Day 3 of my Hong Kong Adventure

So on Day 3 of our Hong Kong Adventure we had free time during the day until we were picked up at 16:20 for our evening tour which would include the Symphony of Lights cruise.  We decided during the day as we were only 15 minutes away by taxi that we would go to the Ocean Park as this was a tour we included a lot on some of our trips to see the Giant Pandas and thought would be great for us to see also

Ocean Park

What we didn’t fully realise is that Ocean Park is a theme park with rides, cable cars and animal enclosures (similar to Chessington world of Adventures)

There were only 3 giant pandas in the whole of the park – 2 in one exhibit and one in another exhibit.  In the exhibit for 2 only one wanted to come out the whole time we were there so if you are going because of the Giant pandas then you may be a little disappointed. In my opinion this place is not really for those who do not like theme parks or who want to spend their day out queuing in a theme park – they did also monitor the number of people visiting the animal enclosures. We went on a week day so was relatively quiet but still plenty of school and tour groups were visiting.

Highlight of the night tour

We were due to be picked up by our tour guide at 16:25 but due to heavy traffic it was 16:45 by the time they arrived with our feeder bus. We then raced through the streets and met up with the rest of the group and Marco.

We took the Sky tower to the 100^th floor which takes 1 minute to climb and is 393 meters above sea level. We were given 30 minutes here (maybe if we hadn’t been late we would have longer?) Whilst up there I paid $20 HK (approx. £2) to do the VR experience and got to do the day and night video for this price.

We were given an hour at Temple Street Night Market and strict instructions if we were late they would not wait for us. The bus dropped us off 3 blocks from the market and some of the stalls were still just starting to set up, later on in the evening I can imagine it getting very busy and cramped walking through there. The market sold a mixture of bags, toys, chinese rice bowl sets, clothes etc.

We then got taken to the ferry terminal where we boarded the cruise to have dinner and experience the Symphony of Lights show. Dinner had a variety of meat and sea food dishes, salads, curry dishes, lots of dessert choices.  Drinks were an additional extra. The light show itself was disappointing as not sure if the boat had left late but we didn’t see the HBSC building count down to the start (like we had the night before whilst having dinner overlooking the harbour) There was no music and wasn’t clear it had started.

The cruise stopped Hong Kong island side first and we were told we would have to stay on board and wait for the ship to return to Kowloon and then get on a bus to take us back to Hong Kong Island which we decided we weren’t going to do as these would add an extra 45 minutes on and would rather just pay for our own taxi back to the hotel (especially as it was busy night round our hotel as the racing was on)

Have you been to Hong Kong and been to either the Ocean Park or the Symphony of lights show? What was your thoughts?

Have a great couple of weeks and stay warm

Kerry

xx