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We had a great visit in July. The raft ride was down for a while though, so #shithole.

Stopped by the mall for a couple hours this afternoon. Last time I was there was Oct 2020 when the mall had nobody in it and the park REALLY had nobody in it. After hearing about how dead it's been recently I was surprised to see the place really hopping today. Didn't have a lot of time and I spent most of the time shopping with the wife, but stopped in Nick Universe for a few minutes. They had a really healthy crowd and some lines for the more family based attractions, but with pay per ride now available I only had two things I wanted to hit. First was Shellraiser which I really didn't like last time I was there. I had a brutal ride and it left me with a pounding headache. I seemed to be in the minority with this experience and have been looking forward to riding it again and hopefully getting a better ride. I walked right up to a waiting front row and we were off. Definitely had a better ride on it this time around. Very minor bumpiness in spots but nothing much. There is still one brutal moment at the bottom of the big hill where there is a pothole so strong that I felt my brain slosh around in my head, but no headache this time at least. I definitely have a more favorable view of it now...the positives are great in the first half, fun inversions, and a couple areas of great airtime. Launch is great and the drop is incredible. The other ride I hit was Sandy's...not only because I love it but also because I know it can be very temperamental. Walk on for a back seat ride, fantastic as always. Definitely will come back when I have more time so I can make a wristband worth it and ride everything else. Still blows my mind how good a park in a mall can be. Would love to get to Minnesota and check out that park too sometime. Guess my "offseason" starts now although a 2.5 hr drive to the meadowlands or a 3 hr flight to Orlando would take care of that. Hopefully 3 months or so until outdoor parks return in the northeast!

Bonus construction update During my visit to Liseberg I accidental bumped in to Andreas Andersen that was on the way to give @Eftelflags (twitter) among others a construction tour of Luna. A BIG kudos to Andreas and Liseberg to let me tag along on the construction tour The roof of the water land on the way to be finished. World of Volvo-building looks impressive, but it's more spectacular in the dark.. It's really close to de building.. Luna footers. More Luna footers.. Even more Luna footers, the top of the hill is riddled of Luna footers Station building Preparing for blasting for even more Luna footers?? We had to crawl through a hole in the fence to get to the Luna station building... Lisebergbanan will go really close to the station building The inside of the station building will have the same "steam punk"-theme as the rest of the "Luna Park"-area Rare "used to be off limit" view of Lisebergbanan. Even more Luna footers.... Here will the fun begin... Exiting through the same hole in the fence that we entered.. More Luna footer that is waiting to be installed.. Massive footer that is incorporated in the existing buildings.. The Luna Park-area will never be the same after next summer End of the tour... They are getting ready to install tracks as soon the park is closed for the season /// Marcus

Amazing! Big Lego fan here and their sets are only getting crazier! ^Jim reached out to me and I gave him permission to post this here.

