Seaside Parks of Korea

[Garet]

So with Corona still running rampant in Korea, and some of the parks still having reservation policies on rides that sell out instantly, my family and I have taken to checking out some of the smaller pay per ride parks that are littered around the edges of the country while also enjoying the ocean views and fresh sea-food restaurants that are there. It's been something I wanted to do for a while because these parks change rides so often that you never quite know what you're going to find there so it made sense to use 2021-22 to check out these less crowded places.

The first TR is My Land located on the island of Wolmi, not too far from the international airport. This area is quite popular not being too far from Seoul and the China Town area for people who want a breather away from the city. The locals seem to realize this because on my way to the park in my car, every old lady was trying to wave me down to park at their restaurant for $2 all-day parking. Honestly, this park was a little weird both for the rides and the systems, it seems to mostly be owned by the same company since looking back at the park on street view the rides constantly change areas, but there were quite a few separate ticket booths so you had to first find the booth and buy a ticket for a specific ride at that booth even though prices were the same. The rides weren't exactly made by well known companies either and cycles could be really short, and though we found some nicer parks later that my son really enjoyed, I'm featuring this park first since it was probably the biggest out of all the parks we visited and for reasons you'll see later.



Welcome to My Land.

So straight away, you may have noticed something strange about this park.

This parks claim to fame is apparently that it's Pirate ships swing up to 110 degrees when you ride them.

This first Pirate Ship definitely tries to compete with the others by offering a pretty high swing.

I keep saying Pirate Ship but I should be more culturally sensitive. In Korea, they've nearly always called Viking. Remember this if you ever visit, it's on the immigration test.

 

Unlike most rides, this one had it's own ticket booth and sits on it's own outside of the park.

I have no proof of this but since this one is named just Viking and sits outside of the park I've made up my own head canon that this was here first before all the others and has refused to move out as bigger and newer rides come in.

It's the Carl Fredricksen of Viking rides and since I'm pretty sure no one else is going to trek out here to visit the park or do a TR, no-one can prove otherwise.

Although it wasn't running too crazy on my visit, this ride does definitely swing pretty far, to match the posters claims.

Onto the main area of the park and there's one of these that can be seen at a lot of carnivals but are actually pretty uncommon here in Korea.

However, one thing that is common in Korea are the Tagadas/Disco Pang Pang.

These things always attract a crowd, both of riders and people who like to watch people get tortured.

This one came with a DJ who would pick on certain riders. They especially like to pick on foreigners. I was a coward and didn't want to ride. If I want to get ridiculed in front of a bunch of Korean's, I'd just go teach one of my classes.

So why am I bumping this park's TR to today? It's election day in Korea which means interviews with AI's of previous/dead/imprisioned president's but the one that seems to make the international news is the election results full of the most random CGI situations. Previous elections had candidates on the roller-coaster T Express, duking it out Mad Max style or racing on a ski slope and this park popped up today as one of the graphics. I've instantly dated this TR!

I feel like more people would watch the elections if they could watch Trump and Biden enjoy some rides together or duke it out Mad Max style as the results came in. It also seems like the US election in that a lot of people aren't too fond of either candidate.

My favorite part is the minor candidates don't even get to ride, they just get CGI'd into observers on the other ride's platform.

I wasn't kidding about Mad Max being one of the ways to announce election results.

Let's move on, this park also has one of those frog hopper type rides, but it didn't seem too popular.

On to the second viking. This one is different from the other one in that it's bigger. If that wasn't clear enough, it's also called Super Viking.

I bet your wondering why the park would have two vikings but only one tagada... well don't worry the park balanced it out with a second tagada 50m from the first one.

Next is another swinging ride. The park used to have an actual Huss Frisbee called Hurricane, but decided to replace it with this 90 degree swinging ride named.... Hurricane. This one had carnival levels of spin on the actual disc and could be pretty nauseating.

There was also a merry-go-round at the park but I completely forgot to take a picture of it, so this is the closest thing for a park index photo.

Rounding out the middle area is the chair swings.

and one of those old simulators with gull wing doors that still live on in RCT.

There was also this drop tower, that operated with a counter-weight and pulley from an unknown manufacturer.

Fun Fact: Have you ever ridden a drop tower and wondered, what would happen if the tower didn't actually stop at the bottom? Happened on this ride.

There's a 3rd viking, just in case the non-existent crowds at the other two make the lines too long. This one is called Eagle Viking. It's not tall or has a crazy swing like the others, so I guess it's just there for the people who really enjoy riding Pirate Ships but are disappointing there just isn't enough Eagle theming on them.

The newest ride to the park was Mega Swing 360.

This thing really lived up to it's name. In that on the day of my visit, you did literally a 360 swing and then the power got cut. Not just in terms of the swing but even the pendulum spinning or brakes. The disc starts spinning, you rotate back and forth a couple of times and do the 360 degree swing.... and then the disc locks into place, drop back to 90 degrees and you swing very slowly back and forth for the next 2 minutes until the ride stops wondering WTF just happened.

Watching on YouTube, it doesn't seem to be the usual cycle but it definitely was the one given to all riders on the day I visited. Maybe it was a good thing, because the ride also seemed to be a knock off and required an over the shoulder seat belt that was put on after and over the restraints.

