robbalvey

Agreed. I've been to Efteling many times now since 2002 and I had always felt the park seemed VERY "overhyped" but it has most certainly grown on me over the years and the new ride most absoultely helped.

I have to say that, without Zadra being open during our recent Poland trip, the BEST Roller Coaster in Poland we rode was Lech Coaster at Legendia!

Why too much hate? No good thinks on park? What about hyperion? Zadra? There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between "hate" and reporting my experience. My experience with the park was "not good" and that is exactly what I've stated. I personally was not a fan of Hyperion, or I should say it fell below my expectations. I took 5 rides on it. 2 were good. The other 3 were some of the roughest, most "rattley" roller coaster rides I've had especially for a coaster that's almost brand new. I thought most of the park looked cheap and tacky, like a summer carnival made a permanent stop. I did say some areas looked better, yes, but even those were a "knock off." There is NO WAY anyone could look at that new area where Zadra is and deny that the park was just ripping off Wizarding World and Traon's Klugheim and it didn't look anywhere near as good as those. It's not "hate", it's just what my eyeholes saw. If you have a different perspective, that's fine. I also don't have to agree with it either. Who knows. Maybe on my next visit to the park my experience will be better and if so I'll happily report about that. It also comes to no surprise that the RMC is good. Have they made a bad ride?

We don't have too much to go from, but here is the exact text they posted to their website: DREAMWORLD'S NEW ATTRACTIONS If you think you’ve experienced it all, think again! We are reinventing the definition of thrill, with new rides and experiences on the horizon. Get ready to challenge yourself and experience Dreamworld and WhiteWater World like never before, with a new world-first rollercoaster, with a triple launch system, and a new waterslide complex, featuring 6 new body slides coming soon! New Adrenalin-Inducing Rollercoaster The thrill of this ultimate 1.2km rollercoaster, featuring multiple inversions and reaching hair-raising speeds of 105km/h, is based on the world’s number one model, the Blue Fire Launch Coaster. It operates in 14 locations globally, including Europa Park and Disney Hollywood Studios. Dreamworld’s newest adrenalin-fuelled ride, will be a unique experience unlike any other in the world. The addition of the Southern Hemisphere’s first triple launch system will include a stall and reversed twisted half pipe and the world’s first separate spinning gondola! WhiteWater World's New Waterslide Complex Get ready to make a splash at WhiteWater World when our six new waterslides drop in. Grouped in one totally wicked location, each slide will offer a unique experience, featuring natural light effects and multiple vibrant colours. Our unique body slides will be the purest form of waterslides that you can experience, with just you, the water and a big splash at the bottom. Stay tuned for updates on this fantastic new experience, making a splash at WhiteWater World soon!

The park is absoultely worth visiting... but at least now you can adjust your expectations. And I'd also say the park is worth visiting provided you also visit Legendia on the same trip!

^ And that compared to what Legendia is doing at the "other" park in Poland. Just look at the difference in quality of area theming and landscaping around their latest ride.... And sure, you can say "But Legendia has rides that look like ass, too" because they do... But those are the OLD rides that park seems to be renovating or removing whereas Energylandia has built stuff like that recently.

^ And this is why I said about 85% of the park looked like what I posted because you would randomly see some nice landscaping, but then on the other side of that, you just had a typical fairground ride with little to no decoration at all... There was zero consistency, rhyme or reason to why some minor areas received slightly more attention that the ones right next to it.

