Garet

What amazes me about Chessington is that looking at this TR , almost every single ride in the park is either new or has been rethemed or upgraded in some way since the early 2000's. From Vampire conversion onwards, I think off the top of my head only the Wild Mouse and 1 or 2 children rides have remained untouched.

Well we locked in plans to take our son for his first Disney Halloween. We've downplayed the chances of meeting Spider-Man since they announced a Thor & Loki pairing will be the big Halloween thing but playing up Halloween since he's never been able to Trick-or-treat, Halloween is still mostly taboo here in Korea so he wanted to experience. Probably a long shot but we saw this on the announcement. Does anyone know the price for this or a rough equivalent from the other Disney parks? We searched online but can't find anything about it being a paid extra in previous years, all the previous years said 'grab a bag'. We just want to budget it in since we have no idea what the price-range here could be. Sorry for another question, we sadly put down the family dog at 15 so our son has been struggling, we are trying to soften the blow by taking a family vacation together and letting him plan out some days and since Spider-Man isn't guaranteed, Trick or treating seems to be high on his wish list.

Source

Legoland has been adding them to their newest parks: New York and Korea.

Jebuland So sometime in the winter, we decided to check out Jebu Island. Originally there was only a single road to the island (more on that later) but to make the island more accessible a cable car was installed and opened. Depending on your ticket, there's a floored or glass-floored version. Notice the mud flats and shore line.... ... this is the single road to and from the island. Depending on the tide times, the road becomes submerged twice a day and you can become stuck on the island for quite a while. The road does have times posted when gates close but it can be very close to tide time, we also weren't sure what the escape route was if any cars had an accident and blocked the road..... we decided not to risk it and opted for the cable-car leaving the car off island. Approaching the island. The whole island is only 1 square km across total. Since we left the car behind we took the paid shuttle to Jebuland. It runs along the main road and is quite scary having traffic pass you by at speed. Some of the many themed overnight stay areas on the island. Notice the Squid Game reference in one of the pictures. So we're 14 pictures in and I haven't got to the amusement park yet.... Well sometimes life is about the journey and not the destination..... .... and sometimes that destination is Jebuland. The park had three main attractions but if you've followed this thread you probably know what two of them are considering somehow despite me only covering 3 parks in this thread there've been 5 of them each. Of course there's a Viking and a tagada. Although there didn't seem many people visiting the island interested in riding them. I didn't know you could have a bad bumper car but the one we rode here was pretty hurtful. You bumped anything and the pedal would disconnect and the steering wheel would spin uncontrollably trying to rip your arms off and give you friction burns at the same time until you released the pedal. The final two attractions was the children's area. And that was Jebuland. Honestly, we were just there to walk on the beaches, eat fresh sea-food and weren't really interested in the theme park but I figured I'd take 5 minutes to quickly pop in and photograph it.

^ Yea, we went with option 2. We really wanted to give Disney our money but the your 2 day visit must be in the 3-day hotel stay was the deal breaker (even though 2-day tickets are usually a 7-day window). If it was the other way around and you could pick your first day in the park and then the hotel reservation choice must be in the 7-day window after that we would have been all over it. I understand why the restrictions are there but staying in the headline hotel is probably a once in a lifetime for us, so we wanted to maximize that time but also not eat into my son's Disney time so ironically if we had more freedom of days we would have spent more time on Disney property not less (2 park weekdays and also 2 hotel weekend vs 2 combined ) especially since my wife was eyeing up the weekend only character Dim Sun she saw in Adam's TR and could have used the late check-out in the bundle to pool it up before the flight home not wasting one of the day tickets for a busy weekend half day in the park. Alas, it was not to be. It's a shame everything is tied to the hotel (e.g. have to pick up passes at the check-in/photopass from hotel shop) when as soon as you get them you'll be sticking them straight into the app anyway instead of just being able to go straight to the park. I'd understand if there were benefits (e.g. early access for hotel guests or something like Fantasy Springs access pass) or park tickets were inclusive I'd understand the restrictions on dates but all those are extra charge for hotel and non hotel guests alike so I wish it could just be sent straight to the Disney account to use with the same freedom. We were looking into getting a Marvel room for the vacation and commuting into the city since Hollywood Hotel without breakfast actually is the same price as hotels in the city with but there's no Disney Village equivalent and our search so far has told us there's nowhere nearby to grab a quick cheap bite without trekking into the city. I think we will just use the Disney Hotel money and do a few days stay in Macau instead of a ferry day trip since the Hong Kong Airport now has a new area where your luggage gets transferred to you if you go directly from the plane and take the bus directly to Macao without having to go through Hong Kong customs and immigration. Ironically after waiting 2 weeks before asking for help on this forum, Spider-Man finally appeared on the app one day later. It seems the stage character rotates every few weeks or so but as my wife pointed out, we are visiting around Halloween so chances are it'll be a villain or something during that week so we'll downplay the chances of seeing Spidey to our son. If we see a CM at the character area, we'll politely enquire, out of our son's earshot, if there's a certain time to see him. If he can tell us great, and if not at least we tried.

