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Garet

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Everything posted by Garet

  1. Fu Bao went off display this weekend after the final viewing day was delayed to March 3rd. Among enthusiasts, the pandas tend to be a contentious subject (that the theme park side has more and more boarded up and removed rides and a lack of new additions at the expense of the animal side). Still, it's hard to see this as anything less than an overwhelming success for Everland, because for what is usually a quiet month for the park, this has been a national event. Attendance, news coverage, social media followings, and especially merchandise sales for the last 2 weeks of Fu Bao public life that a new ride could only dream of. Source We were at the park the last two weeks but we avoided the crowds to grab some rides before the school semester started. We had already gone in for last viewings around the time when the baby pandas twins were first born (awake) and then again in December (asleep), just before the twins went on public display, waiting 30 minutes for a 5-minute viewing anticipating when the twins came out and Fu Bao did leave it would be busy... ... but I never would have predicted this busy. Some of my students waited out this 7-hour line but since that put them in the exhibit in the evening they were greeted by sleeping pandas. A news article showing the line and opening. People were outside the entrance hours before opening (people arriving at 3 am so still a 7-hour wait) sprinting across the entrance plaza, we also saw people crying outside the exhibit when they emerged from their 5-minute viewings. Crowds waited outside the exhibit on the final night crying waiting to see the zookeepers. To a lot of people, Fu Bao is the first Korean panda (being born here while the parents had come from China), and people turned out in droves to be part of the event, waiting out that line, buying the foldable stools to sit on and then bags of 'Goodbye Fu Bao' merchandise. Although, I'd assumed having baby twin pandas on display might also be a source of the crowds, it does seem they were there exclusively for Fu Bao, now she is off display the line has dropped down to 30 minute waits.
  2. Source Picture from one of my previous TRs of the Legoland car park and land surrounding it.
  3. Panda and T Express updates: We begin in late December. Knowing Pu Bao would be leaving soon (the announcement confirming dates hadn't happened at this point) and the baby pandas would go on display sometime in the following months, we decided to try and beat the crowds and get one last look in. The panda celebration was already gearing up with a giant inflatable panda where the tree used to be. Even on a quiet day the line was huge though, we ended up jumping in the line at the evening and were in within 15 minutes. The keepers were strictly enforcing everyone to only get 5 minute viewins though. Bye Pu Bao. The pandas were crashed out when we went in but we just couldn't justify waiting 4 hours earlier in the day. The daddy panda was also asleep. Unfortunately, the weather gamble didn't pay off... so we grabbed some food... . ... checked out parts of the zoo we never normally have time for.... ... and had our first-ever snowbuster ride. All credit to Everland for keep opening this despite each year getting warmer, although the small slope here was open, the big ones were not due to warm weather and all the slopes closed at the very start of February this year. T Express had no visible retracking at that time mid December also Due to our weather gamble not paying off I promised my son we'd visit when both water rides had reopened so fast forward to this weekend... Panda Mania was in full swing. This exhibition was the new for 2024 attraction. However it was virtual line only and since people had camped out at the park hours in advance, most rides on reservation were snapped up minutes after park opening. Panda merchandise was sold everywhere and people were eating it up. We saw people wrapped in panda towels, backpacks, and bags full of 'Remember Pu Bao' merchandise. Remember that 30 minute queue from our previous trip? The line never dropped below 230 minutes even late into the evening for a 5 minute viewing. The line was hard to miss stretching horizontally across the whole park before u-turning near the flume ride and going back across the park horizontally one more time. And then almost making a spiral as the line continued into the American area of the park. With long lines meet the new trend of Korean theme parks 2024. These fold-up stools were sold and bought everywhere. By the end of the day it seemed like almost every family group had at least one of these. Which meant of course my son had to have one. Honestly.... worth the $15. Light enough he could carry, but could even hold my overweight butt, it was used in a lot of the slower moving lines of the flat rides. Like the Safari bus. We waited 100 minutes for it since it's reservation only until 2pm (and since it'd be a longer wait to be first at the gates with the very early morning panda crowd to even try and snag reservations). Note the car in the background. This line usually doesn't die down since each jeep only pulls 1 trailer. When the ride first updated the cars last year it was advertised with 2 trailers per car and the gates and lines match that size but all references/pictures/artwork have disappeared so it probably won't ever run that way. We lined up for this ride because my son wanted to role-play being a 'Youtube narrator'. I asked him if he meant recreating a nature documentary, but apparently, I'm old and it's about doing it on YouTube now. Despite the weather being 4-7C weather the water rides both had hour-long lines all day. It was Thunder Falls's first day of the season so they weren't running too many boats but the chair got put to good use. Everland has put up a lot of queue-jumping etiquette signs and to the park's credit, we got queue-jumped far less. However, there are still some who will take it too far and we had a man with enough family in tow to fill a whole boat push past us in this line. It was interesting seeing 100s of people accept it and not question him, accepting it as culture, and I do mean the whole line...somehow those kid's bathroom must have taken an hour because he was still pushing past to almost at the station before he disappeared from our line of sight. Finally onto the T-Express update. I usually don't do these updates if there is a lack of progress but since I heard T-Express was getting RMC'd/Ibox treatment... I've been sent the pictures and seen the news on other sites but as of this weekend (24/25th February 2024) whatever track was on that hill (this is the same one from the picture online) has been removed. I have no idea why and I'm not an engineer so not going to speculate, but as of now, there was no track on the areas due for retracking RMC/Intamin or otherwise. On this night the fireworks were canceled (probably why we got the table) but there's a restaurant that overlooks the fireworks and last orders are usually 30 minutes before the park closes. So if you don't want to brave the crowds or weather it's always worth looking in here to see if you can get a table with a view. Edit: Panda World hit a fresh record of 350 minutes on monday despite it being a weekday: https://www.ytn.co.kr/_ln/0103_202402261441016084
  4. It seems like it's just there as a very short ride to avoid the steep hill and stair paths to get to the back of the park. So maybe something similar to Legoland Windsor's Hill Train? The map key says stripes on the path are stairs and yellow stripes are steep hills so it looks like there's no way to the back three areas of the park unless you go up a steep hill or stairs so could be there to correct an accessibility issue/complaint.
