[Try This] The Massive Virtual Reality Park at Global Harbor

Hey, Celebration Generation, there's a new, massive, colorful, cartoony, futuristic, completely baffling virtual reality amusement park-meets-arcade on the fifth floor of the Global Harbor Mall. It's called PARTYDAY, and it's definitely pretty insane! Check it out if you like "so-this-exists" experiences in Shanghai, particularly of the cutting-edge, virtual, pew-pew-pew video game persuasion.

What is it exactly?

PARTYDAY is 8,500 square metres of extreme sports virtual simulators – skateboarding, mountain biking, skiing, F1 racing, kayaking, darts, archery, and more – half-court pong and soccer movement fields, a virtual reality roller-coaster, a zip-line obstacle course suspended 15 meters into the ceiling, a laser tag arena, bowling lanes, a ball pit, rock climbing walls, and I don't know what – more, more, more. It's excessive!

It's like an arcade from a future in which they've solved all problems of scarcity. It's like a planet-of-the-week in Star Trek, in which their gimmick is "game world." It's a shimmering, shimmering, shimmering state fair from the world of tomorrow.

The upper floors of malls in Shanghai are where you find all the zaniest stuff in this city. That's where the cheaper rent plus massive floor space really inspires the idiosyncratic entrepreneurial spirit.

PARTYDAY is already at the top of our list for Shanghai's upper mall floor destinations due to the sheer commitment to sensory overload. This one's called PARTYDAY SUPER CARNIVAL and adopts as its theme "COSMIC SUPERSTAR." This is all fantastic!

A new "sportainment" company out of Shenzhen, PARTYDAY is a "next-generation urban entertainment complex that seamlessly integrates sports, entertainment, and technology." Okay! Their motto? "We make happiness." They've got outlets in Shenzhen, Xi'an, Wuhan and Hangzhou, and this one in Shanghai is their biggest one yet, with 80-plus "virtual interactive experiences." Each station has on-site staff to get you hooked into the gear. Virtual gaming has been a thing for a minute now, but the technology keeps getting updated.

Highlights include the virtual roller-coaster thing:

This machine goes off, spinning 360 degrees with programs that swing and blast you through desert canyons, icy snowscapes, outer galaxies, and fantasy wonderlands.

The massive, I-don't-know-what-you-call-it, floor pong game thing:

There's a bunch of different games in this one, which have players running around on a giant interactive screen. But mainly pong. The classics never go out of style.

The other massive virtual reality floor game soccer thing:

Just in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup!

The zip-line obstacle course, into the ball pit thing:

The entire ceiling of the venue is an obstacle course with kids 15 meters above the ground zooming around on zip lines before sliding down into the ball pit. Which is itself right in front of the massive suspended DJ booth. (This is Shanghai. Gotta have a DJ booth …)

The rock climbing walls:

It was nice to just spectate on this one.

The F1 simulator with wrap-around monitors:

These seemed to be most popular with the serious gaming types.

The super cool RV track:

You can sit and pilot RV cars around a giant replica of a moon base. Really neat!

Aaaaand the bowling lanes:

Because bowling!

As well as some boating, skate boarding, and other VR games:

And to round things out, practical games to brush up on your post-apocalyptic survival skills:

With a cute in-universe cast of anime-adjacent animal mascots and a plethora of really accessible, fun, really simple, entry-level VR games, we're thinking the audience for this is squarely kids aged 4-16 and teens into video games, so if you're looking for a family activity, check out PARTYDAY.

Also, maybe one to visit as well for people on low-impact dates, urban explorers, and anyone who has a taste for the nuttier experiences in life, in which they can say, "So THIS is a thing!"

Tickets are available in four-hour slots and depend on whether you want five rides (780 yuan) or 10 rides (1380 yuan), with the non-ticketed stuff included in that. Day passes and family deals are also available, including one-parent-and-one-child deals. There's also a GuluGulu on site, serving burgers.

If you go:

Address: 5/F, Global Harbor Mall, 3300 Zhongshan Rd N.

中山北路3300号环球港5楼

P.S. If you haven't been to Global Harbor yet, it is genuinely massive, with a lot of international brands (Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, FOSSIL, Max Mara, GAP, Guess, etc).