Garet

iPhone 14 Pro, safari, no thumbnails

While on vacation in Vietnam, we decided to try to hit up Asia Park. We'd already been to the other Sun World theme park (Ba Na Hills mini-TR coming later), so it wasn't a big priority for us but with the park only open a few hours every day, we decided if we were ever in the city of an evening to see how the weather was and try and squeeze in a trip. The main reason being, as you've probably seen from my decade of reports, I live in South Korea. For a place where theme parks tend to aim at families, there's a surprising lack of smaller-medium family roller-coasters like Ice Breaker or a mine train. Lotte World has none for young children, and Everland and Seoul Land just have 30-year-old powered coasters and old junior coasters then for all 3 parks the next step-up is straight into just as old Arrow Loopers. My son, a year ago, rode Everland's Vekoma coaster but, being almost 20 years old and running backward had a pretty bumpy ride that put him off, so he'd wanted to go out to this park to try to experience something better for his height (he just hit 120cm) to decide if he did actually like roller-coasters. Unfortunately, the park is well known for closing during the rain, which they only announce 4-5 hours before opening. We were greeted to this notice on Facebook on the Monday of our vacation. Although the park was open by Wednesday, a rain shower passed through, and my wife found on a Korean blog that the park was only operating the Ferris Wheel and indoor kids-play area. Before we continue my wife would like me to point out to anyone with young children that the indoor playground that's shown on the website has been ripped out so the indoor play area for children included in the price is actually just a bunch of arcade games and a ball-battle zone so be aware. The outdoor playground and rope-course in some older photos was also gone. On the last day of the trip we just decided to gamble and go for it, despite the threat of rain, even if it was a bust the night market was next door with a lot of food and entertainment to see, and did have some indoor rides and play-area as out back up plan. This park is pretty unique in that with Vietnams heat and humidity the whole park doesn't begin operations until 3PM. Wife edit: She'd also like me to point out for families, that we didn't see any restaurants at all and maybe one place for snacks in the park, so stock up at the Lotte Mart supermarket next door or just wait for the night market to eat. Note all the different times that everything runs, the rides only ran for 3 hours on the day of our visit. On top of all the different times for the parts of the park, each ride also has a different running time. Disaster for my son though, the junior roller-coaster he planned on trying wouldn't open until 5:15 (actually 5:30) and the one he'd really hoped to be his first 'big' coaster the mine train would not be operating... we figured we'd leave and my trip report will end here..... .... until we saw the prices. 200,000 VND works out to just over $8. Even if we only got 2-3 rides and a go on the famous Sun Wheel, we figured we'd get value for our money. 10 seconds before opening and the crowds were getting restless for rope-drop. Rope drop and all of the restless crowd was off. The first ride spotted and we've already found our first Hard Rock Park survivor. It was unfortunately down for the day. And the second Hard Rock ride found, sadly also closed. This was the closure that bummed my son out the most. A third Hard Rock ride already, and this one was open. And a fourth. Next door was another of the rides down for the day was the Singapore Sling. This one seems to have had a lengthy closure. Nearby was a small train ride, I believe another Hard Rock ride (fifth). Over in the China area, we found a 6th Hard Rock ride.... ... a chair ride.... ... and a pirate ship. In the Korea are this ride was blasting out some K-Pop, strangely it had one of the strictest height restrictions of 130cm for riders. Over in the Korean section should have been the 7th Hard Rock ride, Paradise Fall was originally where the Maximum RPM roller-coaster was constructed. However, for whatever reason it was replaced by this Intamin launched roller-coaster. Being that there was almost no one in the park a lot of the pictures will look like this. Even when people did ride, there were 5-10 minute dispatches so it was almost impossible to get pictures of the ride in motion since we'd also be riding. And I do mean we.... With the mine train closed and the junior roller-coaster not opening until 5:30, my son decided he'd try and give this a go. I tried to talk him out of it as I thought this would be too much for his second-ever roller-coaster. He