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Just an FYI from an email from SF about the legacy memberships if you still have one... Our membership goes up a buck per membership a month. Still totally worth it for the parking, admission, and meal plan that we get. Also says Joker CoC (hehe) will open this summer. (probably not gonna happen on time)

Thank you all for the great advice. I especially appreciate the advice about hotels near Dollywood. Since I typically pay attention to reviews and don't go for the cheapest, I think I'll be ok. I'll still be a little more careful when I look for hotels there. Thanks again!

I'm just happy I'll hopefully never have to hear the stupid nickname ThighCrush ever again...

The last piece of track was installed Monday for the new coaster!

Särkänniemi is a city-owned amusement park with a great location and an interesting and varied collection of attractions. Its coaster lineup is perhaps a bit lacking, though, and there aren't a whole bunch of them. Which is okay by me, but maybe left a lot of my fellow trip participants ready to move on well before I was. Which is a shame, as there are sections of this park I felt like I really had to rush through, and some areas I never even saw. 24: Born To Boom Näsinneula Observation Tower & Tornado greet us as we enter the park. Also, some really pretty benches, all at weird angles to make sitting more challenging and fun! Tornado's station is impressively dark and spooky and carved out of rock. And one of its two heartline rolls similarly sweeps under mountain. Which is cool, because when I think "Tornado," I think "underground caves." A good ride, but a bit rattly. On the other hand, I exclusively rode on the much less full train, and those on the more heavily-weighted train did not seem to agree with my 'rattly' accusation. So take that for what it's worth. Tornado intertwines with the park's log flume, Tukkijoki--which means "log nonsense" (maybe). Also, that "floating" faucet would maybe be more convincing if they, like, tried. Is it better to boom before pizza, or after? No, serious question. The park wants to know. It's hip and cool and for the trendy kids. Except that it is actually kind of cool looking. Oh, wait, if I think it's cool, then it definitely isn't, because I'm old and decidedly unhip. So I don't know what it is. It's the Park Shop. Beware of smartphone zombies. These symbols actually spell out a word! See it? All aboard the hype train! See, because, the ride is called Hype. And it has a train. Stop in the name of burger. Also, take off. Piggy Town is Pouta Pig's hometown. "Pouta" means dry weather in Finnish. And that's good weather for a candy cane. Thus, this photo. If you look closely you can not see me. Because I didn't ride it. But you can see Smusty and Goldirt. I did ride--and very much enjoyed--this seaside car ride, though. "The ride is calm, although the steep cliffs can be a bit exciting." Järvikaruselli is a beautiful old Schwarzkopf ride that's very gentle but still really fun. To stumble across it felt like finding a rare coin worth way more than the amount printed on it. MotoGee is a Zamperla straddle coaster (no, seriously...is that what we're calling them??) It was...fine, I guess? I barely remember it. Anyway, here's a photo of some random Fins acting like goons because they're about to ride it. Love when park guests treat photo ops like benches. Yeah, you're number 1, dude. Hope nobody else is here to have fun. That's pretty great for a bumper cars facade. Going up the observation tower for big time looking at stuff. Yes, here we are at the top of the Näsinneula (or, "Eye Stabber") Observation Tower. Except we're not quite at the top, because there's a ceiling above us. And above that, another floor! Looking down on the rapids ride and petting zoo kids farm area. A group of us had lunch at the Observation Tower's rotating restaurant. Here you can see Misty doing that thing where you're so focused on making every other part of the photo work that you forget to pose yourself. Culturally, full-service dining in Finland is meant to be relaxed and unrushed--even more so than in the Netherlands. So the decision to eat here (admittedly, championed largely by me) certainly contributed to my having less time to explore the rest of the park. So at least some blame on myself for that whole situation. I do not remember what this was, exactly. But I don't remember anything not being good. Except for the first drop, you can see most of Tornado's layout here--among other things. The non-amusement park we visited in the last update can be seen off to the right across the water. Särkänniemi also has an aquarium, located at the base of the Tower. Slither Fish Koskiseikkailu, which means "butt splasher." No, I'm never going to get tired of these dumb translation jokes. See? Proof that what I said was true. The Doghill Fairytale Farm area of the park. I'm not sure if I saw all of it or not, but what I saw I liked. Raatiuone means "Town Hall." No, wait, it does actually. However, I believe it was a bakery or something. Certainly, there was no lively local political debate, much to my disappointment. Okay, loaded fries. And some kind of kebab. And um.... Okay, wow. And a vegan thing. Got it. This is like a haunted indoor play structure, or something? (A rather unkind description of me, but sure, I guess so.) Oh, Mr. Fancypants Child has to be led to the haunted play structure on a horse. Lad-di-da! I don't know what's wrong with me. But thanks for wondering! Sheeeeeeep! See, it's cute. It's a fun area. This area needs a dark ride. And by "this area" I mean "this park." But I feel that way about every area and every park. Sometimes I'm on a dark ride and I think, "Hmm, you know what this dark ride needs? A dark ride." Park Score: Um, I'm not sure? There are some rides I was interested in but never made it on. I dunno. 6 or 7? Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and go with 7. Next up: The final park of the trip!

