Sun World Ba Na Hills is an amusement park that sits high up in the hills on the outskirts of Da Nang, Vietnam. With incredible cable cars heading up the mountains, to fantastic views once you’re at the top – just getting to the park is an adventure on its own. Today we are sharing how we spent a full day at the park – as well as try to make sense of what exactly Ba Na Hills is!

Sun World Ba Na Hills in Da Nang

We first heard of Sun World while doing a quick Google search of things to do in and near Da Nang. It was the very beginning of our planning and we were trying to figure out if Da Nang was really where we wanted to go for our vacation. And there was honestly very little that could be found online for Sun World Ba Na Hills. Our friend over at Loving Life Moore had visited a few months before and wrote all about it. But even after her explanation (which she admitted was confusing because the park is just that… confusing) we still weren’t completely sure what we were getting ourselves into.

The first big confusion for us when it came to Sun World was figuring out that there are actually TWO Sun World parks. There is Sun World Da Nang Wonders which was actually located about 10 minutes away from our apartment. And then there is Sun World Ba Na Hills – which seems to be the most recently built of the two and which took about 45 minutes of driving just to get to the entrance. From the entrance, you’ll wind through hallways and corridors and beautiful scenery before finally boarding one of three cable cars that will transport you to the park itself. A ticket into the park (which was honestly the most expensive thing we did while in Vietnam) includes unlimited use of the cable cars. Which is good since you have to use them to go between different sections of the park – unless you really enjoy walking.

Generally speaking, it doesn’t really matter which of the cable cars you take to enter the park. That is, unless you know where you want to head first. And as it turned out, we knew exactly where we wanted to go. Something that has put Ba Na Hills on the map is their famous Golden Bridge. Holding up the bridge are two massive marble hands. Was this bridge the sole reason I wanted to go to Ba Na Hills? Yes. Yes it was. Did the rest of my family care about the bridge? Hardly. But they love me enough to humor my ridiculous love of bridges.

But if there’s one thing I knew about the bridge, it’s that it gets crowded – and that it gets crowded fast. The park opened at… 8:00? Maybe? The hours of operation for the park are still a complete mystery to me. But we arrived right at 8:00 and there was no waiting in line for the cable cars. We walked right on to the Ga Hoi An cable car – which is the one you want to take to get directly to the Golden Bridge. The weather was hot (and humid) and the air was clear, giving us a fantastic view of the bridge from the outside before we even got there.

By the time we got to the Golden Bridge at about 8:20 in the morning, there were quite a few people on it already. It was nothing compared to what our friends had experienced – where they literally had to shuffle across the bridge one small step at a time and lean over the side of it just to get a picture. Still, even with the smaller crowd, getting a decent picture of the bridge proved difficult.

If you’re hoping to see the bridge, I recommend getting there as early as you can. By about 9:30 in the morning when we walked by the bridge again, people stood shoulder-to-shoulder as they struggled to get across the bridge. I don’t know about you, but that’s not an experience I’m eager to have. Plan to arrive at the entrance by 8:00 at the latest and take the cable car on the left (Ga Hoi An). From there you can see the bridge, as well as visit the giant Buddha, the French Garden, and the wine cellar (for an extra fee). And if you feel like that’s a really random list of things to have in a park with a giant golden hand bridge – you’re not alone. But just stick around, because it gets weirder.

While you’re there, make sure to hit up the Linh Ung Pagoda – which is modeled after its sister pagodas in the Monkey Mountains with the Lady Buddha and the Marble Mountains as well. Together the three pagodas create a triangle which is said to protect the people of Da Nang from danger.

In addition to the aforementioned… attractions, there is also a wax museum (for an extra fee), a massive castle, an entire square dedicated to beer, a French-themed village, and an indoor amusement park (where we ended up spending the last half of the day). I’m sure there are plenty of other things to do and see too, but the whole place was incredibly difficult to navigate. And just when we thought we’d seen it all, we’d find a whole new section of park that didn’t seem to be on the map. I can’t tell if this was just poor planning on the part of the map-creators, or if it was intentional to really keep the surprises coming. Either way, our whole experience was interesting – to say the least.

Brandon’s sole desire was to find the Fantasy Park – an indoor amusement park with arcade games and a variety of rides and other attractions. For my Utah friends: think Boondocks on steroids. We spent a solid hour-and-a-half just figuring out how to get to the cable car that would take us to the Fantasy Park. And even when we thought we found it, we realized we were on a train and not a cable car. Still, we boarded the train hoping it would take us to where we needed to go. It ended up taking us to a confusing indoor labyrinth of escalators, empty halls, and restaurants… so not exactly Fantasy Park. Still it was with this little detour that we discovered the lunch buffet (our Airbnb hosts purchased us the combo tickets which included the lunch buffet) and it was, in fact, lunchtime. So we decided to take a break from our frustrated wandering and stop for lunch. The buffet was crowded and chaotic and was just a little too much for me. The food was good though – and all of our kids were able to find stuff that they liked. Even so, I recommend forgoing the combo ticket and just finding food outside of the buffet. There was no shortage of food stands throughout the park.

