SantiagoChile 33° S · 70° W Updated Apr 2026
Chile's only major amusement park sits inside a public city park and opened in 1978 with US$2M in European rides. Home to South America's second Vekoma SLC coaster.
Photo: Jorge Barrios Riquelme · CC BY-SA 4.0
Somewhere inside one of Santiago's oldest public parks, a woman transforms into a gorilla on stage while roller coasters rattle overhead. Fantasilandia, Chile's largest amusement park, has been pulling that trick — and dozens of others — since 1978, when it opened with just eight rides and a coaster the press called South America's biggest. Nearly five decades on, it still occupies the same improbable patch of Parque O'Higgins, a commercial thrill machine nested inside free public green space.
The park splits into three zones — Kids, Family, and Adrenaline — and its rides read like an atlas of global manufacturing. Vekoma in the Netherlands, Zamperla in Italy, Intamin in Switzerland, Mack in Germany. For a park that started with imported European equipment bought for US$2 million, the sourcing has always been international. The screams, though, are distinctly Chilean.
What keeps Fantasilandia interesting after all these years isn't just the hardware. Grandparents remember the original Galaxy coaster, teenagers queue for the Raptor, and everyone has an opinion about the Monga sideshow. In a city where most entertainment has migrated to shopping malls, this place still smells like churros and machine oil.
History
Santiago in the mid-1970s had parks, plazas, and cinemas, but no amusement park. The idea that a city of four million people lacked a dedicated place for families to ride roller coasters struck Gerardo Ortega as both a problem and an opportunity. In 1977, he and a group of friends began building on a plot inside Parque O'Higgins, importing rides from Europe on a budget of roughly US$2 million.
The park that opened on January 28, 1978, had eight attractions. The Galaxy rollercoaster, marketed as South America's largest, was the headliner. Chilean newspapers compared the opening to the country getting its own Disneyland. The comparison was generous. But the excitement was real.
The turning point
Gerardo Ortega didn't come from the entertainment industry. According to local accounts, he was a businessman who noticed something obvious: Santiago's families had nowhere to go on weekends that combined rides, food, and spectacle under one ticket. His pitch was simple — import proven European ride technology, install it in the city's most beloved park, and let the crowds come. They did.
The gamble paid off almost immediately. Fantasilandia became a fixture of Santiago weekends within its first year, and the Galaxy coaster — a steel track towering over the eucalyptus trees of Parque O'Higgins — served as the park's symbol for three decades. Ortega's original eight rides grew to over 30 by the 2000s, each addition imported from a different corner of the world: Fabbri in Italy, Huss in Germany, Zamperla, Vekoma, Intamin.
The Galaxy's run ended in 2013, when an accident forced its permanent closure. By then the park had long outgrown its founding attraction. The Raptor, a US$10 million suspended looping coaster from Vekoma, had taken over as the headline ride in 2008. Fantasilandia had become something Ortega probably never imagined: a working museum of global amusement-ride engineering, tucked inside a Chilean public park.
Order: The empanadas de pino and cazuela — hearty, authentic Chilean comfort food that locals actually eat. Skip the tourist traps and order what the regulars do.
This is where Santiaguinos come for real Chilean food, not the theme-park version. It's a genuine neighborhood spot on Beauchef with solid reviews and consistent quality.
Order: The sanguches (Chilean sandwiches) — ask for completo with avocado, or try a cecina sandwich. Quick, cheap, and exactly what you need before or after the park.
A proper local cafe where you'll see office workers and families grabbing lunch. It's the kind of place that doesn't cater to tourists, which is exactly why it's good. Their website shows they take it seriously.
Order: Whatever's on the menu — with a perfect 5.0 rating, even with limited reviews, this place knows what it's doing. Go for traditional Chilean dishes like pastel de choclo or a hearty cazuela.
Perfect rating and the name says it all: this is authentic Chilean food, no frills. It's small and under-the-radar, which means you're eating where locals do, not where guidebooks send you.
Order: Keep it simple — a classic margherita or a straightforward pasta. It's a no-nonsense spot for when you want Italian comfort food without pretension.
Sometimes after a day at Fantasilandia you just want pasta. This place delivers solid, unpretentious Italian without the tourist markup. It's a reliable fallback.
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Yes, particularly if you're traveling with kids or want a break from Santiago's museums and monuments. It's the only major amusement park in Chile, so there's no local alternative — and the setting inside Parque O'Higgins, one of the city's great public parks, makes the approach genuinely pleasant. Thrill-seekers will find the Raptor coaster and Tsunami water ride worth the ticket price alone.
A full day — roughly 6 to 8 hours — covers most of the park without rushing. Families with young children may find 4 to 5 hours enough, since the Kids Zone attractions are fewer and faster to cover. Weekends get crowded; arriving at opening time cuts queue times significantly.
The Raptor is the headline attraction — a Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster that cost around US$10 million when it opened in 2008, and was only the second of its kind in South America. For water rides, the Tsunami shoot-the-chute is the park's other standout. Both sit in the Adrenaline Zone.
Take the Santiago Metro to Parque O'Higgins station (Line 2, Baquedano direction) — the park entrance is a short walk from the exit. Driving is possible but parking around Parque O'Higgins fills quickly on weekends and public holidays.
Yes, the Kids Zone is designed specifically for young children, with rides like the Carousel, Dragon Mountain, and Villa Magica. Height restrictions apply on most thrill rides, so children under roughly 1.2 meters will be limited to the Family and Kids zones — which still offer a full half-day of activity.
The park opened in 1978, with records placing the date as January 28 of that year. It launched with just 8 attractions, including the Galaxy roller coaster — then marketed as the largest in South America — after an initial investment of around US$2 million with rides imported from Europe.
Yes — Fantasilandia sits within Parque O'Higgins, Santiago's large public park named after independence hero Bernardo O'Higgins. The park itself is free to enter; Fantasilandia operates as a separate paid attraction within it. This means you can combine a visit with time in the surrounding green space.
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