tried it.... hated the launch and big turn then loved every moment after. But again that's a huge jump from a junior coaster as a baby to this. Having only tried 30-year-old powered coasters and his first real coaster being a backward 20 year old Vekoma, he didn't realise roller-coasters could be and I quote 'not bumpy'. He ended up riding 4 times. He never did like the launch or first turn but it was a big achievement for him. The Sun Wheel was now open so we headed there next. Once the tallest Ferris Wheel in the world, like a lot of the rides here, it was brought from a closed park. This time from Japan. Some views, you can even see the famous Lady Buddha statue. One ride my son was really bummed that was removed, was the new Intamin monorail. You can see the pillars where it used to run. Interestingly although all of the park is situated to the left of the river, the monorail was the only ride to cross and go on the right side of it. You can also see the overgrown bridge where the monorail would pull into the station. We headed over to the junior coaster, also from Hard Rock Park (7th) however it wasn't opening until 5:30... ... so we grabbed another Hard Rock Park ride (8th)... ... and another (9th). The bumper-cars were also located here. I have no idea where these people came from... we rode and then never saw any of them again, the only place we saw a group the whole day apart from at the Sun Wheel. The junior coaster finally opened. I should mention the sun sets in Vietnam REALLY fast. There's not much time between this photo and the one above. We did 2 rides and I planned to ride until closing and sacrifice my last credit. However he decided he wanted to try out a roller-coaster solo for the first time and loved it, so my wife kept an eye on him so I could grab the last roller-coaster. Heading out as all the park lit up. Grabbing a quick solo ride on the way to experience it properly without having to watch my son. Sadly, despite buying all of Hard Rocks roller-coasters, I was not greeted by a B&M looper, but this instead. At least it had the newer style trains. IT wasn't that smooth, but it was fun enough that I rode again which I think I've only ever done for one other SLC (Fantasy Island's Odyssey opening year) Despite the train only using 2 rows, I ended up waiting a long time for someone else to come along and ride so I bailed after that. I should also point out, since it was in the queue while I waited that even when the rides are open all night and not 3:00-6:30, they operate split-shifts. This style has become really popular in Asia post Corona, if you look at my Korean TR's of Legoland/Everland you'll see that a lot of parks have adopted some form of this style of operations, usually with rides sharing the same crew. Fuji-Q being another example of doing this during Corona (not sure if has been discontinued now though. for them), although this style is still alive in Vietnam & Korea. Heading out, I ended up riding this rattly drop tower, so the two girls lined up didn't have to split up for weight. This was originally the location of Hard Rock's roller-soaker however it was replaced by this suspended coaster. I'm not sure if this roller-coaster ever opened either, every report I'd seen had it as SBNO and I couldn't find out if it'd ever had riders outside of publicity shots. After over 20 rides we weren't sure if we'd got enough value out of our $8 tickets so we grabbed 2 more night rides on the Sun Wheel. Note the Dragon Bridge in the background... ... on the weekends it breathes fire and shoots water to soak people on the bridge at 9pm (picture taken the previous weekend) Being rainy season, despite the forecast saying 0% chance of rain, a shower passed through so we decided to leave early (the ferris wheel and amusement arcade inside runs until 10 but rides were already closed) and head out to the market. Wife final edit: All-weather apps were useless for Vietnam, but really don't use Weather Underground for your vacation planning, we found out too late the app and site aren't even authorized in Vietnam. So that was Asia Park. Were operations slow... yes, 10 minute dispatches if other riders didn't show up. Was the ride opening times very short... also yes. Nowhere to really eat.... yes. But we had an amazing time and would recommend it... if you can get a good weather day, $8 is just too cheap for it not to be amazing value for money. We've been to quiet or dead parks before but this took it to a whole other level. Employees waiting outside asking us what we want to ride, walking us over and starting it up. If you're ever in Danang or Hoi-An you could knock out all the credits in about an hour or two, and that's more because of opening times/split shift rides than crowds.

