Lotte World - A Quick Look

A few weeks ago I had the privilege of joining a few friends in Seoul for the weekend. One of the things that ended up in our schedule was a stop at Lotte World. Now a number of my students have gone and have said that it was unbelievably fun, so I was game. But I always have to remind myself that I teach kindergarten and what they find unbelievable might differ from what I think.

We decided to go after 4:00 because it was marginally cheaper and we didn't feel that spending the whole day at the park was necessary. Our first order of business was to find a restroom for a few of the over active bladders in our group. This meant a walk through the park; a chance to have a look at what we had just gotten access to by paying our 27500 won($25).

I distinctly remember standing outside the washroom with one of the other guys thinking what child's play we had gotten ourselves in to. We were not even close to impressed. But having paid our dues we decided to try a few of the rides out.

Our first ride was the indoor roller coaster called French Revolution, after a solid wait of three quarter hour we were ready to be blown away. While the ride didn't do that, it was a bit better than we had expected, hitting a top speed of 90 km/h, having a loop and a few corkscrews. We were ready to see what else the park had to offer.

The next ride that we decided to participate in at the over whelming desire of one of our group was the overly tame looking boat swing called Conquistador. After a short wait we managed to get seats right at the back of the boat making our swing the most intense that if could be. For what it was, it was a lot of fun.

From there we decided to see what was outside. Being winter it was a little chilly but that just meant that the lines were a little shorter. We decided to try out the Gyro Drop due to the lack of wait time, seeing as there was no line and it was almost ready to go. I have never ridden a drop ride and I was not ready for what came.

The gyro in the name is overly tame as all that it does is slowly spin while you go up. Seeing that you are outside it feels as though you can see the whole city. Half way up the tower it starts pulling you up faster and it just keeps going higher and higher. A full 70 meters when if finally locks off. The seconds that follow are well drawn out as you mentally work through what is about to happen. What follows is a overstimulation of your brain trying to figure out what is happening and what you can do about it. Then just like that it is all over, your feet are back on solid ground and you are working on how to get back in line to do it again.

We did a number of other rides some we liked, others we wondered what the line up was all about but for the most part we had a blast. I would not recommend it to everyone, it would have been very easy to take one look around and write it off but I think part of what made it was that we were all in a good mood and pretty easy to please.

If you are interested they had a different live performance every time we walked through the main area. One time it was a dancing group on the stage, the next a live orchestra, then a lady doing acrobatics while suspended from a ballon, then a fire and laser show and I am sure we missed/ignored one or two. I would also be a great date spot as there are enough things going on to make some interesting conversations as well as some lasting memories.

Here are a few weak pictures to give you a slightly bland taste of what it is like: