Moominworld Naantali

Not being able to travel abroad due to Covid-19 restrictions, we had to plan something else for our summer vacation. After some thought we decided on traveling to Naantali, where the Moominworld theme park is located. As we had been to the Moominvalley park in Japan, I thought it would be fun to be able to compare the two. 

Moominworld park in Naantali opened in 1993 while Moominvalley park in Japan opened in 2019. So, Japan’s park was practically brand new when we visited the place a few years ago and the Finnish park is almost 30 years old now. You could definitely see some wear and tear in places inside Moominworld and some of the attractions probably could use some fixing up. 

The weather was a bit unstable, the day started as sunny, but as more and more clouds gathered it started to rain by noon.

The cool thing about Moominworld is that the park is on an island. Sadly though, it does not cover the whole of the island and everything is packed tightly around the “main road” that goes across the island.

The normal price for 1 adult is 35€ at the ticket booth or 31€ if you buy it online beforehand.We bought our tickets online, to get the 4 € discount, and just had to show the verification email at the entrance.

There were about twenty minutes before a theatre show was about to start, so we spent that time looking around inside the Sniff’s shop. The shop’s selection of items was really pathetic compared to the one in Japan. Can’t say I’m surprised, just disappointed, like usual.

Well, it wasn’t all that bad. It just didn’t cater to my taste personally. If they hadn’t been so expensive and if I happened to be in need of a backpack they had some really cute designs. I especially liked the Stinky and Hattifatteners prints, but I ain’t going to pay 40-60€ for a bag I have no use for.

As I’m never able to leave anywhere empty handed, I ended up buying 6 small Moomin figures for 20€ total and a Moomin shaped lollipop.

So the show at the outdoor theater was about to start, so we headed there. A positive thing about their theatre is that there is a roof on top and a lot of seating, two things that the theatre in Moominvalley park was lacking. They even had a TV screen that showed subtitles in Swedish and English. They were very limited though, only just enough for anyone to get the very basic story of the play. 

The play was called “Moomintroll and the missing pearl” and it lasted about 20 minutes. The characters included in the play were Moomintroll, Little My and Snorkmaiden and then there was a giant octopus, who <spoiler!> stole the said pearl. Nothing spectacular, but it was mildly entertaining for what it was.

From the theatre, we started walking down the main road until we finally saw the Moomin house. Right next to it was Moomintroll’s house just like in one of the TV episodes, but it was built to be a kid’s playground, so nothing for adults. 

The iconic bridge that leads to the house was pretty darn pathetic looking compared to the Moominvalley version. Smack dab right there on the asphalt is a plastic pond with a tiny bridge over it. It was the most unaesthetic thing to look at. Without some of that childlike wonder, everything is obviously fake at the park, but that bridge scenery is one of the fakest fakes ever to be faked because it looked so unnatural.

So the good thing is that you are freely allowed to enter the Moomin house, unlike in Japan where you have to pay extra to get a tour of the house. The downside to that was they weren’t keeping count on how many people were in the house, so it got really crowded in some of the rooms and of course there were kids running amok everywhere, as to be expected. The house could use some refreshing too, there were places where you could tell people had been nabbing some souvenirs off the walls.

I guess it’s a weird thing to complain about in such an obviously fake environment, but everything looked so staged. Like, this isn’t a house, this is an attraction that is designed to look like a house! Ha ha haa! This is why I hate writing down my own thoughts, because I always feel even more like a moron than I normally do.

We didn’t pay for the house tour in Japan, so I can't with first hand experience compare the two. I saw a video on YouTube (can’t find it anymore) that was filmed on the tour inside the Moominvalley park’s house. The only thing I can say is, it just gives off a totally different vibe, because the house is treated more like a museum, rather than a place where the kids run wild.

In Moominvalley park the only character we saw roaming around the park (outside the theatre play) was Snufkin, while in Moominworld the characters were more present outside the house. Snufkin (again) was the only character we encountered off the main road. 

From the Moomin house we followed the road to Hemulen’s house. It was very small, but I thought it was nicely decorated. It didn’t feel as staged as the Moomin house.

From there we continued down to the beach where the “Bathing Hut” and “Edward the Booble'' were located. In Japan the bath house was locked and you could only peek inside through the windows, but it was much bigger. I’d say at least five adults could fit in there, while the Moominworld’s hut is so tiny it barely has room for two adults. Next to the bath house is Edward floating in the water. And that is all it is, a float or pontoon, whatever you call it. I don’t know why, but I always imagine it to be an animatronic or something more engaging. Nope, it just floats. If it ever was cut loose and drifted away it would make a perfect local “Loch Ness monster”.

