The Manila Ocean Park Experience

Manila Ocean Park is an oceanarium located behind Quirino Grandstand at Rizal Park. It’s right beside Hotel H2O, owned by the same company.

The entrance fee ranges between ₱680 (promo) to ₱750 (on-location) per ticket. Fortunately, you can buy tickets from the Manila Ocean Park website and pay online. They often have recurring promos with varying discounts monthly. Our ticket price was ₱680 through the website and inclusive of a total of 8 attractions. You’ll receive an email confirmation from Klook along with your ticket voucher containing a QR code that is scanned at individual entrances of the attractions.

Manila Ocean Park opens at 10am and closes at 6pm, Tuesdays to Sundays including Public Holidays. Last entry to the park is at 5:15pm.

Dane and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday and Manila Ocean Park is one of the places we visited as part of our agenda for the day. We only saw photos of the place online, but since Dane is an avid fan of animals, it was a no-brainer date location.

The first thing that surprised me was our confusion on the entrances. Unlike theme parks or museums, each attraction had a separate entrance, which meant that every time you visited a new show or area, your ticket had to be scanned. It makes sense because people may have availed of different packages, but this was kinda inconvenient. During one of our visits in one of the attraction, the machine that scanned tickets was faulty. It couldn’t read the QR code and would only open the gates for a very short time and would close immediately. I actually felt a bit of pity to the staff in-charge of the said area as she was clearly getting frustrated. The lines were also fast to build up because of this, so it takes a bit from the experience.

Manila Ocean Park is also heavily commercialized. There were so many stores, stalls, and restaurants in the area, including toy stores, food courts, and souvenir merchants. Quite understandable though since the place is family-focused.

We arrived around noon and there was an upcoming show scheduled at 12:30pm for the All Star Bird Show and the Sea Lion show. Dane and I weren’t so keen with seeing them since they were outdoors and it was noon and the sun is up and ready to toast everyone.

Because of that, the first attraction we visited in the ocean park is the World of Creepy Crawlies—exactly as it sounds like. It’s filled with reptiles, amphibians, arachnids, and various insects that are gross and creepy for me.. but was fascinating and amazing to Dane.

We visited the Jellies Dancing Sea Fairies next, and was I mesmerized! There was a huge aquarium filled with jellyfishes. The lights in the aquarium change every few seconds, and their bodies reflect the light. This was definitely my favorite attraction in the Manila Ocean Park. We actually stayed for a little bit just to watch these sea fairies swim and float around. 10/10 would love to see again!

The Penguin Exhibit was also one of the things I looked forward to, because I’ve never seen a penguin ever. It was just a bit difficult to take a photo because eye-level was almost just water. There were also a lot of people, and the splashes and water stain against the glass of the area made it difficult to take pictures or fully appreciate the penguins.

People can also opt to get a photo feeding the penguins for a fee (through the small cylindrical plastic you can see on the first picture above. The line was long though and we didn’t want to wait.

Oceanarium was the biggest attraction in Manila Ocean Park, and the last attraction we visited. Aside from the famous photo of the tunnel circulating online (which was a lot smaller and shorter than I thought), there were a lot of smaller aquariums that housed different marine animals.

Honestly, some of the areas were a bit of a downer though if you aren’t the target market. For example, the Christmas Village and the Super Toy Collection (a Superman-focused memorabilia) were really more for people (maybe kids) who had better appreciation to them than me. I did have some nice photos in those areas though but Dane didn’t want any pics.

Also the second floor of the establishment had a sweet view of the ocean.

What made the trip a bit unbearable was how crowded some of the areas were, specifically the Oceanarium. This meant that the aircondition wasn’t enough to keep the place cool and it was difficult to navigate around because of the sheer volume of people who would stop to take pictures or sit down to relax… blocking the already limited space.

It would have been nice to have fun facts for all the animals and insects in the area, just to make the experience a little bit more educational.

Regardless, Manila Ocean Park is a great value at only ₱680 ticket price. It’s worth it! You may be able to visit and enjoy all attractions in about 3 hours or more if you immerse yourself completely and are willing to wait.

Reminders when visiting the Manila Ocean Park

• Manila Ocean Park is only open Tuesdays to Sundays (including public holidays), between 10am to 6pm. Last time to enter the premise is at 5:15pm.
• Entrance fee is free for the mall area of Manila Ocean Park, but to see the attractions, you’ll need to pay the ticket price starting at ₱680 (promo).
• Print-out or have a screenshot of your QR code ready. It should be about 2 inches in size to make it easy for the staff to scan it at each attraction’s entrance.