On HK day 2, other than eating at the famous eateries in Hong Kong, guess where are we heading today……… Yes, we’re going to the biggest theme park in Hong Kong — OCEAN PARK! Besides being a fun amusement park with thrilling rides, it’s also a marine mammal park, oceanarium and an animal theme park where you can have a chance to get close with a lot of cute animals!
HK Day 2
Australia Dairy Company
Ocean Park
Jenny Bakery
Mak’s Noodle (Mak An Kee)
Kau Kee restaurant
HK Day 2 – Breakfast – Australia Dairy Co.
Early in the morning around 8 a.m, we left the hotel to grab our breakfast at Australia Diary Company. It’s super convenient for us to drop by because the place is just a short walking distance from our hotel! This is by consensus the most famous cha chaan teng here in Hong Kong so that makes it a MUST GO! To me, this place is like a combination of heaven and hell. See our experience at Australia Dairy Company 澳洲牛奶公司 then you’ll understand why is it so.
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park – Before you go
Ocean Park Handy Tips
- Purchase tickets before you go – Get discounts and avoid the queue at the ticket booth
- Bring raincoat – Water splashes in some rides
- Avoid weekends – Crazy crowd on weekends
- Check opening hours at Ocean Park calendar
- Plan your route and rides sequence – the park is huge!
- Know the attractions and show timings Attraction and show
- Be early! – Try to reach 15-30 mins before park opens
We have purchased the Ocean Park tickets from the SG Groupon website a few weeks before the departure to Hong Kong. If you wish to enjoy discount with some F&B/ souvenir vouchers that come in a package, try to hunt for Ocean Park tickets at websites like Groupon or a travel agency before your Hong Kong trip.
We bought our 1-Day admission tickets at SGD$53 each (Normal price SGD$63, including free Crispy Fried Chicken coupons, restaurant and souvenir discount vouchers (10% if I’m not mistaken).
HK Day 2 – How to get to Ocean Park?
We took the express bus Route 629 from Admiralty Bus Terminal (outside Admiralty MTR station) to Ocean Park. The journey took about 25 mins.
Route 629 | Single Adult Fare | Service Hours * |
Admiralty (West) <-> Ocean Park (Main Entrance) | HK$10.6 | From Admiralty Daily 09:00 – 16:00 From Ocean Park (Main Entrance) 11:00 – 21:00 |
Central (Star Ferry) < -> Ocean Park (Main Entrance) | HK$10.6 | From Central (Star Ferry) Daily 09:45, 10:05, 10:25, 10:45, 11:45, 12:45, 13:45, 14:45, 15:45 From Ocean Park (Main Entrance) Daily 12:00, 13:00, 14:00, 15:00 |
Ocean Park (Main Entrance) -> Central (Exchange Square) | HK$10.6 | From Ocean Park (Main Entrance) Daily 16:00, 17:00, 18:00, 19:00 |
* Service hours are subject to change in accordance with Ocean Park opening hours. Please refer to route information and notice at the bus stop. (From Citylink website)
For more details, check out Citylink Official Website
[ Update 22 Dec 2016 ]: From 28 December 2016 the best way to get to Ocean Park is to take the MTR!
Good news! The journey to Ocean Park has just been made easier. The South Island line service will commence on 28 December 2016. You can then take the MTR from Admiralty station directly to Ocean Park! The estimated journey time will be shortened when the operation of South Island line begins.
Estimated Journey Time:
- Between Admiralty and Ocean Park Approximately 4 minutes
- Between Admiralty and South Horizons Approximately 11 minutes
- Between Tsim Sha Tsui and Ocean Park Approximately 12 minutes
For more information, see here.
*The Ocean Park admission tickets will no longer be available at both ticket booths at Admiralty Bus Terminal and Ocean Park Bus Terminal. The pre-purchase bus ticket service for bus 629 will be ceased as well.
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park
We reached Ocean Park at 9:45 a.m, which is around 45 mins before the park opens. Yes, we’re a bit kiasu (scared to lose attitude) to reach there earlier because we want to take our own sweet time to take photos at the entrance 😛 Besides, the crowd may be too overwhelming it is usually not a bad idea to be early.
