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Monday, 20 November 2023

Seoul II Day 3: Lotte World Adventure

It was another beautiful morning for a day at the theme park! This theme park fan was obviously excited! 😄

We had bread and cup noodles for breakfast in our room before heading to Lotte World Adventure!

As mentioned, we bought our tickets from Lotte Hotel World at a discounted rate of 32k won per person (adult/child) for hotel guests only. It was cheaper than Klook! Our tickets also allowed us to have special access to Lotte World via Wonder Door and comes with one time re-entry to the park (no other tickets allow re-entry)! 


I love that we didn't have to queue with everyone else to enter! We just took the lift down and strolled to the Wonder Door! 😎 The Hubby and I were given wrist tags to identify us should we need to re-enter later.

I've read that the queue for Aeronauts Balloon Ride was notoriously long so that's the first ride we headed to! It was the right decision because the wait time was only 15 minutes! 



We had a bird's eye view of the indoor part of the park! I pointed out Pharoah's Fury (the building with a huge mummy statue) to my Eldest Girl and asked her to ride it with me!


It was really fun if you don't have a fear of heights! 😁

The Boy wanted to ride Bumper Car next but the Littlest Girl was too short. 

I brought the Littlest to ride other rides instead while the rest of the family continued in the queue.

As we were exploring, we discovered Boong Boong Car for little kids between 1-1.4m in height!


The family came to look for us after their ride. The hubby brought the Littlest to ride Jumping Fish. Almost all the rides at Level 1 Kidzone were for kids 1 - 1.4m tall, hence my Boy couldn't join the Littlest because he was too tall! He was super sad 😢! We had never heard of children being too tall to sit a ride, especially since adults could ride it with a child! Anyway, be sure to check the height restrictions before you visit to avoid disappointment!

The Eldest and I headed to ride Pharaoh's Fury. On hindsight, we should have gone for this ride before riding the bumper cars when the wait time was 40 minutes. The wait time almost doubled to 70 minutes when we joined the queue!

The waiting area wasn't as fun as Disney and Universal parks of course. We were quite bored during the wait but I enjoyed spending the 1-on-1 time with my girl as she had nowhere else to go! 😆

The ride was fun but the drops were not as thrilling as I had hoped. The rest of the family, including the Littlest, could have joined us on this very tame ride!

While waiting for the Eldest and I, the rest of the family rode the Camelot Carousel.

They also rode Dragon Wild Shooting, a shooting ride.

When the Eldest and I were finally done, we joined the rest of the family at The Three Wishes Food Court for lunch.

Food was surprisingly affordable and delicious, especially considering that it was theme park food! 

After a satisfying lunch, we headed outdoors to Magic Island. 

Right in the heart of Magic Island was Lotte World's castle. Disney has Cinderella's castle, Lotte World has Magic Castle! 

We got ice cream from the Magic Truck! The kids were so excited!


You can easily spot Lotte World Tower, the tallest building in South Korea! 



We saw many guests waiting in extremely long queues outdoors and braving the cold just to ride the thrill rides! We decided that the rides were not worth freezing for more than an hour per ride! We rode the Petit Pang Pang for fun instead!



We queued to ride Swing Tree but the Littlest was not tall enough. So my Mum brought her to ride MerKing's Royal Pageant while the rest of us rode the swings.


We headed back inside after we had finished exploring the outdoor park.

We had wanted to ride the monorail but the long wait time deterred us. We returned to our hotel to rest instead. By accident, we discovered that one of our hotel lifts had a panel of glass that gave us a beautiful view of Lotte World as we ascended!

While my mum and kids rested in the hotel room, the Hubby and I shopped on our own at Lotte Departmental Store and Lotte Mart to stock up on cheap groceries!

We also realised that tourists who spend a minimum amount will get free stickers, post cards and a T-money card for transport!

We could have redeemed 2 sets as our purchase the day before was so close to the minimum amount! Super wasted!

By the time we walked back to our hotel, the sun was setting!

We headed to the same restaurant where we had dinner the day before because we loved it so much! It was one of the Korean Traditional Restaurants located next to the Lotte World Folk Museum at Level 3.


After a very satisfying dinner, we thought we could re-enter Lotte World using the entrance located next to the restaurant. However, the staff informed us that we could only re-enter through Wonder Door. It was annoying but we had no choice except to make the long walk all the way back to our hotel!


Lotte World at night was really beautiful! We made a beeline for The Adventures of Sinbad as there was a relatively short queue! I assured the family (maybe a little too confidently) that this was a very tame ride that wasn't scary at all (I mean, Pharoah's Fury was super tame right?).

It turned out to have not one, but two drops! The Boy was so shocked he actually cried because he did not expect the drops! The Eldest and I were thrilled though! Super fun!

When we exited the ride, we saw that many people had already sat down near the parade route to reserve a good spot for the Happy Christmas Parade. We joined the crowd and found a good spot near the front. The parade was small (compared to Disney of course) but had the same vibe and feels! There was even fire and fake snow!



After the parade, we headed outdoors to catch the Magic Castle Lights Up show! We found a good spot in front of the castle and caught sight of the beautifully illuminated Lotte World Tower! It fit really well into the back drop!


Magic Castle was illuminated with projection mapping onto the castle. The effects were really good and better than I had expected, given that the castle was a third the size of Disney's castle and there were no fireworks!


After the show, we basked in the atmosphere as we left the park.

You can consider visiting Legoland Korea or Everland (see our previous visit here) if you prefer a bigger theme park but both are located outside of Seoul and require you to travel quite a distance to get there. Lotte World, on the other hand, is conveniently located within Seoul and has easy access to the hotel and mall. It's also budget-friendly and has enough attractions to justify the price. The attractions were suitable for all ages, including the adventurous. Families with babies will be happy to know that there were nursing rooms available. The park was also one third the size of most popular theme parks, which meant less walking and more enjoyment! We enjoyed ourselves more than we expected! 😄

Just before the pool closed for the day, I brought the Littlest to swim while her dad went to the spa.  I've been wanting to go to the spa since the day before but they did not allow kids below 14 years of age and we were not allowed to leave and return as we could only enter once per day. Well, at least the Littlest had fun and played until the waters stopped flowing because the pool was closed!

When the Hubby returned from the spa, he raved about how great it was! I was determined to go the next morning! Can't wait!


Continue to >> Seoul II Day 4: Lotte Spa, Kids Club & Solaria Nishitetsu Myeongdong

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Seoul, South Korea 
as well as other travel itineraries! 


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