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Grand Ole' Carousel reopens Tomorrow July 26th. https://www.facebook.com/share/19ciRZP38V/

So we decided to surprise our son, who is in love with Minions and Nintendo with a trip to Universal Studios Japan for his 9th birthday. Flying Dinosaur has been on my bucket list for ages, and I do love Nintendo so we started planning. As we sat about budgeting, we were really unsure about the fast-pass situation. They'd been expensive before but with mine-cart now open, the new prices had just gone through the roof. Then 2 things happened. First Flying Dinosaur announced maintenance for when we would go, and my son suddenly found a third interest: Transformers....well mostly Bumblebee. When we looked at the cost of flying over for four days in Osaka with hotel and including USJ tickets and fast passes, which bear in mind is only a 90-minute flight from us, we actually found that same money could be streched enough to get us 7 days in Singapore (6 hour flight) in a nice hotel on the beach. As much as I love USJ I think the income bracket we are on is not the target market anymore, and it was just a no-brainer for us to use the money to take a long vacation and do Minions Land in Singapore with Transformers even if it meant missing out on my chance for Flying Dinosaur and Nintendo again. So here we are at Universal Singapore... So controversial opinion: This was my second trip to Universal Singapore. It's a nice park, but.... my opinion hasn't changed in that it still feels like a 'casino/resort permission park.' You see a lot of places in Asia, even in Korea, where companies want to set up a casino/hotel or resort/shopping area and to get permission, they include a park to make sure to get the rights, but you can tell the park is just there to get other things through. For example in Korea some parks list even playgrounds, talking trees, or gift shops on the attractions page just to try and make the list look bigger than it is. Universal is much nicer than any others but it still felt a little bit that way on my 2nd visit. The selfie game has been raised in Singapore. I didn't see too many selfies sticks but saw families with small drones that would hover in front of them instead to take the family photos. The park opening had this lady hold a cheering contest on both sides. Winners were given fast passes, but they seemed to only pick from the front row, so if you want a chance, arrive early. My son and some other children were a little off center, but it seemed the policy is only front row people in the actual entry lines. Don't be fooled that the park is still very quiet. We let the opening rush in first so we could enjoy the stroll but the park is quite busy in the mornings. Lines dropped near the end of the day but every ride averaged 30-60 minutes until the evening. The covers over the New York area were a welcome respite from the heat. Again, most people were running to rides. Sesame Street was already 40 minutes when we passed it, but we'd heard from others that ride would drop significantly later. So our first stop was Lights, Camera, Action! It's a shame these types of rides are disappearing. It's easy to forget that there are lots of children who have no idea how movie magic is made. Yes, it's very manufactured to an adult but for my 9 year old, this ended up being his favorite thing. Seeing 'Behind the scenes' blew his mind and was his favorite of the day despite his love of Minions and Bumblebee. It was at this point I realised my choice of where to stand was a huge mistake. 10.MOV Transformers was a 60-minute queue but was another ride we'd been advised to go back to in the afternoon. My son wanted to meet Bumblebee but also really wanted a talking encounter with Megatron. Hong Kong Disneyland had trained it into my son that if you weren't in line for a character before they arrived, you weren't getting that meeting, so we were made to line up since the staff told us Bumblebee was coming. The announcements however had been taken over by Megatron.... 12.MOV ...Who seemed to be having a bit of an identity crisis. Oh well, my son still got to meet a Transformer. So we rode this since we heard Bumblebee would be coming soon and there were no people in line at all... and yet as we went to board we saw people still using their fast-passes despite there being less than 8 people in line. It just seems a waste to not save it in case the lines get longer later. Last time I was here, this ride duelled, had 4 across trains (and ran 2 of them), and had a single-rider line. It's a shame that for the star attraction it's capacity and duelling has been cut. While we waited for Bumblebee, we got a birthday popcorn (Thanks Universal) and the Bumblebee soda cup as a birthday present. Success! And a happy 9 year old. Treasure Hunters is not on the fast-pass system and its line never dropped below 50 minutes when we visited so run there or canopy flyers when you visit. My son really wanted to try Battlestar but having never ridden a roller-coaster that inverts or an inverted coaster, he was pretty nervous. He wasn't sure about Humans launch either so we opted to try Mummy to prepare him with it's smaller launch. Sadly the ride broke down and after a while everyone was kicked out the line. So we headed over to Enchanted Airways instead. A fun roller-coaster but with only one train and fast-pass people made for slow operations. Line stated 25 minutes but we waited maybe 35-40. Having a quick explore around Far Far Away Land. Shrek 4D used to be everywhere, but is Singapore now the only park that shows it regularly? Japan's is still around but always seems to be replaced by some other even film. And a ride I'd forgotten existed at the exit. Low capacity and loading and unloading means it can take a while to get on. Onto the main reason