Mostly terrible. And I hadn't even touched upon that yet. To give you an idea, they had 14 operating coasters in the park for our visit and I only rode 4 of them. 3 of which I rode during our morning filming. I only went back to Hyperion later in the day and I rode the new Vekoma Roller Skater only because it 1. Had no line, and 2. at least was a custom layout. I couldn't be bothered with the rest of the coasters because... 1. I just do not need to ride a bunch of kiddie coasters. 2. Everything was running one train, including Hyperion. 3. Their boarding process for getting onto rides was insanely frustrating with the whole red light/green light thing only allowing a certain number of people in the station and then you'd watch empty seats go out on every train during a 1-train operation because there was no human grouper. 4. All the major rides had lockers that you were forced to put stuff in, even though those same coasters has giant sized bins in the station. 5. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up. I waited in line once for Hyperion because I needed more footage, and thankfully, like many of the European parks, they DO allow you to wear a GoPro with a chest mount, but a line that should have taken about 10 minutes had they either been running two trains or at least had some... ANY organization putting people in the queues for each row, took about 40 minutes, and the only reason I even got to ride a second time is because I was able to hop into an empty seat after my ride because absoultely NOBODY in the station seemed to give a shit about anything. I did see some ride crews as we walked around interacting with guests in the station and not all of them seemed to be as bad as the ones I experienced, but even at the Vekoma Roller Skater that I did ride, I seem to remember that being frustrating for some reason, and that coaster had ZERO line at all. I think I'd be less harsh on the park if it was at least "well run" but I didn't experience that either throughout my day. And because I like visuals... These two pictures perfectly sum up my experience with the staff there... This is the guy at the entrance to the Hyperion queue LAYING DOWN on the stairs! Here we have an entertainment stilt walker instead of greeting people as they walk into the park, he's leaning against the wall and checking his watch. To be fair, this employee was super nice and high energy greeting guests. This was the ONLY EMPLOYEE in the park that I saw doing anything like this. On top of that, this was also another operational annoyance. The wait time on this sign basically never moved and were 100% wrong the entire day! Here is a giant line for the SLC running only one train... But yet the wait time was 0 minutes and it stayed like that pretty much the entire day. And if you wanted to get food? Forget it. The restaurants were all a cluster fuck that made Six Flags food service look like amazing! Here are a few random photos that I grabbed from our visit... This is what 85% of the park looks like. IMO, that's just cheap, irresponsible "Chinese park" theming and none of it makes any sense or fits together in any way. And sure, the new area DID look better... But it's basically just a Chinese knock-off of Wizarding World or Klugheim and how long until this looks as run down as the rest of the park and the rest of the park has only been open FIVE YEARS! I saw stuff like this all over the park in their "older" *cough* five years *cough* sections where paint was already fading and chipping away and the initial build was so poor that the steel support structure was showing through.... This is the quality you expect to see at a traveling fair. There is just no two ways about it, the park was "cheaply" made.

But this is changing now. But it's not. They literally JUST OPENED two more unnecessary kiddie coasters in the area with Zadra. And the only silver lining to those kiddie coasters is that they had Vekoma design a custom Roller Skater since they already had their other Roller Skater models in other areas of the park! That's not what I'm asking at all. I'm asking for some "quality" to be paid attention to rather than trying to rush this park to compete with parks that have been open for 20 to 30 years, and making huge glaring mistakes while trying to get there. There is nothing wrong with taking things a little slower with more attention paid to what you are doing and the overall big picture scope of the project. Case in point... the new area with Zadra. In just a short five years, they basically already ran out of space installing all the crappy cloned rides they did, so they had to build this new area ACROSS THE STREET via the tunnel. Why? Why couldn't they have focused a bit more on slowly building up the park and incorporating that area into the original section? I'll tell you why... because the whole idea from the very start was "build up as fast as possible... pay no regard to if it makes sense, we just need as many rides and areas as quickly as possible." Take a park like Toverland, for example. We first visited that park in 2005 when they ONLY had the indoor Vekoma and the Booster Bike. Here we are visiting 15 years later and while they only have 3 additional coasters since our first visit, that park is BY FAR more "developed" with logic and reason than Energylandia is.

The tallest woodie in Texas is only 97 feet so it only needs to be 98 feet tall to claim the title of "tallest."

I think if this was still 1997 you would have a point. But it isn't, and there are so many European parks not far away that you could list as examples to follow: Europa Park, Efteling, Phantasialand, Parc Asterix, Disneyland Paris, Alton Towers, Hansa Park, etc, etc.... Even parks that I would consider some of the slightly lesser "themed" but still bigger "amusement parks" like Heide Park and Movie Park Germany have been stepping up their game and installing bigger more impressive attractions over the years. There is no doubt in my mind that everything Energylandia has done to date has been done on purpose and by design. They seem like they are in a somewhat one-sided competition to be the "best park in Europe" in the shortest amount of time, but the record that I feel they are also going to claim is "Park that has cut the most corners to get there." This is why I say I was so "offended" by the park. There is simply NO NEED to have that many kiddie coasters. No need to be placing random theming everywhere with little to no cohesion throughout the park just to have "theming." Even the new area, while it *looked* much better just seemed to have random rides and stuff jumbled together without any real purpose. It was painfully obvious to me the direction of that new area with Zadra was "go look at Wizarding World and the area with Taron, come back and build something similar and throw a bunch of rides in there. DONE!" And while that area looks much better NOW because it literally was brand new and opened the week before our visit, what will it look like in five years when they are focused on the next round of kiddie coasters and new themed area they are building? This park was all about "quantity over quality" and I have a huge issue with that.

