Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
Discuss theme parks, roller coasters, and donkeys!
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By VinTheAttendant · Posted
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Day 10: Mon, June 12th part 3 : Legoland Billund concluded. . Headed over to the Pirates dark ride. .and how neat, the sharks circle the old man on the island. he looks emaciated tho. . why doesn't he eat a parrot? or a Turtle? not as fully immersive as "similar" versions of a Pirate ride, but this one is starting out rather fun. Dead Men Tell No Tales! a bar b queue? looks tasty! and you can certainly tell who's in charge here. . . whadda ya want lady? you seem to be leaning in!! Yo Ho, Yo Ho, a Turtle's life for me. Oh my! this is getting PG-13 yeah.. .we're ALL thinking the same thing. . . . 😛 since we're already a LITTLE moist from the waterfall in the Pirate ride. . let's head over to the flume ride. themed to Canoes. this really seems to be the only picture I have of it! I guess it was an ok flume.. not a big one by any means, but pleasant enough. but was able to get some good shots of the Flying Eagle from the flume queue and for some reason, took a pic of the Lego goats in the station., le sigh. . . too tiny for adults to ride (which I knew as soon as I saw it. . so wasn't TOO disappointed), and was happy to see it had people on it at least. the park does have a rapids ride too. .. which if I didn't have this pic of us on? would totally have forgotten about. I guess it didn't soak us! time to head to the very back of the park, for the NinjaGo section! pretty cool statue. . . tho this is a really large area, and it was really pretty empty. Seems like maybe the line isn't as popular as once was? this was tough! It's an interactive ride where you use "ninja moves" by waving your hands/arms over the sensors to fight Ninja/bad guys on screens during the ride. think Midway Mayhem, but instead of having pull toy guns. . you have nothing.. just your hands to figure out what motions might get a reaction and shoot/throw something I can't really say it was "enjoyable" because too much of the ride was trying to figure out how the system works, so you could "play". but it was an indoor seated ride, so there's that. and THIS is right next door in the same building!! we had managed to bump into another group of TPR folks in the Ninja ride, and all headed to the maze together. in all honestly? this was quite a lot of fun. you had to go down the hallway, avoiding the lasers and you could compete for best time. there were two side by side tunnels, so didn't get pics of everyone, only those that came thru this side. I believe this blur is David. Jason Jon hands down, my favorite. . .Caroline just walked thru them and hit the buzzer. Bwaaa-haaa-haaa. . she had the fastest time, but the tunnel was very upset with her, turning bright red! Colllin of course, Daniel was great at it Barry this is listed as an "attraction" in the Legoland guide. . it's a musical fountain, that performs every 15 minutes or so. to be honest? I quite enjoyed it! another look at the Driving school as passing by on the way to the overhead Monorail station. and now the view of the park from the Monorail. . which goes around basically the same area the train does. . . but hey, we're up in the sky now! you can see the Blue "sister" train (we're on red) across the way next to the trees on the right. and there's Yellow. It's a long enough course, they can run 3 trains at once..it was a pleasant ride around the center of the park. . mainly over Duplo Land (kiddie rides) and the Miniatures area. realizing we'd missed the Aquarium. . . cutting thru MiniTown to head over to it. a little (working) street carnival! I swear, this whole area was so neat. and SO much to look at. here's the included aquarium. . which started out with a really odd pre-show room, that had a film that mentioned "if you feel ill raise your hand" so I've got to wonder if at one point, the first room was actually a motion simulator, that took you "undersea".. because it certainly looked like it was set up to admit groups of perhaps 25-30 at a time (what you would expect in a motion simulator) and when the room doors opened, we were in the underwater aquarium. if they removed that at some point, it's a shame, as it would have made the seemingly pointless pre-show room make sense, and added a little fun. tho I loved the theming (even if not made out of Lego) leaving the Pre-show room and into the underwater kingdom of Atlantis. it really is a pretty cool walk thru Aquarium. .just rather small. they do have lots of buttons to push, that make some of the Lego figures in the tank move, or blow bubbles. I shit you not. . .this guy, when you push the button, farts in his suit. He then reacts thru the speakers (lots of "ewwwwww") and then bubbles seep out of his