I have good memories of my parents taking me to theme parks when I was a kid. And I also remember that the waiting times were usually very long.
Tokyo Disneyland is the most popular theme park in Japan, so the waiting times there are long. I waited for two hours to get on a three minutes attraction called Big Thunder Mountain.
On the other hand, there is a theme park that has no waiting time, Jerudong Park in the Kingdom of Brunei Dam Salaam.
I went to the country for the first time last summer. I also went to this theme park but I couldn’t enjoy the attractions there, I just took pictures.
The amusement park was opened in 1994 as a gift to the people by Brunei’s King Hasanal Bolkiah, to commemorate his 48th birthday.
A free concert by Michael Jackson was held on July 16, 1996 at the amphitheater in the park, which attracted 60,000 people. Admission and attraction fees were free for six years after opening. However, no matter how rich Brunei is, it is very difficult to continue to do business for free. After a while, people needed to pay an entrance fee. After that, the number of visitors decreased dramatically.
Jerudong Park park is cheaper than most other theme parks.
But it is a very difficult place for tourists to visit.
The amusement park is about 20 km from Dam Salaam city center, so you need to take a taxi or a bus to get there.
However, this country has no convenient transportation for tourists and it is almost impossible to catch a taxi, so basically you need to take a bus.
Also, their business hours are very irregular.
It is closed Mondays til Wednesdays, and only opens from 16:00 to 23:00 on Thursdays, 15:00 to 23:30 on Fridays, and 10:00 to 23:30 on Saturdays and Sundays.
Brunei is a country with a tropical climate, so the park has special business hours, opening only quite late in the afternoon or in the morning. It’s a pity that it closes between morning and afternoon on week days, when tourists could easily visit.
I went to Brunei on an organised tour.
As a result, most touristic activities were fixed. Our only free day was Wednesday, which meant that Jerudong Park was closed.
After I returned to Japan, I looked on the Internet for blogs of Japanese travelers who went to Jerudong Park.
They said that they were the only customers on weekdays, and they couldn’t find any staff near the attractions they wanted to try. They didn’t have any waiting time, but they needed to look for workers to help them instead.
If you like amusement parks but don’t like crowds and waiting times, it might be a great place for you to visit.