  5. Source Legoland was open for their first ever Lunar New Year, with about 5 rides (since kids can only do one driving school) open at any time since the park started split-shifting rides. The new addition compared to last year's Christmas event was the Ninjago Ride, however rides ran all day last year. Funny enough, my wife and son by coincidence were actually at a Legoland for Lunar New Year, they were visiting my family back in England while Korean schools are out and visited Windsor. My wife's only experience with Legoland so far has been the Korean one and she was shocked by the difference and how they're run. It also seems the amount of day closures changed at some point, the English site pass holder calendar doesn't match up with the calendar above/Korean sites passholder with the English site only referring to Tuesdays and Wednesdays. England site calendar. Korean calendar
  6. Full Article There's probably still construction equipment inside that is highly flammable or explosive due to fuel or gas tanks and firefighters can probably only do so much from the outside. I have no idea what materials are used in modern-day construction tools or were in the building but an example, electric car batteries can spontaneously reignite themselves for hours or even days after the fire is out.
  7. To be fair, although the website makes it clear that the season pass is unlimited TTD2 rides in bold, the list below only showing two tiers (including saying Fast Lane Plus is one-time access) while having the description in coasternut's picture almost contradict itself by stating that season pass is 'valid for one FAST LANE PLUS wristband per visit' and does make it a little confusing. I assume there'll have to be a 3rd type of wristband or some system in place to make it clear that TTD2 doesn't get checked off of your Fast Lane Plus wristbands when you pick it up compared to the daily ones.
  8. Legoland have released their 2024 calendar. Unlike 2023, they haven't announced the 'festivals' to go along with it. A lot more closed days and there's been no mention on if late night closing and fireworks will return this Summer yet. My hope is with the reduction of days they get rid of running rides at half capacity as well as split-shifting the rides. It was quite hard to get things done last year when some rides were only open for 90 minutes to 2 hours a day. Legoland was in the news just before over attendance, so I wonder how this calendar will play out in the local media. Source And other local attraction figures: Source
  9. I remember as a kid visiting there, and the park seemed to be just aiming to be just for only animals, doing its own separate thing from the competition, with the only ride being Wild Artic, which led to an animal exhibit so as a young boy it made sense of that being a paid add-on to me. But this was when construction had just started on Journey to Atlantis so a very very long time ago.
  10. I owe Blippi an apology. He drove me crazy when he was on our TV non-stop. Now my son is an elementary student, and I see the real crap him and the other kids watch I wish Blippi was back, at least he tried to teach my son something educational.
  11. Source Previous look of the pool. New look Not much but it's another step in Legoland trying to be year-round like the other Korean parks and cash in on the busy Lunar New Year season tourism. The opening of this lines up exactly with the start of this year's new year.
  12. Quite a lot of water, if I remember correctly it was 3 rounds of fire shooting 3 times, a break, then repeat (so 18 chances to grab a picture) before a lot of water came out. We'd planned on being at the bridge entrance in the big crowd to watch it but the kid was falling asleep so it didn't seem fair to subject him to that crowd so we opted to use the river cruises that run and time themselves to be near the bridge while it happens while he was crashed out on the seat. Nothing special to see on the cruise, a very quick up and down the river, but a nice alternative for those who don't want to be crowded in or soaked. Plus a plate of fruit.