suit. Klassy with a K. . . . but yeah, I stayed and pushed the button a few times I'm sure the Kiddos find it hysterical. Lion Fish photobombed by Big Mike how YOU doin? Jason wonders about the meaning of life. . and yeah, i'm not missing THIS photo op.. tho I was trying to look scared and I have failed all the "major" stuff checked off my list, I broke off to wander about Minitown to check out all the stuff I hadn't seen yet, while the rest went back to ride, Polar X-plorer, I think. some of these are SO damn impressive. so many moving parts. . .the trucks , the boats, the bridges. as I keep saying, so. freaking. impressive. Elissa pointed this out to me, so I had to get a pic too! "DO NOT HUMP" the firetruck pulls out and rescues a kitten from the tree! NEVER in America. . look how close to the tracks those people are standing. . . bumped into Andy also checking out the Miniland Airport it was getting close to the time to leave, but I popped in to check out the "hands on building" area, where there are plenty of bricks for folks to let their imaginations run wild and build whatever they can dream of. the really good stuff gets kept and displayed, while the workers undo the bricks to get them ready for the next day for all the others. what's interesting to me is they have cases surrounding the build area, filled with specialty/custom builds and unique builds that have been done for the park/company that they want to display. some are truly incredible. an example out on the work counter of the kind of stuff Guests can build with the available yellow bricks. Ferrari also had a full Lego Ferrari on display! it was incredible! (and amazingly, most paid attention to the little sign and did not climb on it)! I'm not sure what this big plantation/farm display was near the front of the park, but it too had a lot of moving parts. . . or should I say Moo-ving (cows, get it? wink wink) if you went around to the farm side, there were buttons to push and the animals would come out of their stalls and performed a song. headed back to the bus, and passed this guy and this beautiful dog. asked his permission and he said sure. . love how the dog is looking RIGHT at me. what a pretty doggo, and the perfect way to end a great day at LegoLand ! hope you enjoyed following along. bert -
Day 10: Mon, June 12th part 2 : Legoland Billund continued the folks I was hanging out with today kept talking about "Ice Piolts School" and how we had to do that before it filled up. I didn't know what they were talking about (not putting two and two together). So we headed back over to Polar X-plorer, and I was even more confused, when they went to the side of the coaster entrance then up a short path into a warehouse. oh. . this thing. yeah.. this is that INSANE "robot arm" ride, where you can program it yourself, and then the robot does what you've asked it to do. You have to pair with someone, as it's teams of two, and I was feeling rather brave (realize that you can't see the actual Robot Arms. .they're behind the walls), so I told David, yeah, I'll ride with you - after everyone else passed on riding with him because he wanted to ride in *extreme* setting. here are the screens where you pic what actions you want the robot arm to do. then it spits out a card, that you take around the corner to give to the operator - who feeds the card into the Robot, and it does what you've programmed it to do for your "ride" oh my! well, that doesn't look too bad! looks like fun. and then I watched someone ride who had apparently chosen "Extreme" as well. . ..seriously, it looked like the Robot Arm was bashing them against rocks, like a cavewoman doing laundry! LOL too late to turn back now! yeah. .there are people on that arm (in that blur) our turn. .here's David an I ! MBSX9787.MOV and I believe I have Elissa to thank for capturing this. . . . ❤️ can't really remember, but I *think* we hopped on Polar X-plorer, since it's right next door. before heading over to that Egyptian themed ride I had seen earlier. I wasn't exactly sure what this ride was, but I prayed it was more gentle than Ice Pilots School. . .it HAD to be. . lots of littler kids in this queue. Turns out it was a shooting dark ride. i don't recall much about it, so I guess it wasn't a super exciting shooting ride, but was cool to see all the stuff made out of legos. it was almost time for lunch, so we headed back towards the park entrance. That observation tower - while not super tall - was tall enough for my liking and wanted to try it out post lunch, as hadn't been on that side of the park yet. lunch was in the Pizza Buffet. . which had some wonderfully strange pizzas (as Erik pointed out in his report), as well as seafood salad, and that wonderful tasting "Not Butter, Not Chicken" - which actually WAS butter chicken, and was one of the best things I had at any of the parks we visited. the fountains weren't working, so we got bottles with lunch. hmm. .maybe those Lego polar bears on the way into the park WERE Coke cross promotion? David happy with his small cup of Ice Cream, Me pleased with my larger (not as messy cup) and Jason upset he didn't think to use the drinking cup for Ice Cream. 