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Chimelong Spaceship

Zhuhai, China

“One of the world’s most bizarre indoor theme parks”

It is said that everything is bigger and better in the United States, but people sometimes seem to underestimate China. The country has several of the world’s tallest buildings, whilst Chongqing East and the Three Gorges Dam count as the largest railway station and the largest hydroelectric power station on the planet. China also excels in the world of theme parks. It is the country with the most roller coasters; it offers the largest Legoland (including a Minifigure that is approximately 650 times larger than its normal siblings) and it’s been home to the world’s largest indoor theme park since 2024. The gigantic Chimelong Spaceship set course for the southern Chinese city of Zhuhai and landed right next to Chimelong Ocean Kingdom. That park, which is ten years older, had already made a strong impression during yesterday’s visit, so we’re entering Spaceship with certain expectations.

I don’t know how often I’ll be using words like ‘huge’, ‘gigantic’ and ‘colossal’ in this report, but it’s probably more than I can count on the fingers of two hands. After all, the dimensions of Chimelong Spaceship are unbelievable. The building is nearly 2,000 feet (600 metres) long and around 650 feet (200 metres) wide. To put that into perspective: you could fit 90 olympic swimming pools inside the building. The story becomes even more spectacular when you realise that Chimelong didn’t opt for a factory-style hall, as you see in most other indoor theme parks. No, they wanted the exterior to be designed like a futuristic spaceship. When I first saw photos of this park, it looked as if the images were AI generated. However, now that I’ve visited the Chimelong International Ocean Tourist Resort myself, I can say with certainty that the Spaceship does indeed exist. And behind the walls of this spacecraft lies a rather impressive theme park.

CHIMELONG SPACESHIP HOTEL

With its large-scale theatre shows and two full-size theme parks, the Chimelong resort has become a destination where you’ll probably want to spend more than one day. You can, of course, spend the night in one of many hotels in the city centre of Zhuhai, but I’d recommend booking an on-site accommodation. The resort’s four official hotels are literally right next to the parks, and it’s hard to beat their pricing. I’ve already mentioned this in my previous report, but I’m happy to repeat that we paid just 464 USD (406 euros) for a 3-day package for two people. That package included two nights of accommodation including breakfast and three days of unlimited access to Ocean Kingdom and Spaceship. Guests at the Chimelong hotels can also enjoy early entry to (one of) the parks, which offers an opportunity to avoid the longest queues. Bookings can easily be made through websites like Trip.com and Klook.

We chose the Chimelong Spaceship Hotel, a modern tower that’s directly attached to the gigantic spaceship. Its sheer scale is overwhelming. You could park a medium-sized plane in the lobby and with a total of 1,250 rooms, this complex is larger than any hotel at Disneyland Paris. Our room on the 20th floor had rather childish decoration, but there was no reason to complain about the comfort and size. By the way: be sure to ask for a room on the east side of the building, as this will give you a view of the Spaceship and Ocean Kingdom. If that request isn’t granted, you can still enjoy panoramic views from the top floor. This area consists of a viewing point, a chic restaurant and an infinity pool overlooking the entire resort.

ANIMALS

At the park’s entrance, Chimelong Spaceship proudly displays a series of Guinness World Records certificates. First and foremost, it is the world’s largest indoor theme park, a title previously owned by Warner Bros World in the United Arab Emirates. In addition, the park boasts the largest aquarium, the highest artificial waves and the largest living coral reef on land. These records reveal that Chimelong Spaceship, just like the adjacent Ocean Kingdom, is a marine theme park. Although you’ll find a number of classic amusement park ride here, aquariums and other animal exhibits form the beating heart of the complex. Reportedly, no fewer than 150,000 creatures of over 300 different species swim, crawl and fly around the Spaceship.

