You're a wealthy tourist heading to the southern end of Taiwan for a couple days. What do you do? Well, you probably go to E-Da World.
The entire complex - a huge one at that - is themed to look like classic Roman architecture. That includes a few giant statues, as you'll see as you continue.
A large Ferris wheel sits atop the massive mall at one end of the resort. From there, you can get a good idea of how big the place is. Way off in the distance, on the left side, a tower stands out behind some roof tops. That is one of the rides for the amusement park.
I think there are a couple hotels on-site (there is at least one as you can see). It's up in the hills, but express buses leave from Kaohsiung frequently.
If you take the bus, you'll stop at the hotel first. It has a grand entrance, of course.
Off in the distance, I think some other hotels and cottages and such are available. It looks like there's a go-kart track back there. Obviously, I visited on a rainy day, so if there was any go-karting possible, it probably wouldn't have been open.
The multi-story mall has a ton of souvenir shops, plus clothing stores and other places you'd probably expect to find in a mall.
Down at the bottom, you can go ice skating too.
But there's that tower off in the distance. I can't wait to ride! (Oh, and that blue thing at the bottom is a water ride...)
My favorite ride at the park was this giant spinning thing. It's actually the tallest attraction in the park and gives wonderful views, although when you're at the top you're just as likely to be upside down as right side up.
Many of the smaller attractions are inside the building. This is wonderful given the amount of rainfall Taiwan receives and the sweltering temperatures outside.
Most of the rides and attractions are geared toward smaller kids.
The theming continues inside; this part of the park is made to look like a castle. Except that western barn looking thing at the bottom.
More Italian styled theming. It's quite nice.
I forgot what this is even for. There are a couple roller coasters inside the building, including one that you can't see from the outside queue (maybe that's what this is for). If you're going for coasters, be sure to know the names (English signage is pretty good here) so you can find the indoor one.
Anyone for hang-gliding?
Early in the day, lines for several attractions were fairly long, partly because the outdoor rides were closed due to the torrential downpour. However, families (and tour groups?) cleared out early enough to browse the mall and other attractions to allow me to enjoy everything in the park as much as I wanted.
This safari ride is so realistic, you'll easily forget you're in a building themed to look like an Italian castle!
This little rocking boat ride was lonely when I went by.
Many of the rides are very small, inexpensive setups. The kids rides closed earlier than the larger, more-thrilling ones.
Speaking of thrilling rides, how's that spinning coaster? Oh, it's closed. It didn't open up until well into the afternoon, creating long lines.
This roller skater roller coaster is supposed to be like traveling through a space mine.
Until you go into the rest of the park and see another kid's ride.
Is the barn supposed to simulate a tornado?
I'm hungry. Let's stock up on doodoo!
And then ride the little
two-story carousel.
At the far end of the park; inside this building is most of the children's attractions and the spinning coaster is on the roof.
A monorail runs from one end of the park to the other. When I originally researched the park, it seemed that the only way to get from the entrance to the back side of the park was to take the monorail. It turns out this is true
if you don't want to go outside. With the rain, everyone was taking the monorail and lines were pretty long, but you could just take the path past all the big outdoor rides.
Speaking of which, here's one of the big rides outdoors. It's a coaster that basically goes back and forth on the track a few times. It was okay (better at night) but not worth waiting for - they ran it only once every 15 minutes.
The log flume ride looked really cool, but I didn't go on it for some reason. It's across from the U coaster.
And looking back toward that end of the park where the kids rides are, you can see a giant trojan horse. Awesome.
This nicely themed attraction is a great way to cool off.
You get sprayed by all kinds of fountains and stuff and you can battle other boats with your water guns when you pass nearby.
Again, the theming here is great. It's hard to tell whether you're going into an attraction, back into the mall, or into a store or restaurant.
Case in point: this strange, nicely themed entrance here. Is this just an entrance back to the mall, the indoor theme park, a 3D show, the water ride that runs on top of it, or something entirely different? Luckily I had time to explore and found myself going in and out of buildings quite often.
The U-shaped ride is where the giant cyclops lives.
Along the path was this little water fountain area. If only a beautiful mermaid had been sitting on that shell or riding a dolphin...
All the Italian villa buildings lead to some attractions. Again, it's hard to tell what is what, and there is a restaurant or two in there too.
One of the attractions was some strange house. Or village. Including a cupcake room.
Let's enjoy a fire with our cracker-covered walls!
Yeah. I have no idea what this is.
Oh look, the spinning coaster is finally open! And there's a line. It moved fairly quickly.
In fact, by mid-afternoon all the rides were running well. Long lines got short pretty quick.
On my favorite ride (the highest one that goes upside down too) I was able to snap a quick picture while the other half of the seats were loading. As you can see the park is very narrow and long, with the castle way in the back.
I wonder what's up here. What's in all those doors? I don't think I figured it out entirely, though there's at least one restaurant back there.
Mexican Hat Dance! That's a fairly fun little ride.
Night began to fall but I was able to ride everything up until closing.
The cyclops watched over the ride the entire time.
At least I got to go on all the rides!
Oh, by the way, there are a few shows scattered throughout the day. Right before closing there was a parade of sorts that I didn't really see, but around midday I happened to catch a different parade that ended at the castle.
There are a lot of dancers and they put on a pretty good show. At one point some people came down from the Trojan horse.
I think she saw my camera and decided to strike a pose.
I noticed a couple of dancers that looked to be westerners. Compared to Japan, Taiwan doesn't have a lot of foreigners so seeing one outside of Taipei was a little surprising.
I told you she was posing for my camera.
I stayed until the park was closed, but they left the lights shining as I waited for the bus back to the train station.
If you're curious about food options, know that in addition to smaller locations throughout the theme park itself, there are plenty of restaurants in the mall area.
E-Da World may not fill your entire day, but you can certainly spend more than a couple hours here riding all the thrill rides a few times and walking through the mall. I bought an all-day pass that included a ride on the Ferris wheel and found a way to enjoy the entire day there by re-riding the coasters and other thrill rides and trying a lot of the smaller rides I might skip at a busier park. A free pass for the day is NT$899, and the park is open until 5pm (much later on weekends and certain holidays, and in the summer ). Buses from the high speed rail line and other important locations around Kaohsiung go right to the park (every 15-30 minutes from the high speed rail station, less frequently from other locations). Look for bus #8501 from HSR, or 8502, 8503, 8504, 8505, or 8506 from other locations.
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