6 Water & Amusement Parks in Harbin That You Shouldn't Miss

Reviewed By ropentastones - St Helens, United Kingdom

The Harbin ice festival is something that simply has to be done...it is the world's largest ice and snow festival, and with around 20 million visitors in just three months that it is open may seem like it is going to be crazy busy, but we visited early February and it didn't seem overly busy at all. The sites are so vast that there is always space to see the sculptures and take photos. The sculptures are simply unbelievable and the size of some of them is staggering...it is so colourful and spectacular that it is almost too much for the ocular nerve to take in. I really cannot enthuse enough how visually amazing the whole thing is...and pictures simply don't do it justice...so definitely definitely try and fit this in at some point if you are visiting China in the winter months. A few tips: The trains to Harbin may be a lot cheaper than flying but they take about four times as long to get there and are almost always fully booked...I would recommend flying into Harbin and paying the extra...the Chinese budget airlines are perfectly fine (we flew Spring and everything was perfect). Don't forget thermals, heat packs, gloves and warm anti-slip boots...you will need them. It was around -20ºC at night when we were there, and the ice festival has an ice floor and ice sculptures so will feel even colder...and you will be on the island pretty much all day if you want to see everything. When to visit? I recommend visiting early afternoon the snow sculpture park (this will take about two hours) then head to the main entrance and get a taxi to the ice sculpture park (it will cost about 20 yuan (£2))...and hopefully you will be there before dusk to see the sun setting and the statues lighting up. The ice park you will probably be there for 3 hours or so...you are looking at about 7 hours in total...there are food places in both parks. The easiest way to get there is by taxi which will cost you just a a few yuan from Harbin...but bear in mind that almost nobody in Harbin speaks English (not even a few words) and so they obviously can't read English either. I recommend getting the translation in pinyin or in Chinese characters of the destination of your journey and showing that to the taxi driver to avoid any problems. You will no doubt have WeChat on your phone if you are in China and there is a good translate function on there you can use. Another tip is that I recommend you go to the toilet before heading to the ice festival park...as the toilets are pretty rancid, and by "pretty rancid" I mean absolutely disgusting with faeces literally everywhere. Not a pretty sight. Use the toilets at the snow sculpture park as these were clean and well looked after....but if you have to go at the ice park...then make sure you take toilet tissues as they are unlikely to have any left. So there you go...a few handy tips that we discovered when there...now it is up to you to visit this once in a lifetime visual extravaganza. Just do it...!!!