😛 Letting the food settle a big, we wandered towards the observation tower, but stopped to browse in the giant Lego Store at the front of the park on the way. so soft!!! Bwaaa-haaaa-haaaa! I'm a rebel! see?? grrrrrr map of the park. . .it seems SO much bigger when you're walking around in it. it's very spread out. LOVED the Lego store. Even if you're not really into the blocks..it's still amazing just to see what they have on display in there! I went back and forth on if I should get Banana or Hot Dog. it was so hard to decide. Luckily no KISS ones. . or would have been schlepping big things back with me! exclusive to this store? after too much $$ spent, was time to head back into the park and up in the observation tower! We'd be heading back this way shortly, because the Aquarium and the NinjaGo section is back there behind Mini-land. on the left is one of the Legoland HOtels, and I believe way back over there is the Lego Campus (with the yellow brick on top) looking down at part of Mini-land as we head up. that's Lego House in the back with the giant window on top. not sure what the castle is. . possibly one of the Legoland hotels? (one is called the Castle Hotel) better view of the spread out park - that's polar X-plorer way back center right. . . and a better view of Lego campus on the left. and catching planes landing in the airport across the street. back at ground level, checking out some of the awesome mini-land as we walked by. i wanted to spend a lot of time here, but there were other things on my list I wanted to knock out first to be sure I did them. these planes taxiied. . and pulled into the terminals! so freaking cool. Safari time! I might be mis-remembering, but I think it was this line where a park goer got into an argument with the operator because the operator wouldn't let him ride without a shirt. So he threatened to put his shorts on over his head so he could ride, because the rules only said "Shirt and shoes must be worn" but nothing about pants. after he stormed off, we laughed with the operator about it. Pretty sure that happened in this queue. myself and Jonathan shared a jeep on this safari. a picture of Jason and David, taking pictures of us as we passed them on the "Savannah" Big Mike scores his own Jeep! we found our way back! and perfect timing too. . the train pulled into the station right next to the Safari ride. it's a rather tiny/cute train tho. . can a bunch of TPR guys fit in it??? you betcha!! a little "snug". . but a nice slow ride, that goes around the park a bit, tho mainly by Miniland. watch out for Robbers!! Traffic School. . . LOL. . loved this, but was for the littler kids. I could have done the Fire Brigade one, as that's for adults/families. . but the line for it was a bit long, and as mentioned, I still had some "must dos" on my list. some lovely picnic areas sprinkled about the park too. off the train, and we headed across the walkway for one of the most classic Legoland rides (at least one I'd always heard about) the boats! a nice slow moving ride, that you don't actually have to steer, that brings you among the world's greatest wonders. all made out of Lego of course. I recall you COULD sorta "steer". . but it really didn't make much difference where you went. hey, I know that!! I've been referring the Sphinx as "Sfinx" ever since I saw this. . . it's rotted my brain and stuck in it. . LOL I imagine it's what a cat sneezing and farting at the same time sounds like: Sfinx ("bless you") ta-daaaa! what can I say? it's a classic. next up? the Haunted Mansion. . I mean. . . . "Ghost" the Haunted House. which, I will admit up front. .I absolutely loved. doggie ghost? uh-oh. . Frankie's on the Juice again! parts of the walkthru are interactive - say you pick up a flashlight and shine it on something, and the figure moves. or pull a book out of the book case, and a fart noise happens. same thing if you step in the wrong spot on the steps - loud fart sound. yes, juvenile, but funny. and there's a mirror maze in the center of the house! with some mirrors hiding ghosts that appear out of nowhere. but the biggest "whaaaa?" is at the end of the house, when they move you into a room and load you into a small drop tower (think mini version of Mystery Castle at Phantasialand). . where you face across from another row of guests, also about to be dropped. not a huge drop, but fun and had us laughing. and the operator was kind enough to take this picture for us before the lap bar came down over our heads. creepy ass giant spider made of Lego greets you at the exit. to be concluded. . .