We're thinking of hitting HKDL for our son's first-ever Disney. He loves Nintendo and Minions so we'd originally budgeted for USJ and then were going to head down to TDL but with DK coaster delayed and vacation looking like around Halloween, we think the crowds and lines and having to arrive so early would just be overwhelming for him. It's not a big deal because being in Korea, Japan is a very short flight, so we can wait until opening excitement/standby passes wear off and do 2 separate long weekends in the future instead of a main vacation. However, his biggest thing is he is really into getting photos with characters (see my Legoland TR's) and he goes to the soccer stadium every home game to collect signatures. He's found out that Disney does both those things in one and really wants that so that's what we are planning the trip around. Rides aren't an issue, HKDL lines rarely go over 30-45 minutes and even if they do almost every ride in the park now offers purchasable one-time skip-the-lines (even the ones not in the bundles). Nothing is ever perfect and if we aim for that we will fail but we want to treat the first time as special so we just asked what would be his target for the trip. Being an 8-year-old boy he's not so interested in the permanent meets (sorry Duffy friends) but is after superheroes specifically Spider-Man. We know Iron-Man is permanent but heard he doesn't sign autographs so I think that is why he's aiming for Spider-Man. So not sure if this is a HKDL question or a question for all Disney apps? How accurate are they when it comes to character greets? It's our first post-COVID trip so not sure how the entertainment looks these days. As an example. This was the app on different days for Chip and Dale. We kind of assumed the no-times meant they wouldn't appear that day. But other characters told you no showtimes/closed. My wife and I have done multiple HKDL and find the park is super-strict due to heat with these times and characters leave exactly on finishing time. So if this was accurate and there is only one single showing maybe only 10-20 families would meet Pocahontas on that day, from our previous trips quite often in HKDL if you see a character already at the photo zone chances are you missed your opportunity and the experience is closed. I have money set away from almost a decade ago when the weather caused me to miss out on the Macau Bungee Jump. Maybe I'm just old or really became a family man but now that time has come but having done much cheaper jumps in Asia, I can't just the price-tag for a 5-minute experience just to show off I did the biggest one when it can go into a nicer vacation (e.g. instead of Hong Kong's busy water park we are thinking Macau's new one has a better line up/queue times) and invest it into Disney. We are looking into two options so just hoping I can get some advice... Option 1: Treat the kid to a stay at the Disney hotel. There's a package deal that is 2 nights at hotel, plus park entry, some meal vouchers and photo pass plus along with 2 days breakfast and character dining, and a fast pass for the Frozen rides. That way he'd get some guaranteed meets for him at breakfast but we heard the characters don't sign because of time constraints and the photos taken there are considered a separate photo pass plus from the one given in the bundle. We'd also be locked into those dates on visiting the park at the start (weekend in park) or end of the vacation (Thur-Fri in park) regardless of who is showing on app or weather. Option 2: Buy a 2-day pass and use the hotel money for perks such as early entry or more premier access tickets. Early entry would get us into the park an hour early before hotel guests for Frozen Land and Fantasy Land but it would also mean a more flexible ticket in that we can use the 2nd day anytime in the week. HKDL isn't a park you need to rope-drop so we could check times for characters and see who is appearing before going out. We've been checking to try to get a feel of how often superheroes come out. Some days the app gave only one viewing. We haven't seen a Spider-Man time yet. Our son also showed interest in Ant-Man, probably because the ride is also in the park, but in the 2 weeks my wife has looked we only ever saw one day where they appeared. Sorry this post wasn't supposed to get so lengthy. We just feel that the way our son will have the best day is if we can set his expectations beforehand.

