Bali Safari and Marine Park — Attraction in Pulau Bali

Unethical Zoo, not Safari

While parks theme is "safari", which gave me the impression of all animals having ample natural space to live, this is far from the truth.

The promotion of the park is to protect wildlife. Yet - many of the big animals, elephants, wildcats, orange utans specifically, are held in no natural conditions.

Selfies + Feeding Parrots and other birds are there for selfies, sitting on trees or being carried by zoo keepers all day (this was the least disturbing)

2 baby Orang Utans (5 and 6 years old) are put 3h every day on a small space for pictures from tourists. One was visibly agitated, and aggressively pulled up by one wrist by a keeper and put forcefully on a platform further away. The keeper did not seem to have empathy nor animal education, rather like a random security guard to keep the Orang in check. After an hour of tourist interaction and aggressive zoo keepers keeping them in check, both Orangs lay hugging each other on the ground, immobile. 😭 It's called CHILD LABOR 🙊👶🍼

----- I asked keepers, where the Orangs go after photo session: the 2 baby's go back to one mother and 2 other babies in a house, not their own mother. They are NOT with the tribe out in nature. The house were they go was not visible for visitors. Also, they are only released in nature, when they are 21 years old, so they are kept in captivity for 21 years. ⛓️

Jaguars, 2, are kept in a terrarium of 17m x 3m with small 3m pool included. There is no space to retreat away from "eyes". They only have one tree trunk to lie on, it's not in nature! The yellow leopard frantically swims for time on end in the corner of the pool, which is right behind glass, where the tourists can take pictures with him. He can be fed through a little hole for extra cash. It's in the "rainforrest" trail, no forrest here. 🤒

2 Elephants are kept in a small circular hut that barely fits them both, with two guards for feeding for extra cash. One 🐘 was bobbing his head frantically and opened the rope himself for me to come in. Then he went back and wanted to take the metal bar from the barrier behind the hut and was yelled at. They are there 6h each day.

---- I asked keepers where the elephants go after their feeding session: "back to the cage" 🤢🤯

Tigers: they have an open terrain of appr. 200m2, of which there is a small dirty green pool and dirty river, but no trees where to hide from "eyes". Much bigger terrain than for the 2 jaguars though and out in nature. They can be fed too. The white tiger sleeps right next to the terrarium glass.

Small wildcat called "Serval" is kept in a 3m x 3m terrarium all alone in the building where to see Tigers. 🥶

Baby deers kept away from their mother's in an open space with no place to hide in the petting zoo area, no trees. 🤔

Komodos had a great big area, bigger than the two jaguars, and space to hide 🙄

---- some animals had a really good playground with options to hide while the even more exotic and bigger ones were clearly put on "display" in an unnatural area all day every day, no safari wildlife for them - ever 😐

Animal Presentations Tiger presentation & Elephant presentation 2x a day, involving a story of them being hunted and killed, and the animals are made to pass through the show several times from left to right, while hundreds are watching and a noisy presenter narrates the story and humans are theatrically acting the killing of animals 🤮

Jingle Music the whole park plays loud jingle music everywhere, was stressing me out, I wonder about the animals 🤕

Safari Tour every 5 minutes a full jeep of tourists passes through the park 9 - 5pm + at night to show the animals in the "safari" area. Deer and cows, giraffe had a good size area, elephants were crammed on 15m x 15m, no space to roam. Lions had a relatively small area too, no place to hide, always on display. Hippos were hiding in a tiny pond, where the jeep drives through.

Zoo Keepers are only trained on-site, they have no zoo keeper or animal education prior to this job...

I just visited today (April 6/2025). Overall, Marine Safari was enjoyable. However, the animals in the show were clearly not well-trained yet. In fact, the sea lion was said to be performing for the first time. So don’t expect too much from the animal show. As someone who frequently visits aquariums because my child loves marine animals, we’ve been to Jakarta Aquarium, Seaworld Ancol, Aquaria KLCC, BXSea, and in our opinion, Marine Safari Bali offers an interesting and unique concept. We had fun here. UNTIL something extremely unpleasant happened.

