Lotte’s Magic Forest

Busan, South Korea

“A stunning, yet incomplete family theme park”

Lotte World in Seoul is one of Asia’s most successful theme parks. Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that Lotte was looking for ways to expand. In 2022, the company’s second theme park opened in Busan, the second most populous city in South Korea. The park was officially named Lotte World Adventure Busan – Magic Forest, but I’m not planning on typing that full name ever again. That’s why I prefer to call the park Lotte’s Magic Forest. Unlike its sister park in Seoul, Magic Forest is a classic theme park in the open air. No expense was spared to create a highly themed, fairytale-like experience. Let’s have a look at the park’s offerings.

ROLLER COASTERS

Giant Digger may sound like an adult toy, but it’s actually the name of Magic Forest’s largest roller coaster. The ride is themed to a diamond mine, but you shouldn’t expect a classic mine train roller coaster. Giant Digger is a launched inversion roller coaster manufactured by Mack Rides. Its layout is identical to Blue Fire at Europa-Park, albeit in a mirrored version. This obviously doesn’t create a different ride experience: Giant Digger treats us to the same thrills, the same smoothness and the same inversions we know from Germany. As I am a huge Blue Fire fan, I’m also very positive about this Korean version. Yet, we’re noticing one flaw. The pre-launch area is filled with projectors, so it’s clear that something should be happening there. However, the room remained totally dark and quiet during our visit.

Magic Forest’s smallest credit is called Mysterious Cookie Train. The ride’s theming is rather unusual, as the station and queue were designed as a colourful cookie factory. The coaster itself, however, is far from exceptional. Mysterious Cookie Train is a custom kiddie coaster built by Preston & Barbieri. The layout is entertaining, but the track’s banking doesn’t feel right and the vehicles aren’t that comfortable. Besides, operations are slow. Despite the fact that the park was nearly empty during our visit, our wait time was approximately 30 minutes.

The third and final coaster credit at Magic Forest is a Mack PowerSplash. The Lotte company failed to come up with a more original name than Giant Splash. However, the name covers it all, as the splash is indeed gigantic. By the way: a PowerSplash is more than just a soaking water ride. I’m pleasantly surprised by its powerful accelerations and the technology behind the rapidly-rising water level is pretty cool. The park also invested a lot of money into the decoration, as the ride’s station features an impressive Viking theme.

OTHER EXPERIENCES

Magic Forest’s three largest thrill rides were given similar names. After braving the waves of Giant Splash and Giant Digger’s four inversions, thrill seekers are invited for a ride on Giant Swing. This is a Giant Discovery manufactured by Zamperla. That name is appropriate, as we are indeed talking about a major attraction. This flat ride seats 40 passengers, it swings to a maximum height of almost 50 metres and it reaches a top speed of 115 kilometres per hour. This flat ride also makes a good impression in terms of decoration. Giant Swing and Giant Digger form a themed land called The Magic Mines of Underland and it all looks excellent. The boarding platform is surrounded by an impressive rock formation and the area is filled with lots of brightly-coloured crystals.

The park’s children’s area is called Joyful Meadows and it’s themed as a colourful farm. The rides in this part of the park aren’t meant for adults. However, I should admit that theming is wonderful and the attraction names are quite hilarious. The bumper cars were named Ram Page and the merry-go-round is known as Dairy-Go-Round. The family-friendly lineup also includes a wave swinger, a swan carousel, a ride with flying chickens and a double Frog Hopper called Dancing Pony.

Looking for a way to cool down during hot summer days? Just head to Giant Splash or Ogre’s Flume. This ride has a prominent location near the entrance of the park and theming is once again top notch. The station is beautiful and there’s an impressive ogre statue near the last drop. It would’ve been even cooler if the entire ride structure had been integrated into a rock formation, but so be it. Apart from its fairytale-like theming, this is a rather standard flume ride. The layout features two descents and especially the second one is surprisingly steep. By the way: I’m glad that we bought a poncho, as Ogre’s Flume turned out to be a very wet ride.

WORTH A VISIT?

Lotte’s Magic Forest is a brand new amusement park and that creates both pros and cons. The positive news: all attractions and buildings still look fantastic. The park’s designers created well-themed areas that are filled with stunning details. And as far as I can see, they also opted for high-quality materials. That’s why I’m assuming that this place will remain just as beautiful during the coming years. In terms of entertainment, the park didn’t disappoint either. Despite rainy weather, shows in the open-air theatre continued as usual and we even saw a parade during the afternoon. These shows aren’t on the same scale as the performances you see at Lotte World Seoul, but this makes sense as Magic Forest is a considerably smaller theme park.

If we take a look at the cons of such a brand-new theme park, two things immediately come to my mind. Firstly, it’s the lack of vegetation. Despite the name of the park, it’s impossible to find anything that looks like a forest. There are tons of flowers, but fully-grown trees are nowhere to be seen (yet). Secondly, the current selection of attractions is way too limited. Those three Giant attractions provide good thrills and children will certainly find something to their liking in Joyful Meadows, but that one sentence covers 75 percent of the rides at Magic Forest. The lack of attractions becomes even clearer when we take a look at the park map: there are literally more F&B venues than rides. I’d love to see the addition of a dark ride in the park’s castle or a boat ride similar to Merlin’s Quest at Toverland. The park offers quite extensive opening times (10 AM to 9 PM every day), but we didn’t need more than four hours to ride our favourite attractions multiple times.

This is a photogenic theme park with a slightly substandard ride linup. That’s my conclusion after an afternoon at Lotte’s Magic Forest. I enjoyed the park’s scenery and the Blue Fire clone, but the park could use a few extra eyecatchers. So is it worth a visit? Yes… if you enter with the right expectations. Would you include this park in your South Korean travel itinerary? Share your opinion in the comments section at the bottom of this page.