Ancol Recreational Park

The kids had been asking to go to a fun playground.  I read about a fun pirate ship playground on the Chuzai Living blog.  We decided that we would take a trip out to Ancol Recreational Park and see what was there.
We parked along the waterfront and saw that there were boats in the water.  We were approached by a boat guide who said we could rent a boat to go out on the water for a 20 minute ride.  I was skeptical since the boats looked so old and I am also very prone to motion-sickness.  DH and the kids really wanted to go for a ride so we did.  The cost was 100,000 Rupiah for a 20 minute ride.  For an additional 100,000 Rupiah you can go further out in the water.  We opted for just the 20 minute ride.



We enjoyed the boat ride.  The guide caught jelly fish for the kids to look at while we were on the water.  Later he put the jelly fish in a bottle for the kids to take with them.  We let the jellyfish go back into the water after the kids were done looking at them. I love that Indonesians are so kind to children.
I did notice later on as we were walking along the waterfront that some of the boats are equipped with life jackets.  I think I that it would have been a good idea for the kids to have life jackets on the boat ride.  I just didn’t realize at the time that it was an option to get a boat that had life jackets.
After the boat ride, we let the kids play at the pirate ship playground.  There are two other smaller playgrounds in the vicinity, but there were people sleeping on them so we didn’t let the kids play there.  We had arrived at Ancol just after lunch time so I guess that must be nap time!


The pirate ship playground is impressive.  The kids played on it for a long time.  We had a hard time convincing them to leave the playground to do some more exploring along the waterfront.  As we walked around a wooden walkway, we noticed more jelly fish in the water.  The white ones are really obvious in the water. There are several waterfront restaurants but we did not stop in any of them.  At the end of the walkway was a small beach.  We noticed that there were lots of people playing in the sand and in the water. The kids begged to play at the beach so we let them. Luckily I had brought an extra change of clothes for everyone.  The beach was beginning to get crowded by late afternoon so we decided to head for home.  The kids had a really great afternoon at Ancol.

There is so much to do at Ancol park.  We didn’t even go to sea world, Dunai Fantasi, the water park, or any of the other attractions at Ancol.  We will definitely have to go back another time.