I know that there's a time for everything, and understand why it closed, but it's so sad to see that nothing has replaced it.  All that work...

Interesting article.  I was a paying guest when it first opened.  Sad to see what happened to it.

Gotta say, not cool of the author to mention his encounter with the security guard, though.  I hope his bosses don't see this article and give him grief as a result.

This is the first time I'm hearing of this place.  Sounds like it would've been a better attraction had it not been placed so close to WDW.  The comparison did them in, it appears.

Ditto on the security guard comment.

Hey wow.. You just solved a big mystery for me. We just got back from Florida a few weeks ago and our rental house was right across the street from this place. I had no clue what the heck this place was and why (it appeared to me) some land owner had dedicated his property to building recreations of Chinese landmarks, only to let it all go. I had no idea this was an actual park. Very interesting. I puzzled every time we drove by as to what could be behind those walls. Great article!

The first thing I thought after I read the article was about how awful it was to throw the security guard under the buss like that. The man did you favor and now you are going to get him fired!

Poor taste on the Security Guard comments. We did not need to know that information for the article to be of intrest to us. It was great to get a look at a park I never knew exsisted. It is hard to compete with Disney and the other major players just a few miles away. So it is no suprise to me that they folded.

Never even heard of the place until right now.  Wow.  What a shame.

I'm actually surprised Disney didn't just buy it.

We went to Splendid China several times while doing research for "Mulan". It was a very beautiful and very hot museum. I knew its days were numbered the moment I walked in.

Once, a group of us was being given a tour by a very grumpy former Epcot cast member, who took every opportunity to dis his previous employer, and stated at every turn how much better their miniatures were than Disney's Temple of Heaven in World Showcase.

When he found out we were working on a film, he asked what it was. Without missing a beat, I replied "Honey, I Shrunk the Chinese."

I love the idea of walking around abandoned theme parks, kinda creepy but exciting!  The security guard should not be letting people in though (that is his job)...  he's obviously in the wrong business

Very interesting article, and I really like the pictures.  It's like a post-apocalyptic environment or something.

I've been in there since it closed myself. It's a marvelous place if you're into abandoned theme park exploration. It's chock full of neat little spots and things to discover. Furthermore, there's an awful lot of pretty interesting stories that have cropped up since it closed.

In all fairness to the author, the owners of the park employ multiple security guards; some of them are fine with explorers, others not so much. But I don't think that this article is going to cost anyone their job. I sincerely doubt that the land company that owns Splendid China is going to be reading this site any time soon.