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Samsung A20, Chrome All of the video thumbnails show images. -
taken me a bit of time to get back to this, but hopefully worth the wait. my first EVER Legoland, and it's the biggie. . so took a LOT of pics, and will have to split this report up. Day 10: Mon, June 12th part 1 : Legoland Billund so we got up fairly early from the Zleep in and piled onto the bus for the drive. where were we headed? oh my. . .getting giddy! strangely located across the street from a functioning airport - tho it didn't seem to be a commercial airport, so must be mainly for freight (tho I'd guess used for executives coming to Lego headquarters?) - is the biggest and best Legoland (so I've heard. . this is my first one ever) even across the street in the parking lot, there's some theming going on. . . but this was nothing compared to what we'd see when we got to the actual park. it really is a full assault on your senses, with sounds and things to look at EVERYWHERE. this is still outside the front gates! Lego flag of Denmark? Modern Art? I dunno. . but I liked it. the lil Lego guys n gals hard at work building over the actual main gate. TPR Group Pic (courtesy of Robb) before heading into the park with out guide. and because he had on this AWESOME shirt, a pic (also courtesy of Robb) with Erik as the *STAR* - may we all burn so brightly some day! ah. . a bit more like it- as we're heading into the park. a more themed Trash can. wow. .this place is a lot bigger than it looks like on the maps! and that we were in before it officially opened, meant I could get lots of clear pics of many of the amazing Lego art all around the park as we headed to our first ride of the day: a ride on one of the park's 4 family coasters: Flying Eagle. Pizza pizza! . . and now I want a Coke! dang, this park is absolutely beautiful. I'd always heard and seen pics of some of the Legoland "Minilands". . but I was super impressed with how immersive this is! and so many of the parts are moving parts! cars, trucks, planes, trains, ships, even drawbridges. . . all work with the push of a button. a famous Legoland attraction - the boats. Oh yes, I was coming back for this once park opened. and the Lego safari. I didn't ever get to ride the Lego Catipillar. . and I'm wondering since in the pic I took, there's a maintenance guy there working on it, if it ever actually opened on the day we were there? but look how ADORABLE it is !!! and what's this? "Ghost". . . this Legoland has a haunted house walk thru? yup. . . + a surprise ending. naked hairy-chested Lego man in the Western section is making me have "feelings" that I'm not quite sure what to make of them. and adorbs Carousel. . . that I figured wasn't going to be allowed to ride, since it's so tiny (and I was correct.. . don't recall riding it, so must have been told no). ooo. . a log flume too over here. but this is what we had trekked back over here for.. Flying Eagle. since in the Western section, lots of "old West" Lego animals about.. such as this Buffalo and this Bald Eagle. some nice "Lego" theming on the coaster train itself tho the front car had a nice Lego Eagle piece attached. Here's Robb filming in the front row. whee!! the workers in this section were really getting into character. I loved his painted nails, so asked for a pic. whee!!! this wasn't operating yet (remember, we were there, I think, a good hour before park open), but this seemed to be a "Pirates" themed boat Dark Ride. Princess Garden? hmmmmmm. . . we bypassed Dragen (a Mack powered coaster) on our way to the next coaster. . .but I think everyone made a note to come back to this as soon as morning ride time is over, since apparently Dragen at all the Legoland Parks tends to be a slow mover. (wasn't the case here, as not only were they running two trains on this powered coaster / Dark Ride - having never been before I had no idea what to expect, but I LOVED the dark ride section it starts out with - but also because it was a Monday, so never really got super crowded). and outdoor theater for, I think, a Pirate vs Medieval Knights show? not 100% sure, as didn't make time to go see it. the castle that Dragen is located in really is a looming centerpiece here, and it's very cool how they keep the theming all the way around it. with lots of nooks and crannies to explore in. this is where we were headed tho: X-treme Racers (a Mack wild mouse) they weren't quite ready for us, and were testing to get it up and going, so I explored the area a bit. further down this way is the 4th coaster in the park - Polar X-plorer - we'd head there next. aw. . a cute lil dragon for checking heights me being a child.. . put your empty bottles in da butthole. it's a Llego Llama! this was intriguing. . . turns out it's a shooting dark ride. and peeking in the side of a gaming area. . all kinds of large stuffed toys one can win. the blue Koala looks kinda like Stitch to me (and the pink? kinda like Elmo) . . never noticed that. got the call back that it was time to