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OMG OMG OMG. I'm booking my flight and hotel right now.

Miral and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced that Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi will be getting a brand-new themed land, themed to Harry Potter! https://www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/miral-and-warner-bros-discovery-announce-harry-potter-themed-land-coming-to-abu-dhabis-yas-island-301674644.html?fbclid=IwAR1PFLCxLtDtUCt7zcOtV_VTYiwhVlNPtTCuuY1qqf8CI7QA3ek_RS6yMac Miral, Abu Dhabi's leading creator of immersive destinations and experiences, in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery, announced today a Harry Potter themed land will be coming to Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, within the world's largest indoor theme park, Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi. The creative vision for this newly designed Harry Potter themed land from Miral and Warner Bros. Global Themed Entertainment will invite fans to step inside iconic locations from the wizarding world, seen in an all-new way. HE Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, Chairman of Miral expressed his excitement about this project saying: "We are very proud of our continuous partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery and excited to be bringing this spell binding first to the Middle East and the world in the future. This is yet another testament to our commitment to continue to position Yas Island as a top global destination for entertainment and leisure, and a great addition to Abu Dhabi's tourism offerings, contributing to the growth and economic diversification of the Emirate." Pam Lifford, President, Global Brands and Experiences from Warner Bros. Discovery, said: "The Wizarding World offers something for fans of every age to enjoy. The original Harry Potter stories and the blockbuster film series continue to captivate and inspire hundreds of millions of fans around the world, and our Global Themed Entertainment team together with our world-class partner Miral, will expand our successful Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi to bring this magical experience to life. Together with our lands at Universal Parks, this will add a wholly new and spectacular destination for fans to immerse themselves in." Harry Potter is truly a global phenomenon, spanning eight films based on the best-selling book series - which has sold over 600 million copies worldwide, been distributed in more than 200 territories and translated into over 80 languages. Today, these iconic stories and the resulting experiences are beloved by a passionate community of millions of fans from all over the globe. The addition of a Harry Potter themed land at Warner Bros. World Abu Dhabi (groundbreaking date yet to be revealed) expands upon a successful line-up of themed lands and experiences, including Bedrock, Dynamite Gulch, Cartoon Junction, Gotham City and Metropolis, that have brought fun and unforgettable memories to Warner Bros. fans and further supports Miral's vision to position the park as a top global destination and a great addition to the island's unique portfolio of attractions and experiences, while contributing to Abu Dhabi's tourism ecosystem and growth. The Harry Potter themed land will be significant in scale and join the existing six Immersive Lands in the award-winning theme park, bringing Harry Potter to fans like never before.

We'll be there. I thought it was about cold fingers and toes?

They are never going to tell you the actual reason for not running the event which is obviously financial.

To my understanding Six flags is just renting the space to world of illumination. Other Six flags parks also have this partnership so the rent money could go to corporate or to us. Whatever money we make I hope they invest in bringing back HITP better than ever. Yeah, that is true. It is no longer listed, as I said in my first post. I feel like someone had to take time to make the graphic, and make the page. What Kim said, they might not want to promise it to us then possibly take it away. I think the first explanation of them messing up the graphic is most likely, or at least that’s what I hope happened. We could possibly hear something about it at their Q4 meeting this thursday, as it could have affected pass sales. If anyone has any more info, please share, I hope we have our Holiday back!

Was staffing an issue pre-covid? I never heard of staffing issues until the last few years, so I doubt the location is the issue. SFSTL is stale, run down, blah.... no excitement. That doesn't seem like a great place to work, does it? The park need a generous amount of capital for a well deserved Facelift. It gets no media attention (radio or TV), no commercials, no billboards. The park is just there, like it has been for 50 plus years. ...yawn... It's like watching your favorite Movie over and over and over, it's your favorite but eventually you have had enough.

. . starts planning trip to Great Adventure next August. . . .

