Garet

This isn’t the first discussion on autism and theme parks and it won’t be the last but it’s worth remembering not all parents are looking to game the system. Maybe an unpopular opinion here. The thing to remember is autism is a spectrum. There are so many cases where people are going to have almost completely normal lives but others who really will struggle day to day. I remember the discussion on Knobels and people on social media glad a ride was removed because it affected their autistic child. The problem is on social media there are people who’s children probably are placed extremely low but will be commenting on park groups wanting the attention and to be told constantly how brave they are or expect extra perks when they go to places, who will share every chain status they can for some attention. But there is another group that you’ll probably never hear from. They won’t be posting everywhere because they know the children won’t like the attention. They’ll be speaking privately or hidden away. Who plan for months their park trips for their family (there are many who have normal children and autistic together), researching and asking trusted people for advice on places in the park. They’re not looking for unlimited fast pass to avoid breakdowns because they know chances are it will be unavoidable. They’ll be researching where are the quietest places for it to happen or refreshing the app at midnight to try and get fast pass for the rides their kids need to reduce the amount of times it happens. They’re doing that for other people, not themselves. They know their day is going to be stressful and they’re trying to minimize disrupting other people’s days. I’m pretty sure they’d love nothing more than to be able to line up with their child instead of needing to find a way to skip the line. Now in the case above, I think that result was inevitable. I think realistically, if her child has that many needs, she should have expected meltdowns regardless and planned for it. I don't want to presume too much but if they are that focused on order, I don't see how in a park with so many variables you could have avoided it. What if the seat on a ride they want is taken, or someone taller gets in the way on a different ride? It seems even more strange coming from a president of a Autistic society. I guess what I’m saying is It’s easy to forget amongst news stories like this and with people wanting attention and commenting to parks how their day was somehow ruined just bear in mind there are people who genuinely struggle and that's worth keeping in mind sometimes. I think sometimes it’s worth more of a discussion than just noticing something over the top calling someone a smart judge and moving on. I remember a while back Disney had to change its disabled policy due to abuse. Unfortunately, again due to a spectrum, I personally believe that autism is even easier to exploit by people who want the perks or to hand wave away some behaviors. Again, the vocal minority you see in comments on public groups or news articles makes it harder for the people who really do need some help to find some benefits. Obviously, for my post I’ve used the two extreme ends of the spectrum but after 10 years of being a teacher, it’s hard when there are so many different versions and people from parents who want an easy excuse to children who have quirks but can manage to those where you can see the parents work hard for their child and to not affect others. I don’t know what Disney’s actual policy is for this kind of issue. I always thought if the meltdown is inevitable, to do something similar to child swap so someone can line up and the meltdown can happen where it won’t disturb others but it’s always going to be hard when there are so many people who have children low on the spectrum who can line up easily but will try and game the system every chance they get. There’s no perfect answer and I think it’s almost impossible for any park to tell who is going for attention and really needs help, and I sadly think this is one condition that gets exploited a lot more than people realize that it does make it harder on the people who do genuinely need it.

^Good point, I always forget about Japan's Golden Week as well (I will never travel Japan in that time ever again). You're right, they could open and test run the area a little before Golden Week and then enjoy a second wave once the Olympics start.

Wasn't it planned to coincide with when all the tourists were in Japan for the Olympics? I could see them potentially delaying to match with just before the Olympics start in 2021

^I'm still amazed that their tv show is represented by Gadget's Go Coaster. I loved Rescue Rangers as a child but I never expected to find a ride based around a character from it. Although I did snag this from my last trip when they had a whole range on it on the Disney store, so it must have a following (the Tomica Do-Dodonpa is a cheat, since I usually get my park merchandise on travels but it actually randomly showed up in the big chain mart near my house.)

I'd be curious how many people in Asia actually know what movie the ride is based on. I didn't realize it was based on a movie, let alone such a controversial movie until much later and the internet was a thing. Since I never saw the movie as a child, my only memory of it growing up in the UK was it seemed to make frequent appearances as a trailer on all the Disney VHS tapes we had so it'd pass on the screen as we tried to fast-forward through those and one of the oldest piracy ads I can remember Although when I mentioned this to some American Disney loving fans they seemed shocked I even had the option to watch it as a child. I think it was still in stores in the UK right up until the death of VHS.

I agree that it is annoying. If you saved for a once in a lifetime trip or spent extra time putting money away to get a better room, the last thing you want to hear is how someone got it for a fraction of the cost. Especially because, even though it's a minority, there are those that have to be extremely vocal about it for 'bragging rights' and tell everyone loudly how lucky they are and draw attention to it whatever chance they'll get. It reminds me of a buddy, who saved for ages to get nice seats on the airplane for him and his wife's honeymoon trip only to have someone across get a free upgrade, and spend most of the flight waving her phone around trying to Instagram everything, pester the attendants, and declare loudly how amazing everything was. He said she was louder than the young baby a couple of seats ahead.