ride X-treme Racers, so headed back that way. being in the front row means Elissa & Robb won, right? they beat those in the 2nd row? Big Mike and Bert going Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (I think this pic is from Andy. . thanks!) Big Mike and Caroline are ready to race. . . but what I think makes this pic? is how thrilled Kristen looks that she's next on 😛 and then we headed over to Polar X-Plorer. . . the parks other "big" coaster. It's still a mostly mild family coaster, but this one has a very surprising center section! You break thru the "Ice" when you stop in a show building. . you hear all the ice cracking around you, and then suddenly? a drop track! absolutely thrilling for those few seconds, and the adrenaline keeps you tingling for the remainder of the ride. Someone told me there used to be live penguins around the coaster - or maybe you just ended up in a penguin encounter area? But I only recall seeing Lego Penguins (and Walruses) on this, and I rode it a few times. I think this tied with Dragen as my favorite coaster here, as both had elements that make them a bit more thrilling than just a family coaster. which is NOT to say that Legoland doesn't have rides for thrillseeking adults - oh, they most certainly DO. But the coasters are targeted towards those that prefer rides with no inversions or "extreme" elements. I don't seem to have any pics on Polar X-lorer. . but it was fun. before cutting us loose, our park guides asked Robb if the group would like to head into Movie World and get an opening ride on Emmet's Flying Couch. . . so we followed them next door into Lego Movie World I LOVED this area. . and not just because of the photo ops. but of COURSE I had to be "Banana Man" and Bunny. Kitty had two smaller drop towers. . group pic before going into Flying Couch. . which is a "Soarin" type ride with three stacked couches in each section instead of three rows of "seats" it's actually some pretty perfect synergy, and makes total sense! i did get a little bit motion sick from it - but that could have been as I hadn't really eaten yet that day, or maybe was just too close to the side of the screen. regardless, it was Awesome!! (or as they say in Denmark: "Super Duper!") getting instructions on where to meet for lunch, and planned leaving time. . and then cut loose to enjoy the park on our own, as it was now open. not everything opens at park open, so tho they have a "flipping Plane" type ride, it wasn't open yet. Iit was by a different manufacturer that typically makes air-race, and the folks that were going to be operating it told us the number of flips they have as the record is hard to beat (tho it was fairly low). we knew some in the TPR group could probably beat the flip record, so made plans to come back once open but for now, most of the group headed to Dragen. everything that would be breathing in this pic, is actually Lego.. even the ducks! lovely attention to detail in the large ride queue inside the castle gates. and many of these vignettes sprinkled thruout the queue-line. you pushed a button and they activated, causing song, and some movement. LOL.. I noticed the measuring system for the kiddos here on Dragen for the first time. LOVE it. the outfits for the workers here were cute too - and again with the foam sword. this operator was very into it as well, when I asked for a pic taken *with* permission from the photo booth person, as the machine was down and they couldn't print it out (otherwise would have bought it for a magnet) what is this? let's check it out! hmm. . looks like it's supposed to "mist" or "squirt". . . no harm that it didn't on us. . LOL ooooooohhhhhh. . it's this thing! I saw these last year at Klotten - where it seemed the point was to swing out under a waterfall and get soaked. tho here it didn't seem quite as wet. . and the riders were getting quite a bit of "whip" motion. so we stayed in line (pic courtesy of Big Mike) it was more fun than I had been expecting, and didn't end up wet at all. don't think I rode this again. . . probably just snagging pics as we walked back over to Movie World for the planes. but interesting they are launching the cars much closer together than would be done in the USA. hi David! this is who we figured would beat the flip record here. . and I'm pretty sure he did. actually, I'm positive he did. . even tho the ride plays dirty, and if you flip too many times, it slows you down so you can't get yourself too dizzy (at least that's what the ride op told me). and Jason and Jon giving it a go as well. me too. .tho I'm not really good at getting these things to flip. but whatdda ya know? on this version, I was pretty able to do it. oh, not a LOT of flips, but at least proof I did it a couple of times. to be continued. . .
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wow. .thanks for this report. really nice pics, and the night time ones are fantastic! for $8? well worth spending some time there, even if a bit frustrating having to wait for others to ride some things.
