Suddenly, Emma said that she want to see fishes in aquarium. In Jakarta, we have 2 choices: Sea World at Ancol, and the other one is Jakarta Aquarium at Neo Soho Mall. The latest is Jakarta Aquarium, but more crowded since located inside shopping mall. Well, of course more convenience because easier to find restaurant and other needs. Actually we already went there before pandemic, but maybe Emma forgot she just around 1 year old that time.
We decide to go to Sea World to avoid crowded, and do a quick research because it’s quite a challenge to find a decent restaurant in Ancol area. So on our way to go there, we look left and right if there are any restaurant that matches our taste. Our decision fell to Burger King located in Kelapa Gading, near from our home. We rarely eat Burger King, maybe this is the first time for Emma. Usually we eat McDonald’s or KFC, to hunt for the toys.
Surprisingly, the burger and chicken taste so good! I once again realized, this is how burger should taste. I mean, when we hungry, McD’s or KFC’s burger is okay to fill our stomach. But when we search for taste, Burger King is on par with MOS Burger. Also the chicken’s skin so crispy, yet the inside are meaty, tender and juicy. Emma really likes it, she even ask for second portion. Yeah, even better then MCD’s or KFC’s chicken. For taste, Burger King is the winner.
After lunch, we drove our car to Ancol. We saw the sign that suggest to buy e-ticket first, so we open our Traveloka app. We got discount from bank partner, and continue to drove our car to entrance gate. Turns out we still need to pay for Ancol gate, IDR 25,000 per people also IDR 25,000 for a car. All in all, we pay IDR 100,000 for Ancol gate. They say the ticket only free for children under 1 year old (baby).
Ancol gate always confusing because it has many gates, or maybe just us not familiar with it. We just follow the sign, turn left to Sea World. Finally found the Sea World building, we park in a parking lot across it. Unfold Emma’s stroller, and we off we walk. Actually in front of the Sea World’s building there is also a parking lot, but many spaces already occupied or block by a traffic cone. Many securities not helpful too, they just stand and only God’s know what they do with their phone.
Walking to the building, we already saw many statues of sea creatures: horse sea, dolphin, fish. Near the building door, there are two men selling gondola ticket. Inside the building, feels pretty dark. We saw ticket counter but maybe not operating anymore, because we bought e-ticket from Traveloka. They have two gates, each has a staff to help us scan our QR code. The gate staff are helpful, and friendly too.
After passing the ticket gate, into the main area of Sea World. They have fresh water fish as their first aquarium, then salt water fish as their second aquarium. These two aquariums made a very wow first impressions, we took many photos here. Also, it’s so nice see the fish swimming. In the middle area, there is a piranha aquarium. We missed the piranha feeding, but now at 2PM they have fish feeding in this big aquarium.
We park our stroller beside, and we sat down at the dirty carpet. There is an MC guide the show, chat with audiences, trivia about sea creatures (Octopus, starfish, etc.), a mini quiz which vouchers for the winner. Overall it’s a family show, and we really enjoy it despite the carpet room was smell damp. Also the fish feeder (? person who feeds the fish), can play a little with the fish so it’s fun to watch.
Now that the fish feeding show ended, we continue to explore the main area. Take a picture in piranha aquarium, car aquarium, and also there are something like caves (?). Maybe it was filled with another marine creature but now empty, only few turtles. It’s still fun though for a little explorer feels like playing hide and seek. It’s function as photo spot too, we can take picture like we are in underwater.
2:30 PM is time for shark feeding show, so we standby near the shark aquarium. It’s take longer time to prepare, because the shark feeder (? People who feed the shark) need to wear special ‘clothes’ made from steel. Looks heavy, maybe the armor itself weight around 50 Kilo Grams? For me, it’s look like a medieval knight who fought dragon. He brought a bucket of fish as the shark food, but the sharks just ignore him. Hmm, maybe they still aren’t hungry yet?
Luckily after a while, the shark starts want to eat. Otherwise the audience will start to get bored, oh the heavy burden of shark feeder he put his life for our amusement. After the shark feeding show, we don’t know what to do anymore. Oh, we haven’t explore the underwater tunnel yet. This tunnel used travelator, and surround the big aquarium. This gigantic aquarium is the main aquarium that was used for fish feeding show, it’s amazing we can see many fish include stingray swimming above us.
The travelator go around the main aquarium and finish back to the main room, then we realized still have 2 rooms left yet to be explored. One in the upstairs, another is the jellyfish area. When we go upstairs, we hear announcement that they have stingray and turtle feeding show. We asked the staff upstairs, but she didn’t know where the show is. What the? So we go down quickly, searching for stingray and turtle aquarium.
Unfortunately, by the time we arrived the show already ended. 😦 Feeling sad, we continue to explore and found in a room they held a paper art class. It’s free, and they guided us properly where to fold, where to stick the glue, until we can make it. This time, the paper art became a shark. It’s also a mascot of Sea World Ancol, after we make it we can bring it home as a souvenir. Nice, cute shark!
Oh by the way, on the second floor there are interactive room. We can play and scan for information, also we can see the big aquarium from above. Overall we spent 2-3 hours and it was fun, we can know more trivia about sea creatures too! Just the downsides are cleanliness of facility and knowledge of staff, also maybe they should put a brochure/map about show schedule and what is where.
Endo & Nes 