After closing for the winter last year, Legoland will be running Fridays-Sundays after Christmas, bringing it a bit more in line with the rest of the parks in Korea that run 365 days a year. Mini-TR: I held off on this TR because although we had fun, it's going to come across very negative. However, I also think that it is important to set your expectations before you visit a park, so you can plan and adjust accordingly. After delaying our trip during the Bring a friend thanksgiving event from a weekday, due to them wanting to experience the Factory Ride (see schedule in last post) went to the park on a Saturday in mid-September to finally experience Legoland's Starry Night. Was the park being open until 9PM worth it? Err, it was cool to see all the models lit-up and enjoy the park at night... but not sure the operational cuts to match the extra costs were worth it. As per routine, my son made us arrive stupidly early to be near the front and try and get noticed to open the park and win the yellow brick and certificate. The Legoland characters had been switched out for Halloween. Your word of the day is.... capacity. Despite it being a busy Saturday, nearly all rides that could run half a side did just that. We ended up bailing on the Wave Racers because only one staff was working the ride and there was also a broken car roped off. We were told the line was 30 minutes, but after seeing the time taken for unloading, checking the cars, loading, checking the bars were locked and seeing the line move by about 3 people (one family split up and a fast-pass group boarding) we bailed. I assume this is to cut costs due to the longer hours. However, as Tim has mentioned in another thread, the Korean media has been playing up Fast Pass anger recently, so we heard some grumbling here and there throughout the day of people thinking it was to drive up sales. However, the real fury was aimed at..... ...The Driving School. In 12 years of covering parks in Korea, I've never seen guests actually confronting staff about operations until now. And it happened more than once! Usually pre-show is run while the ride is going so next drivers are always ready to go. The view above was the norm, on this visit. For whatever reason, the operation that day was to count the people into the pre-show and make them wait. The movie wasn't allowed to be started however until the ride had completely finished, unloaded and cars checked. So we saw people in the queue confront the staff as their kids fidgeted and cars sat empty outside without riders for almost 10 minutes, as the staff stood around outside, then we saw different people confront staff in the pre-show after spending 10 minutes looking at the screen logo above. I want to give the park the benefit of the doubt and say this is the only way to get the batteries on the cars to last the 11hour operating time, but then be honest! Asking angry guests to be patient and understand just makes it worse. Outside of the two restaurants, and despite the heat, the only snacks were Churros or Coffee, outside of the apple-fries stand which was the only place selling slushies which meant a long line at that stanf. Unfortunately despite the long line and 4 slushie machines, they weren't staggering the machines, and an employee topped up all 4 at the same time, we and some other annoyed guests found this out the hard way, when we got to the front of the line to be told we'd have to wait 20-30 minutes for the drinks. My son took most of the operational issues in his stride but this one hurt him. For whatever reason, the app hadn't updated in the store in time and was still set to Summer. We tried constantly to get some meet and greets on that day hoping that the times had at least been changed in the app, but never found a character after opening. All the on-ride photo counters have also been ripped out and removed, and we didn't see any licenses for sale anymore at the driving school. Now onto the main reason we were here: So despite all the operational headaches, I'm happy to say my son had a great day, he always spends a lot of time around Mini-Land, and getting to see the models lit up and in night-time mode made all the headaches worth it. So we grabbed a night ride on the Lookout to see it from above, notice how busier the car-park is compared to the previous TRs. We had planned to head out since the Saturday fireworks were not happening (moved to the Thanksgiving public holiday instead) but we saw a show and headed over. Dracula was hanging out mostly in the background, its been an awkward year for theme parks, due to the Itaewon disaster, all of them have had to relabel events to Fall or Thanksgiving despite the use of monsters. We ended the day checking out one of the new 4D movies to arrive this year. City 4D was still the favorite by far however.