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iPhone 13 mini, OS 17.1.1, Safari - no preview image. Once I click play, then the video image stays after that. -
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While on vacation in Vietnam, we decided to try to hit up Asia Park. We'd already been to the other Sun World theme park (Ba Na Hills mini-TR coming later), so it wasn't a big priority for us but with the park only open a few hours every day, we decided if we were ever in the city of an evening to see how the weather was and try and squeeze in a trip. The main reason being, as you've probably seen from my decade of reports, I live in South Korea. For a place where theme parks tend to aim at families, there's a surprising lack of smaller-medium family roller-coasters like Ice Breaker or a mine train. Lotte World has none for young children, and Everland and Seoul Land just have 30-year-old powered coasters and old junior coasters then for all 3 parks the next step-up is straight into just as old Arrow Loopers. My son, a year ago, rode Everland's Vekoma coaster but, being almost 20 years old and running backward had a pretty bumpy ride that put him off, so he'd wanted to go out to this park to try to experience something better for his height (he just hit 120cm) to decide if he did actually like roller-coasters. Unfortunately, the park is well known for closing during the rain, which they only announce 4-5 hours before opening. We were greeted to this notice on Facebook on the Monday of our vacation. Although the park was open by Wednesday, a rain shower passed through, and my wife found on a Korean blog that the park was only operating the Ferris Wheel and indoor kids-play area. Before we continue my wife would like me to point out to anyone with young children that the indoor playground that's shown on the website has been ripped out so the indoor play area for children included in the price is actually just a bunch of arcade games and a ball-battle zone so be aware. The outdoor playground and rope-course in some older photos was also gone. On the last day of the trip we just decided to gamble and go for it, despite the threat of rain, even if it was a bust the night market was next door with a lot of food and entertainment to see, and did have some indoor rides and play-area as out back up plan. This park is pretty unique in that with Vietnams heat and humidity the whole park doesn't begin operations until 3PM. Wife edit: She'd also like me to point out for families, that we didn't see any restaurants at all and maybe one place for snacks in the park, so stock up at the Lotte Mart supermarket next door or just wait for the night market to eat. Note all the different times that everything runs, the rides only ran for 3 hours on the day of our visit. On top of all the different times for the parts of the park, each ride also has a different running time. Disaster for my son though, the junior roller-coaster he planned on trying wouldn't open until 5:15 (actually 5:30) and the one he'd really hoped to be his first 'big' coaster the mine train would not be operating... we figured we'd leave and my trip report will end here..... .... until we saw the prices. 200,000 VND works out to just over $8. Even if we only got 2-3 rides and a go on the famous Sun Wheel, we figured we'd get value for our money. 10 seconds before opening and the crowds were getting restless for rope-drop. Rope drop and all of the restless crowd was off. The first ride spotted and we've already found our first Hard Rock Park survivor. It was unfortunately down for the day. And the second Hard Rock ride found, sadly also closed. This was the closure that bummed my son out the most. A third Hard Rock ride already, and this one was open. And a fourth. Next door was another of the rides down for the day was the Singapore Sling. This one seems to have had a lengthy closure. Nearby was a small train ride, I believe another Hard Rock ride (fifth). Over in the China area, we found a 6th Hard Rock ride.... ... a chair ride.... ... and a pirate ship. In the Korea are this ride was blasting out some K-Pop, strangely it had one of the strictest height restrictions of 130cm for riders. Over in the Korean section should have been the 7th Hard Rock ride, Paradise Fall was originally where the Maximum RPM roller-coaster was constructed. However, for whatever reason it was replaced by this Intamin launched roller-coaster. Being that there was almost no one in the park a lot of the pictures will look like this. Even when people did ride, there were 5-10 minute dispatches so it was almost impossible to get pictures of the ride in motion since we'd also be riding. And I do mean we.... With the mine train closed and the junior roller-coaster not opening until 5:30, my son decided he'd try and give this a go. I tried to talk him out of it as I thought this would be too much for his second-ever roller-coaster. He tried it.... hated the launch and big turn then loved every moment after. But again that's a huge jump from a junior coaster as a baby to this. Having only tried 30-year-old powered coasters and his first real coaster being a backward 20 year old Vekoma, he didn't