Atlantis Sanya
The building is not what you expect from a hotel. It is a tower of pale stone and glass that rises out of the coast like something designed to be seen from the sea, and the first thing that happens when you walk through the lobby is that you look down into water — a vast aquarium built into the heart of the building, glowing blue, full of sharks and rays and fish that drift past as if you are standing at the bottom of the ocean.
This is 三亚·亚特兰蒂斯 (Atlantis Sanya), and it is the most talked-about place to stay on the island. It is not a hotel in the ordinary sense. It is the largest kind of resort-park in southern China, and it is the reason a lot of families decide to come to 海棠湾 at all.
The Third Atlantis
There are only three Atlantis resorts in the world. The original is in Dubai, the second in the Bahamas, and this one in Sanya — and the Chinese one is the newest, opening in April 2018.
It is a genuinely vast property. The hotel itself is a single enormous tower on 海棠北路 (Haitang North Road), a few minutes’ drive from the 三亚国际免税城 (Sanya International Duty Free City). Built by a consortium that matters more for the scale than the names, it is marketed as a “seven-star” property — which is not an official rating, but is a fair description of the ambition. The whole place is themed around the legend of the lost city of Atlantis, and the ocean is not decor; it is the point.
The shoreline here is a private beach. The rooms, for the most part, all face the sea. There is a water park attached that is one of the biggest in China, and there is an aquarium built into the hotel itself that holds 13,500 tons of natural seawater and more than 280 species of marine life.
The Rooms
The accommodation is a range of ocean-view rooms and suites, from the standard deluxe rooms up to the enormous 皇家俱乐部 (Imperial Club) and suite categories. The famous one, the one that gets photographed and written about, is the 波塞冬水底套房 (Poseidon Undersea Suite) — a room with a window onto the aquarium, where you fall asleep watching fish. It is one of the more expensive hotel rooms in China, and it sells out long in advance.
For ordinary mortals, the standard ocean-view rooms are generous and well-finished, starting around a plain number and rising steeply. A couple of rules of thumb: the higher the floor, the better the view of the sea and the reef; and the corner suites look out over the water park on one side and the ocean on the other, which is the best of it.
Book well ahead. This is one of the most in-demand resorts in China, and especially through Chinese school holidays and Spring Festival.
The Water Park and Aquarium
The two things that justify the price, and that non-residents actually come here to use, are both attached to the hotel and are included with most room rates.
The 水世界 (Aquaventure Waterpark) is the draw. It has the slides and rides you would expect from a place of this scale, and it is one of the bigger ones in the country — velocity slides, a bore-ride that flings you through a tunnel, a big surf pool, and a lazy river for the parts in between. It is a loud, wet, electric day, and it is the reason families come.
The 失落的空间水族馆 (The Lost Chambers Aquarium) is the quieter, more magical thing. It is the aquarium built into the centre of the hotel, a huge tank you can view from multiple levels, and it is also the venue for a couple of unusual experiences: diving in the big tank, and a 海底餐厅 (undersea restaurant, the Ossiano) where you eat with the tank behind you.
What It Costs and What It Buys
Atlantis is not a cheap stay, and it is worth being honest about that. The standard rooms run from roughly the two-thousand-yuan range a night depending on season, and the suites and the undersea room are considerably more. But the arithmetic is not as bad as it looks if you use what is included: the water park and the aquarium are free to guests, and given that a day ticket to a comparable water park is a couple of hundred yuan per person, the inclusions claw back real money for a family.
The dining is a point in its own right. There are around twenty-one restaurants, including the 奥西亚诺 (Ossiano) undersea restaurant and a 面包街厨房 (Bread Street Kitchen) — the Gordon Ramsay outpost — plus the usual spread of Chinese, Japanese and international options.
How to Get There
Getting to Atlantis is straightforward, because it is one of the big draws of 海棠湾. From 三亚凤凰国际机场 (Phoenix International Airport) it is roughly a 50-minute drive; from 亚龙湾火车站 (Yalong Bay Railway Station) it is about 30 minutes. The 免税城 (Duty Free City) is just a few minutes away, which is convenient if you are doing both in one trip.
The downside of 海棠湾 is its distance from the city. You are not walking to a café or a night market from here. You are at a self-contained resort, and the nearest city life is a drive away. That is the trade-off: the most spectacular beachside resort on the island, or easy access to the old streets — you cannot have both.
flowcloud would say that a hotel with a shark tank in the lobby is not accommodation but a show — and that the only question worth asking about a show this big is whether it is worth your money, and the answer, for a family with kids who love water, is usually yes.
Where to stay: 三亚·亚特兰蒂斯 (Atlantis Sanya), 海棠北路 (Haitang North Road), 海棠湾, Sanya. The third Atlantis in the world (after Dubai and the Bahamas), opened 2018. Ocean-view rooms from around ¥2,000 a night; the Poseidon Undersea Suite is the famous, expensive one. Includes the Aquaventure Waterpark and the Lost Chambers Aquarium (13,500 tons of seawater, 280+ species). Aquarium and water park free to guests. About 50 minutes from the airport, 30 minutes from Yalong Bay station, minutes from the Duty Free City. Book well ahead for school holidays and Spring Festival; expect an all-inclusive resort experience, not a walk-to-everything location.
