Garet

This isn't the only park that does it, I've heard Adventure Island in Southend UK have/used to approach adults by themselves and asked them to explain why they are by themselves taking pictures and then told them they can't take pictures because the pictures had to obly be of your own friends/families.

^ That sounds more reasonable. They're teachers like me so their trips are the same time mine would be, on weekends or when school is out which might explain their waits.

I didn't know that you ended up with a 90-minute wait even with Express passes for Flying Dinosaur... that's disappointing, I really want to hop over since it's only an hour wait but the huge price they've raised the express passes to compared to my previous visits pre-Potter puts me off. I heard from friends teaching in Japan they've used the single rider line for an hour-80 minute wait which seems pretty shocking that it's quicker than a paid pass

I don't know if it's leaving yet, it hasn't served any divorce papers... I guess it could pop out for milk and never come back.

The guy should move near a theme park in England where he can stop roller-coasters getting built to his heart's content (Alton Towers wooden valley coaster/ Tayto Park and I think there are other cases)

So I'm assuming due to this POV you get two circuits, one forward and one backward, and this isn't a temporary thing during testing? Or is it like Fury where you can get to choose somehow? It will be interesting to see if the train resets to forward each time or they can just load whichever way the turntable is at the end so some rides start backward first.

^Sorry for hijacking the thread too. I did Sea Paradise a while back and the whale shark seemed to have been retired from starting the show but was still there in the stadium tank, your post made me curious in case I take my son in a few years and I'm not sure if it is due to Sea Paradise's own run-ins with activists or something else but they've scrubbed all mention of the whale shark form the site. It's not listed under creatures seen in the show area and all mention of the underwater viewing platform is missing from the Japanese site too. A google search says there's a whale shark now in the main tank since 2018 though, perhaps it's been moved out of the show tank and the website is just outdated. Slightly related to Adam's post but my research thanks to you has let me know Osaka's seems to rotate whale sharks quite regularly in their tank: https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20191017/p2a/00m/0na/015000c since the one I saw pre-dates the one in this article. Edit: Yokohama's has in fact died: http://www.seaparadise.co.jp/news/24657/index.html

^ I actually assumed the same on my visit and was surprised to hear from a worker that apparently it got the same/sometimes bigger crowds than the manta ray/whale shark. It was super crowded and I didn't even manage to get a good picture of it. Thankfully I got a much clearer view of the one at Yokohama since the dolphin tunnel area was empty, but I heard that one sadly passed away too. We don't have much luck either, my son wanted to see a whale shark when we were on Jeju and one had died and so they released the other. (kept the whale shark statue and mascot though and hid that info on small text on a picture on the site that still shows them ) We just went to Lotte World's aquarium because my wife saw on the news their 2nd Beluga had died and so the third would be released soon so we took him (like Jeju also conveniently not mentioned on the Korean site even though the beluga is the logo for the place) to see it because he's been asking for a while. I think you and I already had a discussion on another thread about how funny it is in Asia that they pick and choose when it comes to what counts as animal cruelty. These aquariums that had fish they probably weren't equipped to handle get some minor protests and relegated to mostly Korean news sites but Everland gets international attention and major demonstrations over the polar bear yet places like this which opened recently with a lion in a shipping container and monkey in a bird cage get nothing.

I re-watched your video. On both paths, but the corridor of them is more obvious on the second path (around 4:50), you see a bunch of empty ride vehicles waiting in a corridor and some circle with you and they disappear off down a corridor as the droid(?) says 'tell them it's a prison transfer.' Where those cars empty because of media day and they're usually also carrying people or are they always empty? I'm kind of hoping it's the latter because it looks like they are going into the area you started your ride so are they cars returning from the unload area to the loading area? If it is I love the fact they found a way to incorporate something as mundane as cars returning to the station into an actual story element.

^Thank you for that, my one question after the TPR video was how the giant Stormtrooper room factored into the ride, but your TR answered it. Mystic Manor is one of my favorite rides, and it's amazing to see how far Disney has come. This is not a criticism at all, but with MM being a prop heavy ride when you get to that final room and the walls collapse you're very much aware the final effect is done by a screen (even if you don't care because it's great) but this just blends, physical sets, screens, and animatronics so seamlessly.

Saying you're going to call the founder of a company over a ride might be one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen. You'd think an enthusiast club would also know what brakes are.