LEGO is amazing! You can create almost anything with LEGO's and when it comes to designing roller coasters and theme park attractions, LEGO can be a way to show everyone's creativity at their finest. LEGO has also released some of their own theme park related and roller coaster sets in the past. I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the latest LEGO Loop Coaster Set. Below are some pictures of me putting the set together and then the awesome details that this set has. If you have ever created a LEGO set related to theme parks, like roller coasters or rides, we would love to see it on Theme Park Review. If you want to share, feel free to post in this thread, or you can create your own thread. I think it would be great to see everyone else's creations and designs. I got my hands on this really awesome set! My family and extended family got me this as a Christmas gift this year...it was awesome AND a surprise! But of course my son just wanted to play in the box that it came in.... kids ...... This box is so cool. I didn't want to open it because it looked so cool. Some pretty fun details all around the box. I thought it looked tall from the picture on the box...but I would be lying if I said I wasn't surprised how tall the set actually was when it was complete. Time to dump everything out on our table. This was my battle ground for the next week to put this thing together. Everything laid out on the table and I'm ready to tackle the instruction book! Bag Number 1 Complete! That was a fun way to start! Bag Number 2 Complete! Starting to look like some roller coaster footers are being placed. Bag Number 3 Complete! Already placing track pieces? That was fast! Bag Number 4 Complete! I realized at this point, I needed to switch to the longer side of our table as this build was going to be a lot bigger than I anticipated! Bag Number 5 Complete! Not a lot added from this bag, but still fun seeing it come together! Bag Number 6 Complete! More track, the entrance sign and stairs were added. I love LEGO's sense of humor in all their sets. These signs are hilarious! Bag Number 7 Complete! The loops are already complete and I'm only half way through the instructions! This goes to show you that even LEGO makes mistakes on their instructions. If you know...you know... Bag Number 8 Complete! This piece doesn't look like much, but this bag took me the 2nd longest out of all the bags. You will see in a little bit which bag took the longest. Bag Number 9 Complete! Starting to see the drop come together! Bag Number 10 Complete! Almost done with Bag Number 11, and this was the crucial step of connecting the 2 separate pieces together. I'll admit...I was a little nervous something would break... Bag Number 11 Complete! It came together pretty easily. Bag Number 12 took the longest out of all the bags. First, I had to build the large "elevator" section. And then...... ...I had to make sure I had 222 pieces of the lift chain! I had to do this step 222 times!!! It was tedious but satisfying at the same time. I decided to split it up in groups to make sure I didn't lose count. The "elevator" section before the lift chain was attached! Bag Number 12 Complete! Tower has been completed! Bag Number 13 Complete! Added the portion of track that the coaster will sit on while going up the elevator! Bag Number 14 Complete! It doesn't look like much was added, but almost all of the gears and cables were added with this bag. This little red handle is the most important piece of the entire build! If you had a LEGO Motor function, this is where it would go to run the elevator continuously. Bag Number 15 Complete! THE ENTIRE SET IS COMPLETE! Now let's check out some fun details of this ride. When going to an amusement park, everyone needs pretzels and hot dogs! I love this guy selling balloons on his bike! I love his outfit and everything. Reminds me of some fun loving people here on TPR! The Grandma is terrified to ride...or is she so upset because her grandson is too small to ride? Any set with a squirrel is a winner in my book. Also, if you know LEGO, you can recognize some of the other larger LEGO Fairground builds. Let's look at the fun coaster station now... Fun little details within the station. They have pictures taken from the ride camera (including some taking the squirrel on the ride). The ride operator has their own area of the station with buttons for the ride. Time to take a ride on the elevator lift! It really is such an awesome set. The view from the top of the drop! What is great about this set, unlike some other LEGO sets, is that our entire family enjoys playing with it. It is interactive with the coaster traveling through the track and all the minifigs that we can switch out on the ride. Changing things up with this set is a blast for my boys and it's not some static LEGO build that will sit on a shelf and collect dust. They have played with this set nearly every day since I have completed it. And mostly, they try to derail the roller coaster! HAHA!! Thanks for reading. AGAIN, If you have any LEGO creations related to theme parks, roller coasters, rides, we would love to see them! Please share them!

The atmosphere was totally different than 2 years ago for sure. Last time it felt like a warehouse with a couple random stores plus a park and a ski hill. This time it legitimately felt like being in a real mall. It's kind of surreal watching my wife spend millions of dollars at Bed Bath and Beyond and thinking in 3 minutes I'll be spending an equally absurd amount to ride roller coasters. It's great that it finally no longer feels like a place that might shut down next week.

Can we all just stop and admire the fact that Kings Dominion is now a year-round park and they've given everyone absolutely zero indication of what that means? They've cut hours from 10-5 to 11-5, probably because they won't have anything to do but if you look at the website it would appear that everything in the park will be open this weekend except for Grizzly, Drop Tower and White Water Canyon. In reality they'll probably have 2 coasters open... maybe... I don't know. They're going to piss a lot of people off who actually buy day tickets. Carowinds seems to be doing a fine job with this. Kings Dominion is acting like they forgot that they're open for the next 2 months.

Last year when Kraken and Manta were closed for their repaints, the closure was listed on the individual ride's page. So if there is no closure listed there, I think it's safe to assume everything will be open. Atlantis could be a wild card though. In 5 hours you will get on everything with time to spare. Even on the busiest days, I have never seen Mako's wait over 10-15 minutes. Most of the time it's a walk on since the capacity is just excellent and dispatches are solid. If there is any sense of crowds, Manta will be the busiest due to the horrid operations. Kraken and Ice Breaker will be in the middle. Have fun. It's a great park. And like ^ said, next week will likely be deserted.

I visited several times this season and never encountered any major issues. I had an incredible experience no matter when I visited. Sure, there were a few shops and food stalls occasionally closed, but that's to be expected. Every coaster that needs 2+ train ops were running multiple trains, so wait times were never an issue. There weren't any noticeable maintenance issues either besides one visit where Powder Keg opened late with just one train running. Either I have been extremely lucky, or Shavethewhales has been extremely unlucky.