See that queue? That’s a weekday queue for park admission before opening. Can’t imagine how the crowd will be like on a weekend. By afternoon there will be waves of tour groups from mainland China coming in. Better think twice if you plan to visit on a weekend 🙂
Remember to grab the map and show schedule brochures near the entrance gate. There’s a notice board nearby too to indicate attractions that are closed on that day. We were quite unlucky because Ocean Express was closed that day 🙁 Basically Ocean Park is divided into two – The Waterfront and The Summit. Normally, there are two ways to travel between The Waterfront and The Summit – Cable car or Ocean Express. But on that day, they provided a shuttle bus service as a replacement for the Ocean Express.
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park – Cable car
Finally at 10.30 a.m the gate opened and we got into the Ocean Park! Yay~~ There’s a bag check upon admission but the check was not that strict compared to Disneyland’s. The first thing to do, of course — dash to the Cable Car! Be aware that most of the visitors will go for the cable car ride to go to The Summit so the queue for cable car will be even longer as time goes by. So once you’re in, waste no time and go straight to the cable car. Most of the attractions especially the thrilling rides are at The Summit. The attractions at The Waterfront are fewer and don’t really require queuing so I would highly recommend finishing The Summit before starting on The Waterfront. The queues for rides in the morning are actually quite short.
Basically there were two lanes in the queue for the cable car. When we entered the queue, the staffs were informing the crowd that we can queue on both lanes but it seems like everyone still followed the majority to queue on the right. We decided to play against the odds so ta-da~~ the queue in front of us was super short 😉
The best thing of Ocean Park? The ocean view!!! The Ocean Park was nicely built on hills by the sea and that makes the view of the park look so nice with mountains and sea in the background. In fact this scenery can be seen all over the place at The Summit. Having fun at the amusement park with sea view, sounds great right? 😉
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park – The Summit
After about 10 mins of cable car ride, here we are at The Summit!
North Pole Encounter is our first station!
Time to visit the little cute penguins home!
If you’re like us who can’t take too much of excitement from the thrilling rides, you can visit these aquariums 🙂 See the summary of the attractions that we visited near the end of the post.
HK Day 2 – Lunch in Ocean Park
We redeemed our free vouchers for a 2 piece-fried chicken at Golden Fried Chicken and added on fries and drinks. We brought the food to the Ocean Theatre to eat while waiting for the dolphin show to begin at 2 p.m 😀 The fast food restaurant is very near to the theatre. It’s recommended to enter the theatre to find good seats 15-30 mins before the show started. The fried chicken was pretty good! The crispiness was just perfect with a very fragrant taste from the seasoning. One of the best fried chicken that we have tried.
We went up to the Ocean Park tower for this stunning view over The Summit of Ocean Park!
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park – The Waterfront
We left The Summit at around 4 p.m, which was a bit later than expected. In addition, due to the Ocean Express Train service not being available that day, the queue for cable car was super long and we were left with no choice but to take the shuttle bus to go back to The Waterfront. The shuttle bus travel time from The Summit to The Waterfront was about 15 mins but the queue for the bus took us 45 mins! So we ended up spending the whole hour to go back to The Waterfront. By the time we reached The Waterfront, it was almost 5 p.m :'( There wasn’t enough time for us to visit all the planned attractions at The Waterfront, so we were forced to skip Adventures in Australia, Giant Panda Adventure and Panda Village.
Due to time constraints, we weren’t able to go to the Neptune Restaurant as planned 🙁 Neptune Restaurant is a unique restaurant where you can dine beside the grand aquarium. Imagine the fish swimming all around you while you eat! That would have been a great and unique experience even though it was known to be a bit pricey. Personally, I would prefer this dining place compared to the other cafes/restaurants in the park with a sea view, as you can actually enjoy the great sea view anywhere at The Summit.
