Ocean Park Hong Kong

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Ocean Park Hong Kong (香港海洋公園)

Ocean Park logo
Location	Hong Kong
Website	Ocean Park Hong Kong
Opened	10 January 1977
Previous names	Ocean Park
Area	87 hectares (0.336 sq. miles)
Rides	14 total 2 roller coasters 1 water rides

Ocean Park Hong Kong (Traditional Chinese: 海洋公園; pinyin: Hǎiyáng Gōngyuán) is a theme park in the Southern District of Hong Kong Island. The marine-themed amusement park covers the area of Wong Chuk Hang and Nam Long Shan, and is Hong Kong's very own theme park.

The park has 4.2 million visitors annually in recent years. It has an area of 870,000 square metres. The different parts of the park are connected by cable car, as well as the world's second longest outdoor escalator. The theme park currently has over 40 rides and attractions.

Ocean Park features a Giant panda exhibit, a butterfly garden, a shark tank, and a three-storey aquarium, as well as numerous rides. The park also has its own cable car system, which takes visitors from one side of the park to the other (the two parts are separated from each other by hills). The official mascot of Ocean Park is "Whiskers"—a waving sealion.

Besides being an amusement park, Ocean Park Hong Kong also includes observatories, well developed laboratories, an education department and a Whales And Dolphins Fund.

Ocean Park Hong Kong was the first institution in the world to have success in artificial insemination of bottle nose dolphins, and developed numerous new breeds of goldfish, proving the standard of its laboratories.

Contents 1 History 2 Attractions 3 Dining 4 Further development 5 External links 6 Gallery

[edit] History

The park was built with donations from the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club (now Hong Kong Jockey Club) and opened on 10 January 1977. The park is operated by Ocean Park Corporation, which is a statutory board. It offers affordable marine animal education and entertainment and is a private organization for commercial purposes.

In the early operation of the park, the main sources of income for the park were the ticket revenues and the fundings from the Jockey Club. Since the ticket price was low, most of the time Ocean Park was operating under deficit. In 1 July 1987, the government established a 200 million trust from the fundings of Jockey Club, under the Ocean Park Corporation Ordinance (Hong Kong Law Cap. 388). This separated Ocean Park from Jockey Club and became a non-profit organisation; it needs to be responsible for its own income and was allowed to use commercial means to operate the park.

Since it was permitted to use commercial means to operate, it gradually raised its ticket price and the deficit turned into profit. In 1992, 3 million visitors visited the park. Since 1998, the East Asian financial crisis, aging attractions, and the passing away of the killer whale; the park recorded a deficit for a couple years. Although it was allowed to host 2 pandas in 1999, the visitor count did not go up and Ocean Park was forced to close its water attractions and the "Old Village" attraction and switched to bring in more rides in an attempt to capture the youth demand. Together with the opening up of mainland visitors under the Individual Visit Scheme, Ocean Park recorded an astonishing 4 million visitors in the fiscal year 2004-2005, the highest since the park opened.

In March 2005, Ocean Park revealed its redevelopment plan.(Details are in the section below.)

On 23 November 2006, Ocean Park held a groundbreaking ceremony for its redevelopment.

[edit] Attractions

Headlands Rides

• The Dragon - A steel roller coaster with a maximum speed of 77 km/h with 842 metres of track. The ride lasts approximately 2.5 minutes.

• The Abyss Turbo Drop - raises the visitors up and drops them straight down in free fall in 5 seconds.

• Flying Swing

• The Eagle

• Crazy Galleon

• Ferris Wheel

• Headland Games

Adventure Land

• Mine Train - A roller coaster

• Space Wheel

• Raging River

• Ocean Park Escalator - At 224 m (745ft), it is the second longest in the world. It is outdoors, but weatherproof.

Marine Land

• Pacific Pier - sealions are displayed

• Atoll Reef - 2000 fish in 250 species are displayed.

• Shark Aquarium - 70 sharks from 35 species are displayed.

• Ocean Theater - Performances by dolphins and sealions can be watched.

• Ocean Park Tower - A sort of observation deck that rises high enough for park-goers to survey the South China Sea.

• Sea Jelly Spectacular - more than 1000 jellyfish are displayed.

Lowland Gardens

• Giant Panda Habitat - Home to two pandas, Jia Jia (female) and An An (male).

• Dinosaurs - Now and Then - Features animatronic and still model dinosaurs. Two of the dinosaurs represented, the dilophosaurus and the velociraptor, are inaccurate and based on the way the dinosaurs appear in Jurassic Park. The dilophosaurus is shown with a neck frill. The velociraptor is much taller than its actual size.

• Butterfly House - a glass cocoon where butterflies are bred.

• Goldfish Pagoda - more than 100 varieties of Chinese and Japanese goldfish are exhibited.

• Whiskers' Wild Ride - a theater with moving seats.

• Amazing Amazon

• The Amazing Birds Show

• Caverns of Darkness 3D

• Cable Car

• Grand Prix

Kids' World

• Dolphin University

• Whisker's Theatre

• Rides for Kids

• Tiny Town Games

Bird Paradise

• The Aviaries

• Flamingo Pond - a pond where Flamingos are kept

[edit] Dining

Headlands Rides

Adventure Land

Marine Land

Lowland Gardens

Kids' World

Bird Paradise

• Middle Kingdom Restaurant

• Silk Snack

• Ching Bar

[edit] Further development

Ocean Park announced a redevelopment master plan to redevelop the park into the world's best marine-based theme park, doubling the amount of attractions and firmly establishing itself as a world-class, must-see destination that will further strengthen Hong Kong as a premier tourist destination. In the next few years HK$ 5.55 billion will be spent on refurbishing Ocean Park with over 100 new rides being installed so that it can compete with Disneyland. In the last few years the Middle Kingdom, the portion of the park that features re-creations of ancient China, has been renovated.

The new Ocean Park will be divided into two major areas - The Waterfront (formerly the Lowland) and The Summit (formerly the Headland). The park will be expanded to almost twice its current size and new attractions will be added including a funicular train for transport from The Waterfront to The Summit, several new live animal shows and an area featuring polar animals.

Ocean Park also announced that there will also be an MTR station on the South Island Line that will link the current subway system with Ocean Park and the south of Hong Kong Island. This project will therefore relieve the traffic of Aberdeen Tunnel.

The first attraction to be opened is the Sky Fair with all kinds of balloons for tourists to fly.

[edit] External links

• Ocean Park Hong Kong Official Site
• Satellite view of the Headland of the Ocean Park
• Satellite view of the Ocean Park near entrance at Wong Chuk Hang
• Ocean Park Photo
• Ocean Park Animal Close Encounters

[edit] Gallery

Sea Jelly Spectacular

Sea Jelly Spectacular, located near the bottom Cable Car station.	Octopus Jelly	One of the species of Octopus on display in Sea Jelly Spectacular	Tourist shooting photos
A bird's eye view of Ocean Park from the Ocean Park Observatory.	View of Ocean Park including a rollercoaster and escalator