Day 8: Evening: arriving at our hotel in De Panne, and checking out the beach we pulled into De Panne close to 9:30 pm, if I'm not mistaken, and were quickly in to our hotel - which looked like perhaps it was once an apartment complex that had been converted into a hotel. Hotel Ambassador (thanks Elissa!) was the name of this place, and the husband (Luc) and wife team that own it were charming, and each room had a different layout than the others. The small lobby (with even smaller elevator off to the side) opened up to a large breakfast area on one side, and into a bar/dinner area to the other (which was closed already since we arrived on a Tuesday evening, off season, close to 10pm). since it was off season (a few weeks before the peak holiday), I think our group took over the majority of the rooms in the hotel. . . just a block or so from the beach, and on the main street of the town. the rooms are all different, as noted, and James and I got lucky again (as we did in Phantasialand) and scored a room with a tub (one of only 4 in the hotel - yes, I did take a soak one night we were there). A large room too: view from the bedroom looking towards the beach (behind the condos/buildings there) our gigantic bathroom. . seriously, it was almost half the size of the room itself! and the tub long walk to the toilet. . LOL and the view from the bathroom window. we got settled away, and met a group of folks in the lobby to go explore (even tho it was kind of late) and see if we could find anything that looked good to eat. (another group had also gone out exploring) we headed to the beach boardwalk - I had heard there was a Carousel here (bonus!) if I could find it, and if it would be open prior to the season really starting. quite a few folks out for post 10pm on a Tuesday! (more than I had expected) looking North: Looking South: there seemed to be more options going North, so we headed that way. this is the Atlantic Ocean, as seen from Belgium. Gorgeous. "funland". . . sounds kinky. I had to keep reminding myself it was late, so of course not much would be open. . . even tho it LOOKED pretty early. a picture I sent Nick from the beach. It was morning in Austin and he thought I was sending him something from the prior day, and I was like: nope.. it's still light out here. he was impressed. we peeked into a few of the open restaurants as we passed, but most of them looked a little bit too "fancy" for us - we'd spent the whole day in a theme park, no one had showered, and the idea of a sit down, upscale meal just wasn't that appealing to anyone in the group I was with. so we kept walking looking at options, making note of the Pizza place we passed, and a hot dog place. the architecture on the beachfront buildings impressed (and delighted) me, so I took pics as we walked the boardwalk. it wasn't "cold". . but it was just chilly enough, I had no desire to walk out to the water tonight to dip my feet into the Atlantic. So we stayed on the boardwalk. From the boardwalk, looking towards the street that our hotel is on (way back a couple of miles, since we had walked pretty far) doggo! at the far end of the boardwalk, it dead-ends on this side into an entertainment area. not only a big ferris wheel and some art installations, but also "glamping" areas, and this place that offered these activities: beautiful sun finally starting to set, close to 11pm. nothing had caught our eye, so we took the walk back up to the main street, to head back towards the hotel that way and see if any options there . looking back at the beachfront lots of sculpture and unique installations on the main street walking back too. but not a whole lot of places to eat that were open, or more casual. so we decided we'd head back to the pizza place, and see if they were still open. De Panne is very lovely. a pic I stopped and sent to Nick. he responded telling me he wasn't' feeling all that well, and he thought he was going to lay back down. But I should go eat and have fun, and he'd ping me Austin Evening, tomorrow morning my time. so we exchanged "love you"s and we headed off back to the pizza place on the boardwalk. we got back to the pizza place, I *think* just after 11pm? and tho the sign had been flipped to closed, the door was still unlocked - and we saw the other folks from our group in there eating and drinking. so we popped our heads in and asked if there was any chance we could squeak in and get food. There was only one worker left - who I think was the manager - but he seemed delighted to have a small surge of customers at the tail end of the night. Remember, it's still off season, so I assume business was slow? with a big smile, he waved us in to sit, and then when handing out the menus asked "please, order only from the pizza options, I don't know how to make much of the other things on the menu" Deal! and he was so kind, and happy, that we gladly ordered alcohol and planned to give nice big tips. here's our group, and the other group of TPR folks who had stopped in before us.. TPR takeover of the Pizza Place on De Panne Boardwalk: it was a LOT of food.. but we weren't gonna start asking to split up stuff. . . keeping things as easy as possible for this kind restaurant owner/manager. a few folks shared pizzas, but I wanted to try something (that I can't recall now) that no one else wanted. . so I had my own and ate about 2/3rds of it. was VERY good. I think a calzone? or maybe a shared 1/2 of pizza from James' plate. and heckling from the other table. . LOL full, fat, and happy, we headed back to the hotel to crash after a very long day. the sun had finally set enough that it was actually dark-ish. but before we went up to crash, we stopped at the convenience store up the street, which was open 24 hours. since the only cigarettes i'd seen had been from generic machines, this was the first time I saw the way they do the actual images on the cigarette boxes. i was shocked, kinda grossed out, and very amused. so of course I took a pic. I didn't pick up the weed/crack pipes they had for sale tho. . . just some bottled water and a soda. and with that, we said our goodnights in the hotel lobby, and everyone headed up to the rooms to crash. tomorrow, day 9, was a full day at Plopsaland De Panne - and we had morning ERT on one of the most looked forward to coasters on this entire trip: Ride to Happiness. so I went to bed excited. to be continued. . . .

I don't care what people think of Looping Starship rides. I use to love it.