HK Day 2 – Ocean Park My Itinerary
Reach at 10am | |||
1 | Cable car to The Summit | Aqua city – C14 (Left of entrance) | Notes |
2 | North Pole Encounter | Polar adventure – D4 | walrus feeding 10:45am sea lions feeding 11am |
3 | Arctic Blast | Polar adventure – D1 | |
4 | Rev Booster | Thrill Mountain -F3 | |
5 | South Pole Spectacular | Polar adventure – D2 | Penguins feeding 12:00pm Mascot greeting 11:30-12pm |
6 | The rapids | Rain Forest – E5 | ** Rain coat |
7 | Sea Jelly Spectacular | Marine World – H2 | |
8 | Chinese Sturgeon Aquarium | Marine World – H5 | |
9 | Shark Mystique | Marine World – H4 | |
Lunch at Golden Fried Chicken – Marine World | |||
11 | Ocean theatre | Marine World – H6 | Dolphin show 2pm |
12 | Ocean Park tower | Marine World – H7 | |
13 | Mine Train | Adventure Land – G2 | |
14 | Raging river | Adventure Land – G3 | **Rain coat |
15 | Express train to The Waterfront | Rain Forest – E1 | **Closed – Took shuttle bus instead |
16 | The Grand Aquarium | Aqua City – C9 | |
17 | Hong Kong Jockey Sichuan Treasures | Aqua City – C11 | |
Leave park at 6pm |
We actually didn’t really wait long for the attractions in the park except a 25 mins wait at the Raging River. There are some reviews online about the insane queue at some attractions but I guess those were experiences on weekends or holidays.
It is impossible to visit all attractions in one day so we could only choose to give and take. We’re actually not too into thrilling rides so went to the relaxing Sea Jelly Spectacular, Chinese Sturgeon Aquarium and Shark Mystique instead. But honestly if you have been to the Singapore SEA aquarium, these attractions will not really give you a big ‘wow’.
If you’re an adventurer who loved thrilling rides, I would recommend that you to go for The Dragon and Hair Raiser roller coaster. These rides’ exciteness level was just too much for both of us, The Mine Train was already our limit 😛
You may want to visit Whisker Harbour if you are bringing young kids with you. It features attractions dedicated for young children including a playground, game zones and some thrilling rides for kids.
HK Day 2 – Leaving Ocean Park
The park closed at 6.30 p.m but we didn’t stay until the very last minute because we didn’t want to join the crowd to slowly wait for bus to leave Ocean Park. We left around 6 p.m and took Bus 629 to Central for dinner. I would suggest that you leave The Summit to The Waterfront a bit earlier than us and leave the park before it closes. Judging from the crowd that we have seen in the park, the queue for the bus was going to be insane as the park closed.
[ Update 22 December 2016 ]: The South Island line service will commence on 28 December 2016. You can then take the MTR to leave Ocean Park!
HK Day 2 – Jenny Bakery
We took Bus 629 to Exchange Square in Central and walked to Mak’s noodles (Mak An Kee) at Wing Kut Street. On our way to dinner place, we happened to pass by the famous Jenny Bakery at Wing Wo Street and were pleasantly surprised that there was no queue at all! Maybe because they were about to close, there were no customers when we walked in and quickly made the purchase. Each person was only entitled to one large and one small tin of cookies. We ended up buying two large and two small tins of 4 mix butter cookies for HK$400. See more details at Jenny Bakery 珍妮曲奇
I must say the cookies are just so addictive and irresistible 🙂 We really like the butter cookies but if you ask me if I’m willing to queue for hours for this? Maybe not. If you wish to try the famous Jenny cookies but can’t afford the long wait in the line, perhaps you can try your luck dropping by this Sheung Wan branch during the late afternoon.
A gentle reminder for those who are going to Jenny Bakery, please decide what type of cookies you wish to buy before ordering to prevent a potentially unpleasant encounter. Even though we did not experience it firsthand, they are also well-known for their “service”. I’m afraid the sellers won’t be that friendly to entertain questions or slowly wait for your response.
HK Day 2 – Dinner – Mak An Kee + Kau Kee
After we bought cookies from Jenny Bakery, we walked to our first dinner place – Mak An Kee noodles. See Mak An Kee Noodles 麥奀記 (忠記) 麵家 for the food review! Luckily we left the park a little bit earlier otherwise we would have been too late for dinner at Mak An Kee which closes at 7 p.m. Due to the long list of famous eateries we have, we were actually so greedy that we spread our dinner over two eating places 😛 So after we had the famous wanton noodles at Mak An Kee, we went straight for the second dinner at Kau Kee. See more at Kau Kee 九記牛腩 – Beef Brisket Noodles!
See our Hong Kong Trip Day 3 next! 🙂
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