Couple of mini updates now Legoland is fully open and operational and since we popped by the park: I took my wife with me to get her opinion why Koreans haven't taken to the park to much when Lego is so popular here. Every town has many 'Lego Cafes' where you pay a per hour price and then can pick any of the Lego sets and go to a table and make them so it isn't like the brand isn't big here. I think weirdly being an enthusiast, especially one from the UK, has made my expectations lower. It's a Merlin park and pretty much comes with what you'd expect from that so I walk away with expectations met. Whereas as my wife pointed out, Koreans are used to places like Lotte World, Seoul Land, and Everland, where for the same price you get 10-12 hours in the park but they all come with parades, night shows, photo ops with characters (Legoland despite having many on the app in actuality only has one brief meet and greet at opening) , gardens to take photos etc. It seems Legoland seems to get targeted a lot in the news from accusations of unfair contracts in getting the park built, rides being evacced, and expensive costs. The park was dead on our trip which does make for a great visit but with all the negativity Merlin gets compared to the other parks which are owned by big Korean companies, I see it making future companies more hesitant to build here in a country that has been pretty stagnant for new parks and additions. I touched on this when Shinwha World opened on Jeju island but it also kind of applies to Legoland. Despite the park being in an area that sees a lot of tourists, I think the park suffers from having a high cost that warrants a full day experience in a are that is known and full of cheap drop in for a couple of hours tourist places everywhere. Shinhwa World suffered a lot from this and changed from day tickets to allow people to drop in and pay per ride. Legoland seems to have noticed because they've started running on summer weekends $30 tickets to enter the park from 3pm-7pm and changed the parking lot to a per hour charge. Final update, the park has now launched it's fastrack tiers priced at $40/$80/$120. Protesters are still here despite the park being fully open a while now. You have to walk past them and a lot of signs between the car park and the park. Like I mentioned in my previous TR, one of the big complaints about the park was expensive parking. Legoland has now lowered the price and switched to a per hour cost for people who don't want to spend the full day. Opening hype and experiences have truly worn off now. Just to give you an idea of how quiet the park was, that was the car park on the day of our visit. Even with only one side of the Wave Racers running, it was walk-on and the Coast Guard Academy was having to pull most of the boats off by 3PM to make room in the station for returning boats because nobody was around to fill the empty ones. One of the reasons we visited was to check out the signature dark ride that finally opened. My son loved it which was the main thing, but a lot of the effects were out of sync on the ride. The mini-figure scanner failed to detect people maybe 2 out of 3 rides for my son and wife and refused to recognize my existence at all. The mirror at the end would show our car but show the previous riders which means it was either out of sync also or a weird design choice and some of the videos would start too early. Our first two rides we went into a pitch black room before on the final ride it synced up and we could see we're supposed to be getting shut into a truck for transportation. My son is very young and I think this ride serves as a perfect introduction to dark-rides/motion based rides and it'll be easier for him to transition to bigger rides like Mystic Manor or Spider-Man/Transformers having been on this and it was a fun ride but I think out of all the motion base dark rides I've done it's my least favorite so far. The ride also has a huge queue line and is advertised as the parks signature attraction but seemed to be pretty ignored on our visit. We rode throughout the day and not only walked on but the cars that went with us were always devoid of riders as well. Once again, despite this post being doom and gloom, my son and I had a blast. Corona took from me being there on his first ever cinema trip but we did the 4D Lego City Police movie and seeing him experience 3D that comes out of the screen for the first time or his delight at the bubbles or getting splashed by a movie as well is a memory I'll treasure. He still loves here and spent maybe 2 hours marathoning the Driving School since there were no crowds so I really hope the park does gain more success as Merlin adjusts to the Korean market/media/expecations. Yes, we popped by the park on a weekday but friends who went on the weekend also experienced light crowds. Funnily enough the route home always takes us 2KM from Everland, and since we have year passes and it's open until 10PM, we always stop in to eat, catch a few night rides, and the parade and fireworks and that park still pulls in the huge crowds.