Phuket FantaSea

December 29, 2008:

Today we went to Phuket FantaSea for my birthday!  It’s a cultural theme park, with a Disneyland-meets-Vegas feel, and elephants everywhere, instead of Mickey Mouse.

We opted for the hotel transfer, since it was a better deal than taking a taxis to Kamala Beach.  As we approached the park, we could see dark clouds hanging over the area.  We arrived to a complete deluge- raining cats and elephants.  Luckily the ticket counter was covered, and George picked up our tickets.

Then we had to make our way to the Golden Kinnaree Buffet Restaurant.  There is an outdoor carnival type area, but since it was raining so hard the employees formed an umbrella-brigade to get us to the next covered area.  From there we walked through souvenir shop after souvenir shop, to get to the buffet.

After dinner we had about an hour to wander around the outside area, and play a few games.  George tried darts, and I tried knocking over cans, and George finally won me a little elephant throwing rings around an elephant trunk.

Then it was time for the indoor performance, held in the palace of elephants-a grand wat replica.

George had read on a forum somewhere that you couldn’t bring in a camera, so we left ours at home.  It turns out you can bring a camera for the carnival area and to the buffet, you just have to check it in before the performance.  Too bad–we could have even gotten photos with ladies in traditional costumes, kinda like taking your photo with Cinderella.  Since we didn’t have a camera we paid to get our photo with elephants, and then it turned out you could take your own photo for free with the elephants outside after the show, but we couldn’t do that without our camera.

A Brief Review by g

There are many ways how you can purchase your tickets.  We opted to use the FantaSea website as we thought it might offer us the best deals and we didn’t want to have to hassle with the many vendors selling tickets.  The website states that no one can offer discount ticket prices so we assumed the prices on the site were a set price.  We paid about $70 per person.  That’s a lot of money in Thailand, but that included the show, buffet dinner, upgraded gold seats and transportation to and from the show.  You can go barebones for just the show and that will cost about $42 per adult (child prices are a little cheaper).  We decided to try the works and for the most part it was worth it.

Also, their website ( does not use SSL (Secured Socket Layers) protection, so I do not recommend you enter your credit card information when it comes time for it.  Instead, just leave it blank and submit!  You’re reservation will still go through!  However, you can probably get yourself a better deal if you just ask the front desk of your hotel, since everyone is selling tickets!  Just make sure they are a legit ticket reseller and you can probably save 20%.

Here is a breakdown of cost per person:

• tickets: 1500 baht
• buffet dinner: 400 baht
• gold seat upgrade (best seats in house): 250 baht
• hotel transfer (roundtrip): 300 baht

If you are coming from a farther distance, such as Kata Beach, then we highly recommend the bus transfer as it will cost you a lot more to hire a taxi or tuk tuk.  Recently taxis and tuk tuk drivers have increased their fares by a very large amount… I would say, nearly double their normal fare, which is ridiculous considering the cheap price of gas these days!  (In the future we will write about taxis and tuk tuks and how times have changed for the worse.)  Anyways, the Phuket FantaSea buses are very nice with air conditioning and a very smooth ride!

The gold seats are another good option as they are the seats in the middle of the theater and certainly give you the best view 😀

The buffet hall is huge (can accommodate thousands) and impressive in design (vegas style) wth huge sculptures of ancient gods and dramatic murals.  The dinner is a good option if you like buffets and like to eat a lot!  Unfortunately,  there aren’t many choices of food and it is mediocre at best.  Also, expect to pay extra for drinks, unless you are fine with coffee, tea, or water.

The Main Event

The Tourist Authority of Thailand rates this show as the best attraction and I am certain that many guests would agree, but I felt as if the show was lacking in its story and/or did not do a good job of explaining in a way that a foreigner would understand.  I won’t go into detail as I don’t want to give away any of the story.  Regardless, the elephants, costumes, pyrotechnics and acrobats do a good job of covering up for the lack of a good story and if you remember that you are there to be entertained and not be a critic you will have a great time.