for our trip. Our son loves Minions and so we spent a lot of time here. Even though these rides are only on Fast Lane plus they seemed to have the shortest lines of the whole park, walk on for the merry go round, 15 minutes for the other flat ride and Minion Mayhem was 25-30 minutes all day. The area is full of photo opportunities. A lot of people were instagramming but be warned that you could wait a while to take photos. Whereas kids and families would snap apicture together and move on, we saw a lot of solo adults or couple who would take their picture run back to camera, check, adjust, change some things and do quite a few times until they got the picture they wanted. The only photo opportunity we missed were the girls. They were leaving when we arrived. They aren't listed on the app outside of Gru family time, but they set up for photo oppurtunities at the end of Minion Minute. This Minion Mayhem was built from the ground up and not taking over an existing ride. However it is the Hanna-Barabara set -up, not BTTF/Simpson's style and it's also the 2D version. We finally got to encounter a Minion as we got off the ride. I'm not the biggest fan of Minions but my son loves them and made me photograph a lot so enjoy the photo dump of Minions Land. Part of his birthday treat was getting to eart at the Minions restaurant so we ordered a lot of food off the menu for him to try. A very lucky bathroom break. Since there was no bathroom in the restaurant, we stepped outside and Gru and Lucy showed up just as we were heading back. We rode this and broke down on it for a good 10-15 minutes before they could get it going again. Not sure if it was having a bad day but it was getting stuck quite often throughout the day and when eating. A huge thanks to Dejiki who recommended using the Minion Minute to get photo ops with the Minions. We headed over as they were dancing to where we knew they'd taken pictures and were first in line. After the VIPs had been through hr got a 'birthday hug' from the Minions. This stilt walker was also amazing, dancing and singing happy birthday in the Singapore heat takes more skills than I'll ever have. And we just managed to get the second Minion photo op as well at the other end of the street, Sesame Street had dropped to a 5 minute line and was the only new ride except Minions I hadn't experienced. I still have no idea what this ride was about. Transformers had gone from a 60 minute line to walk-on and I really love the Spider-Man ride system (fingers crossed the rumors about the Godzilla vs Kong ride coming to Lotte World are true) so we grabbed a few rides. And Megatron finally made an appearance. To a 9-year old he said: A birthday boy! Good! Then you can recognize yet another insignificant day in your meaningless life! He was very happy to have finally gotten roasted by Megatron. Mummy was still down but my son worked up the courage to ride the Human side. It was running two trains, so the wait was about 40 minutes. Surprisingly, he then decided to brave Cylon. However, that only had one train so the wait was over 60 minutes since here too there were a lot of fast pass riders. If it's not duelling, I really wish they could figure out some system for loose items. They wanded you at the start of the line but then also at the end anyway. The cattle pens really crawled when there's nothing to do or look at. The Battlestar theme doesn't seem to have aged that well because nobody at all was watching the screens or characters. Speaking of crawling lines. Mummy finally reopened with a 30 minute wait but.... for whatever reason they were only running one station and despite five trains only allowing one onto the track and double stacking them behind the unload. Since it'd been down all day, there was also a lot of fast pass people to get through so we ended up with a much, much longer wait. Since the Waterworld show wasn't operating we'd planned to spend the last two hours at the Jurassic section (60 minute lines) and then grab Puss in Boots last (90 minute line). However, we'd lost some time broken down on the Minion ride and both in the Mummy line when it broke down and reduced operations so we gave the kid a choice: Puss in Boots or Jurassic roller-coaster and rapids. He chose Jurassic. Rapid was down from 60 minutes to a 20-minute line so we jumped in line. It broke down and as we waited in the line the clock ticked closer and closer to closing time. After a good 30-40 minutes we bailed so he could choose a birthday gift from the Minion Store. He was quite bummed he'd made the wrong choice and missed out, and it seemed a shame to end his birthday trip on a downer so I took a chance.... ... we went to guest services and I was honest. 'We broke down in the Jurassic line and he missed out. It's my fault but we'll probably never be back in Singapore and we're staying on the island. Is there anyway if I bring him tomorrow he can get the ride he missed?' I honestly expected a 99% chance of them saying sorry for the break-down but things just happen but at least wanted to show my son we tried. They asked if that was our only break-down so again I was honest and said we got stuck on the balloon ride and the Mummy line. They asked for times which thankfully we had from photos or messages and they then checked on the computer to verify the rides had gone down at those times. We were told to come back an hour after opening the next day (Opening being too busy for guest services) and we'd be allowed two rides of our choice. He asked for Jurassic rapids and coaster but since Canopy Flyers doesn't have an express line it was changed to Puss in Boots. A really lovely worker met us and was so amazing. She could have easily rushed us through for our rides and gotten out as quick as possible but she took so much time. As she escorted us to Jurassic she took us