So apparently this was announced. I haven't seen any details on their website nor have a received a press release about it yet...

You have have to remember though my experience is a bit different. You only dealt with them from a guest-facing perspective. I dealt with them not only with that but also from a group/tour organizer and a video production/social media aspect as well. There was a lot more going on behind the scenes that soured my opinions of the park, not just the quality of the park itself and the rides. And then on top of that, my overall park experience. Honestly this was the most "Chinese" park I've ever been to, and I've been to a LOT of parks in China!

I'll post a photo to elaborate what you're talking about: Honestly having been to this park, this is 100% par for the course. The made-up facts, that flat out LYING about what the ride is and the records it holds. It has nothing to do with "locals don't know" it just is that this park knows damn well what they are doing and they don't give a shit. Honestly, it has been a long, loooooong time since I was so turned off by a park like I was by Energylandia. And it's not even that Hyperion ran like crap for 3 out of the 5 rides I took in it, it was EVERYTHING about the park. The whole place just seemed cheap and fake. Just like their marketing is. And just like most of their rides are. The RMC, Intamin hyper, and the Vekoma launched coaster aside, the park can really be summed up in this one statement... "When you have SIXTEEN roller coasters at your park, and the FOURTH BEST coaster you have is a Vekoma SLC, that really says something about your park and the focus on quality."

Not good. I'll elaborate later but... This is the place that charged us $2,000 to film on their coasters from 9am - 10am, and we didn't actually start filming until closer to 9:30am due to their lack of proper scheduling, which also included them handing us gift bags (thank you) but then immediately telling us we had to PAY to put them in a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo before we would even be allowed to go into the coaster station, which ate into our paid filming time even more. That was the very start of the our day, and with one-train operations on most coasters and lackluster staff everywhere in a park that looked like something straight out of those cheaply made China parks, let's just say it's not a park that I feel the need to go back to anytime soon, even with a giant new RMC. And as for the RMC itself... Trust me, I love them all and they are some of my all-time favorite coasters... BUT... I'm starting to think that many of them feel very much like each other. That's not exactly a bad thing because I'd much rather be on a similar feeling INSANE OMFG RMC than a "feeling the same" lackluster B&M. I watched the POV of this ride and it looks great... but do I really *NEED* to make another trip back out to Poland to ride it? I think I'll wait until this park gets 7 more coasters (that will be in two years) or Legendia gets something new because I'd rather go back to that park anyway...

Energylandia have released a POV video of Zadra, which looks AMAZING... but.... the park has chosen to call this a "Wooden" roller coaster and take the claim of the #1 wooden roller coaster. What do YOU all think? Should this 100% steel-tracked ride be considered a "wooden" roller coaster? Not even Six Flags, who came up with the "combined speed of these two trains on the track" fake marketing have tried to claim that their wood structure/steel tracked RMC coasters are 100% "woodies." Just one more thing I don't like about this park... Here's the POV video. Ride looks good!

I honestly wish I had ONLY taken my first two rides on Hyperion in the middle of the front and the middle of the back because I really enjoyed it. But then I got stuck on the end seats and it just rattled too much for my liking. I'm happy other people come away from it giving it a thumbs up because I actually do not think it's a bad ride at all, just the park needs to do better maintenance on their trains to bring the overall quality up to what the ride deserves. But I do admit to looking at things from the perspective of "if that third ride I took (my worst of the five I had) was someone's very first and only ride on it, they would come away thinking it's a terrible ride." And I think the coaster deserves better than that. The entire park was probably my biggest disappointment of my entire month park-hopping across Europe.

