Comparing Bali's amusement parks: Waterbom — named the world's best water park by Tripadvisor in 2025, the indoor Trans Studio, the Gianyar safari park, the Bedugul rope park and Ubud's famous swings. Prices, how to choose, when to go.
Bali doesn’t compete with Tokyo or Shanghai in the number of roller coasters, but the island has an unexpected trump card: a water park that in 2025 Tripadvisor named the best in the world — not in Asia but literally in the whole world, beating the parks of Europe and the US. At the same time the set of entertainment on the island is fundamentally different from that of its neighbours in the region: instead of a chain of giant parks competing with one another, as in Vietnam or Thailand, Bali has one clear leader (Waterbom), one indoor park for a rainy day (Trans Studio) and a whole scattering of small niche spots — from a safari park to swings above rice terraces. Let’s go through in order what in Bali really deserves attention in the “amusement parks” category, how much it will cost and what here is more a pleasant addition to a beach holiday than a standalone purpose of the trip.
Waterbom Bali: officially the best water park on the planet
Waterbom Bali in the Kuta area is not just the island’s largest water park but in fact Bali’s main attraction in general. In July 2025 Tripadvisor awarded it the title of “Best Water Park in the World” following the Travellers’ Choice: Best of the Best awards — and fewer than 1% of all the venues listed on the platform (roughly 8 million establishments) receive such an award. Before that Waterbom had held the title of Asia’s best water park for nine years in a row, and in 2017 and 2018 had already received similar worldwide recognition from the World Travel Awards.
The park occupies about 3.8 hectares of tropical garden and includes more than 20 slides and rides. Climax is one of Asia’s steepest water slides, with an almost vertical drop. Smashdown 2.0 is built as a trapdoor slide: the floor under your feet suddenly opens and sends the guest into free fall from a height of 16 metres. For those who just want to relax — the classic “lazy river” looping around the park and a separate children’s zone with shallow pools and water cannons.
The park is open daily from 9:00 to 18:00, and it is worth arriving before 10 a.m. — by noon queues are already forming at the most popular slides. You can get there from Kuta, Seminyak or Denpasar airport by taxi or bike in 15–30 minutes depending on the starting point.
The entrance ticket costs roughly 32–35 dollars for an adult according to aggregators, although the exact price depends on the season and the chosen package — some operators sell tickets with a locker and towel included, some only entry. A full lunch at the restaurants on site costs about 100,000–150,000 rupiah per person. It is worth noting separately that Waterbom consistently positions itself as an “eco-friendly” park — among other things it uses recycled water to irrigate the tropical gardens on the grounds and states a goal of reaching a zero carbon footprint by 2033, which for a water park of this scale is rather rare in the region.
The park opened on 7 December 1993 — then with five large and three small slides — and was the first modern water park of this level in the whole of Indonesia; the idea was conceived by the entrepreneur Santo Gulino back in 1989, and construction took four years. Since then the park has expanded and renewed its slides several times while keeping the original concept — a combination of quality service, private relaxation zones and genuinely extreme rides, not only a family format.
Trans Studio Bali: the island’s first indoor theme park
Trans Studio Bali in Denpasar is the island’s only large amusement park under a roof, and that is exactly why it logically pairs with Waterbom: one venue covers a sunny day with water, the other a rainy or too-hot day indoors with air conditioning. The park is divided into five themed zones. “Light Zone” is styled as a giant cruise liner, recreating the scene of a ship’s departure from Liverpool in 1912. “Camera Zone” is the most adrenaline-filled: here stands the Boomerang Coaster, a roller coaster that at speed literally shoots out beyond the park’s building before returning inside. “Culture Zone” is devoted to Indonesian and Balinese culture and history. “Action Zone” is styled as the roof of a New York skyscraper at dusk. “Adventure Zone” is the richest in activities: a post-apocalyptic zombie quest with laser blasters, the “Road Rage Wasteland Escape” racing track, a stunt show and the “Forbidden Temple Adventure” rafting ride through Himalayan scenery.
In all there are more than 16 rides and 3 staged shows in the park. Among the separately paid options are iFly, a free-fall ride in a vertical wind tunnel simulating a parachute jump without a real jump, and the Flying Over Indonesia / Bat Glider flight simulator showing the country’s views from a bird’s-eye view. The go-kart track in the park is 240 metres.
