This activity, which according to Lee, is aimed primarily at school children, allows people to bunk down in a special area beside the dolphin tanks. According to Lee, the ever-curious dolphins will come and look at them, giving the impression of great intimacy with these marine mammals. The sleepover is usually coupled with other activities within the park, Lee said, to create a two-day, one-night package.
The park also has a small but well-designed aquarium, focusing heavily on the more spectacular of the ocean’s creatures. The giant catfish and the moray eel are designed to catch the attention, and the short underwater tunnel provides plenty of close-up views of rays and some of the smaller sharks.
This is all much more convenient than heading out on even the best-appointed boat services in the hope of catching a glimpse of whales and dolphins in the wild — at least this seems to be the logic behind this remarkable establishment. Hualien has a host of dolphin- and whale-watching boat services, which offer three-hour tours of Hualien’s coastal waters for around NT$1,000. Actually catching sight of dolphins cutting their way through the water around the boat beats anything an ocean park can hope to offer, but the long ride out on a boat in the summer heat and the possibility of returning to shore with nothing to show for the time spent (reputable tour operators will generally give customers on trips that failed to make any sighting a free ticket to use at another time) gives Farglory Ocean Park considerable appeal.
With its clever arrangement of activities and displays and its mix of theme-park entertainment with natural history education, Farglory Ocean Park provides packaged entertainment for the whole family. It has more to offer than the Cinderella castle might at first suggest.
National Geographic’s Big Blue documentary will be screened in the original two-hour English version on the National Geographic Channel on Aug. 14 at 7pm.
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