Great report, I love the music in that and got to see the composers and performers of this (and Your Name/Weathering With You) live last month when they came to Korea.

Resurrecting this thread after clearing out my wife and I's old Iphones 7 and finding some pictures from some more parks. Sapgyo Land We hadn't actually planned on visiting this park or even knew it existed but the Ferris Wheel kind of advertised the park itself. We spotted it driving back from visiting relatives in the distance and decided to pull in. The park has a little carousel, this mini para-trooper style ride, and this suspended spinning ride. I think it's a law that every small seaside park has to come with at least one Tagada in South Korea. And also at least one Viking even when the park in question only has two or three rides (see next update) For some reason a lot of the sky cycles, motorized or pedal are these circle cars in Korea. Rounding out the park was this Music Express and Bumper Cars next to them. A mini road train also circled the park. There was also an S&S Spaceshot here, not many of these in the country so it'd been over a decade since I rode one of these. You could also ride around on a knock-off Pikachu. The park has a nice setting near the harbor of Pyeongtaek and if you're a seafood fan there were a lot of wet markets and fresh fish restaurants around the park. The park was most popular at night however.

Source

I had originally planned to visit Korea's newest theme park, Lotte World Busan. However, after looking at the attraction list and seeing out of 16 total listed attractions, one was a talking tree, one was a playground and 5 were children only I decided to visit the original Lotte World and perhaps pop across the country to the newer park when they've expanded a little. This was actually my first visit in a decade. Not on purpose but with my son so young it was just easier to drive and park for Everland on quieter nights than public transport into the city for one of the busiest parks in the world. So what new changes have happened in the last ten years? One new shooting ride/simulators, as well as 5 more simulators, bring the total for the park to 9 simulators and 4 shooting rides, an upgrade and downgrade to an existing simulator (added and removed VR), the closure of the indoor rapids and the addition of an indoor go-kart track. I've mentioned this in other TR's but I think Lotte World tended to suffer more than most. Since Korea parks have high attendance a lot of them have neglected to age out older rides and invest in newer ones and so the average age of the rides can be quite high and it's starting to show. Whereas Everland ripped out older rides and turned them into gardens or screen-based shooters that's a harder challenge for Lotte World. For example Pharoah's Fury, the famous Indy style dark ride seemed to be running only 4 or maybe 5 cars on a Saturday, much less than previous visits and also has to close for an hour every day for maintenance. Into the park at opening, the main entrance line was huge but there are some side entrances and we were actually into the park early enough to see the band and mascots for a change. Heading over to one of the many new simulator rides.... First there's a pre-show boarding and then crash landing in the plane. Before entering a giant screen and having a shoot-out. This is just for show, the scores aren't tracked here but it was fun. After that there's a final room with some very small simulators with guns that does track your score (Think of those mini simulator rides you sometimes see in the arcade). After that was the Flying Theater next door. Unlike Japan, people don't seem to be flocking to ride it and it was mostly a walk-on all day. The negative publicity when the ride got stuck during an E-stop didn't help. A rider asked to get off mid-ride last year and the ride became stuck and the fire brigade was called. After that the ride was SBNO and when reopened had one of it's movies removed and all the 4D effects turned off which has continued to this day. Similar to Lotte World Busan, the park doesn't allow adults onto