Korean Diaries : Everland Amusement Park

Finally on the weekend of 4 April I found the required company and the weather favourable to go to  Everland amusement park. This was the weekend I was looking most forward too since Everland is considered one of the best theme parks in the world , coming next only to the Disneylands.

There were totally 3 adrenaline junkies ready to take on the spine chilling rides of this place. It was Sathwick, Sunil and myself. We all met near the Guesthouse at around 8.30 am and started moving towards the bus-stop to catch the bus to this place. There are number of buses plying between the Suwon Metro Station and Everland (10-5, 66, 66-1, 66-3, 66-4 and for all these routes everland is the last stop).As soon as we reached the stop a 66-4 arrived and we hopped into it. Dropped the 1000 Won/head cash into the cash machine and made ourselves comfortable since it was expected us to take nearly an hour to reach this place.

Reached the entrance of the everland fantasy park at around 10.15 am. There we booked the tickets , simultaneously producing the discount voucher of around 4K won for foriegners.(Discount voucher is in the everland website). Hence the total entry fee was 33K Won/head. When we entered the place it seemed like some magical place. A sort of fairy-land one would see in the movies. This is just enough to pull all the korean families with kids to visit this place. Also there was an ongoing Tulip flower festival at this place. So everywhere we found tulip flowers being planted. In fact this place hosts different festivals at different time of the year. Tulip festival in spring, Halloween during October and christmas during November/December and so on. At the entrance there are guide maps for the entire park. In the absence of these, you would be blind mice in the sewer tunnel system :P.

The highlight of the day would be the T-Express roller coaster , considered the best wooden roller coaster in the world and having the title of World's steepest wooden roller coaster with 77 degree drop, with the drop length being a shocking 150 feet. But to get warmed up before stepping into this monster we started with the Rolling X-train. This is also a roller coaster which has two 360 degree loops. We waited for nearly 20 mins to get our turn and finally it came. This ride was awesome with the 2 360 degree loops being the high points. Now we were more than warmed up :D.

Next we tried 'Lets Twist' where people are strapped on to their seats, taken up to nearly 100 ft and rotated around in very odd angles like a maniac. Also I tried 'Double rock spin' which is also similiar to the previous. Now sufficiently warmed up we decided it was time for us to move towards THE T-Express. In fact this was Sathwick's second outing to everland and this one was just becoz he had missed the T-Express the previous time. Took a cable car from the American attractions to the European attractions where the T-Express is. Enroute found the tracks of the T-Express giving a very intimidating picture to us.

Went to the entrance of the T-Express where the waiting time was nearly 60 minutes (on all rides they give the expected time which is very helpful ) and so waited in the queue. According to some statistics the revenue of Everland nearly doubled after the installation of this beast in 2008.

[T-Express]

Then finally after waiting for nearly 60 minutes in the queue we got the oppurtunity to get into the roller coaster. As soon as ride started, felt whoa... my heart started skipping a beat. Initially there is a nearly 200 ft feet climb in order to get the necessary potential energy. Now the dreaded 150 ft, 77 degree drop was coming into our view. Was nervous like anything. Then began the drop ..... EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK....... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH....Never had I shouted so hard in my life... Ofcouse it was becoz never in my life had I felt so scared.... I can still remember the exact vision I had during those few seconds.... dropping almost vertical... infact i was floating within my seats taking a g-force of 4.5g. After this initial drop the other up's and down's were not upto the previous drops stature, but it was equally thrilling. After a couple a minutes the roaller coaster came to halt. Felt awesome. This is the best theme park ride i had ever had :). If not for this typed blog, anyone would have noticed me still shaking with fear :D :D.

We roamed around the Four Season gardens, taking pics. Now there was an announcement going on that some parade was goingto begin. So decided to chill out and watch the parade. Out came the "Carnival Fantasy Parade". It had lots of artists dressed in fairies, kings, queens. Kids love this sort of parades and believe me there were a lot of them :). Also a majority of the artists were Europeans and they were real pretty :P. The parade lasted for nearly 15 minutes.

Moved towards 'Flume Ride' where a roller coaster splashes around into water. This was mildly thrilling. Like that we covered many more rides like 'Columbus', 'Hurricane' etc. By this time we had started to feel the hunger. We raided the nearest eatery which was Burger King. The other 2 guys were non-veg so they didnt have a problem and they got chiken burger. I had no choice but to go for french fries and some fried cheese, the only two veg items on the menu. Although I highly suspect whether the oil used for the same is derived from plant extracts or not , but this was the nearest to a veg meal I could get here.

After the so called snacks we decided to take things a little easy and started to roam around the place. We decided it was time we headed towards the Zootopia. Here there a variety of animals. Well to be frank to see such a large number of animals in cages I felt sad, even though their condition was better than Indian Zoo's, but still they are kept in so called "Golden Cages" and freedom is denied to both of them whether in India or South Korea.


Came across a ride called the amazon express where a raft takes people through an artificial river with amazon settings around the place. From here went to the so called safari. Here the waiting time was more than an hour and it literally drained all the energy we had left if at all any. Atlast boarded into a bus and entered the safari region. This safari had tigers,lions,white tigers, elepants, zebras, giraffes, camels, bears and one liger (cross between tiger and lion). But this seemed like an extension of the zoo itself with the animals all trained. The driver had some treats for the animals and the bears were trained to dance to get the treats. This was an insult in the name of a safari. Anyway these animals had better space to roam around than their lesser fortunate cousins in the zoo.

[Tiger Tiger, Burning Bright !!!!!!!]

When we came out of the safari it was dark and the we roamed around aimlessly. By this time another night parade had started called the "Moon Light Parade". Here all the artists and the props were clad in LED lights and it was a very pretty sight to watch. This lasted for another 10 mins. After this ended we went to the most commom ride in any themepark. i.e. the bumping cars. Had a nice time here bumping cars to one another.

[Moonlight Magic Video]

After bumping into one other we roamed around going to lesser known but interesting places like 4D theatre showing a korean animation movie, Spooky Fun House where we had to shoot targets in a sort of dungeon using a lazer light. I top scored in here when compared with the other 2 guys :D. By this time it was nearly 9 pm and time was for us to leave the place. We came out of the place nearly exhausted to catch a bus to go back to our place. In fact we had completed say only 70% of the entire park , but we went for all the rides we had planned to go to. Also there is one more waterpark adjacent to this place called the "Carribean Bay" and which inturn requires another day to explore. So a total of 2 days can be spent in this awesome themepark. :). Also this place has everything for a small kid, to a adrenaline junkie, to a middle aged person. People of all ages can enjoy in here .

[Group Pic]

Anyway reached the guesthouse at around 10.30 pm , had dinner and went to sleep, with the video of the 150 feet T-Express drop still playing in my head that too in HD quality :P.



Snaps Link->
http://picasaweb.google.com/unithin/Everland#