It may come as a surprise, but only a small part of Chimelong Spaceship is themed around space. Apart from aliens and spaceships, the park mainly consists of exotic habitats. There are white-sided dolphins in Asia Galaxy, a nocturnal rainforest can be found underneath the branches of the Tree of Life (which is noticeably smaller than its namesake at Disney’s Animal Kingdom) and we discover manatees in the African section of the park. However, my favourite animal exhibit is the record-breaking coral reef housed in a tank containing over 2.8 million litres of water. It’s a colourful spectacle featuring dozens of tropical fish species, and Chimelong even provided extra entertainment. The aquarium regularly hosts mermaid shows, and every so often the Coral Monster comes to life. This 30-feet-tall animatronic tells a story about the importance and conservation of coral reefs. It’s weird, but impressive.

It’s kind of tricky to find your way around Chimelong Spaceship. We’ve explored the park in a rather random way, as we found that the whole place felt like a maze. Nevertheless, there appears to be a suggested linear walking route on the ground floor. This route starts by the mangroves and shallow waters, and eventually leads to the deepest regions of the ocean. From the coral reefs, for example, we head towards Shark Adventure, a dimly lit walkway alongside a few shark tanks. Further on is Dragon Sky, an area that reminded us of a natural history museum due to its huge whale sculptures. The accompanying mini-show featuring a dragon animatronic feels like a random addition to this zone, but the colossal creature delivers a visual spectacle nevertheless.

Keeping marine mammals in captivity is considered a controversial thing in much of the Western world… and rightly so. The American SeaWorld parks have discontinued their orca breeding programme, and these majestic creatures can’t be found at the recently opened park on Yas Island. In China, however, they seem to have missed a few memos, as Chimelong Spaceship is home to a large group of killer whales. And although it feels wrong, I won’t deny that it’s an incredible sight to see these giants in real life. You can admire the animals from two different levels. On the ground floor is the Orca Underwater Adventure, where guests get unobstructed views of the orcas in their 56-million-litre tank. On the second floor, we find the ridiculously huge Orca Stadium. The show that’s performed here reminds us of the killer whale presentations you’d see at similar theme parks. Still, the show features a series of quirky side acts. We see pelicans, drone-controlled dolphins and a pair of performers attached to hot air balloons flying overhead. And after the orcas’ final splash, it’s suddenly time for a parade featuring the Chimelong mascots and dozens of performers. China… it is and always will be a special country.

DARK RIDES

Are you wondering why all these animals actually live inside a spaceship? Don’t worry… you’re not alone. Answers to this question are provided by Journey with Kube (an interactive walk-through) and a simulator called Spaceship’s Story. This attraction is located at the park’s main entrance and it serves as a sort of prologue to your actual visit. It’s therefore meant to be ridden right after entering the park, but you’ll find considerably shorter queues a bit later in the day. We found the ride itself to be pretty enjoyable. It’s a Star Tours-style adventure with some influences from Universal’s Transformers dark ride. The attraction’s placement is also rather cool. The simulators aren’t hidden from sight, which creates some good kinetic energy in this space. In the centre of the same hall, we also discovered another spaceship underneath a projected starry sky. Quite impressive!

Do you like audio-animatronics? If so, you’ll definitely enjoy exploring Chimelong Spaceship. The park is packed with animatronics in all shapes and sizes. While the movements of these figures are rather limited, they do give the park a distinct identity. There are displays featuring immense space monsters, we spotted a Mufasa-like lion on top a Chinese Pride Rock, and there’s a musical animatronic show in the African marketplace. A large number of animatronics can also be seen while riding Deep Sea Adventure. This dark ride is set in a cartoonish underwater world that reminded me of the SpongeBob universe. The storyline is unusual, to say the least. Visitors are attending a party in the fish city, but some fish apparently had the wrong drink (drugs?!) and that could disrupt the festivities. However, we provide the antidote they need with our laser pistols. I do see the humour of it, but I want to add that Deep Sea Adventure is everything but a world-class dark ride. The scenery looks simple and the interactive game isn’t really challenging.

