Horror World. Review on Fun World, Bangalore

Sunday – 29th May 2011, we decided to visit the Water World located on Palace Grounds, Bangalore. We have visited Wonderla a couple of times in the past, but since we had more passengers that can fit into a small car, we decided to visit the one located right in the heart of the city.

First things first, what hit me was the prohibitive pricing – Rs. 300/- per head, even children (above age of 2 years) pay the same price. If I decide to enjoy some “dry” rides, I have to go to the adjacent Fun World for which the price is another Rs. 300/-, totalling to Rs. 600/- per head for a WHOLESOME entertainment package.

Compared to Wonderla, which charges Rs. 730/- per head for adults and Rs. 540/- per child, this price was just too steep. Wonderla charges this price for offering much more than what Water World and Fun world offer. Wonderla gives group discounts, online booking discounts etc. too. I would any day pay Rs. 730/- for Wonderla compared to this apology of a water park and amusement park, which is practically fleecing customers without offering appropriate value for money.

Secondly, a place doing such high value of cash transactions, doesn’t accept credit cards. Can you imagine, right in the middle of Bangalore, where even small shops offer credit card facility, these people operating on pure cash basis only? I had to buy 8 tickets, and since I am not used to carry huge amount of cash, I had to go to a nearest ATM, withdraw money and come back. With 800-1000 people visiting them on weekends, can you imagine the kind of cash would be lying around in their cash boxes by evening, and what kind of security risk are they exposing themselves to?

The security guard at the entrance tore the tickets and dumped them in a dustbin, leaving us with no proof of purchase. Do these guys pay their taxes? Does the revenue departments know how much cash they are collecting and possibly under-reporting? How easy it is to duplicate ticket nos. There is a serious tax scam somewhere in there.

On entrance we were asked to dump all our footwear in a gunny bag and handed over a token. It was a hot sunny day, and the tiled pathways were burning under our feet, but that didn’t matter to these people, who were only interested in keeping foot wear out of the water park, lest they have to monitor people entering the pool with foot wear. I don’t remember moving around barefoot, the vast expanse of Wonderla or any other water park in India. How insensitive.

Moving on to the water rides, we were confronted with one 3 storied metal contraption with different kinds of slides and rides emanating from its various floors. The stairs leading up were made of iron too, rusted in almost all places, and rusted iron jutting out at various places, exposing the climbers to risk of injury and septic due to iron rust. Some stairs had the iron footboards itself missing, and you had to be careful to avoid these steps. It was clear that this was a temporarily build structure with no concern for safety and security of the people.

We also noticed that there was no ropeway system of hauling the air tubes (required for water rides) back from the bottom to the top. As a result, people had to carry the air tubes themselves hauling them over the rickety stairs. I saw quite a few children and adults struggling to manage air tubes and themselves over the stairs. It was a miracle, people were not stumbling over them and hurting themselves on the stairs. But do we need to wait for accidents to happen before acting?

The staff manning the rides had absolutely no control on who was allowed in which rides. I saw children going in for adult rides, and adults going in for children’s rides. Given the overall paucity of rides, this was a boon, but the staff was also not at all trained in instructing people on the right way to enjoy the rides.

The second level of the structure was leaking heavily onto the first level, inconveniencing people awaiting their turns on the first level.

The rides themselves were of very poor quality. The joins in the sections were not smooth, and while sliding down the slide, you could feel the bumps in your backside. I am sure people would be getting injured too.

In one particular slide, the inclination, sloping and lubrication were so poor that people sliding down just stopped mid way, as a result they were getting jettisoned into by the next person. When I experienced this ride, we had a pile up of six people in the middle of the slide, and we had to literally crawl our way down the slide.

Adding to the poor experience thus far, we were in for a few more surprises. The wave pool started at 12.30 PM. Artificial waves were created in a pool of water and people quite enjoyed this. However, what was not expected was that all other water rides were stopped for the time being, and the entire staff diverted to manage the crowd in the wave pool. What about servicing people who don’t want to go to the wave pool? No sir, we don’t care.

This was followed by a mandatory lunch break from 1.30 to 2.30 pm. All rides/slides were stopped. The ticket counter issuing tickets outside stopped issuing tickets and life came to a standstill. There are very few options to eat inside the water park, I didn’t see any in fact, but cannot confirm, so either you get disgusted and leave the place, or idle your time waiting for these sarkari babus to finish lunch and resume services. So much for having an entire day of fun at the water park. Who cares? And I hear that they close the water park at 4.30 pm – earlier than Sarkari babus get to go home! Good for the public...the lesser they remain open, the lesser number of people they can cheat.

We decided to walk out, thoroughly disappointed with the whole experience. The showers in the changing rooms didn’t have hot/warm water and we had to take a cold water shower. I can imagine how little children and others would be shivering in slightly less hot weather, considering that Bangalore is known for not being very hot all year round. Thankfully they were not charging for lockers. The changing rooms were totally wet, with no maintenance sweeper in sight. As a result the floors were slippery and risk prone.

Final word. I didn’t see any water quality testing labs, nor display of water quality norms. Overall the entire place was poorly maintained. I didn’t have appetite to spend more of my hard earned money on the adjacent amusement park, which I am sure has its own horror stories to tell.

We didn’t expect a city like Bangalore, to have such a pathetic place, which was only interested in making money without extending quality services to its patrons. I wonder what are the public safety authorities doing? I wonder what is the revenue department doing? I wonder what the public health department is doing – waiting for people to fall sick? I wonder what the media is doing – not reporting such public atrocities. I wonder what the government is doing – allowing such people to continue doing business, thereby spoiling the reputation of Bangalore?

It is only when we as concerned citizens raise our voices, will our country improve. Till then, people will keep taking us for a ride – literally!