Sun World Ba Na Hills is a tourist trap par excellence. Part amusement park, part Instagram backdrop, part kitschy replica fantasy land, it's also a place only accessible by one of the most impressive cable car systems in the world. And most importantly, once you get past the initial crowds, it's weird and wholesome fun.
We booked a tour to take us to the park, which is what most people seemed to have done. We found the tour through Marriott Activities, but our tour was a hodgepodge of couples and small groups staying at other (non-Marriott) hotels. The guide spoke (at least) Vietnamese, English, and Korean. We paid $85 each, which included transportation from our hotel and lunch; given that the park admission itself was about $40, this wasn't a bad deal.
After you obtain your ticket, you join the line for the cable car. While it's no longer the longest cable car track in the world, I believe that Ba Na Hills retains the cable car titles for longest nonstop single-track (5.8km) and greatest elevation gain (more than 1300m). It's a breathtaking, twenty-minute ride that takes you through and above the clouds. To me, it's worth the price of admission by itself.
Sun World consists of several discrete areas that are joined by cable car and funicular. The first stop for most is the site of the famous Golden Bridge. At this time of year, most people go first thing because it is more likely to be rainy/cloudy later in the day. While crowded, if you are patient, you will easily find a suitable spot for a memorable photo.
From there, we bought the add-on ticket for the "wine tunnel," the surviving remnant of the French colonial presence in the hills. The wine barrel dioramas were interesting, the paid actors wearing 17th or 18th century costumes were appropriately ahistorical, and the red wine wasn't bad.
Next, we parted from the group to head to the mountain coaster. It was well worth it to pay the 70,000 VND to ride the coaster without the line.
After eating a buffet lunch, we explored the rest of the park. Outside of the Golden Bridge, the flower garden, and the area around the replica Louvre glass and Notre Dame Cathedral (the "French Village"), it was strangely deserted. We did have the good fortune to chance upon the in-house dance troupe performing some sort of harvest-themed dance, complete with roller skating and pumpkin heads.
Around 3:30 pm, we rejoined the group and took the cable cars back down. We were back in Da Nang by 4:30.