Garet

Lotte World Giant Loop is now closed: Source I'll try and find the card I stored my Gyeongju World park index stuff at some point and fix what was lost in the hack. Also not sure when but in researching the recent accident I found out E-world added a 103m drop tower called Sky Drop: http://www.eworld.kr/attraction_img/201906guidemap.pdf

^Good spot, since I was translating an image I accidentally cropped out the first line so the context got changed for the translation, I've updated it to 'We apologize for any confusion regarding the safety incident of Hurricane, E-World.' It's referencing that some of the anger is that the park can't explain what exactly went wrong or how it happened. An English article has finally emerged: Source

I'm curious what your overall opinion on the park was. With all the new additions it seemed like a park to travel for but it seems a lot of the TPR members who visited had mixed feelings. It's quite out of the way for people to get to as well so reviews aren't too common.

Apologies that there's no English, I waited a few days to see if one came up but there was still nothing. It seems a part-time worker somehow got hit by a train and had his leg amputated, surgeons also failed to re-attach it due to contamination from lubricants and other things. Source It seems one of the questions that is starting to rise mostly aimed at this park but people are mentioning about the others now is about the common use of mostly part-time workers and students as the operators in the parks and how few can be running it. If you look back at some of my Korean park posts I actually warned people off weekdays because rides in each area would run half-day shifts. One ride in each area would be 10-2 and another 4-10 suggesting a shared workforce or a roller-coaser with multiple trains and 10-40 min lines once all 3 trains were on (trains would still be testing the first hour or two with one ready for riders) would run 60-90 on weekdays with less trains and less staff. I even mentioned in my last TR, I barely saw any workers at most of the big 3 parks older than me. The park CEO has also issued an apology

We were just looking for a few years down the line to try Nintendo Land in 2021 and we have no proof but we both came to the conclusion that there's a chance it'll be a separate fast pass just for Nintendo rides or a stupidly high priced on a new combined fast-pass to really rake it in. That and time entry on the existing one and we are assuming Nintendo Land will be timed and we couldn't justify the stress of making deadlines with us taking turns with our son. Honestly for what we'd budget just for a weekend in Osaka and one day and fast pass in USJ (since it's a v short flight from here) to get in MOST rides, not ALL, we can probably get a whole week in Hong Kong and a semi-decent hotel for that cost.

Has USJ finally priced out their express passes to slow demand? It used to be I had to book months in advance and pray to the weather gods, but lately, I've been able to get them for 2-3days ahead of time. It's been a few years and I remember them being pricey even for not getting all the rides but I don't remember it being as much as 630 dollars for entry and a fast pass 7 for 2 people?

According to some of the news articles, it opened in 1999 when the park was 10 years old. So it ran for about 20 years and apart from refurbishment times, that would have been almost 365 days a year on 12-hour schedules especially since it was one of the only indoor thrill rides (nearly all the bigger outdoor rides can go on standby in the rain) after Bungee Drop got relocated outside.

Giant Loop has been closed down and the remaining structure has been used for an interactive billboard/L.E.D. screens. Make all your Six Flags getting ideas for converting theirs into paid adverts here. Source [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

As per usual I would like to remind every-one that Aquatrax's, don't exist, they're just a legend and if you've seen one in the wild, you have just mistaken it for the more common relative Trax. The last known Aquatrax died around 2011.

I don't really get the hate either. When somethings not for me I always view it as a 'Well if they are all in there now, at least that could mean the places nearby I do want to go to or eat at could be quieter.' I feel like a good chunk of the people hating probably didn't even like DisneyQuest or pretended they did but never actually went.