From the beach, we took the “Nature trail” that winds through the woods on the left side of the main road. It’s all wooden walkways, so not much nature about it. We walked by Snufkin’s campsite, it was a little bit nicer looking than the Japanese one, but not by much.

We wandered around some more until we came to the “Scenic Lookout Point” that has this big ass telescope mounted on the ground. What do you know, the telescope is fake, and you can’t view shit with it. Or sure, you can look through it, but it doesn’t work like binoculars do. It’s almost like somebody thought it wasn’t such a good idea to mount a working telescope right across from the President’s summer residence or something.

We walked back to the main road and, looking at the map, found this path labeled “Fairytale trail” that would lead to some attractions on the right side of the main road. There was Alice’s Herb Garden (we didn’t see Alice anywhere), Hattifatteners’ cave (featurin’ a very pathetic looking Groke) and the Witch's House. The Witch was there and even had a large audience, lots of kids asking her questions. It was quite sad, in an immersion breaking way, that the actors playing the non-moomin characters had to wear those plastic face covering visors, due to corona, but the current situation is what it is.

The last thing left was “the rapids and suspension bridge”, which sounds kinda impressive on paper, but alas, wasn’t quite as impressive in real life. There was an alternative route to take if you wanted to skip the bridge. I thought it could have been longer, but I can also imagine myself being a kid again and being too scared to cross it as short as it was.

Some of the attractions were temporarily closed for some reason or another. We had pretty much seen everything there was to see at the park. But we were not leaving yet. As expensive as it was, 16€ per person, we had lunch at the Mamma’s Kitchen restaurant. They didn’t have any desserts on the menu in the restaurant, so next we went to Thingumy and Bob’s Ice Cream Bar. It was a good thing there was a roof over the deck at the Ice cream bar because it started pouring rain as we sat down to eat. We sat there quite a while, eating our ice creams very slowly waiting for the rain to stop. From the ice cream bar, we had a good view over the entrance to the shop, at least the park made a buck selling umbrellas that day! Eating ice cream outdoors while it rains is a bit chilling experience. Luckily, the rain stopped, so we were able to move out.

From the park we walked back to the mainland where there was another Moomin shop by the harbor. The selection was identical to the store inside the park, so I didn’t buy anything there. A little further down the road was this “ye olde Naantali shop”, that often came up when searching for places worth visiting in Naantali. The shop also advertised that they have the world’s smallest Titanic exhibition, intriguing. I expected the store to be a lot bigger, but it was really small in reality. I don’t see how more than max five people can be inside the store at the same time. The walls were packed from floor to ceiling with stuff, exactly the kind of place where you are too scared to move because you might knock something over. The Titanic exhibition was tiny alright, everything was fitted inside one glass cabinet.

Next to the Titanic stuff was a cabinet with more rare Moomin stuff. Older, now out of production Moomin mugs and even a few stuff from Japan. It was somewhat expensive for one tiny figure, but I bought the Japanese Snufkin figure, just because I thought if I don’t buy it now, I’ll never find one ever again. I also bought Stinky and Groke keychains. I think they are a bit weird looking, so I’m not sure if they are licensed or not.

After visiting the shop, we called it a day and headed back to the hotel.

My final thoughts, regarding the comparison of the two Moomin parks. On surface level they are very similar. But Moominvalley Park in Japan is totally the winner here. To be fair, this is mostly due to the fact that I, as a Finnish person, will obviously find the Japanese landscape to be far more exotic than the Finnish woods I see everyday. Also, I liked the more spread out layout of the Japanese park, in Naantali everything was packed too close together.

The biggest thing in Moominvalley Park’s favor is the museum building, as ugly as it was. The exhibitions there give something for the adults to enjoy. A common complaint for Naantali’s Moominworld is that there is nothing really for an adult Moomin fan, and now as I experienced it myself, I have to agree. The Japanese park has managed to find  that “for all ages” feel, while the Finnish park is too “for small children only”. 

I didn’t think Moominvalley Park in Japan was perfect either, but I would totally want to visit the place again. Moominworld in Naantali was somewhat lackluster, I’d think twice if I wanted to go back there again.

Moominworld vs. Moominvalley house