As we exited the buffet, we happened to see a measly little sign that said “Fantasy Park” with a small arrow pointing down, yet another, empty corridor. We followed the sign and before long could hear the glorious – albeit annoying – sound of arcade games. Finally we emerged into what I can only describe as a three-story-tall cave with flashing lights and games and rides – it even had stalactites hanging from the ceiling. It was an incredible site, to say the least, even if it was masked a bit by my frustration at how it had taken to find it.

The kids immediately made a break for the ice cream stand, of all places, where we purchased the most expensive ice cream for our whole vacation. In reality it was probably a total of about $14, but when you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of VND (Vietnamese Dong), it’s hard to remember that the amount you’re actually spending is relatively small. After devouring their ice cream, we checked out all the rides. It was unfortunate that M and H were both too short to ride anything, but we had expected as much, so it was fine. Brandon took the older two kids to the Alpine Coaster – the one roller coaster-type ride in the park – while I waited inside with the younger three. L rode a few rides while I waited with the younger girls, but eventually we ended up at some kiddie rides – you know, the kind you find in shopping malls and arcades where you insert a dollar and you get a two-minute ride on a unicorn. Thankfully, the kiddie rides are all included in the price of admission, so the three younger kids got to ride over and over and over again for no extra charge. And they thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Around 4:00pm we were all getting tired, so we started the trek back to the entrance which involved getting lost (yet again), discovering a whole new section of park, taking a minute for the kids and Brandon to ride the spinning swings ride that we found in that whole new section of park, and FINALLY boarding a cable car. Upon exiting the cable car we took no less than ten different escalators to get us down the rest of the mountain. From there it was just a matter of winding through the same beautiful (yet confusing) scenery and hallways that we did at the start of our journey until we got to the pickup point where our driver was waiting. In all, getting back down to the bottom took us a grand total of two hours. It was laughable, really, because we never would have expected it all to take that long – even with the break we took for the kids to ride the swings. Still, we were all in good spirits and it was at this point that we started trying to make sense of the day.

I’ve heard Ba Na Hills compared to Epcot at Walt Disney World – and I think it’s a relatively fair comparison, if you take away most of the Disney magic. Of course I’m a little bit of a Disney snob, so every amusement or theme park I go to will forever and always be compared to Disney. Does Ba Na Hills measure up? Absolutely not – but we hadn’t expected it to anyway. At the end of the day, we were grateful for the experience. The kids and Brandon loved the rides and I loved seeing the Golden Bridge and the European-styled town. So it was a day well-spent – even if we’re still a little confused about what this place actually is.

If you’re ever in Da Nang and you don’t mind spending a little for the experience, I’d say it’s worth it. It cost our family of seven around $229.40 (5,400,000 VND) total for the combo tickets that included admission, cable cars, and the buffet. It may not seem like much for an amusement park for a family our size, but there was a LOT more we could have done in Da Nang with the same amount of money. Even so, the experience is one that we will always remember and it will forever leave us hilariously confused about the whole thing.

’til next time,

Ash

How to visit Sun World Ba Na Hills in Da Nang

Cost:
Park admission only
Adults – 750,000 VND
Children (height 1 – 1.3 meters tall) – 600,000 VND
Children under 1 meter tall – FREE
*Combo ticket (park admission + lunch buffet)
Adults – 1,250,000 VND
Children (height 1 – 1.3 meters tall) – 960,000 VND
Children under 1 meter tall – FREE

*We purchased our combo tickets through our Airbnb hosts who were able to get us a slight discount. The price I shared in the post does not match the prices shown here because of that. Check with your hotel or Airbnb hosts about the possibility of discounted tickets.

Transportation: There are a few options when it comes to getting to and from Ba Na Hills. You could rent a car or a motorbike, take a Grab (like a Uber, but Vietnam style), or hire a private driver. Each of these options are going to cost a bit, but none of it should be overwhelmingly expensive, especially if you’re staying in Da Nang. We opted to use the Grab driver that our Airbnb hosts use – and they set it all up for us. We actually had him drive us multiple places including Hoi An twice and My Son Sanctuary. In total our transportation cost to and from Ba Na Hills was 950,000 VND (about $40) – which was about the price that taking a Grab would have been for a 7-seater car.

Food: If you don’t purchase a combo ticket with the lunch buffet, finding food around the park is not going to be an issue. For one, you can bring food into the park with no issue. And even if you choose not to bring in any food, there are plenty of food stands scattered throughout all areas of the park – as well as many other sit-down restaurants that I wish we’d had the chance to try.

Accessibility: 100% I would not say this park is stroller or wheelchair friendly. There are many stairs throughout the park. And where there aren’t stairs, there are escalators or cable cars – neither of which seemed to be stroller or wheelchair friendly. We did see families walking around with strollers, but honestly, I think it would have been more of a pain than it was worth. My advice? Leave behind the stroller and bring along a good hiking backpack instead. This saved us with all the stair-climbing and escalator-riding and cable-car-hopping.

Hours: Online the hours are listed as 7:00am-10:00pm. However, from our personal experience (and based on what our Airbnb hosts told us) the hours seemed more like 8:00am-5:00pm. By about 4:30pm the food stands were closing up and the Golden Bridge was dead.