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Hmmm, even with the busy 6-day public holiday coming up and the Fall season, Legoland has now switched some rides to weekends/holidays only, including its flagship attraction, and has now added delayed openings and split shift rides to the weekend schedule as well compared to July (see above)

Returned to the park during the vacation, when a rainstorm earlier had meant the park wasn't too busy. Sadly Everland's icon, the magic tree seems to have been completely removed after the fire. A little bit of a shame when it features in the new fireworks show. There'd been a typhoon the previous day so I wasn't too surprised to see this sign. The whole area was roped off even at closing Friday, but T-Express was back up and running the next morning. At least Roling X-Train was open..........yay.... The birth of the twin pandas and the uncertainty of when/if the current baby panda Pubao will have to go to China seems to have driven up interest. Reminded me of trying to see the Mona Lisa. And I ended up seeing the panda mostly by lifting my phone up.... so just like the Mona Lisa. The baby panda not looking so babyish anymore. Unlike the Mona Lisa however, you can live cam the exhibit while standing right next to the exhibit. We waited 10 minutes to get in, but this was the line on the weekend... and this is even before the new pandas go on display. Interest seems to be extremely high. My wife and son both desperately want to go when the baby twins do go on display but I'm assuming, based on the way they displayed Pubao when she was a baby, those reservation tickets will sell out in seconds when they go live. We recreated the viral thing. And finished our time there with panda ice cream. Oh no, my son loves the Summer Night dance parties, but the amount of water is insane. Those tipping buckets in the picture are over the seating areas. A very drenched child... ... Being already wet we hit up the rapids. We hit up the ride 5 minutes before they shut it down, around 8:30 to make sure the ride is emptied out before fireworks, so we waited 5 minutes. Everland has really been putting out a lot of new fireworks shows lately. Instead of the Summer Jukebox (usually themed around musicals or film scores), there was an original production Evertopia The Origin of Everland, this year. In over 12 years of going to Everland, I think this is the first time I've ever seen them run it in the rain. It's always been outright canceled or just the media portion. Usually, since we've only ever seen it run on dry days, everyone has to sit down for the fireworks, so this was my son's first time ever standing up. He is 120cm and has got very spoilt on being able to see from wherever from sitting shows. He moved 3 times in this performance due to new people coming in, standing, and blocking his view or one or two children on shoulders, and has decided he doesn't want to do standing shows again. Unlike previous shows with fireworks throughout, it's mostly a 15-minute cartoon starting the Everland mascots, with only a few fireworks here and there and then a big 4 minute firework finale. Until I can figure out how to upload movies to the forum and embed them without them just turning into download files, here's a copy I put on my Youtube. IMG_7205.MOV

Everland's pandas successfully mated again resulting in twins (2 girls): Source Source Popped by the park a few weeks ago: t There's a weird tipping point end of may/start of June where the park will be rammed and the water park pretty quiet, and then the next weekend it'll completely flip. In the background is the ticket office, not the entrance... ... and the line also curved back around and down the road. Like I've said before, you have to be scanned into the park to get a reservation for some rides and the biggest rides you need to be in the park within 5 minutes of opening, with the line that long and being locked out of 10 rides until 2PM we ran back to the car for swimsuits we'd packed just incase. The indoor pool was open but outside was just the lazy river and one slide, the park's main slide Mega Storm pictured in the background. We waited 40 minutes for our 2 rides on Mega Storm and maybe 20-30 for the indoor tube slides. Maybe I'm the minority but I'm ok with just having the signature attraction open and getting in re-rides on one slide in the quiet period, since the summer can be crazy busy when the park is now fully open and lines can go up to 250 minutes and tickets at $80. We did our usual after water park tradition of food and fireworks in Everland, here's how the tree looked after the fire. The Monster Family sign has been replaced with this sign to represent the new attraction. And the old Robot Arm VR was now this exhibit. And as usual we caught the fireworks before heading home.

Legoland has switched their rides to the 'split' style on weekdays with one ride per area running morning only and another next door afternoon only on weekdays. Everland also uses this style on weekdays, although in their case it's due to their water park absorbing most of the crowds to the point that water park guests can go into Everland for free. Legoland also announced their water park expansion will be a water maze from next Friday along with the return of Legoland's fireworks shows.

Korean news was reporting on this and showed the man on the beam:

Just to add, since I don't think that many people visit the Everland TPR Thread, but it also contributes to the issue here in South Korea that's different to Disney or other parks: Everland offers the chance to buy reservation times to skip the line as a paid upgrade, but the standby lines of the rides are actually closed until 2PM from the 3 headliners on weekdays (T Express/Safari/Lost Valley) to 8-11 rides on weekends. You can get one of those time-slots for free when you enter the park, but you have to be actually scanned into the park and they can run out 10-20 minutes after opening so to be scanned in early enough, you need to arrive at the park very early to be at the front of the entrance and get scanned in ASAP. Throw in that the Safari ride closes at 6PM so you have a short window to join the queue... but also runs a night safari for $20 a person that sells out online super fast. The new cars that were added to the ride were supposed to have 2 carriages a jeep but only have one so capacity is low which also has a big effect on availability. Last weekend was one of the busiest for the park and the line hit 300 minutes once the standby line opened 2PM. It must make huge amounts for the park though. Example here: Saturday is already sold out, and Sunday literally has one ticket left for the Safari and these are about $90 a person to get 2 out of 3 headliners (T express and the 2 safari rides) and 3 smaller rides:

We had planned to go out to the park this weekend and check out the night time event but the weather forecast was bad, and next weekend is the busiest public holiday weekend for theme parks so we ended up visiting the park last Sunday, the last weekend of 7PM closings. I wasn't going to take too many photos but my Iphone 7 after 7 years of bumpy roller-coasters died, so decided to test out my new Iphone 14. 1st anniversary banners and theming was all around the park. An opening ceremony was added to hype the crowds, with dancing, lego characters and one lucky child getting to open the park and get a certificate for doing it. My son tried his best to get noticed but with the amount of children there, I think he has more chance of winning the lottery lol. A new stage has been added this year near the train and fire station to boost the entertainment offerings. Was surprised to see the Driving School gift shop had been ripped out, it's now just a big building hosting the license print out area. The water effects on the 4D film had been turned off. We checked out the Mythica film for a change and were completely lost. The police movie seemed to utilize the 3D much better and held the children's attention but during Mythica a lot of kids were getting bored in their seats. There were a lot more meet and greets than last year, and were well marked and advertised in time on the app. We got in maybe 6 or 7 meet ups in one day which left my son a very happy customer. Sadly the same couldn't be said for the buffet. There were no times posted for any restaurants on what their operating hours were. Maybe we've just got too spoilt on Asian park operations but we walked in just after 4PM (there was no barrier on the door), 3 hours before closing, thinking there'd be a dinner buffet we could eat before the Ninjago live next door to find an empty diner, half the lights off with no-one there for information apart from one cleaner far away. Even just a sign or notice somewhere with the operating time would be nice when we planned our day. It was impossible to tell if it was just a break gap between dinner and lunch or if they were done for the day. At least switching to another restaurant meant we got a good view of the stage show. We'd heard a lot of people weren't fond of the restaurant and the majority of people sitting down had their own food they had brought in since Legoland have relaxed their ban of outside food after a lot of negative press and complaints last year. Crowds were extremely manageable on a Sunday. The biggest line was probably Royal Joust. which may have been due to it only running one side as well as allowing adults to ride it. This was the car park at the busiest point of the day. Legoland have talked about their expansion plans in the next five years, there were two areas of clearing. One near the Dragon coaster and another at the back left of the park which already had construction walls up. Presumably one of these areas will be home to the swimming pool in July that was announced. The apple fries had a cherry blossom theme here. It was nice to see effects returning after being pulled out during the winter event, but a lot were either completely removed in the off-season or still not fixed. The glamping for 2023 sign was removed and presumably cancelled. It'll be interesting to see how many people will stick around when the 9PM night time closing starts, the park has announced they will sell afternoon tickets for 3PM-9PM which has been successful at the other major Korean parks, we tend to see a big crowd at Everland gates with those tickets when we drop by there after school finishes on the weekdays. At least for this day from 5PM-7PM we had the park almost to ourselves, with walk-ons and rides half empty. Rides were still operating but most of the cars had left before closing. My son had another fantastic day at the park so it shouldn't be too long until we return again.

Everland are adding a 2nd movie to their 4D cinema. They'll run a new extended cut of the current movie Monster Family in the mornings (a short film set at Europa Park and made by Nwave studios/Mack Media starring the characters from the movie of the same name and it's sequel) and a new movie Return to the Lost World also from Nwave studios. They're the company who made a lot of simulator films. If you've ever been in one of those old style simulators with the gull wing doors and rode the Astro Canyon Coaster movie that seemed to be the default since the mid 90's that's them.