Panda and T Express updates: We begin in late December. Knowing Pu Bao would be leaving soon (the announcement confirming dates hadn't happened at this point) and the baby pandas would go on display sometime in the following months, we decided to try and beat the crowds and get one last look in. The panda celebration was already gearing up with a giant inflatable panda where the tree used to be. Even on a quiet day the line was huge though, we ended up jumping in the line at the evening and were in within 15 minutes. The keepers were strictly enforcing everyone to only get 5 minute viewins though. Bye Pu Bao. The pandas were crashed out when we went in but we just couldn't justify waiting 4 hours earlier in the day. The daddy panda was also asleep. Unfortunately, the weather gamble didn't pay off... so we grabbed some food... . ... checked out parts of the zoo we never normally have time for.... ... and had our first-ever snowbuster ride. All credit to Everland for keep opening this despite each year getting warmer, although the small slope here was open, the big ones were not due to warm weather and all the slopes closed at the very start of February this year. T Express had no visible retracking at that time mid December also Due to our weather gamble not paying off I promised my son we'd visit when both water rides had reopened so fast forward to this weekend... Panda Mania was in full swing. This exhibition was the new for 2024 attraction. However it was virtual line only and since people had camped out at the park hours in advance, most rides on reservation were snapped up minutes after park opening. Panda merchandise was sold everywhere and people were eating it up. We saw people wrapped in panda towels, backpacks, and bags full of 'Remember Pu Bao' merchandise. Remember that 30 minute queue from our previous trip? The line never dropped below 230 minutes even late into the evening for a 5 minute viewing. The line was hard to miss stretching horizontally across the whole park before u-turning near the flume ride and going back across the park horizontally one more time. And then almost making a spiral as the line continued into the American area of the park. With long lines meet the new trend of Korean theme parks 2024. These fold-up stools were sold and bought everywhere. By the end of the day it seemed like almost every family group had at least one of these. Which meant of course my son had to have one. Honestly.... worth the $15. Light enough he could carry, but could even hold my overweight butt, it was used in a lot of the slower moving lines of the flat rides. Like the Safari bus. We waited 100 minutes for it since it's reservation only until 2pm (and since it'd be a longer wait to be first at the gates with the very early morning panda crowd to even try and snag reservations). Note the car in the background. This line usually doesn't die down since each jeep only pulls 1 trailer. When the ride first updated the cars last year it was advertised with 2 trailers per car and the gates and lines match that size but all references/pictures/artwork have disappeared so it probably won't ever run that way. We lined up for this ride because my son wanted to role-play being a 'Youtube narrator'. I asked him if he meant recreating a nature documentary, but apparently, I'm old and it's about doing it on YouTube now. Despite the weather being 4-7C weather the water rides both had hour-long lines all day. It was Thunder Falls's first day of the season so they weren't running too many boats but the chair got put to good use. Everland has put up a lot of queue-jumping etiquette signs and to the park's credit, we got queue-jumped far less. However, there are still some who will take it too far and we had a man with enough family in tow to fill a whole boat push past us in this line. It was interesting seeing 100s of people accept it and not question him, accepting it as culture, and I do mean the whole line...somehow those kid's bathroom must have taken an hour because he was still pushing past to almost at the station before he disappeared from our line of sight. Finally onto the T-Express update. I usually don't do these updates if there is a lack of progress but since I heard T-Express was getting RMC'd/Ibox treatment... I've been sent the pictures and seen the news on other sites but as of this weekend (24/25th February 2024) whatever track was on that hill (this is the same one from the picture online) has been removed. I have no idea why and I'm not an engineer so not going to speculate, but as of now, there was no track on the areas due for retracking RMC/Intamin or otherwise. On this night the fireworks were canceled (probably why we got the table) but there's a restaurant that overlooks the fireworks and last orders are usually 30 minutes before the park closes. So if you don't want to brave the crowds or weather it's always worth looking in here to see if you can get a table with a view. Edit: Panda World hit a fresh record of 350 minutes on monday despite it being a weekday: https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0103_202402261441016084