on a path through Minion Land and Far Far Away with photo spots stopping and taking pictures. When we arrived at Jurassic since the rain had just passed through, Canopy Flyers had only a 10 minute line. She couldn't escort us but trusted my son not to run off and let him grab that extra credit he missed so he was really over the moon. We then finally got the rapids ride done. And escorted onto Puss in Boots.... .. and in a really lovely gesture let him have a birthday meet and greet with Po and Tigress on the way out of the park as well as gifting him a birthday popcorn when she could of easily just made us leave. After which we really had to leave. If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Day 5: Little Amerricka and Mt Olympus Spent about an hour at Little Amerricka which was more than enough time to ride everything I wanted. It's a really cute roadside park and a blast from the past. Worth stopping in for if you're driving from Chicago to Wisconsin Dells. Upon walking in you come to Mad Mouse, a Herschell mouse from the 1950s. It definitely runs like it was from the 50s as there's some good jolts, but the unique layout (with some very high speed hairpin turns that you won't find on a more modern mouse) was a lot of fun. Right next door is Meteor and I got 3 laps in the back seat as they kept sending it around. Another nice classic junior woodie, a couple of the drops had a slight pop of air. Reasonably smooth. Fun classic! Also grabbed a ride on the Chance Toboggan. You're already ending this paragraph in your head. But it's the last one in operation I believe so I tortured myself one last time. Rode the monorail, Ferris Wheel, and Carousel. Monorail is a nice long ride all the way around the park. Ferris Wheel is one of the old school types that you don't see very often anymore. Also did the Haunted House which looks like it's just a tiny trailer sized house (and it is) but it makes up for it by having the world's narrowest pitch black passageways with the occasional funhouse gag. The entire haunted house! Continued through Wisconsin and finally arrived at Mt Olympus, a park I was simultaneously excited and terrified to finally visit! And it was every bit as much of a shitshow as can be expected! You first come to Zeus so I started there. I walked up and got in line for the front row as the previous train was being checked. The lapbar in row 3 wouldn't stay locked so the ride op (every coaster except Hades only has 1 ride attendant here...strange!) moved that rider to row 5, then shouted over to the Hades station that one of the lapbars wouldn't lock and the attendant at Hades shouted back "Row 3???" So clearly everyone knows this is an issue that works there. So the maintenance guy shows up, sends the train around fully loaded with the loose lapbar being held down by the seatbelt, and then when it came back they locked it down and sent it empty. When it comes back again they locked and unlocked a few times and it worked fine, so they deemed it good for operation! A very warm welcome to Mt Olympus indeed! Anyway, the ride in the front row had a lot of airtime and was decently smooth other than a couple shaky turns. The speed at which this thing hits the brakes and then stops on a dime is crazy. The whole structure shakes a ton and I'm surprised this doesn't cause more problems. Next up was Hades, a bucket list coaster for sure but it wasn't without trepidation as I knew it would be aggressive. Sat in row 2 and after waiting 5 or 6 minutes for them to fill the train (they insist on doing this with every coaster here and will hold up the entire line to get 1 or 2 people to come forward, super annoying) we were off. The prelift section is surprisingly forceful with a couple spots of ejector and some fun and tight but rough turns. The first drop is great and then the tunnel section is just bonkers. There's airtime and turns in there that you don't expect and it lasts way longer than you expect it to. It shuffles like crazy in a couple of the turns and it's super loud, the whole experience is just totally surreal and it literally feels like the ride is taking you to hell. Finally you pop up into the corkscrew and a couple more airtime moments before diving back under, this trip a little quicker and less eventful than the first tunnel. The rest of the ride features some more good air and fast turns with lots of shuffling. I hopped into an empty seat in the back for a 2nd ride and somehow this was even more insane. It does get borderline painful but the intensity and craziness is just something I can't believe exists on a wooden coaster. This lived up to the hype for sure. As I was walking down to Cyclops I noticed a fully loaded train completing its cycle, but also 3 maintenance guys milling around on the ride. Once the train unloaded one of them came into the station and said they had to close the ride. So once again they sent a train knowing there was an issue, so on point for this park! Anyway I headed over and rode Pegasus and got to experience the neck snapping goodness in back. Every turn on this thing is in a ridiculous spot taken at a ridiculous angle. It's like building a coaster on RCT with the tightest turn radius and not banking anything. I was cackling the whole time. Luckily not too fast to really hurt, but just very ridiculous and somehow fun. I sat on a fence and watched a maintenance guy screw around with a drill in the Cyclops station for a while and my patience paid off as I got a back row zen ride. This ride is full of punchy airtime and the big drop has nice ejector. Reride a 2nd time, very fun and underrated coaster. I had to get back on the road so that was it for me. But I survived Mt Olympus even though everything was exactly as advertised! What a shitshow of a park, but a super fun afternoon at the same time. Valleyfair tomorrow!

