Phuket FantaSea

Phuket FantaSea is the island’s original evening theme park, in Kamala on the west coast, open since 1999: a shopping village, games and street shows, a buffet, and at 9pm “Fantasy of a Kingdom”, a Las Vegas-style show of Thai legend and stage illusion in the 3,000-seat Palace of the Elephants theatre.

Three things to know before booking. It opens only three nights a week, the other three to Carnival Magic next door. Its tickets are sold at one price, and not on Viator at all. And the show uses live elephants, which the park puts at thirty.

Inside the park

The Phuket FantaSea sign on a rock in the entrance pond

A buffet dining hall

The Palace of the Elephants at night, in panorama

A tunnel of neon lights through the park

A gilded pavilion over the water at night

Visitors at a temple-style gate at night

A statue in the lake at night

The neon sign of the Kamala Pier restaurant

A shop in the park's shopping village

Photographs from Wikimedia Commons, mostly by Maksim Ulitin (2016), CC BY 3.0; credited in full at the foot of the page.

The evening follows the show. The park opens at 5.30pm, the buffet serves until 9pm, and the park suggests arriving by 6pm to see the grounds first: the shopping village, festival games and street performances. After the show, the park stays open until 11.30pm, with live music at the Kamala Pier restaurant.

The show

“Fantasy of a Kingdom” is a story of the legendary kingdom of Kamala, with its host, the Prince of Kamala, on his magic elephant. The park describes acrobatics from Hanuman and his monkey warriors, an aerial ballet, battles that seem to blow up the stage, and elephants that appear and disappear by illusion. It runs about 70 minutes, with more than 150 cast.

The park itself warns that some segments are loud, with explosions and effects that may scare young children, and that the theatre is air-conditioned and can be cold. Cameras and phones are checked in before you enter: no photography or recording is allowed inside.

The elephants

The park describes the show as featuring 30 elephants. An elephant performs on a stage for the same reason it carries a rider: it was trained to accept human control as a juvenile, and that training is what the ticket pays for. That is why this site recommends against elephant shows, set out in full on our elephants page.

If that rules FantaSea out for you, Carnival Magic next door is the alternative on the other three nights: a 45-minute parade of floats and performers and an illumination park, run as FantaSea’s sister park.

Tickets

FantaSea or Carnival Magic

The two parks stand side by side in Kamala and open on alternating nights, so the choice is often the night you have free. Otherwise: FantaSea is an indoor theatre show of about 70 minutes, with illusions and live animals, from ฿1,800; Carnival Magic is a 45-minute parade in a stadium and a park of lights, from ฿2,100. The park sells both together for ฿3,700 with buffets at both, used over two evenings within fourteen days.

Getting there

FantaSea is in Kamala, a minute from Kamala beach and 4 from Surin, 10 minutes from Patong and 23 from Kata without traffic, and 28 from the airport. The park runs shared vans from any hotel in Phuket for ฿450 a person, return, and from Khao Lak on Fridays for ฿800.

For the island’s other evenings, Phuket nightlife covers the rest; for a day out with children, Andamanda is the water park in Kathu.