No, sorry. As it says in the video, all the onride footage was provided by Universal. They don't allow anyone to shoot footage on their rides at all. Wow, I didn't realize how many well-known sites/channels break the rules for some youtube views.

I don't suppose there will be a Rip Ride Rockit POV? Most of the youtube ones look like they were shot in an earthquake and sound quality is just as bad.

Ian Holm, probably most known by most for playing Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings has died: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53110391

Everland's sort of developed a system like that since they updated the mobile app. They release a bunch of fast pass slots in the morning and then the greyed out ones become available later. However, instead of being random, you can tap the greyed out times and it will tell you when they are released. They've got a tiered base point system where rides are anywhere from 1-5 EP. Once you scan in the park I think you get 1 point straight away and then you're rewarded an extra point after every half hour. So people who go early or at opening are rewarded because they'll be the only ones who have enough points at around 11:30-12:00 to book 1 of the headline attractions at 5EP on the two open earliest slots (the two in the picture that were open) but people who arrive later aren't punished either because if the mornings are sold out they can check the grey slots to see what time they can play and chances are people who took the earliest slots will need some time to rebuild their points. If there's any downside, it's the app caps at 5EP and then the 30 minute point timer won't start until you spend some points. In theory, it's to stop people booking up all the headliners over and over and give later people a fairer chance on later slots but I feel the limit should be 1 or 2 points higher than the cost of the biggest rides because you lose out on potential points if you max out too early and can't spend any yet because you can't risk missing the next fast pass deadline on the 5 point T Express or safari rides.

Source Is this the first announce permanent closure due to corona? Not sure many enthusiasts will miss it since it just had a small Pinifari clone but the playground was huge and the park had a nice lake to take boats out on. Their water chute was a pretty unique ride too.

There's also a lot of unknowns here which I think has led to all the social media speculation. There's a lot of ifs that we probably don't know about. Like A.J. put it, the worst-case scenario is most likely just delays to the opening. But I'm sure the parks are going to look at all these liens as the money comes in and consider how much each is owed and how important each service is. In any other year, I'm sure getting new rides open to attract bigger crowds and advertize the park would be important. But in the year 2020 where there are reservations and people local will go anyway and people from out of state/abroad (more general public than enthusiasts) are less likely to be travelling for a new ride, as well as, I'm assuming here so someone correct me if I'm wrong, probably being one of the more expensive liens, then the park could push it. Until the parks make any announcements, who knows. It could be the first thing the park wants to pay off or it could be the last.

^ South Korea is another mask-wearing culture and their deaths are 277 without a lockdown or closures.

The social media team is doing a fantastic job of promoting the park lately. There's now a follow-up teddy bear video (with bonus sloths). [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] And the park also collaborated with Ride Sims to have an official Untamed ride simulation released.

I'll try and find the Gyeongju World photos lost in the hack sometime later this week but for now Everland updates: Don't have photos for these two but, Fable Garden is long gone. Global Village is also permanently closed. It was demolished and turned into a garden just like Eagle's Fortress was. Pride In Korea has permanently closed The Rotating House has become Lenny's Magic School and become a screen-based shooter Mystery Mansion has become Shooting Ghost, also become a screen based shooter with new forward facing cars and the physical sets replaced by screens Hologram Theater has permanently closed and become a Starbucks

Phantom of the Opera's international tour here is running and they're extending dates and also doing another run in another part of Korea. The play got shut down for a while when some of the cast had corona (presumably imported cases and not caught here), it hasn't been making news and selling out like Lion King did so I guess they're extending their tour since we're one of the only countries with musicals still running and since moving on might be hard for them to go to any other scheduled countries right now. Apparently, according to Korean news, due to Corona, the Korean version of Les Miserables that will move into the Seoul theater once Phantom of the Opera moves to Daegu saw over 1,400 people audition for the 50 supporting and background roles which is the highest number the casting company has ever seen.

Meanwhile in Korea, on a 32c weekend, people staying away of their own free will: Although it could also be that although the small indoor area is open, the park is charging $50 dollar for entry and the wave pool is the only pool open in the whole park (not even the lazy river) and only running one flume, their signature attraction Mega Storm. They are recommending social distancing even in the pools though:

It's funny that I see them all the time in Asia, even pre-corona due to air quality for years (the filter masks for air quality are roughly the same ones we get allocated at the pharmacy due to corona), and haven't seen any negative effects. Yet now they're mandatory in the USA, I feel like before the summer's out we're going to see at least one person at a park 'pass out from being forced to wear one' and we'll see both a USA park getting sued for it and the 'I told you we shouldn't have to wear them crowd' getting louder from it.

^Is this the kind of animation you are looking for?