The park operates in the Trans Studio Mall shopping complex in Denpasar and receives guests on weekdays from 11:00 to 18:00, at weekends until 19:00 (it is worth checking current hours on the park’s official social media before a visit just in case, since the schedule has changed). A basic entrance ticket can be found from 11–12 dollars on aggregators with discounts, but fuller packages including unlimited access to all rides without separate payment for iFly and karting cost 30–36 dollars. Since the park is located inside a shopping centre, it is also a convenient “two-in-one” option — shopping and entertainment under one roof, without having to travel between points.
Trans Studio Bali is part of a larger network of Indonesian theme parks under the Trans Studio brand, the first of which opened in Makassar on Sulawesi back in May 2009, followed in 2011 by a large park in Bandung on Java; the Bali version is built on the same general concept of a completely indoor park, but with its own set of rides and zones adapted to the island. Because the entire park is under one roof, it remains a fully working option even at the height of the rainy season, when open-air rides in the south of the island have to be postponed because of downpours.
Bali Safari & Marine Park: a safari and a zoo on one ticket
In Gianyar, about 40 minutes from Ubud, Bali Safari & Marine Park operates — a branch of the large Taman Safari chain, the oldest and best-known operator of safari parks in Indonesia. More than 1,000 animals of over 100 species live on the grounds, including Komodo dragons, orangutans, rhinos, hippos, lions and the rare Bali myna — a bird that in the wild has survived almost exclusively in the national park in the western part of the island and is on the brink of extinction.
The format of the visit is a safari journey in an open vehicle right through the enclosures, where animals move freely rather than sitting in cages, plus animal shows and a feeding programme. The grounds also include a separate water zone, a rides zone for younger children and restaurants with a view of the lion and giraffe enclosures — thanks to which the park covers a whole day with children quite well without having to go anywhere else. A basic entrance ticket costs about 175,000 rupiah for adults and 135,000 rupiah for children aged 3 to 12 (younger children are free), and fuller packages with additional shows and activities cost 100,000–990,000 rupiah depending on the set and length of the visit.
The park belongs to the same Taman Safari group that runs Java’s largest safari parks and follows the format common to the chain: guests ride through open enclosures on a special vehicle rather than walking along cages, which is noticeably closer to real observation of animal behaviour than a classic zoo. The giraffe feeding programme and shows with animals are usually part of extended ticket packages, and some operators also offer an evening visit format at lower daytime heat — the availability of such an option should be checked on the park’s official website before the trip, since the show schedule changes by season.
The park’s name does not accidentally include the word “Marine”: besides the land safari, a separate marine section operates on the grounds with a fur seal show in the “coastal zone” and a dolphin performance, as well as enclosures with Humboldt penguins — a rare combination of an African safari and an aquarium on one ticket that no other park on the island has.
Smaller water parks: an alternative to Waterbom without the crowds
Waterbom is not the island’s only water park, and for families who stay not in Kuta or want to avoid the main park’s queues there are more compact options, although their composition on the island changes periodically. Circus Waterpark in the very heart of Kuta was known for its focus on younger children — a separate zone with gentle slides, shallow pools and play elements safe for the smallest guests — but at the time of preparing this material some sources list the park as temporarily closed, so its current status should definitely be checked before the trip rather than counted on as a guaranteed item of the route.
Splash Waterpark in Sanur is part of the Finns Recreation Club sports and entertainment complex and is oriented to the same resort area, which is convenient for those based on the island’s eastern coast rather than in touristy Kuta. Another option is not a separate park but part of a large beach club in Canggu: Finns Beach Club combines yoga, tennis and a fitness centre with its own Splash Park water zone and the Cubby House children’s club, that is, it suits families who already plan a day at a beach club and want the children to have something to do too, rather than those who travel purposefully just for slides. The general logic for all these smaller parks is the same: they win not by scale but by closeness to where you stay and by the absence of the queues typical of Waterbom in high season.