I bet you're wondering, why does this park have only two Tagadas but 3 Vikings? Well don't worry because this new area of the park (that used to be the car park) also comes with a 3rd Tagada.

This is that new area, they also moved the ejection seat from the main area of the park over to the side here.

As you can see this park, is very big on its swinging rides.

You can get an idea of the size of the park here. They really cram all of it into a very small space.

Squid Game cash-ins were extremely common in the area. These used to be only a dollar but with popularity exploding, they were selling all alone the ocean front for $3-5.

While at My Land they had adverts for their sister park only 400m down the road. After 3 Viking's and 3 Tagada's, and being so close to the other park I'm sure there'll be completely different rides to experience.... right?

[AmyUD06]

I love it!  Please, more!

[Nrthwnd]

That is a lot of rides, there! And that Super Viking! Whoah. I wish ours went that high.

And in that last photo ... is that a monorail of some kind running by, there? Just curious.

Looking forward to seeing more of those "seaside parks" you have visited.

[Garet]

So 400m down the road was Wolmi Theme Park. After 3 viking rides and 3 tagada rides as well as being owned by the same company as the previous park, I was curious what rides they would have to differentiate from their sister park being so close together.

Looking up old videos online, the park was hope to a pair of S&S towers, which would be a little unique for Korea and a Chance Double Inverter.... I remember Submission at Alton Towers being one of my least favorite flat rides but again it would be a ride that was unique to Korea.

400m down and we've already arrived. Notice the yellow curves on top of that building? That's where the other park is located. To answer Northwind's question, yes that is a monorail.

Welcome to Wolmi Theme Park.

These two rides do stand out and can be seen all along the sea-front. You may have noticed already that one of the towers is missing.

Giant ferris wheels aren't as common in Korea compared to Japan,but there are quite a few parks that either have them or keep them SBNO for over a decade, cough, Everland, cough, to look pretty.

This one had a more unique carriage design at least.

Here's the monorail from earlier. It runs along most of the island, but it's a one way system and trains seemed to go about every 10 minutes. Corona here was 500,000 a day and the stations looked busy so sadly we skipped it.

It's a shame, because it went right around the perimeter of the park and this would probably give great views of hereand of the rest of the island. I love little seaside monorails, I remember riding one in Yokohama with little curtains on the window and seeing Blue Fall (RIP) approach as we went to sea paradise.

So the original space-shot was removed, which was a shame but at least there is another S&S space shot in Korea (future spoilers). However they left in Hyper Drop, which would be unique to Korea.

Unfortunately it was closed despite it being a busy Saturday due to fireworks. It's still listed on the site and ticket box so maybe I was just unlucky but the space-shot next to it had recently been removed.

Let's move on to the open rides.... and it's another Tagada. So this is the 4th one in one day.

Plot twist though, there's also a mini one. Korea starts them young on training for this ride.

Let's look for another completely unique ride that hasn't been seen 3 times already in this TR.

OK, joking aside let's now move on to other flat rides of the park. There's a jumping ride just like the one 400m down the road.

A old school simulator... I think I saw another one of these somewhere.

And the Universal Studios log flume. I didn't take a picture in the last park but would it surprise you at this point to know that there was also one of these (minus themeing) at the previous park?

If you didn't believe me before that this is Universal Studios Log Flume, well Spider-Man is also there plus you get lightly splashed in the face just like most Universal rides.

Notice the trampolines/rolling pin slide in the background, that was where the space-shot used to be.

There were a couple of rides unique to the park.

A road train was here, which are fairly common in areas where families visit.

And an assortment of children's rides and indoor play area under cover or inside for when there's bad weather.

 

Up on the roof to overlook the park. The boat ride is probably not running today...

Spin Coaster, the islands only credit. This ride is where the Chance Double Inverter used to be. The park seemed to be mostly visited by families and with Cyberloop replaced by this coaster, the Space-shot replaced by trampolines, I would not be surprised if Hyper Drop was actually closed for good.

I'll close out this TR with some shots from the Ferris Wheel.

Some high tech air-con in here. Like most indoor rides, it was covered in grafitti.

Was hard to tell why the ride was closed, no-one seemed to be working on it and I can't find any recent videos of it from after my visit.

The Hyper Drop may be the tallest ride on the island.

You can see how small the park is from the top of the Ferris Wheel.

 

For a seaside park thread, I haven't shown much of the sea... That's because the view is under construction....

If you look in the center of the picture you can see the drop tower and Viking of the other park to show how close the parks are to each other.

Ok, I'll wrap this park up with some final views and thoughts of the island.

If your coming to the island for rides, you'll probably be disappointed. It can be a little trek from Seoul but it's not too bad to get her overall. It is close to the airport though so can always be a first port of call if you're flying in. Although I didn't visit there's also a very small indoor park called Wonderbox even closer to the airport. China Town is also located at the entrance to the island.

If you just want to eat some food, enjoy the sea views and just get a break from the city life though, it's probably one of the closest seaside parks to Seoul.

See you next time Wolmi Island.

[Nrthwnd]

Great report. And ....I want my own mini-Tagada, lol! Really! I remember seeing this size as a display version, at a past convention. But I never really thought that somebody would actually buy this smaller version,. etc. Or that it was available, at all! My mistake.

And thanks for all the monorail info, too.