Epcot's Food & Wine Preview 2019! Welcome to one of my favorite events of the year! Where we get to preview a little bit of what is new at the upcoming Epcot Food & Wine Festival! And this year looks like it will be an absolutely AMAZING year! I'm going to just jump right in with something important... This is Raclette! It is beautiful, delicious, and should be your ABSOULTELY MUST HAVE of the event! Do not stop anywhere else, head straight to "The Alps" and have this. THAT. IS. AN. ORDER!!! So what is Raclette? In basic terms it is a "swiss" cheese that is melted under a high-heat broiler and then immediately scraped onto a dish and then into your stomach. That's how it works. It's been around for CENTURIES and it is something we often get when in Europe. Here is the Raclette booth at Europa Park, for reference, and also to show that I'm not lying! And as I said, the Raclette is baked to an amazing gooey and delicious state and then scraped off the half-wheel onto the plate. Here is the final product. What I found so "entertaining" at the media event was how many people had NO CLUE what Raclette was! I even overheard someone say they thought it was invented by Disney just for Food & Wine! I couldn't decide if I was just happy that Epcot is introducing this to people who were unaware of its existence or if I was disappointed in how uncultured and untraveled most Americans were! Either way, I'm just REALLY HAPPY this dish is coming to Epcot Food & Wine! Here is a video of Raclette in action! I highly suggest watching it: [twitter] [/twitter] Oh, yes, there were other items at the event! This was FANTASTIC! Will probably be my second new stop... Actually more like my seventh new stop because I'll first have six stops at Raclette. A few more new items... Some of these I tried, some I didn't... but I look forward to trying them ALL when the event opens! And I know everyone LOVES the Disney merchandise and Food & Wine always has some super cute and fun items! Here's a preview of what to expect... I'm sure these Minnie ears will be VERY popular! This Remi chef's hat is fantastic! Always happy to see new Figment merchandise. And yes, pin trading is still very much a "thing" at Walt Disney World! A few more shirts and other items to round out the merch preview. Hey! Look who I ran into! It's Joey Fatone from N*SYNC! Elissa was NOT JEALOUS AT ALL about him showing up to the event! He was there to announce that "Joey Fatone & Friends" will be playing as part of the Eat To The Beat Concert Series on Nov 12, 13, and 14th. He even gave a shout out to TPR! Watch: [twitter] [/twitter] And finally... THIS! OMG!!! THIS!!! Every single person needs to start the festival with Raclette... have MORE Raclette... and then end your night with the amazing Coffee & Donut Alcoholic drink! That is the recipe for a perfect visit to Epcot Food & Wine Festival! Huge THANK YOU to Disney for inviting us out to the media preview!

This is my favorite post of the day. This is what it says on why he was banned when he logs back into the forum: "Banned for being an asshole. Let me make it clear... You are NOT being banned for "having an opinion", you are being banned for being an asshole." Is that your new favorite post of the day?

I just bought my Mickey's Not-So-Scary "Party Pass!" It is $299 and it is good EVERY NIGHT (except Halloween Night) of the event! I can't wait! This is EXACTLY what I was hoping Walt Disney World would offer for the event! You need to CALL (407) 939-5277 to buy the ticket!

Nope. And he's been banned because of it.

Except with Banshee Do you feel better now? Did that help your insecurities by proving her wrong? Did it? Good...

Sometimes, you just have to remember this...

Let's just put it this way... we are about to spend around $400 per person for *ONE DAY* worth of Express Passes that will get us MOST attractions during the day of our next visit and in the evening of Halloween Horror Nights. Note that $400 gets you MOST attractions... Not ALL... I'm also not too pleased about that either...

Look on the bright side... I still feel like the TPR forum is far less toxic than any other roller coaster nerd forum, subreddit, or Facebook Group I've seen. We at least have mostly constructive discussions here since I've tried my hardest to remove the obvious trolls and horrible people. And sure, some people may argue that we are just trying to silence certain opinions (they aren't wrong) but I personally feel there is a HUGE DIFFERENCE between someone who makes constructive arguments and someone who is just being a toxic asshole for the sake of trolling. I don't think we've ever banned anyone from the forum for having a constructive opinion...