I loved Valhalla, it was one of my favorite rides as a child when it opened, the water tunnel, the electric room, actually feeling cold in the ice-room, and so many real flames... but that was years ago, under a different management, and with every-year parts have disappeared until it became mostly just dark rooms. If it's a shadow of its past self and it's not financially viable to run it at full effect then isn't perhaps retheming it better than no ride at all? I wouldn't be surprised if we see this happening more and more to effect heavy dark rides like these. Pharoah's Fury here in Lotte World used to have real fire and other effects and they've all been switched out for fakes or projections (a boulder rolling towards the car is now just a projection of a swirl)

^I tend to visit outside of Cool Japan when the overlay is happening, and I could be wrong but aren't they always two-car trains? They look joined because of the moving walkway for constant loading/unloading but when I did single-rider I was in the backwards seat of the second car and I remember it separating out once we left the loading station.

Honestly, that's the way I read it too, I'd assume the movie only works well facing in a certain direction, isn't that also why Space Fantasy gets its capacity cut in half?

Seems really late to start construction, compared to SFMM who have already finished the track installation for their 2020 coaster.

Lotte World has these 3 rides installed as well and I think a park in Dubai has the set, so if it's any consolation you chose something unique to Japan over a ride that's been cloned.

^Does Coke or Pepsi have their own competitor for Dr. Pepper as well? When some friends took me to Cedar Point when I went out to visit them, I stayed in Pennsylvania and at some of the restaurants we went to, I never saw Dr. Pepper on the fountains but so many people were drinking something that tasted like it (they said it was better but I can't even remember the taste to compare) and I've never seen it elsewhere on my (mostly European/Asian) travels. I feel like even the name sounded like a knock-off of Dr. Pepper.

So Robot Land is open and so is the Thunderbolt but it ended up being built in Masan, not Incheon: https://robot-land.co.kr/zone/mainattraction.php So it's completely the other end of the country from where it was proposed (I think Incheon's Robot Land ended up being nothing to do with this theme park) It's kind of in the area near where Lotte World built their water park a few years back (The opposite side of the country from their main park) so the two combined could make it worth a trip for a summer weekend for me next year. RCDB lists 3 coasters but as far as I'm aware there's only the Thunderbolt in the park and a family coaster in the park, but New Voyage is actually the splash-boat with the little dips before the big drop: https://robot-land.co.kr/

They have one set up at the crappy toy store at the mall down the road here. I have that model here in Korea, brought it off a leaving expat who got it from another person. They all used to use it in class to let the kids make models instead of the wheel since it had so many pieces. I used to too but my new school is more of an after-school where I see many different kids than the same ones so it's in my cupboard. When I inherited it, a few pieces were missing or broken but found a spare parts store and will hopefully dust it off one day to do with my son. He'll probably need a stool since I can barely reach the top.

^ I can't wait to try Grey Stuff Popcorn.

^Yea, I noticed it was in both which is why I thought it'd make a good example of how bad the site is of telling me what rides there actually are for my 4-year-old when there isn't a single picture and the descriptions tell me nothing about what they really do.

I mean yay for height restrictions being posted but there's not a single picture for the rides so I have no idea what half of them even match up to so if I was ever somehow in the area to take my son I'd have no idea what is there he likes. For example, most of the descriptions match the shows and don't do much to describe the ride. There are an Aangs air-racers under the Just for Tots section. It's described as 'Hold on tight as you soar and spin like an Airbender. After your flight, you can snap a picture with Appa, Aang's sky bison.' I see the '48 height restriction and think it's weird but maybe it means needs to be accompanied with a '48 or above guardian and assume then it will be something like a kidde spinner that lifts off the ground a little while rotating (which describes most kiddie rides as it is). Nope, after having to look around Youtube videos turns out it's an air race because some-one just copied and pasted it over.

They haven't even put up a list of the rides that they have, let alone which ones will be operating. Everything we know is from a few vague instagram posts (from the mall itself, the park doesn't have a website or any social media platforms at all), images from a fashion shoot for a magazine in August and enthusiast fan sites. Honestly from what I've heard I don't even think that they know what rides will be operating yet. Granted, I don't think this project is looking for that many customers who aren't local but I find it ridiculous that the existing site for MoA doesn't even have a promotional banner advertising there's a second park opening. Apart from the subheader of Mall of America on the banner, there's nothing that could even hint of a second park. I feel like a few people would see Nickelodeon Universe opening, and just go to the official website and incorrectly just assume the parks have cloned rides and prices between them or not even realise that it's a different park. I feel like Wikipedia gives me more information in one sentence about this new park than the existing Nickelodeon Universe site:

Open the park and only the park for them. With a big old sign outside every single ride and restaurant that it's closed due to lack of staff.

Merlin Entertainments has announced that "The World of David Walliams" is coming to Alton Towers in the Spring of 2020. This new land will replace the existing Cloud Cuckoo Land. https://www.merlinentertainments.biz/newsroom/news-releases/2019/the-world-of-david-walliams/