Hey folks,
So this entry is less than a “Day 6” than it is an evening 6, and it’s mostly just a recount of our trip to Phuket FantaSea. In order to use funds from my PayPal balance, I bought the tickets through Trip.com, but the cost was about the same as buying direct from FantaSea. To be certain, the main website states that all resellers are obligated to sell tickets according to the official stated rate. I opted for the show + buffet with theater gold seat upgrade. So for two people it was $116.78 USD; paying at the park would have been 5100 THB. That does make it look like I got a bit of a discount, but I suspect it was just due to a favorable exchange rate issue.
In addition to the theater and buffet hall, there is a connected small, but beautiful “night theme park”, and entrance to the same is free with theater tickets. The park and buffet opens at 5:30 PM, with the show starting at 9:00 PM. Elisabet took care of the round trip transport via inDrive, paying a total of 740 THB ($19.42 USD). It was 14 km (8.7 miles) each way, taking about 35 minutes each way, mostly due to intermittent rain and rather twisty roads. We arrived at 6:30 PM.
From the moment we arrived, everything went very smoothly with the process to first exchange our electronic voucher for tickets and then to go through into the park area itself. Due to the light rain, not everything was fully operating, but there were still beautiful displays and nice shops with prices reasonably comparable to what one would pay elsewhere.
This area is clearly all about the pictures and of course the shopping. As we didn’t do any shopping, we focused our energy on the photos. It would have been nicer without the light rain, but it was nevertheless a magical experience. At around 7:40 PM we went through to the buffet hall.
The buffet was very well organized in order to minimize any long lines. The food was “decent” but not amazing. There was a fancier “seafood upgrade” pack we could have bought, but as I’m allergic to shellfish, that didn’t make much sense. Around 8:45 we made our way over to the theater entrance where I snapped one last photo of Elisabet before we got in line.
Cameras and recording devices were strictly prohibited within the theater, even to the extent that we were required to turn in our cellphones before entering. While this was initially disappointing since even the theater itself was very beautiful inside, I have to admit that this was a good idea on the part of the organizers since lighting played a very important role in the show. With such a huge theater, I have no doubt that people would otherwise have regularly been destroying the atmosphere with the light from the their screens.
The entire show itself was only a little over an hour, but it was so incredibly well done that I in no way felt that we had paid too much. Words really don’t do it justice, but that’s all I can offer. It was a mix of several different mini shows which kept us entranced for the entire time. They began with some sort of traditional Thai dancers. They then transitioned into a very elegant shadow puppets story which was followed up by a comedic magic show. Following that were the four black light lit trapeze artists with the final show being a mini play of a love story where the “princess” was captured by a demon and then of course triumphant battle to get her back.
The show itself had at least fifty (I think more like a hundred different people), several water buffalo, a flock of chickens, a group of goats, flying doves, a tiger, and of course elephants . . . All of which appeared on the massive stage. Our gold seats put us squarely in the middle of the stage at a perfect distance to still appreciate the immensity of it all. The only thing that was a bit difficult for us to fully appreciate were the trapeze artists, since they were almost immediately above our heads, so we had to strain our necks a bit to see. Despite the trapeze part, I’m definitely very glad I paid the gold seat upgrade.
Certainly, if you are ever in Phuket, you should definitely see if you can go to the FantaSea show. I’m almost certain that you’ve never before seen anything like it. Yes, I can understand why some people would have misgivings about the animals in the show. I didn’t have enough expertise to notice the same, but Elisabet thought that some of the elephants’ ears looked “mistreated”. To be fair, I didn’t think the elephants themselves actually added that much to the show; they could easily remove them and it would still be an amazing spectacle, but then I suppose that would also sort of undermine the whole “elephant theme” which was definitely dominant throughout the park.
While not impossible, it did take Elisabet some time to hail us a car to return. As soon as we got back to the house, we immediately headed up to our rooms since upon Elisabet’s recommendation and with Maria’s (My guide on day 5) help, we had planned a full day island hopping trip for day 7.
As I don’t tend to be much of a beach/ocean person, I had my doubts about a full day in the sun, but I was certain that with Elisabet along I would have a good time. Our trip to FantaSea had far exceeded my expectations, so I was starting to have the hope that the same thing might happen with the various island visits.
As always, thanks for following along with my travels and hopefully I’ll see you with day 7.
Travels with Jay 