Shrimp catching and a free café drink at Dongtan zoo Artis Theme Park

What is Artis Theme Park, the indoor zoo near Dongtan Station?

This weekend I had such a fun time with my kid at Dongtan's indoor zoo! Artis Theme Park has an aquarium-like vibe and includes feeding experiences too, so it was really a great place.

Artis Zoo is right near Dongtan Station in Hwaseong's Dongtan area, so the accessibility is amazing, and it's in a great spot for grabbing a meal afterward too. Not only can you see animals up close here, but it's a hands-on theme park with time to actually bond with them, so we really enjoyed it.

What to know before entering Artis Theme Park

✔️Even if you've made a reservation, you don't just walk right in — you need to get an entry wristband and a name tag that sticks on your body at the ticket booth, just so you know^^

There's no restroom inside, so it's a great tip to stop by one before you go.

Making the feed box and starting the stamp tour

Once it's your turn to enter, they show you a short video explaining how to pack the animal feed box.

You put the feed laid out in front of you into the right compartments to make your box, and then the experience begins. By the way, they also run a stamp tour, so if you fill every stamp in the tour book you can exchange it for a badge^^ We took on the challenge too and got all our stamps, earning a badge~

Which animals can you feed at Artis Theme Park?

At Artis, Dongtan's indoor zoo, you can meet a wide variety of creatures — fish, reptiles, birds, insects, land animals and more! It's a place where you can meet animals up close that you'd normally only see at a zoo or aquarium.

My kid isn't particularly timid, so the lizard experience was fun for them too! At every zone there was a staff member helping out directly, so we could follow the guidance and use everything easily.

We also did the turtle feeding experience, watched some snakes, and saw spiders including a tarantula. We also met a big sulcata tortoise~ I was somewhat used to carp, but my kid found feeding the carp fun too. They kept saying how pretty it was and got excited watching that big mouth gulping away^^

Feeding carrots to the guinea pigs and lop-eared rabbits

When we got to the rodent area, we met a lot of guinea pigs~ We could bond with the lop-eared rabbits too, giving carrots to them and the guinea pigs alike~!

It was a fun time to observe them one by one, and rather than just watching, actually feeding them directly made the experience feel more memorable! My kid liked it more than I expected, so I already want to come back again. We also touched a fiddler crab~ and fed the rays~ Listening to the explanations along the way made it a more informative time too.

Using the experience ticket and catching 3 shrimp to take home

Oh, and by the way, Artis Theme Park has something like an experience pass, and the one you get at entry can actually be used one by one for each activity~! Ticking off each experience felt kind of like clearing a checklist, haha. It was fun even as an adult.

There was actually an experience where you could catch up to 3 shrimp to take home, and they said if you feed them fish food you can raise them, so we caught 3 shrimp to bring home. Honestly I wasn't confident I could raise them so I almost decided not to bring them, but since they said we could feed them fish food, I'm going to try raising them a bit more seriously.

One free drink at Sweet Café on the way out

Sweet Café, which we came across on the way out!! It's fun for the kids, sure, but adults need some fun too~ When we got to Sweet Café, it turned out adults each got to have one drink.

Thanks to that I had a nice cool glass of iced chocolate haha. My kid left a Naver review and got their hands on a can of Powerade~ haha. It's fun to look around, but this kind of thoughtful touch is really great too~!

Really last thing — we didn't buy anything, but we browsed the souvenir shop too and finished up all the experiences~ The little kids surely had fun, but I think watching the animals was such a fun experience for adults too.

I didn't write about everything above, but we also met seals, saw a huge tortoise, and met some otter friends.

There were so many adorable creatures that I couldn't mention them all one by one~ if you go in person, you'll get to have way more animal encounters and fun experiences than I've described here.

✅There's a play facility for kids 120cm and under, but ours didn't qualify so we just took photos of it~!

Artis Theme Park visit information: hours, parking and tickets

This is such a great place to visit with a baby or young kid in Dongtan, so if you're interested, I think it's worth a stop by.

• ✔️10 Dongtan-daero 19-gil, Dongtan-gu, Hwaseong-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea
• ✔️Mon, Wed-Sun 13:00-19:00
• ✔️Sat-Sun 12:00-19:00 (opens at 11:00 only during Chuseok holiday)
• *Parking for Dongtan Artis Theme Park was available in the building, and they asked us to register our parking, which we did^^