Where are the Mules !!?? ugh! SFSTL dissed again!

The positive reviews coupled with those great photos of Wrath make me really.....and I mean REALLY excited for Over Texas' 2026 Giga Dive!!

Guests were quite good actually. I think the chaperone policy helps. I was just at Canada’s Wonderland before this trip and the amount of kids/teens line jumping is frustrating. Wonderland needs that policy too. Employees were good for the most part. Not a whole lot of effort put into filling trains (sending superman out with only 2 people in a row when you’re down to 1 train and an hour wait is hard to watch), but they all seemed to have a good hustle, especially for how hot it was.

I visited Six Flags Great America for the first time this week. I haven’t posted here in a long time but my flight home is currently delayed so I decided to write up a trip report. My home park is CW and I don’t have a lot of parks under my belt, but SFGAm has been close to the top of my bucket list with a strong line up of coasters. Overall, I was very impressed by the park. I was surprised that the park didn’t have a bigger footprint, as they cram a lot of rides into this park. This park has such a strong lineup of quality roller coasters. Unfortunately, Maxx Force was closed while I was there (rumor is it’s closed for the rest of the season?) however I was able to ride everything else. It was extremely hot while I was there and I don’t know if that kept crowds down a bit but it wasn’t crazy busy. Wrath of Rakshasa - This is a phenomenal dive coaster. I only have Yukon Striker & Valravn to compare it to, but it reminds me of a mini Yukon Striker. My biggest complaint about Valravn is how it hits the MCBR so early. Wrath hauls through its entire layout, and really whips you through the entire ride. Maybe a little shaking in the outside seats, but minor in my opinion. This is a slam dunk and I love how the queue and midway interact with the entire ride. The unique theming incorporated with this ride is a very nice touch too. Demon - A fun, classic Arrow looper. I love the vertical loops of an Arrow looper. I wish the lights in the tunnel were working. It’s a minor complaint, but I always think it makes a park seem cheap when there is an obvious feature of a ride that doesn’t work. Whizzer - My first time riding this type of roller coaster, and it was great! It’s obviously a great family roller coaster and has a nice setting as well. Superman - This was my first B&M flyer. I loved the pretzel roll, but besides that it doesn’t do a whole lot. They were only running 1 train and weren’t honouring Flash Pass on it (I paid for Ultimate so this rubbed me the wrong way with Maxx Force already closed as well). I can’t wait to try Manta & Tatsu after riding this. The Dark Knight - A fun wild mouse indoors. I wasn’t sure exactly what the layout was going in so it was fun to experience it in the dark. Families seemed to love this ride. Joker - This was a lot of fun, and spun more than I thought based on some reviews I had read. A short ride but fun when there’s not a line. Batman - My first of the Batman clones, and this lives up to the hype. One train operation which wasn’t great when it had a bit of a line. The inside queue before the station was a million degrees. Mix in the red lights and fake smoke, and it felt like you were being cooked. Even the station was warm enough, at least they had fans for the employees working in there. V2 - This was down for a lot of the day but I got lucky and it opened up as I was walking by. This was my first impulse and I really enjoyed it. The accelerating backwards is a lot of fun, which makes me want to get back to CP to try TT2. Aqua man - It was crazy hot while I was here. I jumped on to cool down and it was a fun ride and got myself more soaked than I was expecting which felt good when it was so hot out. For a park that seems to be lacking space, these water rides do seem to take up a lot of valuable real estate. I wouldn’t be shocked if this gets tore down someday for a new coaster, especially when they make people pay a separate admission to enter Hurricane Harbor. Goliath - An awesome RMC! I had pretty high expectations for this ride, and it delivered. Such a short ride it seems when you’re hauling through the course, but the airtime is great and the hang time is even better. American Eagle - A fun classic coaster, I got some night rides which were a lot of fun. I love that you have to walk a mile in the queue to get back to it. They were running both sides but not racing them unfortunately. (Side note while I’m talking about this area, the kids section back here was extremely depressing looking. It looks like they just threw some rides in an old theatre, and it looks like a haunted house is just left there permanently? This back section of the park could use a re-vamp if they were going to fix an area of the park up.) Sky Striker - My home park is CW, and this blows Psyclone away as this thing was running such a long cycle with so many full swings back and forth. The light package on it is amazing as well. It held a good line and was clearly one of the most popular