Bali Treetop Adventure Park: a rope park in the Bedugul highlands
For active leisure outside the water the island has Bali Treetop Adventure Park — a rope adventure park located in the Bedugul botanical garden in the highlands of central Bali, where the climate is noticeably cooler than on the coast. Routes are laid between trees at heights from 2 to 20 metres and divided into seven difficulty levels — from the simplest, suitable for children from 4 accompanied by adults, to complex tracks with zip-line descents for teenagers and adults. In total across all seven routes there are 72 separate obstacles and 12 zip lines, the longest of which stretches for 160 metres, and completing the full circuit takes about an hour and a half. The entrance ticket costs about 495,000 rupiah for adults and 375,000 rupiah for children aged 4–12, and the price includes safety equipment and carabiners — the gear is issued and briefed on the spot before the start.
The format differs strikingly from the beach water parks of the island’s south and combines well with a visit to the neighbouring Eka Karya botanical garden and Lake Beratan with the Ulun Danu temple — thanks to the highland location (the botanical garden itself lies at an altitude of about 1,250 metres) the day here is noticeably cooler than on the coast and can become a pleasant break from the heat after several days at the south’s water parks.
Ubud’s swings: not an attraction, but the island’s most widely publicised “ride”
If you formally don’t count this as amusement parks, a conversation about Bali and attractions would be incomplete without Ubud’s famous swings (Bali Swing) — a network of viewing platforms with giant swings above rice terraces and the edge of the jungle, which over the past decade have become perhaps the island’s most widely publicised “attraction” on social media of all. Formally this is not a theme park but rather a set of paid-access viewpoints, but in feel it is quite a “ride”: the swings send the guest out over a precipice or a forest canopy, and operators on site take photos and videos with a flying effect, which most often become the main souvenir of Bali in social media feeds long before the trip itself. Around Ubud several competing venues of a similar format operate, with differing quality of construction and safety level, so before buying a ticket it is worth checking fresh reviews of precisely the place you are going to rather than relying on the “Bali swings” brand in general.
The best-known and probably most photographed venue is Alas Harum in the village of Tegallalang, 20 minutes from the centre of Ubud, right by the famous rice terraces. There are 15 swings of different heights, including the Super Extreme Swing, which lifts the guest 25 metres above the valley slope, as well as the Sky Bike on a cable and a zip line over the rice fields. A separate attraction for photos is six human-sized nests styled as birds’ nests built right into the tree crowns, and next to the venue there are coffee plantations where you can try local luwak coffee and see the roasting process itself — a popular addition to the visit, which many tours include in one package together with the swings. Entry to the park itself costs about 50,000 rupiah, while the specific swings, zip line and other activities must be paid for separately — in essence this is a model of “entry + payment for each attraction”, not a single unlimited ticket as at Waterbom or Trans Studio.
How much to budget
Prices for Bali’s parks are arranged noticeably less transparently than in the neighbouring countries of the region: some venues sell a single unlimited ticket (Waterbom, Trans Studio), some — entry separately from each attraction (Alas Harum and other viewing platforms with swings), and prices on local booking aggregators often differ from the park’s official website by several times. Roughly per adult: Waterbom — about 32–35 dollars for an unlimited day; Trans Studio — from 11 dollars for basic entry to 35 dollars for a package with iFly and karting; Bali Safari & Marine Park — from 175,000 rupiah (about 11 dollars) for a basic ticket to 990,000 rupiah for extended packages with shows; Bali Treetop Adventure Park — about 495,000 rupiah (roughly 31 dollars) for the full circuit of all seven routes; Alas Harum swings — from 50,000 rupiah (about 3 dollars) for entry itself plus separate payment for each attraction and zip line.
For a family with children planning to cover 3–4 such spots during a trip, it is sensible to budget roughly 150–250 dollars in total excluding transport and food — and it is Waterbom and Bali Safari that usually justify the price with a full day of impressions, whereas the pay-per-attraction format (swings, zip lines) quickly adds up to an amount comparable to an unlimited ticket if you try several activities in a row.
