Wanning Boundary Island Lingshui, Hainan, China

3oht3075 5:00 PM Apr 16, 2017

Beautiful scenery, management is not up to par
4 of us were attracted by the beautiful brochure of the Boundary Island and booked the Sea View Villa from the Boundary Island Fishing Club for a 2 night 3 day vacation. We flew from Guangzhou to the city of Sanya, Hainan Island. The hotel provide free shuttle but not from the airport. So we have to taxi to the hotel office in Sanya and took the shuttle which only operated twice daily at 3 and 3:30 pm. The shuttle took about a little over an hour to reach the pier where we then took a 10 min boat ride to the island. Once on the island, we located the Fishing Club office and registered for 2 sea view villa which located high up on the side of the hill. There are no free schedule transportation on the Island. Ride the golf cart shuttle up and down the hill from the villa to the beach or restaurant area cost 5 RMB ( about US $ 0.75) each way each person and it can add up pretty fast unless you don't mind spending about 20 min climbing those 45 degree winding slopes. As for the villa, it should be beautiful in it's prime days but now it aged and badly needs some up keeping like a fresh coat of stain or paint. The villa balcony provides a unobstructed parametric view of the island and the ocean and it is gorgeous, especially during sunset. If you are a hermit and want to stay in your villa all the time, then this should be your cup of tea. For the rest of us who want to relax on the beach or have a quite scroll through the commercial part of the island, then you will disappointed. The problem is there are not visitor control on the island. So from around 9 am to 7 pm, boatload and boatload of tourist invade the island for their one day tour. The whole island is full of people and you might feel you are in the downtown of Honolulu during tourist season. Another problem is the designated swimming area is very small, probably around 200 ft beach front with life guards. The rest of the island is prohibit to swim at all not even at your own risk because there is no life guards. Since there is no kitchen in the villa so we become the captive customers for the few restaurants on the island. The food is bad and expensive, a far cry from the famous Chinese Cuisine we all use to. The included breakfast ( and the only breakfast available on the whole island ) is located in a restaurant on the other side of the island so either you walk 30 min or another 10 RMB both ways just to have breakfast. During the whole trip on the island, we tried hard to find any marine animal in the water or on the beach and we found very few tiny fishes Our reservation also include a free glass bottom boat ride in the evening. We thought with the light from boat at least we can see some fishes. The boat ride took about 30 min and we couldn't even see any marine animal at all. The water is very clear and we can see down to 20 ft of water. All we saw are dead coral and abandoned building material laying along the ocean floor. What a shame. The only live marine animal were those keep captive in the sea park. I check the brochure and the last review on the island was made a few yrs back and a lot of environmental deterioration has been going on since. On the whole, we were disappointed that such a beautiful island resource is not managed properly in terms of lodging upkeep, food service, transportation, tourist control, and environment protection. I recommend you better spend your vacation and dollar elsewhere . I give it 3 stars just for the island's beautiful scenery.

3theerika 5:00 PM Dec 5, 2019

Fine for a 2 hour visit en route elsewhere
This is a pretty island that is fine for a two hour visit when you are en route elsewhere. Be warned that this is a day-tripper haven. The port around the ferry dock is very busy and you'll probably enjoy the island most if you get out of there as swiftly as possible. We were taken to a sad little dolphin show, but from there we boarded the zoo train and went towards the peak. Walke edthe last bit of the way to the summit, which was much lesss crodwed and afforded lovely views of the mainland. There was also a little shrine (built in 2016) which was nice to explore. It made for a nice stop-over enroute fromthe north to the southern end of Hainan. But I would NOt recommend staying much longer than a couple hours.