realise roller-coasters could be and I quote 'not bumpy'. He ended up riding 4 times. He never did like the launch or first turn but it was a big achievement for him. The Sun Wheel was now open so we headed there next. Once the tallest Ferris Wheel in the world, like a lot of the rides here, it was brought from a closed park. This time from Japan. Some views, you can even see the famous Lady Buddha statue. One ride my son was really bummed that was removed, was the new Intamin monorail. You can see the pillars where it used to run. Interestingly although all of the park is situated to the left of the river, the monorail was the only ride to cross and go on the right side of it. You can also see the overgrown bridge where the monorail would pull into the station. We headed over to the junior coaster, also from Hard Rock Park (7th) however it wasn't opening until 5:30... ... so we grabbed another Hard Rock Park ride (8th)... ... and another (9th). The bumper-cars were also located here. I have no idea where these people came from... we rode and then never saw any of them again, the only place we saw a group the whole day apart from at the Sun Wheel. The junior coaster finally opened. I should mention the sun sets in Vietnam REALLY fast. There's not much time between this photo and the one above. We did 2 rides and I planned to ride until closing and sacrifice my last credit. However he decided he wanted to try out a roller-coaster solo for the first time and loved it, so my wife kept an eye on him so I could grab the last roller-coaster. Heading out as all the park lit up. Grabbing a quick solo ride on the way to experience it properly without having to watch my son. Sadly, despite buying all of Hard Rocks roller-coasters, I was not greeted by a B&M looper, but this instead. At least it had the newer style trains. IT wasn't that smooth, but it was fun enough that I rode again which I think I've only ever done for one other SLC (Fantasy Island's Odyssey opening year) Despite the train only using 2 rows, I ended up waiting a long time for someone else to come along and ride so I bailed after that. I should also point out, since it was in the queue while I waited that even when the rides are open all night and not 3:00-6:30, they operate split-shifts. This style has become really popular in Asia post Corona, if you look at my Korean TR's of Legoland/Everland you'll see that a lot of parks have adopted some form of this style of operations, usually with rides sharing the same crew. Fuji-Q being another example of doing this during Corona (not sure if has been discontinued now though. for them), although this style is still alive in Vietnam & Korea. Heading out, I ended up riding this rattly drop tower, so the two girls lined up didn't have to split up for weight. This was originally the location of Hard Rock's roller-soaker however it was replaced by this suspended coaster. I'm not sure if this roller-coaster ever opened either, every report I'd seen had it as SBNO and I couldn't find out if it'd ever had riders outside of publicity shots. After over 20 rides we weren't sure if we'd got enough value out of our $8 tickets so we grabbed 2 more night rides on the Sun Wheel. Note the Dragon Bridge in the background... ... on the weekends it breathes fire and shoots water to soak people on the bridge at 9pm (picture taken the previous weekend) Being rainy season, despite the forecast saying 0% chance of rain, a shower passed through so we decided to leave early (the ferris wheel and amusement arcade inside runs until 10 but rides were already closed) and head out to the market. Wife final edit: All-weather apps were useless for Vietnam, but really don't use Weather Underground for your vacation planning, we found out too late the app and site aren't even authorized in Vietnam. So that was Asia Park. Were operations slow... yes, 10 minute dispatches if other riders didn't show up. Was the ride opening times very short... also yes. Nowhere to really eat.... yes. But we had an amazing time and would recommend it... if you can get a good weather day, $8 is just too cheap for it not to be amazing value for money. We've been to quiet or dead parks before but this took it to a whole other level. Employees waiting outside asking us what we want to ride, walking us over and starting it up. If you're ever in Danang or Hoi-An you could knock out all the credits in about an hour or two, and that's more because of opening times/split shift rides than crowds.
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Nice drone picture showing the current status of Danse Macabre, and the big maintenance works at Joris and the Draak and Pirana. -
Samsung galaxy S23 with Chrome here, everything displayed correctly for me.
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By thrillseeker4552 · Posted
Thanks for the photos! Wow, it's like my childhood visits all over again! That was right around the time I started getting big enough to ride things and my family would take me quite often. The park has changed so much over the years, mostly for the better, unless you count their bad operations or them destroying Monte!
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