Ok thanks, I understand your points a little better now. There's a lot of unknowns so it's impossible to access how much an infected person visiting a park, say in America, will have and how the state or government could respond. Maybe the parks don't close at all because it's a 'visit at your own risk' situation, maybe the park closes for a disinfection day, maybe the state closes all the parks again if there are multiple cases. There are just so many variable situations. However, I'll try and tie your points into Lotte World before circling back around. I asked in the Dollywood thread if people would really flock to the parks once they open but the response was mostly 'it's unknown right now'. In terms of Lotte World, I think outside of maybe Ocean Park and Chimelong Kingdom, Lotte World and Everland are the most non Disney/Universal attended parks in the world and even without restrictions Lotte World was seeing 4-5000 people on its busiest days. There are obviously unknown cases out and around Korea but with strict testing those numbers are fairly low. Lotte World obviously sees guests from all around the country but they mostly see Seoul guests. Seoul's known total cases according to government statistics for the Seoul population is 10 people infected for every 100,000 people or around 0.01%. When you consider 2/3 of those are cured then you have 0.003%. Throw in that attendance has been down around 90% which means a lot of the population is avoiding the park, mandatory quarantines for anyone who went to a known infected area or contact with a known infected person, and the chances of an infected guest are even lower. Again, those numbers are rough because of course there are unknown infected people. Everland and Lotte World never closed even during the height of the pandemic (some of the smaller parks down south closed due to being closer to the outbreak zone) and so far Lotte World has lost 1 day and Everland none. The other thing to consider, and hopefully people who visited the parks will back me up, is Lotte Worlds public areas (not including backstage where rides are located) is mostly indoors and extremely tiny. It's in the middle of a very expensive real estate part of the city so the outdoor area is tiny and the indoor area where guests can go is literally the size of the outer ring of an ice skating rink. The 2nd-4th floor is even smaller since most of them follow only 1-2 sides of the rink. It may have been seen as riskier than a big outdoor park like Everland which is why the government ordered it closed for a day. Personally though, based on my observations here, I think even if it was a bigger outdoor park, the government would have made them take 1-2 days for disinfection. Again you have valid points and there are way too many unknowns. And yes, America could have way more unknown untested infected people than S. Korea. But I personally feel despite big numbers the chances of parks having infected visitors can be quite small that in a hypothetical where a park loses a day each time there's a confirmed case it would not wipe out the industry. I think the biggest factor in terms of USA vs Korea in theme parks and corona is, and not to offend anyone here, people here are more willing to wait until the pandemic is over and people will stay at home if they have symptoms (even that high schooler got themselves tested twice and after two negatives assumed they were safe to visit the park) before we revisit the parks whereas USA will have people booking up the reservations just to be 'first' regardless of symptoms. We have bad apples here too, my subway was filled with people flouting the 'no mask, no ride' rule by wearing masks on their chins or off their noses but the majority do behave pretty responsibly. This mini-essay was more to address your hypothetical of what happens if an already infected person attends a park so I didn't mention it because this is more along the lines of 'Will it spread if an intended person goes?' but I do just want to say it seems USA parks and Europe parks have even stricter social distancing in lines than Korea does and much more stricter attendance caps (there's none here) as well as similar disinfections after ride cycles so I do feel parks are as safe as they can try to be in this pandemic we face.

^I'm sorry, I really didn't understand your post. I'm confused about the single false-negative shutting down society since the whole country is running as normal and all that happened from this one case is the park closed for 1 day of deep cleaning as a precaution on top of their standard COVID cleaning procedures and then reopened. I heard attendance is probably going to drop from this new scare factor but that's it. And I'm not sure what you're trying to say here at all. If you can elaborate I can maybe explain more the procedures of the park/travelling to the park that are in place.

Same source as above but they’ve updated the article. Seems with a positive and negative they want to make sure before they confirm if an infected person was at the park.

False alarm for Lotte World Source

Ok. For this masks don't do much argument and shouldn't be worn in theme parks... Lotte World just had a confirmed case visit their parks. The person wore a mask at the park and at school. Other people in the theme park wore masks and so far there have been no linked cases back to him yet. I think they tested over 800 people from the school and park that he may have come into contact with and they were all negative. Now even though Lotte World is indoors it's quite open so these aren't great comparisons but they are the closest I have. A person in a nightclub spread the virus and there's 277 cases connected to him. That's pretty crowded but another is a table tennis gym. People were further apart and someone still spread it to 50 people. As for this hot and not breathing. I'm a teacher and it's 32C here yesterday and today. I wore mine no problem walking to and from school in the open heat (maybe 2.2km each way) and the classrooms were quite hot and so did all the students. You do see a lot of people who decide to randomly wear their masks on their chins or off their noses but the majority of people young-old are wearing them all day straight no problem.

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