the rides designed for younger children unless you are with a child. Thankfully I remembered to pack mine before I left, so we tried out the mini-flume ride. There are 3 new simulators in this area (The Wild Trilogy) but they were operating on different time slots and with only 12 people riding every 10 minutes or so, the line looked to be an hour's wait despite being not too long. The park has changed a few rides to virtual queueing only. Be warned a lot only had one kiosk to get the tickets and couldn't be done through the app so the wait just to get tickets can be quite long. For example, we arrived 20 minutes early to the Intamin Spinner to get tickets but the line already stretched around the outside restaurant and along the lake front (some people lined up an hour before) and took another 25-30 minutes to get tickets. And after entering the queue at 4:00 got on the ride at 4:45. Tickets handed out by default were 2 person tickets so if you're with a friend it may be worth splitting up and sending them to get another reservation... ...such as the Vekoma Looper which was also on virtual line, but we opted for the Intamin Spinner since it's the only one out of all the virtual rides that doesn't have a single rider line. The park has added single-rider to a lot of the rides including the one that will probably be high on most TPR visitors bucket lists Atlantis. Both this drop tower and the swings behind were also running single rider lines. The monorail cars have been upgraded, although sadly still no air-con. The outdoor station has also now been closed to it operates purely as a ride and not as transportation between indoors and outdoors anymore. A disappointed child after learning that viral video of the drop-tower wasn't actually real. Until our trip to Vietnam, he hated most rides and roller-coasters but he had just hit the height requirement and was very eager to give it a go.... .... which unfortunately led to a tantrum when I veto'd him riding this later. He's never been upside down before and the only way to ride would have been the Single-rider line, and although he said he was ready, I just didn't think this was a good choice for his first experience. If he'd ridden this before or been upside down then maybe but I just didn't think it would be fair on whoever had lined up to enjoy their ride that he would have been put next to if he did get upset. We had some time to kill before our reservation for the comet so we checked out this Nightmare Fuel for the first time. And then grabbed some cheese bread snacks. There was also an Atlantis Adventure Simulator if you didn't want to ride the original Trax itself (the water just were permanently removed almost 10 years ago) but we couldn't fit it in before our reservation. His first spinning and first indoor coaster, I wasn't sure he'd like being thrown around but he loved this. The difference between our weights made this spin more than any roller-coaster I think I've ever ridden. Notice the white track? The monorail switches from going outdoors to indoors only when the weather is bad or when the sunsets. If you see people sitting in the queue bail fast. It takes a while to get everyone off, switch the track and re-test it. We rode later in the day when it was indoors only and the line went from 90 minutes to walk-on. The same applies for Pharoah's Fury, if people are sitting it could mean the ride is having it's 1 hour maintenance break. The Balloon ride was also a reservation-only ride. Since the machines I mentioned earlier just print a time-slot and don't require any scanning of your entrance, you don't get locked out and can grab for more than one ride so we grabbed tickets as soon as we'd grabbed the Comet Express ones but missed out on the Pirate Ship and Vekoma coaster by the time we'd got those two. Before heading out we grabbed some dinner, this was a tomahawk pork cutlet. And since the monorail was walk-on we opted to ride it around a few times and watch the parade from above than wait in the crowds before heading out home, although since the new night parade has fireworks this may no longer be an option.

