Oasis Sea World

Oasis Sea World is a dolphinarium in Pak Nam Laem Sing, about 30 km from downtown Chanthaburi, holding Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (commonly called pink dolphins) and Irrawaddy dolphins — both species native to Thai waters. It runs five dolphin shows a day, a swim-with-dolphins add-on, and a captive-breeding program for both species. Entry is 300 THB for foreign adults (200 THB children), 130 THB for Thai adults (80 THB children), open daily 09:00-18:00.

The show schedule runs 9:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00, and 17:00 on weekdays, with an extra 7:00 slot added on weekends and public holidays. Trainers put the dolphins through jumps, ball tricks, and synchronized routines to recorded music. Beyond the main show, the park runs a handful of animal-feeding stations — carp, giant grouper, and rusa deer — plus paddle boats on the ornamental ponds, which fill the gaps between show times for families staying the full day. The swim-with-dolphins package (roughly 1,500-2,500 THB depending on what’s included) lets visitors wade in a shallow pool and touch a dolphin under staff supervision; a standalone photo session runs about 350 THB.

Watch out: This is a working dolphinarium, not a sanctuary, and it’s worth knowing that going in. Oasis Sea World opened in the early 1990s framed partly as a rescue operation for dolphins caught in local fishing nets, but Thai and international press have documented that animals were subsequently trained for shows rather than released — including a reported 1999 export of captive dolphins to Singapore that conservation groups flagged as running against CITES rules on wild-caught cetaceans. Global welfare organisations (World Animal Protection among them) criticise the wider captive-dolphin entertainment industry generally for cramped pools, performance stress, and the animals’ inability to express natural behaviours like long-distance swimming and echolocation-based hunting. None of that is unique to this park — it applies to Thailand’s other dolphinariums too — but it’s context worth having before booking the swim-with add-on specifically.

Weekday mornings are noticeably quieter than weekend afternoons, when Thai family tour groups fill the bleachers between the 11:00 and 13:00 shows. The grounds are compact enough to see everything — pool, feeding stations, gift shop — within two to three hours.

Insider Tip: If dolphins in a performance setting don’t sit right with you, Namtok Phlio National Park and Chanthaburi’s gem market make a fuller, animal-free day trip from town — both are closer to the city centre than the 30 km drive out to Laem Sing.

Getting there requires your own transport — a rented car or scooter from Chanthaburi town, or a taxi arranged in advance, since there’s no direct public bus to Pak Nam Laem Sing. View on Google Maps. Phone 0 3949 9222 for group bookings or swim-with-dolphins reservations.