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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.

I just found an overhead photo posted, showing the footprint of the new Space Mountain, and how far back it will be, from it's original spot. Looks a bit bigger than the original footprint so ...... maybe an add-on bldg, behind the mountain itself, to house a Guardians-like attraction, maybe? ^ Like you suggested. Thanks to whoever took this shot.

LAX will not be too bad flying in since you are staying in Los Angeles but could be a long trip up the 405 freeway from OC on a Monday if you travel any time close to rush hour. The airport is mostly just old and has horrible traffic on holidays but otherwise is not terrible. Monday morning traffic from Magic Mountain to Universal will take about an hour to an hour and a half depending on when you leave since you are commuting into Los Angeles. The Disneyland / DCA Anaheim area shuttle was a mess last spring break in 2023, so I hope it has improved. We ended up walking because we couldn't get the app to work right and the shutlles were on demand most of the day and not running on a schedule. We ended up with over 15,000 steps per day and neither park is that large. I wish we didn't stay up at Ball and Disney Drive which was about a mile walk to the main gates. The skip the line will be a good choice at Magic Mountain as it will be the hotest park at around 100 degress in late July. It is also the largest park so you might be tired after Saturday. Beach Blvd in front of Knott's can be a little sketchy at night so don't bring someone afraid of homeless people or drug addicts wandering around. You will also get that off property at Universal and Disney so don't be wearing any expensive jewelry or watches.