This isn't exactly a unique situation. We constantly see new rides go down for fixes and unexpected issues or miss their opening deadlines. I think anyone who is traveling from 'far' this early for the opening of a new ride should be accepting that they're rolling the dice the second they book their tickets.

^^ And it's split into two movies, so if you don't like the second half you can just skip the 2nd film.

Considering how quickly the Zamperla Thunderbolt coasters seem to go from 'That was surprisingly smooth' to 'never again', maybe it's a good thing they're identifying issues and adjusting as early as possible.

Headed out to the park to find the line stretching way back into the car park over an hour before opening. Every year there is a random point when the park gets crazy busy before the hot weather hits and then suddenly a week or two later Everland is empty while the water park is packed. I'd assumed with temperatures already at 25C and a max of 29, it'd be the water park but I was wrong. Bear in mind that line above was before 9am, when the park opens at 10am. The park operates virtual queues on weekends for 10 rides until 2PM (and you can only book 1) and you need to be physically in the park with your ticket scanned to book. Safari rides are gone instantly at opening and T-Express and the Panda World can be gone 15-30 minutes after opening so you need to be there early for a chance to be scanned into the park before they're gone. Thankfully, I always pack a swimsuit on our trips in April & May so we can choose where we go when we arrive. It was the 2nd week of opening and only the 2nd day for Mega Storm, although the indoor section had 3 body slides, a single rider tube slide and a 2 person tube slide. The rest of the outdoors opens in stages. The tower slides (4 person raft slide and 4 person boomerang) early June, Aqualoop in late June, and then the Master Blaster, Speed body slides, and outdoor single/double person tube slide only during the high season of July/August. Waiting times in Summer are usually 2-3 hours a slide, and even with the park open 10-12 hours then you don't get too much done so we were happy to sacrifice availability for quieter pools. Last year we went at the end of low season when Mega Storm was still the only ride open and lines were 50 minutes but this time lines were walk-on most of the day with a maximum of 30 minutes in the afternoon. The lazy river is the only outdoor attraction that is open all year. It's usually shortened off in the winter when it's heated and the extended course during the main season but due to popularity it ran the longer course this year. I've never actually been in the wave pool despite over 10 years of trips. You've probably seen some viral videos of Asian wave pools filled like sardines on social media and this one is no exception. In previous years, when the water park was quiet, the wave pool was blocked off during low season and turned into a 'beachside cafe' for people to come over from Everland and drink at and filled with photo spots. This year though it was thankfully open It's also the only part of Caribbean Bay where life jackets are required so I never bothered since it was just another item to have to take off on the slides (along with aqua shoes and your cap) but my son insisted so I packed one in the locker (get there early for one of those, bags were stashed everywhere we looked around the park). It's not continuous waves, but one massive wave blasted out every 90 seconds. As the restaurant emptied out, we decided to eat at the end of the day and so could have a table with a nice view to eat from. With the wave pool area open, there was also a burger area to eat at expanding the options. The kid had backed out last year after we lined up for Mega Storm so it was on his mind, but after Vietnam, he's suddenly picked up an appetite for trying out bigger rides at least once and he didn't want to pass another opportunity. He hated his first ride, partly because it was a huge step up from the smaller tube slides, but I also realized it was his first exposure to air-time, but he decided later in the day now he knew what to expect he wanted another go. A 20-minute line later, we are weighed in, and he needs the bathroom. We decided it would be quicker to ride the slide down than go back through the queue and because it would be a huge inconvenience for the workers to reweigh and reassign.... and we must have tempted fate because, for the first time in my life, the raft got stuck... and in the most awkward place. Not at the bottom of any slopes with an easy evac staircase but in that picture above, 1m from a drop into one of the world's biggest funnels and just past the massive water pumps so no chance of going back either. I will say, despite the awkward location, and only being the second day of operation of the season, the staff were incredibly well trained. I'd stashed my phone in my locker by this point to cool down and recharge after being in a waterproof bag all day so I don't know the exact time but they worked amazingly quickly. In only a little while someone had harnessed up and I saw a buoy come down the channel and a helmeted worker quickly began repelling down to us. There was my son and I, a mom and her young daughter, an empty seat, and a single rider in the boat. The worker was incredible, quickly reassuring my son and the other girl that things would be ok and talking to them as he worked to let air out of the raft (their imaginations were getting the better of them) while the 3 adults got to work swinging and hopping up and down to dislodge us. I think the ride ended up stopped for 10-15 minutes and medics were even at the bottom just in case and the ride was running again without anyone having to leave the line. We also hit up Everland on a weekday night to grab a couple of rides after work. Like most of Korea, my son is obsessed with the Bao family. It's even taken over the make-up shops, bakeries and Mcdonalds. https://fb.watch/rUj-sHHTeu/ The one attraction we never did is the Bao House gallery because it's virtual line only but after a few refreshes someone must have cancelled and we grabbed the last two spots. Completely honestly...... I think this is something you should only visit as a local or at the park in the evening and the other virtual lines have finished. Like I said at the start of this TR, you only get one virtual line and without the emotional investment you might be underwhelmed. Kids can also write post it letters to Fu Bao. My son wrote 'Thank you for the memories' The center piece is one giant teddy for each of the panda family members. And a hologram photo opportunity. Our main reason for popping by despite the park being near closing, like Mega Storm, a ride he had backed out of before and had been on his mind. He's got his eye on Rolling X-Train next but I veto'd it. this time. He's never been upside down before (and his biggest coaster is an Intamin family launcher) and I don't think a very rough 30 year old Arrow Looper with 4 inversions would be a good starting point. Grabbed a quick watch of the night parade... 32.MOV ...And a final watch of the Evertopia fireworks since it's now been replaced for the Summer with Jukebox fireworks Let's Dance. I was surprised to see although the animation was the same, the music and fireworks had changed compared to my previous video. Evertopia was my least favorite of the fireworks so far (I miss the Fantasmic copy complete with the mascot of the park fighting a dragon), it was like watching a Saturday morning cartoon for 15 minutes to get to the 5-minute display but I'm sure it'll be back next winter.