rides in the park. X-Flight - A solid wing coaster, felt like a smaller Gatekeeper. It doesn’t really fit the County Fair theme (does any ride in this area?) but the flight theme for X-Flight itself was executed well for Six Flags with near-misses and landscaping. Justice League - This was a better interactive ride than I was expecting. The end scenes where you are racing through the city actually feel like you’re moving if you only focus on the screen. The air conditioning felt so good too on a hot day. Raging Bull - This thing is awesome. The airtime you get in the back was way better than I was expecting. The queue and overall theming of this entire area is very well done. Viper - I was very surprised at how good this was. I was expecting a rough old wooden coaster, but it delivered a great ride. Again, the ride’s little bit of theming in this area is great too. (While I’m talking about this area, the six flags app is not great. For some reason it was calling my home park “Six Flags Over Texas” and when you get close to Hurricane Harbor it kicks you out of Great America and shows you Hurricane Harbor instead). Overall, besides the one-train operations on Batman and Superman (and Maxx Force being closed) I was very impressed by this park. I see a lot of potential that the merger could bring (landscaping, consistent theming and ride ops could be slightly better compared to my home park of CW) but this is a park with several quality roller coasters that I’m glad to have had the chance to visit. (I attached a few quick pics I snapped as well).

Kroenke just bought out Revesco's co-intertest in the property. Kroenke and Revesco were the original purchasers of the park from Six Flags and that stated they intended to move the park to an alternative location and build 800 condos on the old Elitch location. I am not sure if they still plan to keep the park in the current location but that will depend on housing demand in downtown. Kroenke and his Walmart heiress wife are worth some 30+ billion dollars and could have fixed up Elitch Gardens over the past 10 years if they wanted to. It is depressing that Elitch's owners could spend 1/30th of 1% of their wealth fixing up the park, or 100-million and choose not to, while Lakeside's owner's are too poor to fix their wooden coaster for the past three years. Government owned and operated Waterworld appears to be the best run amusement place in the Denver area.

Disneyland Paris has shared an update about their current refurbishment of Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast which is scheduled to be completed before the end of the year! https://news.disneylandparis.com/en/a-major-refurbishment-for-buzz-lightyear-laser-blast-until-the-end-of-2025/ A major refurbishment for Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast until the end of 2025 Attention, Space Rangers! Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast has closed its doors for a major refurbishment, scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. Here’s a sneak peek at the extensive work being carried out! Over the coming months, teams from Walt Disney Imagineering Paris, Maintenance, and Central Workshops will be working extensively on this interactive Discoveryland attraction, a favourite among guests of Disneyland® Paris. Many aspects will undergo major upgrades – or even complete replacements – to ensure the best possible guest experience. A Refreshed Star Command The attraction’s highly stylized façade, covered in radars, energy-collecting towers, and futuristic pillars that represent Star Command’s space station, will be repainted – along with the marquee and the iconic nearly -two-meter-tall Buzz Lightyear statue. The neon lighting on the five towers and radar dishes will also be completely redone to provide even more vibrant lighting. Thorough Work on the XP-41 Space Cruisers Guests will benefit from newer technology in their mission to defend the toy galaxy from the evil Emperor Zurg: all current Astro Blasters, which allow them to shoot targets, will be completely dismantled and replaced. Additionally, many of the ride vehicles will be repainted and equipped with new dashboards featuring improved displays. A Brighter Galaxy in Focus This fantastic space adventure will return brighter than ever: inside the attraction, lighting will be completely overhauled with the replacement of all spotlights and the refurbishment of special lighting effects. Some of the targets – used by guests to score points in the battle against Zurg and his army of toy robots – will also be replaced with new ones, offering improved precision and performance. Beyond these changes, many other technical and visual aspects of the attraction will be refurbished during this closure, including the restoration of several Audio-Animatronics®. Over the coming months, all teams involved in this ambitious project will be hard at work to bring Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast back in top form by the end of 2025.

This is awful, can't even imagine going out to have a fun day at the park and losing a loved one let alone your own child...