Winter in Sydney this year has been unusually dry. The sky has remained blue day after day which for a family who loves to travel and explore has been fantastic. Over breakfast we discussed places in Sydney that we would love to visit that are yet to be crossed off our Kid Bucket List. With a squeal, Miss N yelled “Luna Park!”. T and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders and agreed. Entry is free after all!
Luna Park Sydney – www.lunaparksydney.com is located at Milsons Point which is easily accessible by both public transport or your own car. Parking around the site is limited to 2 hours or you can park in Luna Park’s car park.
As I mentioned earlier, it is free to enter Luna Park. You can walk around and choose not to go on any rides or do anything other than watch. Who does that? As you walk in to Luna Park you will find the ticket booth to your right. The Unlimited Ride Pass gets you unlimited rides, entry to Coney Island and even a swim at the nearby pool for the entire day. Ticket prices are based on height and determine which rides you can go on.
A word on the tickets: I don’t particularly like the Luna Park method of working out prices based on height. Striker is only 7 is the size of a 10-12 year old (over 140 cm) so needs the Yellow pass. Being 7 he’s not confident enough to go on the *bigger* rides by himself which his ticket allows him to go on and he is restricted from going on many of the smaller rides. To accompany him T or I needed to buy a yellow pass ourselves ($49.95) which we couldn’t share between us. I wish this had been explained a little better. Sunshine needs a green pass. At 5 years old she was able to go on most of her age-appropriate rides except the dodgem cars which she was too small to go on alone. As we hadn’t bought ourselves a pass, we had to skip this ride completely (and a handful of others that required her to have an escort).
We had the most fun in Coney Island with entry included in the unlimited ride pass or available as a stand-alone ticket for $10.00. You are unable to gain entry to this attraction without a pass, with parents encouraged to watch from a viewing deck at the side. I only recommend this if you have fairly independent children who you are happy to have out of site for periods of time. I ended up purchasing a $10.00 pass so I could accompany the kids into Coney Island. We spent around 2.5 hours inside with the kids enjoying all the attractions inside.
Coney Island is an old fashioned fun house which features a joy wheel, barrel of fun, mirror maze, wonky walk, turkey trot and a number of slides. The kids adored this area of the park. The lines were quite long for each attraction to begin with, but became shorter and shorter after 4.00 pm. We could have stayed in this one space the entire day and avoided the outside rides altogether!
Throughout the day, a number of performers were spotted on the Luna Park avenue. They danced and sang before interacting with visitors. This added touch to our experience made the day feel quite wonderful.
We left Luna Park at dusk. The lights of the Harbour Bridge and City were mesmerising. If it wasn’t for the wind we would have stayed and just looked at the city for hours.
Thinking of taking a trip to Luna Park? My advice is to take the train and then take a walk around the site to see how many rides would be suitable for your kids before buying your tickets. Let us know about your visit!
How old do you have to be to go to Luna park alone as two of my 13 year old daughters are hoping to go alone and i was wondering if that was possible or do they have to have an adult accompanying them?
Hi Holly, I’m not sure what the age restrictions are at Luna Park around this. Perhaps contact them directly.