Atlantis Sanya is the Hainan branch of the Dubai-originated resort chain — a 1,300-room mega-hotel on Haitang Bay that opened in 2018, with the aquarium, water park, and exhibition halls open to non-guests for separate admission. The architecture is hard to miss: a pair of pink-fronted curved towers above a bowl-like central building meant to look like a sunken kingdom.
The headline draws are the Lost Chambers Aquarium (which incorporates the hotel pool — guests in rooms above can watch sharks and rays from their own bathtub) and the Aquaventure Waterpark, which has the usual catalogue of slides plus a couple of genuine standouts like the near-vertical Leap of Faith. Tickets are not cheap by Chinese standards but the standards of build and maintenance are higher than most domestic equivalents. Avoid Chinese national holidays if at all possible — the place becomes impassable.