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Opening Weekend Notes World’s of Fun opened for the season this weekend and we visited for pass holder preview on Friday night and yesterday afternoon. The weather has been perfect and the crowds mediums, so we enjoyed ourselves a lot. As a general statement, the park is mostly a dumpster fire at the moment. Last year’s opening weekend was great, nearly every ride open, multiple train operation, etc. This year, things are less than Enchanted. - There seems to be a lot of local outcry around the change in manamgement. Enchanted Parks is really putting their logo on everything with a tacky “Under new management” verbiage underneath. -They announced the removal of All Season Dining a week ago and the season long Chaperone policy the day of pass preview. There’s a lot of backlash on the socials from locals. - Mamba didn’t opened until yesterday afternoon. Running one train with the second nowhere in sight. Can confirm that the trims are still off, so the return leg remains elite. - Prowler’s non titan track is feeling some age, but it is running much faster than last year. The new titan track is actually at the end of the ride, near the 1/2 helix, and it just flies into the brakes now. Great to be back on it. - Zinger’s trains are fresh back from GCI. It didn’t open at all Friday, and finally opened yesterday. It was running 2 trains but 1 was empty while they finish the required cycles. - I would say that about 1/2 of the flat rides were closed on Friday night, and about 1/4 of them closed on Saturday - Spinning Dragons and Detonator are no longer Fast Lane eligible. - To their credit, most food, drink and retail locations were open. - Security and ticketing was a breeze. Didn’t see any bottlenecks or scanning issues. - Aesthetically the park looked nice, as always and there are some noticeable improvements. On our way out yesterdays, they were handing out a comp ticket to each guest as an apology, which was nice. I know that WOF is not the most frequently visited park by this group, but given the Enchanted takeover, thought that this might be worth sharing. I got the sense they had good intentions all around, but were really late in bringing back ride maintenance teams. They may also have underestimated just how sensitive guests have been to the ownership transitions (non thoosies included).

The final fun activity of my Singapore trip would be one that was purely a benefit of good timing. When I found out I would be traveling to Singapore and the dates of my stay, I was immediately pleased to find that on my last night of the trip it would be opening night of Halloween Horror Nights 13 at Universal Studios Singapore. Having missed a portion of my Rush of Fear pass time for Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights due to the last-minute nature of this trip, it felt like a fitting conclusion of this experience. Having already visited Universal Studios Singapore during normal operations in the prior week, my focus would be on the Halloween Horror Nights exclusives. This would be my third Halloween Horror Nights worldwide and my first Asia-based Halloween event. One last time in Sentosa... The event is considerably smaller than its stateside counterparts, with four haunted houses, a few "scare zones" and three show/entertainment experiences. Plus a number of the park's attractions (but not all) remain operational during the event to help distribute crowds--and the event desperately needs that crowd distribution. They have blood bags and test tube drinks here! Two new international Fanta flavors to add to my collection! The shortest these house lines would ever be was right at opening, as a flood of guests swarmed each queue entrance. Outside the (temporary) Blumhouse Bar, notable characters from across the Blumhouse portfolio of horror films were out and about. The Fear Ground was the largest and most detailed scare zone found within the event. It took over New York with a carnival of macabre clowns. Classic Halloween Horror Nights vibes for sure. One of the event's three shows is actually more like an interactive game show, but we had to skip it to focus on the houses and scare zones. I really appreciate how each house has a storytelling sign in the queue to help tee up what you'll experience inside. With this being the only IP-based house in the event's lineup, and the only story for which I was actually familiar, I was curious to see if this house stacked up against the Stranger Things houses I'd experienced back home in years prior. It definitely felt like a recreation of one of the prior stateside versions of Stranger Things, so I wasn't particularly impressed but my hosts who joined me, having never been to Halloween Horror Nights or a haunt event before, and being fans of the IP, were very excited by what they experienced. Next up was Death Whisperer... Each of the three remaining houses was tied to a regional folklore or superstition and it was neat to experience. This house took place in and around the queue for Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure and was the first house I've experienced anywhere where you are expected to climb up and down stairwells while scare actors are actively lunging at you left and right. Never in America, but super cool to experience here. The Realm of Yokai was one of the event's few scare zones... But for the length, number of scare actors and the quality of the setup, you could argue that this was another outdoor house. Some really neat decor and scare actors throughout. Hard to tell mannequins from scare actors and it worked very well to leave us unsuspecting to the scares. Some of the set pieces were... Interesting. Sadly Waterworld was not open during either of my visits, but I had a chance to spend some time in the theater... Singapore's Most Haunted: Build to Horror was easily the most popular house of the event. This one is based in Singaporean lore and that local appeal seemed to drive guests to rush here... We waited almost two hours to get into this house. While not something I would justify doing a second time, the wait was worth it as this was the best and longest house of the event. Plus, each group is given two blacklight flashlights to reveal hidden messaging throughout the house, which is a fun added layer to the experience. Our last house of the event was the strangest, but we made into the queue just minutes before the event's closure. Entering a house from in between studio buildings is a sight not uncommon to Horror Nights fans back home. Similar but different. The next morning I woke up early to return to The Jewel. With a few hours to spare before my flight, I roamed one final time to take it all in... And of course visited the Pokemon Center one last time. The long journey home by way of Singapore to San Francisco, San Francisco to Orlando took over 28 hours to complete but it was all extremely worth it! While I was sad to be leaving, I was ready to be home. And there was still a chance I'd be back in the region soon enough...

Pathetic and sick... what a way to start off the year.... Looks like the chaperone policy will be back hard and fast. Hopefully Enchanted can figure things out of how to stop this crap unlike Six Flags https://www.facebook.com/StCharlesMissouriScannerTraffic/posts/large-disturbance-at-six-flags-st-louis️large-disturbance-at-sixflags-stlouis-to/1366172972213952/ https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2368669333627515