Luna Park in Sydney boasts one of the worlds best views and it’s a bit of cheeky fun too… At some point in your life you need to tick this one off your bucket list.

When:  Times vary, click here for all the details

Where:  Milsons Point, just under the northern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  We caught a ferry, but there is a nearby train station and also accessible by car.

Cost:  It’s complicated, click here (there’s peak, off peak, day passes, after 6pm passes, monday passes and so on!) but if you don’t want to ride it’s FREE to enter.

Review

Luna Park in Sydney is one of those iconic places you have to visit!  It’s free to enter so if you’re looking to catch a ferry somewhere it’s a fun spot to people watch and enjoy the harbour view.

We went along two days before New Years Eve – so possibly the busiest time of year in Sydney, although some early drizzle and unusual chilly conditions resulted in a slow morning… I suspect if the sun had been shining and the sky blue we would have been queueing for much longer.

We decided that the kids could have two rides each and one of those rides would be the whole family on the ferris wheel.  Before our family ride though we did a lap of the whole park to work out what other ride they might like to do.

When you first enter the main gate you are presented with the ticket office – there was quite a que, FYI there is a second smaller ticket office down the other end of the park and only 4 people were waiting to buy tickets there, so if the que is large at the main one head down to the one near Coney Island.  There was a helpful staff member on hand who helped to measure the kids and answered any questions.

Thankfully the layout is pretty straight forward.  The first two thirds of the park are attractions and rides and then you reach Coney Island – which is an indoor space that you buy a special ticket to enter.  Once you are inside you can have turns at a number of amusements – there is a handy viewing area so you can have a look inside and decide if it’s for you.  The path from this point on is a little underwhelming – but continue on as on the other side of Coney Island is more rides and these include a few rides that cater to toddlers.  This is also the spot where you can sometimes watch live performances – when we were there it was a pirate themed show (which changes each holidays) and this particular show was definitely aimed at toddlers, my two were unimpressed.

In the end Immi (7) and Charlie (4) were unable to decide on which ride they wanted to go on.  The kids rides area down the back was “too babyish” and the other rides too scary – we ended up on the carousel (which I was allowed to accompany them on without a ticket) and because it was such a quiet morning they lady let us have an extra go!  The kids were also hesitant about going on the Ferris Wheel (extreme adventure doesn’t seem to be our calling, just yet!) but after a 10 minute wait in the que when the moment finally arrived to hop into the cabin we managed to convince both of them to come with us!  And of course they loved it.  And we went round and round about five times (but don’t quote me on that as it was four months ago).  The Ferris Wheel is a tourists delight when it comes to photo opportunities!

All photos taken by Aaron Bickford.