Park Entrance



The bus journey was very smooth, 25 minutes.  Once we entered Ocean Park, which didn't look too crowded, the plan was to take the cable car to the Summit.  So, we decided to look for the cable car station, which was not difficult to find.  The queues for the cable car were not long, which was great. The cable car system wasn't very new (built in 1977, I think), and there was some noticeable vibrations.  Thank God everything was safe.  Check out the next video for our cable car ride up to the summit.


When we reached the Summit, we did not know where to go.  There were many signs to different segments of the park. We had a park map, however, the descriptions on the map weren't great.  So we decided to work our way downwards, i.e. go to the top most part of the park first.  This brought us to this set of escalators which said Thrill Mountain.  So we went up.


We took a couple of rides (the not so scary ones).  The most exciting ride we took was Whirly Bird. The Whirly Bird ride looked like this.  Looks safe?  Yeah, let's try.  The kids could take it too.  Minimum height was 122cm.


It turns out that the ride was very whirly indeed.  My kids sat together and I sat with my wife.  The ride brought us rather high up, with wonderful views.  But I got a bit giddy after that.  Thankfully, I had my breakfast some hours ago.  Here is a video of our Whirly Bird experience.


After finding our feet, we managed a couple more 'safe' rides.  One of them was the bumper car, which was very safe indeed.  There was a line but the wait wasn't too long.  Not more than 10 minutes.  We were fortunate today that the park didn't seem very crowded.  The crowds at Ocean Park are supposedly legendary.


Here is a video of the bumper car ride. They squeezed many bumper cars in a small space and they tried to make it 'One Way Only'.  Also, the electricity for the bumper cars came from the floor and not overhead cables.  This meant that when the ride started, the entire floor would have strong electric currents flowing through.  STAY IN YOUR CAR until the ride is over.


Next, we took this blue roller coaster, that was directly opposite the entrance to the South Pole Spectacular.  This ride was suitable for kids.  Worth taking, even if you do not like roller coasters too much.


After this ride, we would head over to the South Pole Spectacular.  Go on to Part 2 of this review.