Caribbean Bay

Long weekend for Buddha’s Birthday so a friend and I went up to Everland’s water park–Caribbean Bay! You can take a bus via Pusan Tours to Everland and swap the ticket for a Caribbean Bay ticket (but you need your guide with the ticket receipt). Once they start selling more tickets for Caribbean Bay I’m sure you’ll be able to buy them from Pusan Tours too.

The inside part of Caribbean Bay opens at 9:30 and is open year round but the outside part (which opened when I went–MAY 17th!) opens at 11. Not all the rides were open, some open June 1st, but I’m not sure if we would have had time for all that!

Overall, you have to take off all jewelry (or anything that can fall off) and earrings–for your safety which I call b.s. because they just don’t want to have to find your necklace at the bottom of a pool. Many people wear life vests, but have them not buckled, so its competently a fashion statement. 90% of the water is not deep enough for adults to drown in (I could stand everywhere and I’m only 5’3″).

You can put money onto a wrist band to pay for things, but I don’t suggest doing that because the line for a refund is HUGE around the time people start leaving (and you don’t wanna spend half a day there, right?). What we did was take some money and put it in a mini locker with shoes, jewelry and shorts so we could access it easier than going back to the big lockers.

We started heading for the Wild River area right away but got detoured in Fortress by the Surfing Ride! Some people are basically professionals (at the ride–I don’t think they’d be good at a real beach). They brought their own bogy boards, wetsuits (yep wetsuits at a water park), hats, sunglasses, Roxy gear, Volcom gear, etc. and were in the line almost the whole time. We went for our first ride and last and saw the same people. There are many ways to fail at this ride. You can go left or right and get Lazy River’d–aka fall into another ride called Lazy River which goes around Fortress–or you can do what I did every time and get pushed over a bump and into a pool. I guess I was too light because the same thing happened to the little kids. Still fun.

Next we went to Wild Blaster which is a two person raft ride which was tons of fun! Lots of tubes to go though and splashing water.

Next we tried for Aqua Loop but if you have any jewelry you can go…so I couldn’t. My friend went and said it was basically water up your nose and a wedgie.

Next we tried to find food…but all the lines and restaurants were super packed and not veggie friendly. Lots of meat on a stick. I did get something similar to a snow cone though, with real fruit! Well, syrup and real fruit. They had churros which were dry and seemed like something new that year.

Next was Tower Boomerang Go and Tower Raft. They are right next to one another and Boomerang will probably have the longer line as it is just a massive drop. I felt my but in the air on this ride. While in line you can watch people and that is half the fun. Looks of fear and screaming…from grown men while their children laugh is always good. Raft had lots of turns and no big drops  but I went more than 50% up the curved walls which was terrifying. Screamed like a little girl (and not little girls on rides because they just laugh).

Next we went to the Wave Pool, where there is a green part where no one is allowed to stand EVER. If you don’t have a life vest you can’t be on the far side, even though with waves you just go up and down….the green part is the crash area which is the only ‘danger’. I still had fun. My friend who was on a swim club in school was pretty pissed though. There are a few pirate ships in the area and I got yelled up for going up it but then when the lifeguard saw my face he let me go…very strange.

We then went inside and did the Quick Ride which wasn’t that quick compared to the other rides. Maybe it’s quick because of the wait if you want a raft. For going without a raft there is a huge wait, but waiting for a solo or double raft was not too long and the wait at the top was not too long either. Fun ride, beautiful inside just because of the run shining though the tube. That’s on the 5th floor. The floors inside are pretty confusing. It’s all about 1/2 stair cases.

The 3rd floor is the best way to get on the Lazy River (depending on time, I’m sure). Lots of empty rafts are there and being collected so you can grab one and jump on going outside and back in. I’d say do two rounds and ignore the kids splashing and be lazyyyyy. It’s hard. But at some point you’ve gotta give up and stop saying ‘don’t push me!’

Their spa is pretty nice with 2 hot rooms and a hot pool.

Top 5 Posts of 2012

Seeing a lot of these sorts of lists, so I thought I’d make them. Since the blog only started in September on blogger and moved to wordpress in November, I thought it fitting to do only the top 5.

1) International Gift and Household Fair

2) Everland: Christmas Fantasy

3) Gwangju

4) Seoul’s 5 Palaces

5) Naejangsan National Park

 

Everland: Christmas Fantasy

There was/is a deal to go from Busan to Everland for their Christmas Fantasy for 55,000KRW (bus one way and entry to the park) and since Everland entry is 40,000KRW anyway–why not?

Everland seems like a nice try at making a Korean Disney–as you can even see from the animals on the ticket.  They have a It’s a Small World After All ride (Global Village), Dumbo, etc and areas devoted to different parts of the world like Epcot.

We took the first bus from Busan (5:20am) and got there before 10am which is when they open. There were about a million kids there on school trips!