When to go and how to plan the day
As for the rest of the island, the dry season is better suited to amusement parks — roughly April to October, when there is less chance that a downpour will ruin a day at a water park or on a rope route (a detailed breakdown of the seasons is in the separate guide “The Season in Bali: Dry and Rainy, When Is It Best to Holiday”). The resort southern part of the island — Kuta, Seminyak, Canggu, Jimbaran — holds on its territory almost all the large parks (Waterbom, Trans Studio, Circus Waterpark), so families planning several park days in a row logically base themselves there rather than in Ubud, from where it is an hour to an hour and a half one way to Kuta. At the same time Ubud itself is closer to Bali Safari & Marine Park and to the swings above the rice terraces — if the route is built around the cultural part of the island, these two points logically get covered from there without going specially to the south.
For those who want to vary a beach holiday with a trip to another island of the archipelago, it is worth bearing in mind that neither on Nusa Penida nor on the other nearby islands are there any amusement parks at all — this destination is entirely about nature, snorkelling and viewpoints (details in the guide “Nusa Penida: How to Get There, What to See and Whether It Is Worth Going for a Day”), so a day on the island should be allotted separately from the “park” part of the trip.
A logical route option for a family for a week to a week and a half: the first days in Ubud with a visit to Bali Safari & Marine Park and the Alas Harum swings above the rice terraces, a day trip to the Bedugul highlands for the rope park, and then a move to the south of the island — to Kuta, Seminyak or Canggu — for Waterbom, Trans Studio and a beach holiday. This sequence lets you avoid dashing back and forth across the whole island for one park a day and cover activities in geographic blocks.
A separate practical detail when planning such a route is transport. Unlike the southern resort zone, where apps like Grab and Gojek work without restrictions, in Ubud itself and around it taxi aggregators are often blocked by local driver associations, because of which it is more convenient to get to parks like Bali Safari or the swings in Tegallalang on a rented bike or by arranging a private driver directly through the hotel rather than counting on an app at the last moment. The same nuance is worth keeping in mind for the trip to the Bedugul highlands to the rope park — distances between points there are greater, and traffic and serpentines take noticeably more time than the navigator shows in a straight line.
Frequently asked questions
Which water park in Bali is better — Waterbom or smaller parks like Circus Waterpark? Waterbom is the unconditional choice number one in the number and quality of slides and is officially recognised as the best in the world; smaller parks like Circus Waterpark or Splash Waterpark Sanur suit if you need a calmer format with small children or a park closer to where you stay.
Is it worth going to Bali for Trans Studio if I have been to other Asian countries with similar parks? As a standalone purpose of the trip — not necessarily, but as a fallback for a rainy or too-hot day indoors with air conditioning Trans Studio justifies itself, especially with a roller coaster that shoots out beyond the building.
Can I combine Bali Safari & Marine Park with a visit to Ubud in one day? Yes, the park is located about 40 minutes from Ubud, which makes it a convenient addition to a day in the cultural part of the island, including the swings above the rice terraces.
Is Bali Treetop Adventure Park suitable for small children? Yes, the simplest of the seven difficulty levels are designed for children from 4 accompanied by adults, and the more complex tracks with zip-line descents for teenagers and adults.
Are Ubud’s swings safe? The construction and safety level differ noticeably between the competing venues around Ubud, so before buying a ticket it is worth checking current reviews of the specific place rather than relying on the general reputation of the format.
When is it best to go to amusement parks in Bali? In the dry season, roughly April to October — there is less risk that a daytime downpour will ruin a day on open slides or a rope route.
How old is Waterbom Bali and why is it so popular? The park opened in 1993 and was Indonesia’s first modern water park; since then it has expanded several times, and in 2025 Tripadvisor named it the world’s best water park, which explains its reputation as the island’s main attraction.
Is Circus Waterpark in Kuta still operating? At the time of preparing the material some sources list the park as temporarily closed, so its current status should definitely be checked before the trip rather than building it into the route in advance.
How much on average does a day at amusement parks in Bali cost for a family? When visiting 3–4 parks per trip it is sensible to budget roughly 150–250 dollars in total for a family excluding transport and food — the specific sum depends strongly on whether you choose unlimited tickets (Waterbom, Trans Studio) or the “entry + payment for each attraction” format (swings, zip lines).
See also: the season in Bali: when is it best to go, Nusa Penida: how to get there and what to see, where to stay in Bali: Canggu, Ubud, Uluwatu, Sanur.