We experienced the worst holiday moment of our lives. As Jakarta residents who have lived in Bali for the past three years, we’ve often heard stories of local staff discriminating against Indonesian visitors while prioritizing foreign tourists, but this was our first time experiencing it ourselves.

We were taking a break and wanted to have lunch. Uma Resto was a bit far, and we were already tired, so we decided to eat at Riverside Resto instead. I tried ordering using the available QR code, but it turned out I still had to line up and order manually at the cashier. I queued in the third line when suddenly a foreign man came and stood in front of me, claiming he was with the woman ahead of me. Then his wife and child arrived, and I realized he didn’t even know the woman. I told him to queue properly, but he insisted he had been behind that woman before I was.

I expected the cashier staff to ask him to step back, but instead, I was the one told to wait until the foreigner was served first. I didn’t accept that, and even the woman ahead of me and everyone behind me defended me, saying I had been there first the entire time, NOT the man. The situation escalated quickly, and my husband, who had been sitting nearby, stepped in and confronted the man. The foreign man still insisted he had been standing there and even threatened to break my husband's nose🤦🏻‍♀️

The cashier staff remained indecisive and confused. All the staff present seemed unsure of what to do. Everyone else in line stood up for me and confirmed that the man had cut the queue. Eventually, another staff member approached me, took my order, while the foreign man was still being served at the cashier. Not a single apology was given to me.

Later, I noticed someone who appeared to be in charge at the location. I approached him and explained the situation in English since he was from Singapore and didn’t speak Indonesian. He gave me a complimentary ice cream and apologized for the system not working properly and for requiring manual ordering, BUT NOT for the commotion and discomfort caused by the incident. ALL OF THAT HAPPENED BECAUSE STAFFS SUPPORTING WRONG BEHAVIOR FROM THAT FOREIGN MAN. It wouldn't have escalated if only staffs had been properly trained to handle situation like that.

I don’t need free ice cream. What I deserve is a proper apology for having my queue skipped. I deserve the same treatment as any other foreign visitor, no matter where they’re from.

With that said, I will never return to Marine Safari Bali. If we ever want to visit Aquarium, I'll just fly to Jakarta or KL for better experience rather than to...

My wife and I went with our daughter, her husband and three children to the day and night safari. During the day we went for an Elephant ride, visited the petting zoo, elephants, the elephant display, the Education Centre and much more. The grandchildren swan and play in the splash park. A wonderful place and a great time had by all. That night we stayed for the Night Safari. We received a welcome drink once we arrived inside the park and then we were taken on a little walking tour before we headed to dinner visiting animals we had already seen during the day. With Dinner, apparently you had a choice to sit inside or out, but we were never given the choice even though we were one of the first groups to arrive and thus was not able to watch the lions through the glass unless you went to the toilet. They say the food was the same no matter where you chose to sit, but it was not. There was a fair range of food outside, but it was average, some items very tasty, while others were very average. The fire dance was well presented, however an explanation of what was happening would have made it even better. The best and worst part of the night was being put in a cage on the back of the truck and having lions jump up on the side and tigers jump on top of the cage. We got to feed elephants, zebras, cows, camels etc. It was AMAZING for the grandchildren. The downside was the very dangerous ride in the back of the truck, with the driver having no regards for the safety of the people in the back, particularly the young children or older people, with speed or taking of corners. Some of the staff are amazing and very helpful, but to the vast majority you were an inconvenience. Upon leaving for some reason, they were transporting everyone out in small buggies, but we all arrived by buses to get people in as fast as possible. There was no control on departure and while waiting in line, people from India would just push in front no matter who you were. The staff stood back and allowed it to happen. It was only after an argument between a group of Indians who were pushing their way in and an Australians that they started the buses back up. Personally, I do not think I would ever return, Singapore does a similar show, and it is far better including organization, food and show. However, if you do, don't waste your money to go to both. Go to the day Safari, because the people were more pleasant and helpful, because by nighttime, they were tired and exhausted. This is a major problem that management should fix. I would give the day Safari five stars and the night Safari three stars, thus four...