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Old 05-09-2002   #4 (permalink)
mickey
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Bruce, glad you mentioned Splendid China. While there are chinese restaurants there, that isn't the main focus of the park. Splendid China was built by the Chinese government as a replica of an extremely popular park just outside of Hong Kong. It features almost one hundred miniature representations of tourist sites in China, the great wall, forbidden city, Yangtze river, etc... Not exactly the Tower of Terror. Several years ago, after a couple of years of running it to less than one hundred people a day, the Chinese were not happy with the performance of the park, and installed a new manager who proceeded to not repair anything in the park for years. With the Florida heat and humidity, it nearly fell apart. They have spent the last year or so rebuilding.

We visited it a couple of years ago. You have to know that Minnie and I have two daughters who were adopted from China, so obviously we were drawn to Splendid China. Funny thing was is we planned a day to go over there, and when we got there about an hour after opening, there wasn't a car or bus in the parking lot. We actually thought it was closed. There is a large area in front that is free to enter, and has shops and restaurants. We didn't pay to go in because they were in the process of fixing many of the attractions, and we could see from the free area it was going to be a long day for the kids if we did go in. We spent about an hour in the shops, and talked to some very friendly people. The entire time there, no one else came.

I don't know if we will go back. I think if you had a couple of hours before your plane, and found a good discount, it would be a fun way to see China. I think it is now mostly aimed at tour groups, not a lot of individuals show up.
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