Let’s return to that natural history museum with the whale sculptures. That area of the park can be discovered using a slow-moving inverted monorail called Ancient Seas AR Voyage. At first glance, this looked like an ordinary panoramic tour… until we noticed the passengers constantly making big hand gestures. They weren’t doing this out of anger or to wave at their friends, but to score points. Riders wear augmented reality glasses to play an interactive game. When we tried it out ourselves, we weren’t impressed at all. The quality of the projected images turned out to be very poor and the game is weird. I’m not a fan of Universal’s AR attraction, but Ancient Seas AR Voyage turned out to be even weaker.

Chimelong Spaceship’s standout attraction is undoubtedly Bermuda Storm. This is a simulator of impressive scale, as it broke no fewer than two world records. The ride utilizes the world’s largest curved projection screen, and with a capacity of 304 passengers, it’s also the largest motion simulator currently in existence. Captain Bob and his monkey Charlie take us on a pleasant cruise, but unsurprisingly, things start to go wrong as soon as we leave the dock. Suddenly we are surrounded by tornadoes, evil pirates, tsunamis and a hungry sea monster. It’s not original storytelling, yet Bermuda Storm certainly provides surprises. One of those surprises is the appearance of a Charlie animatronic out of nowhere. Besides, water effects at the bottom of the screen create a perfect transition between the virtual and real worlds. A lot is happening, and that’s exactly why Bermuda Storm provides the most spectacular four minutes of our visit to Chimelong Spaceship.

A few steps further lies the entrance to Dive the Abyss – Submarine Journey. If you are familiar with the submarine attractions at the Legoland theme parks, this dark ride holds very few surprises. Guests take their seats in a submarine, which then slowly moves through an aquarium. During the ride, we admire both themed show scenes and real tropical fish in their natural habitat. Submarine Journey is certainly not a sensational attraction, but it fits perfectly into the bigger picture of Chimelong Spaceship. The ride also has a rather high capacity, so the line moves at a brisk pace.

OTHER EXPERIENCES

The majority of the rides can be found on the second floor of the Spaceship. Future City and Ocean Playground are two separate zones full of family attractions. Ocean Playground is the largest area of these two and somewhat reminded me of Lotte World in South Korea. Here, alongside Bermuda Storm and Submarine Voyage, you’ll find a multitude of family-friendly flat rides with cheerful underwater decoration. Visitors can enjoy rides on carousels, freefall towers, a Disk’o, a swinging ship, or one of the three (!) inverted monorails. The theming is colourful and the atmosphere is excellent, so it’s a fantastic place for young families. Future City offers similar rides, and on the north side of the Spaceship there are also a couple of (surprisingly popular) driving schools for children.

WORTH A VISIT?

Did the Chimelong Resort really need a second marine theme park? I’d say no. I had already seen more than enough fish and marine mammals during our day at Ocean Kingdom, so frankly, I don’t quite understand why they decided to add a second underwater world. That being said, Chimelong Spaceship is substantially different from Ocean Kingdom. The spectacular exterior is obviously a highlight, but there’s plenty of beauty on the inside as well. Most aquariums look more modern and sensational than those in the other park, and we also discovered a few fine attractions. Yet, the park has its weaknesses. The level of theming, for example, is inconsistent. Around the corner of a beautiful themed land, you could easily find an ugly corridor with cheap pay-per-ride attractions. And while some walk-throughs are absolutely stunning, the orcas seem to reside in a grey bunker. Finally, there’s a certain thematic clash between the space-themed areas and the exotic habitats. Although I realise that the link between these environment is being explained, it simply doesn’t feel natural.

If Chimelong Spaceship was meant to be the Chinese answer to SeaWorld Yas Island, they succeeded for 75 percent. The unique building and the world records are great ways to show off, but there is still room for improvement in the fine details. Nevertheless, the Spaceship is worth a visit, especially when you combine it with a day at Ocean Kingdom. And if the resort continues to expand at its current pace, it could well become a world-class theme park destination in a matter of years.

This article reflects my personal experience at Chimelong Spaceship during a visit in April 2026.