There were some great decorations and other areas that were just beautiful because of the snow.

When we arrived, most of the rides were closed because it was ‘too cold’ for them to be open. As that morning had not been any colder than other mornings around that time of the year, I thought it was a rip off because if it did not get warm enough they would not open the rides. I understand the safety aspect, but why would they not say this on their website? I would have wanted money back if all the roller coasters and fun rides had stayed closed all day–I don’t want to go on kiddie rides all day! After lunch all the rides opened though! Well, all but the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world–T Express. (I don’t think their website is correct in saying it is the steepest ride in the world because a few years ago a roller coaster in Florida opened with a 90 degree drop in it.)

Hurricane: The first ride we went on. I had low expectations since they let us hold our backpacks but it went A LOT higher than I thought. Good ride. With some odd signage.

Championship Rodeo: This ride was very ‘Americanized’ and turned into a wild-west themed rodeo with posters of Western movie heroes riding horses and trying to catch bulls and the like. The ride itself was quite good, spinning in a car which spins on an access which will throw you back and forth so it is like you are at a rodeo.

Global Village: copy of It’s a Small World After All. Creepy dolls galore with mostly European countries represented (only 3 from the Americas, 1 from Africa and 4 from Asia).

Flying Rescue: A kids ride, but a fun one. You control the up and down of it while it spins around (but we were never sure who were were supposed to be rescuing). I’m trying to look mean in the picture below because both sides get a control and we were saying that it was going to be “I want to go up” “WELL TOO BAD I WANT TO GO DOWN” and then you slam on the lever.

Peter Pan: Don’t understand the name of this one as the carts were all attached to a viking style ship, not a captain hook looking one. That is what I originally thought anyway, looking at the picture below, I’m not sure why I did. But alas, it was a bit boring as you did just go in a circle with a few up and downs that did not go that high. The only bit that amused me was when I noticed the only thing making us go around is one wheel on the track–which I thought was odd because there could have just as easily been more.

Magic Swing: The lady who locks you in slammed the bar on my leg and when I let out a yelp she just looked at me, pulled the bar up and when I moved my leg put it back down without looking sad or saying anything. You slide back and forth and spin (not all the way around, just like 90 degrees).

Rotating House: trick on your mind: you sit and the room spins. I expected that, and then still freaked out a bit, grabbing onto the bar for dear life before realizing my hair and scarf were not starting to hang above my head and I didn’t move at all. There are goblin creatures speaking to you the whole time, seemingly fighting.

Mystery Mansion: shooting game! You have a speech by an old man about ghosts and how you can shoot them with a lazer gun (it was in Korean, but there was a sign in English before entry), then sit on a cart which goes though a tunnel and you shoot green dots. I got second place and my friend got 1st.

Pororo 3D Adventure: don’t let the fact that there are English subtitles in the entry fool you–there are none inside the actual theater itself. That being said, you don’t really need them as the story is pretty easy to figure out–cute, and a good way to sit inside and away from the cold.

Racing Coaster: kids roller coaster, but don’t dismiss these. They can be quite fun and this one did not disappoint! Never a long line and the rides are just as long as the ‘adult’ ones.

Rolling X-Train: Good roller coaster, longggg line (at least when I was there). Two loop-d-loops!

Let’s Twist: I have never seen a ride like this and I loved it! Lot’s of 50s American music playing and lots of flips. During the ride I worried about how well others had tied their shoes on….

Double Rock Spin: Standard ride that I love. This one spun a lot more than any I had been on before–if you get to the top the main operating it will just spin you in circles which was awesome to me!…but made my friend sick.

Top Jet: Another fun kids ride! You go in circles and control if you spin more and go up and down.

Petting Zoo: sheep, chicks, bunnies, roosters, and hamsters–the sheep were really interested in my popcorn!

Safari World: It’s….interesting. The bears have been trained which I don’t think is a good idea…what if people get too comfortable with them, forgetting they are wild and they kill staff? Or the kids who see them doing tricks think they area always like that and approach one in the wild? Was pretty cool to see white tigers, but they also have lions which were not in the right setting–snow with 3 male lions in the same pride. Not sure if two were young ‘uns but they didn’t look small…I think there were some ligers too (they were advertised but I’m not sure if I saw a liger or a big lion).

Moonlight Parade (~12/31): Beautiful parade! My friend did say that it did not change in 10 years though, which would be a bit dull if you went every year (either in it or had kids who couldn’t remember that it was the same everytime). The floats were amazing and one had fire coming out of it!

Magic in the Sky (~12/30): Since when is Santa a pyro? He was conducting fire and fireworks in this show.Also, the fireworks go off pretty close to you and are angled to not go directly off, but go towards the audience, which made sense of the message to ‘look out for falling debris’. Pretty good show for 10 minutes.