Couple of updates from around the park: This might be one of the funniest failed Facebook translations I've ever seen. The original post was actually about fishing. Lets start with the one negative: The smartline system has been simplified to one tier, instead of multiple tiers to try to spread out availability but I still hate the fact that you have to be at the park so early before opening to stand a chance and then be locked out of so many rides without a standby line on the weekends until 2PM, especially when time slots are sold online for a premium but the system is not going away anytime soon. Due to the reservation system, we've lately been going to the water-park a lot this Winter since it grants free entry into Everland in the afternoons. This is actually usually the tipping bucket slide complex but the park instead of just boarding it up boards it up transforms the whole area into a winter spa with pools heated to 39C so it's not just the indoor pools even when the temperature was in the minus. Heavy rain meant no night entertainment, so the crowds had cleared out by the time we left the water park, but all the rides were running so we managed to get a lot done in just a few hours. On our second visit to the water park, the night-time entertainment was back. In the winter, the park doesn't run the full parade route but instead has a photo party in the main square where 3 floats come out and the characters disembark for photo-ops. The staff at Everland are always incredible, we arrived too late for the photos (completely my fault misjudging a queue line) but despite it being their chance to disappear and go on a break, two characters saw my son at the edges and made sure he still got a moment. That really made his day. I really really wish more parks would embrace the sit-down culture for fireworks shows. It makes it much easier for little children to see and results in no children on shoulders. We got there 5 minute before show-time and despite being at the back of the crowd, this was still our view. The winter show is Romance in the Sky, set to songs such as Marry You and All you Need is Love with heart shaped fireworks (although my timing sucked) Again, this is the view my son had. I can't imagine how much different for my son it would be at just 120cm tall if everyone was standing up. On our final trip the water-park was closed so we did areas that are normally closed at night. Sadly Lost Valley is still no longer using their amphibious vehicles to go into the water, but the giraffe encounter is still a highlight. Decided to check out the new updated zoo area with walk through capybara exhibit. The old cinema is now an indoor butterfly garden.I know I joke a lot about rides disappearing to become SBNO or turned into gardens like Eagle's Fortress or Global Village where, but the old cinema was always empty and this was picking up a crowd. It starts with a pre-show... ...before entering into the garden filled with photo zones. There's also flower bouquets sprayed with honey or cards for butterflies to land on so people can see them up close without risk of crushing the butterflies. The tulip festival was also in full bloom. New this year is the area being themed to fairies. Speaking of SBNO, the upcharge robot arm VR was removed after being closed since corona first hit. and the old bird walkthrough area was relocated so now it's a fenced off concrete wall. It's been this way for a year now and it's next to Everland's collection of dark rides as well as quite a big space, so hopefully something becomes of the area instead of an eyesore like the old Helicycles and track that's sat rotting for a decade. WIth spring, the photo party goes away and the full parade returns, if you don't care being up close, there are vantage points around the route.... ... and gives you the chance of beating the crowd to the fireworks and getting a prime spot on some of the raised pathways, away from the crowd area in the front. Sadly my Iphone 7 camera died after years of being bashed around on Asian roller-coasters for nearly a decade so these were all shot from the self camera. This show is Time Odyssey. Pre-corona, it involved live actors and projections on the SBNO Ferris Wheel but they've both disappeared in favor of using the screen. 027.MOV 028.MOV I've attached the finale of the fireworks that I shot myself. Judging by the sheer amount of tripods and professional gear we saw there's probably daily uploads shot much better but I figured it was better to attach my own videos than just link to someone else's YouTube. I'll be honest it was through the self camera and I got bumped a bit so it's not smooth but I'd rather get bumped by people having fun than get the perfect shot any-day. Edit: not sure how to make the videos show in the forum without downloading so I'll add to my Youtube.

^ My favorite is how long the lawyers have managed to put the restrictions in place Source The king has 7 descendants right now, 2 sons and 5 grandchildren and his current youngest descendant is Prince Harry's kid at around 2 years old... plus 21 years after that.

Legoland was open for pass holders this Monday and Tuesday. Sadly my son had school so we couldn’t attend and I’m currently trying to talk him down from wanting to go opening weekend. He wants to get the pin and lanyard given to the first 1,000 people but I’m not sure how big crowds will be and if he misses out even if we do go I’ll never hear the end of it. Legoland have announced a bunch of events that will run throughout the year. It’s a small change but with this and the announced 9pm weekend closings as well as some more Korean menu options at some of the snack bars we’ll hopefully see a better second year. It felt like most of the complaints and schedules from the first year was Merlin wanting Korea to accept how a Merlin park operates whereas so far indications look like Merlin is now accepting they need to operate like the other Korean parks. We will definitely be hitting the park late April/early May to check out the 9pm closing/Starry Night event but at the rate my son is bugging me I’ll probably have to add an extra trip in the next couple of weekends