  13. Even if it gets great reviews when it reopens the big test will be how well it holds up in the long run because those Zamperla Thunderbolts go from ‘that was pretty fun’ to dumpster fire rough fairly quick
  14. We also spent some time at Ba Na Hills theme park. You could probably do a full day there if you wanted to really explore, but a lot of the rides there were copies of films we'd seen in Korea, so we didn't buy any buffet tickets and opted to leave after half a day since Korea has some of the busiest water parks in the world, we wanted to maximize our hotel water park time. The park is supposedly one of Vietnam's busiest tourist places, a theme park on top of the mountain and home to the Golden Hand Bridge aka 'The World's Most Instagrammmable Bridge', this park features in 100s of reels and YouTube videos on the topic of Instagram/Reality. So how bad was it really? Off to Ba Na Hills we go. Like most Vietnamese theme parks and the one In my previous TR, this one is owned by Sun World. We'd been warned that Ba Na Hills has it's own climate and heard many horror stories of terrible views and shut down cable cars. This was the only time we ever saw the resort all the way from our hotel, and with only that one cloud in the whole sky we chose to go that day. Being a Saturday and the best weather day in rainy season we knew we'd probably be in for the worst. Despite it being only a 30 minute taxi drive from the hotel clouds quickly formed. Instagram Vs Reality 1: We'd seen people recording hour-long queues for the cable car and tons of tour buses. We had an early breakfast and were at this entrance by 8:30.... ... and were not only on instantly but it was quiet enough even small groups weren't made to share gondolas yet. If you look to the right of the picture you can also see they're installing a 4th cable car line to reduce the lines. Despite the blue sky at the bottom, we entered the clouds after 15 minutes, at over 20 minutes long this is, I think, the world record holder for longest cable car journey. The famous bridge appeared out of the clouds. It's mostly there to connect the two cable car stations. Instagram Vs Reality 2: This bridge is known for being horribly crowded, but at 9am it wasn't bad at all. A lot of the crowds moved on because of the clouds wanting to come back when it was clearer but I kind of enjoyed the mist and clouds as a back-drop. Personally, if you just want to enjoy the view and don't care too much about getting the perfect shot on the bridge, head to the back side of the park. 99% of the crowds will be on the bridge and you can enjoy looking down the mountain without being jostled. Later in the day the bridge was starting to look more like the videos, and only got busier from there as guided tour groups packed in. The gardens are also in this area. At the other end of the bridge is the cable car to the theme park area. Note all the different lines that go to the other areas or back down the mountain. The twin alpine coasters, the parks signature attraction. Normally even on quiet days these rides can have an hour queue and shut down easily from weather. We'd been told the track in this picture, and the one you'll come across first from the cable car is the quieter one of the two, but this information is now outdated. Operations have now changed That one is now the free alpine coaster, and the other is fast-pass only. A fast-pass ticket was about $3 a person so skip the free one and just buy for the ticketed one. Also, tell the staff if you want a fast ride. They were great and would always check the car ahead was almost done before dispatching us. We saw many cars stuck behind slow riders but every time we asked the staff for a fast ride they obliged and we had brakeless runs whenever we wanted. Between the alpine coasters is the main indoor theme park, home to some kids rides like this ferris wheel, SBF Airborne Shot (closed for maintenance), single rail horse ride, and bumper cars. Also home to a 4D cinema, Desperados shooter, and a 360 screen. We've rode this many times at Seoul Land but it's always funny watching people jump out of their chairs on this when the dinosaur head closes around them. The main attraction indoor is the drop tower that goes and gives you a view outside. Like a lot of Vietnam, the arcade games scattered around were set to free play. There was also a dark ride but the line was long and a Youtube search suggested not worth the time. Link The outdoor area is mostly full of buffet restaurants and photo ops. But there is a chair ride and Merry go round here. The rides outside go down at the tiniest bit of rain which is pretty common even on sunny days. On the other end of the park, is the newest area,this empty castle, where there are 2 more movie rides. One a 4D cinema for 300 people showing Monster Family every 30 minutes. We'd seen it at Everland so we skipped it for the other ride. A 20-seater ride as you fly across the world feeling heat rain and wind. It felt like it was designed for a Flying Theater ride but they budget cut it back to a regular simulator. Before heading out we decided to sample Vietnam's coffees: Coconut coffee and egg coffee. We wanted to grab some swimming pool time so we left early but it started to pour, my son was saddened he might miss out on the outdoor pool but we would hit up the indoor one instead. However as we descended it became clear, Ba Na Hills really does get different weather than the rest of the city.... the rain disappeared.... ... and the journey back was sunny with a slight chance of cow. So we abandoned the rest of the day at Ba Na Hills for a indoor water park Plus a public clothed onsen (and gender-specific private areas for the more adventurous) Outdoor water park And Vietnam's 2nd? biggest lazy river. And the infinity pool, however unlike the rest of the water park above, where day tickets can be bought, you needed a hotel room key for here. This ends the Vietnam Parks TR. We had originally planned to hit the 3rd Sun World park, a zoo/water park/theme park combination,Link, but with 2 theme parks done and a water park-inclusive hotel booked due to the rainy season (as well as not being able to see which attractions were actually running at that park), we used the rest of the good weather days to experience the cultural sites and other tourist places like the famous lantern and basket boats instead. Bad coaster enthusiasts but good tourists.
  15. 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.
  16. 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.
  17. 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)
  18. 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
  19. 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.
  20. 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.
  21. Korean news was reporting on this and showed the man on the beam:
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