(11) 90 in 90: Into the (Ocean) World

Last week, my girlfriend and I spent a day at Ocean World, a water park a few hours away from Seoul. I've been to Caribbean Bay, another water park located next to Everland, however Ocean World was an entirely different beast. While both were water parks, Ocean World had more of everything. More slides, more pools, a bigger park, more areas to rest and a bigger variety of other attractions to see besides the slides. I may be getting ahead of myself, but in my opinion, Ocean World was a much better experience.

Getting to Ocean World is a fairly painless process. There are several buses that go directly to Ocean World and are free, as in no need to pay bus fare or swipe your travel card. They leave from a few locations in Seoul and Incheon, including places like Bupeyeong and Sinchon at different times.

The Ocean World Entrance

Once you arrive, there is a changing area at the front of the park along with an area to store picnic food and buy your tickets. after that, the rest of the park is pretty straight forward,as you can walk around the entire park with each new pool and slide located one right after the other.

We went on a Thursday, which by normal standards should have been pretty empty but due to it being the summer time and a peak season where most people in Korea are either on vacation or have extra days off work, the entire park was packed.

I didn't mind though, compared to my last visit to Caribbean Bay, which was strangely empty, seeing lots of people swimming and having fun was nice to see.

Another thing that was different (and admittedly a pleasant surprise) was the lack of covering up from many people in the park. I've been to other pools and beaches before in Korea and both guys and girls usually make it a habit of covering themselves with pull overs, big t shirts and hats. Here, i saw very few people covered up and instead swim trunks and bikinis everywhere. For someone from America, this wasn't exactly a foreign sight to see in the summer, but in Korea, this was the first time I ever saw this much on display at once much to my surprise.

The two most memorable parts of the park were the massive wave pool and the tube slide. The wave pool was probably the largest I have ever seen in Korea and America and was at any given moment filled with people. There were more than enough people to fill the entire front section of the deep end, making moving around impossible. I never felt the threat of drowning or being swept away by the waves due to the large number of people. The claustrophobia was worth it though, as the waves the pool sent out were strong and large. If you caught the wave at just the right angle, you could have easily been carried back several feet. There were times where I would struggle to stand up after a massive wave and regain my composure before another one would come crashing down on my sending me back and disorientating me even further.

There was a downside to the waves though, my girlfriend lost her balance to one of the larger waves and scrapped her leg on the bottom of the pool. Since the bottom was rough and oddly, sharp textured, she ended up getting some significant cuts. A trip to the medical ward showed that she was not the only one there as there was a line out the door of people who suffered cuts all over their bodies. Perhaps its time to invest in another material Ocean World.

The slide was also a highlight for good and bad reasons. The good being that the slide was long, the longest I have ever been on with lots of drops and steep inclines to make it feel almost like a roller coaster more than a water slide. The bad was the wait. We had to wait in line for three hours before getting the chance to go down the slide for a few minutes. My advice is to get in line as early as possible because from 12 PM on, the wait will surely stretch to 3 hours.

Towards the end of the day, we ended up relaxing in one of the spa pools filled with pine needles and also discovered by accident another water park located indoors. If I haven't stressed this enough, I'll say it again: this park is massive.

My girlfriend at the DJparty

In the center square of the park, there is a stage that throughout the day features different performers and musical acts to entertain the guests. At the end of the night when the park closed, there was a DJ on stage

complete with booming speakers and a dance area for people to gather around. Judging by the massive amount of people dancing and grinding in the center, they were having a great time even after spending hours in the water.

I had a great time at Ocean World for me and my girlfriend, it was a nice way to send off the summer, to say goodbye to our vacation period and welcome back the 9 to 5 jobs that allow us to travel to places like this in the first place. It was fun, it was wet and exciting. I could not have picked a better way to say goodbye to the summer. It's still not too late, visit Ocean World, you won't regret it.

Link to Ocean World's website