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Surabaya Night Carnival is a family-friendly theme parks offering a fun night-escape with plenty daring rides and amusements. After being there for almost three years or so, I finally got the chance to visit it. It was one hell of a night, I assure you!
Surabaya is not really a touristy place. Several years ago, I and my friends planned to really become the tourist in Surabaya and it FAILED miserably, because I couldn’t find any interesting place to check out. Seriously, it is so boring and flat, they don’t have many things to show off about. Maybe it also has something to do with the fact that their weather is so hot, it’s impossible to walk around outside without sweating.
One day, my cousin told me that there’s this new amusement park called Surabaya Night Carnival, and I couldn’t wait to go there because well, you know how much I LOVE THEME PARKS! The ticket price is IDR 60,000 on weekdays and IDR 80,000 for weekends. With that ticket, you can go and try all the rides twice. So, without further ado, I would like to give you the 7 “Must-Do” things if you find yourself there:
7 Things to Do in Surabaya Night Carnival
1. First off, learn and absorb the history lesson of Surabaya
Entering the theme park, the first thing you will see is the Galeri Surabaya. I was kinda reluctant at first because I don’t really like going to a museum (except a science museum), but the variety and storyline in the museum was captivating enough. It’s not the usual “infographic and old pictures”-kind-of-museum. To my surprise, all of the museum collections are interactive, engaging, and relatable to everyone ever live in Surabaya. You can see the mock-up of local culinary dishes, transportation vehicles, and my favorite part: conversation balloon consisting of common swearing in local language. HA HA!
2. Ride the ferris wheel
The ferris wheel in Surabaya Night Carnival is a must-ride! Appropriate for all-ages, this old thing is a fun way to begin your adventure. Wait until it’s dark enough, because the view will be more awesome from above. You can see the overall layout of the park and also some city landscape of Surabaya. It goes pretty high and there’s no window, so nothing is blocking your view, while you can also enjoy the cool night breeze.
3. If you bring kids, carousel and candy-land is a must-go
Every theme park HAS TO have high quality ferris wheel and carousel. Otherwise, are they really theme parks and carnivals? So, if you bring your kids with you, you can go to carousel and candy-land. Surabaya Night Carnival has pretty carousel and the candy-land is like a colorful little zone that you can take Instagram-able family pictures in.
4. Blue Shark is a must for adrenaline junkie
I’m an adrenaline junkie, and I’ve tried several theme parks abroad, but this ride is the most terrifying so far. BLUE SHARK in Surabaya Night Carnival is like Tornado in Dunia Fantasi, Ancol. Basically they will turn you upside down for five minutes, they’ll hang you mid-air, they dump you to the ground, and you’ll end up screaming your lungs out. So I tried the Blue Shark with my whole family (yes, we block all the 20 seats) and none of them get it off with a smile in their faces. Seriously. We even had to calm ourselves for half an hour before our brain starts functioning like normal :’)
Even the ride has the sign said “Prove your guts”, so if you’re really up for a challenge, you must try this!
5. Try out all the rides!
Aside from the Blue Shark, you can warm up with other extreme rides such as roller coaster (Tambang Mas Coaster) made out of wood instead of metal, spaceship speed, twirling house, Superman Fly, Go Kart, etc. What I like about Surabaya Night Carnival is they actually know how to make the rides not-to-scary for kids but scary-enough for the adults.
6. Be on Your Way to the Ghost Ship
As a person who never watch horror movies, I really hate going to the Haunted House. It’s that one area in a theme park that I always avoid. But I had no other option since all of my family went in. Honestly, I just pulled my brother’s shirt the whole time and closed my eyes along the trip. So there’s not much that I can remember about the Ghost Ship in Surabaya Night Carnival. But still, you can’t miss it, especially if you’re not easily scared like I am!
7. Last but not least, visit the mini 3D-and-Wax Museum
In Indonesia, “selfie destination” is becoming a trend. People want to go to holiday destinations where they can pose unique pictures in Instagram. Therefore, Madame-Tussauds-like museum where they display famous people in wax is popular, even though the quality of the wax looks more like a mannequin LOL.

Surabaya Night Carnival
In Surabaya Night Carnival, you can also spot this kind of “museum”. There’s a 3D-art paintings and effects to make your pictures unique and funny. It’s a good time to collect as many pictures as possible for your social media feeds. Here are some of the pictures if you need the reference.
Ah-niwayyyy, there I gave you the highlight of my recent trip to Surabaya Night Carnival. Needless to say I had so much fun in one night! I think it’s a clever idea to have the park opens at night because the weather is much tolerable and people can visit after office-hour.
Some tips: 1) Get your map on the ticket counter, 2) Prioritize which rides you want to try, 3) Eat at least two hours before trying the extreme rides like Blue Shark, 4) Pay attention to which rides are included in your ticket and which aren’t, 5) Dehydrate yourself with plenty of water as it is also exhausting to try all the rides.
I hope you have a good time there! See ya again in my next theme park review 😉
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