Yokohama Sea Paradise is perfect for families! The variety of attractions, from the aquarium to the amusement park, offers something for everyone. My kids had a fantastic time exploring the exhibits and enjoying the rides. The staff is friendly, and the facilities are well maintained. Highly recommend for a fun family day out!
Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise is filled with a variety of different aquatic animals as well as various cute land animals.
There are live shows available throughout the day at scheduled times, which are listed on their website. The live performances were captivating and I enjoyed the dolphins’ performance the most.
Apart from the massive aquariums, Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise also has various attractions and rides such as a roller coaster ride (The Leviathan), a boat ride, fishing spots where you can catch and cook your own fish as well as fish farms. The roller coaster was absolutely scary, it had multiple drops and loops. Although it was fun, we queued about 40 minutes for the roller coaster.
There is a food court with various lunch options including fast food. Relatively cheap and filling. There is also a souvenir shop however the products were on the pricier side.
I highly recommend anyone visiting to book the tickets in advance as the queues for purchasing tickets on-site that day were very long. Fortunately for us, we booked the day pass in advance on Klook so we were able to enter the aquarium almost immediately.
The day pass includes free entry to almost all rides and attractions excluding some like the haunted house. We spent the entire day in Yokohama Sea Paradise and still felt that we haven’t seen everything. Overall, it’s definitely a place worth visiting.
Very impressive aquarium plus other small animals. For the dolphins shows, no worries of sitting in the front as the water will not splash on you. If you’re not in a hurry, hang around after show end as trainers will play with dolphin and do tricks. Somehow I feel the dolphins are well loved and happy. The Beluga is the cutest.
Don’t visit this place if you love animals. The enclosures for nearly all of the animals are completely unsuitable for the animals they house. The rooms are all designated names such as “LAB01”, “LAB02”. I’ve read that certain research animals are excluded from animal rights laws in Japan. Also read that Hakkeijima Sea Paradise gets animals from deep sea trawling ships that are destroying marine life. And then they promote this indoor experience as some sort of wonderland.
There is a lone polar bear perched on a tiny rock with only a small bit of water to swim in. Looks like he never gets to see daylight and was lying listless on the rock while we were there with. Same goes for the seals, walruses, penguins (see photos). The water in many of the tanks seemed dirty, bad smells in the general aquarium of dirty water. Some small shellfish and crabs were in tiny pots where i suppose they will live out the rest of their days.
I was so upset by the experience i had to leave, and thankfully i did after reading reviews of the other enclosures such as the dolphins and red pandas. When I left I broke down thinking of the lives of these poor animals. This sort of place should not exist. It’s been there for 30 years and the world has moved on since then. Time for this place to close and stop this barbarism.
Do not pay this establishment and contribute to this ongoing cruelty.
They advertise that they have 4 aquariums, but only one of them really feels like an actual aquarium. The other two might pique your interest, but are not anything substantial. The umi aquarium really isn't much of an aquarium at all. You have a option of catching your own fish to eat, but there can be a substantial wait for that. The rides are ok, but the two rides that are worth riding the most require a timed entry ticket if you want to ride them before 4pm. That can be several hours later. Most of the food options are slightly overpriced for what they are. My personal recommendation is to wait until the evening when admission is much cheaper. Then it becomes closer to a decent value. But considering I paid ¥6,000 to go during golden week, was not entirely worth it. Decent experience, and the live shows are fantastic, but do not feel like it was worth what I paid.
