Day Twenty-Five - 15/12/25

Easily the biggest day we’ve had so far. Biggest… best… I’m not sure which. Either way, it was incredible.

I woke up earlier than usual, keen to squeeze a run in before work and what I knew would be a massive day out. The left hamstring was tight again. I managed about 3km, then turned the run into a bit of an interval session on the way back up the hill to the accommodation. Not ideal, but I got something done.

Back at the room, the kids found Rosie again. Back in the toilet. Of course she was. Pretty funny.

After the run, I was absolutely cooked from the heat and those hill intervals, so I jumped straight in the pool to cool down. Ended up chatting with one of the other dads in the pool and completely blew through the time I’d set aside to do some work. By the time I got back to the room, I quickly checked emails, replied to a couple of urgent ones, fixed something that needed attention, and then we were racing down to breakfast.

We didn’t have much time. We had to be in the vans early for the day trip.

Out of the 19 families here, only about 7 or 8 came along. Everyone else stayed back at the resort, probably sensing that this was going to be anything but a rest day. It was about a 45-minute van ride to VinWonders, which is basically a theme park and water park combined. The closest comparison back home would be smashing Dreamworld, Movie World, Sea World, Wet’n’Wild and WhiteWater World into one place.

This park was enormous.

There were plenty of people there, but somehow no real queues. Most rides were a walk-on or a 15–20 minute wait at most. It was unreal.

We started in the theme park section with a water rapids ride, then wandered past a big ninja-style rope course that only Maddy could go on. She wasn’t super keen, and it looked like it would chew up a lot of time, so we kept moving.

Then we stumbled into the aquarium, which was inside this massive turtle-shaped building. Totally unexpected and absolutely incredible. Huge eels, like 12 feet long! Jellyfish, sharks, penguins… everything. We spent close to an hour just wandering through, taking it all in. One of those surprise highlights you don’t see coming.

From there it was ride after ride. Another water rapids coaster that sprayed you, smaller spinning and up-and-down rides for the kids, and then an indoor hanging rollercoaster that was insanely fun. We went on that two or three times. It was that good.

Lunch was another surprise. Theme park food is usually a rip-off, but here it was ridiculously cheap. Back home, lunch like that would easily be over $100. Here, we fed the whole family, burgers, chips, the lot for about $20.

After more rides, we found an indoor 3D interactive shooting game inside this massive castle. Honestly, it just kept going. Ride after ride after ride. I lost count of how many we did.

Then we headed into the water park for the afternoon.

After the huge water park we’d already been to earlier in the trip, I didn’t think anything could top it. Somehow, this one might have had even more slides. Tube rides, double tubes, single tubes, half-pipe slides, whirlpools, spin-around slides, everything you can think of. We just went non-stop.

There were a couple of big speed slides the kids were too small for, and we didn’t want to leave them to go ourselves. But right near the end of the day, Kia and I spotted one final slide. We left the kids at the bottom and sprinted up to race each other down on foam mats.

Bad decision.

It was insanely fast, pitch black in sections, and had a sharp sideways turn you couldn’t see coming. We both absolutely smashed our heads into the side of the slide. Proper hits. That was enough excitement for one day.

We finished up in the whirlpool and then the wave pool, thinking waves were coming. After about 20 minutes they announced it was closing. No waves. The kids were devastated. Another one of those moments where things sounded great until the fine print appeared. A bit of a communication breakdown, but honestly, still an epic day.

By then it was close to 6pm. We got changed and headed back into the park for the 6:45pm light show they’d been advertising.

I am so glad we stayed.

I’ve never seen anything like it. Fire, water, projections on the massive castle in the middle of the park. A full story played out with ships, waves, dragons, fireballs with some of it projected onto screens made of water spray. When the flames went off, you could feel the heat in the crowd and everyone collectively went “whoa”. It was wild. Truly next-level.

After that, we navigated our way back to the vans and headed home. By the time we got back to the accommodation, everyone was completely wrecked. Straight to bed.

I messaged the guys I’d been running with and told them there was absolutely no chance I was running tomorrow. Another rest day was needed.

A massive, unforgettable day. And somehow, there are still a few more like this to come.

Let’s keep it going.