So any-one who saw my previous review on Lion King World Tour was quite strange because despite being sold out months in advance at a huge venue, the audience was just deadly silent throughout with just light applause and no real connection even at the curtain call leaving a strange atmosphere and I thought it was strange when Avenue Q had the audience so heavily invested even with people needing to look away from stage to read the subtitles. Well apart from Lion King, nearly all the musicals I've seen are at the Charlotte Theater outside Lotte World (pro-tip just go outside to find it, it was pouring so we tried to follow the inside signs and we kept hitting dead ends) and after being in the area to visit Toys r Us (my son had been after a Lightning Mcqueen Tomika) I noticed that School of Rock was on World Tour. My faith has been restored, the show was fantastic and the audience atmosphere was great. Seriously, I'm not a fan of the film that much but the cast was great, especially the children. The audience cheered them on and gave all the encouragement. They were invested so much that Dewey showing up in his uniform brought out the biggest cheer. Once again like all the other tours here, I got a half-decent seat just before show-time and the theater was maybe 2/3 full even on a weekend performance. I stand by what I said in my previous post. I actually prefer seeing them at this theater because even though it isn't sold out, it's a crowd that chose to be here and knew ahead of time they were in for foul mouthed puppets or children learning to rock. I think most people who went to Lion King just went because its sold out status made it the 'must-be there' show rather than i'll see it because I want to. Korea has a honor policy (or at least this theater) that they tell you when you enter. No pictures allowed but at curtain call you can do it as long as it isn't video. Sadly I see more and more idiots trying to record video during the curtain call making the ushers run about. I think it's great. It makes the audience, stand up, go nuts, and since they can't clap while taking pictures, will holler, scream and stop their feet to show appreciation and the actors respond with a lot of energy too. Lion King is the only musical so far that didn't allow it and no-one stood and just sat lightly clapping. One of the reasons I was in Seoul, apart from the musical, was to visit a Disney exhibition full on concept art, original sketches and storyboards. I've been to many exhibits her in Korea including Pixar, Aardman Animation, about 4-5 Ghibli exhibitions, one for the works of Makoto Shinkai and another exhibition just for the work of Your Name but this was the first one I've ever been to that allowed photography. For the movie that started it all, they gave a lot of exhibition space to Snow White drawings. There was also a lot of areas outside of each movies sketches to show how Disney wanted to change the way animation was done. Most early movies got a little area (even Saludos amigos had an area) but after 101 Dalmations & Jungle Book the exhibit skipped ahead to the early 90's. Beauty and the Beast, Lion King and Little Mermaid had bigger areas and there was some small art-work for Tarzan, Pocahontas, and Mulan but the exhibit then skipped ahead... ... to the start of the Cg films Rapunzel. And of course Frozen got a big area dedicated to it. Since CGI meant no more sketches the rest of the exhibits were mostly of concept art. And finally I stopped at Shake Shack outside the exhibit. Since I've seen Robb mention it on his Europe travels, consider Korea one of the countries that can still do a peanut butter shake.

I chuckled at the irony of this too, but I know there were other factors at play with the Dragons removal. Is it irony, or is it Universal recognizing how much people loved having dueling coasters and deciding to bring back the experience in a new ride that's less dangerous and more importantly, less in the way of Harry Potter? I mean if being in the way of Harry Potter was the biggest issue and knew how much people loved them they’d have just relocated and rethemed Dragons to this park instead of scrapping them or gone for a rebuild ala Hulk rather than have a new ride designed from scratch. The Nostalgia factor would be pretty easy to market.

^ Yea but they stopped them dueling way before they removed them.

Anyone else find it funny that USO had world-class dueling coasters,then removed the dueling element from them before getting rid of the rides completely and now are putting a new dueling coaster in their new park?

I know everyone's focused on the Twizzler's but nice to see someone else not like Churros. They're all over the tourist places and theme parks here in Korea and I can never understand the love. They always look like they should be great and it's just meh. I will say there used to be a place that filled them with a lot of hot caramel or peanut butter that was fine but sadly it's gone and back to plain regular ones.

^You know in Korea I've seen them give out little plastic bags to wrap over your feet about trainer high when you buy a poncho for their super splash at Gyeongju World so you don't walk around in wet feet... But for this, I think you'd need trash bag size and I'm still not sure your shoes would make it.

Were the updates made between Sept-Dec of 2018? If so there was a hack and we had to default to an older version? It may have been this same hack but Lagoon got missed, I have to resubmit and update the Gyeongju signs at some point because of it.

Made a quick stop in at the park this weekend, Saturday had T Express at 100 minutes at opening and down to 20-30 by lunch when it was hottest before jumping to 60 mins once the after 4 pm when people started to leave the water park (the park tends to offer free afternoon entry to water-park guests to boost numbers and keep them around) and Sunday was 10 minutes after 11 am until the evening when the water-park people came. They've also been opening the water park at 8.30am if you come dressed and ready you can get almost a couple of practically walk-ons before the park gets slammed with 90-120 minute waits. Starbucks is almost finished, according to Everland, this will be a Starbucks Reserve. I'm not familiar enough with that name but google tells me it's 'Fancy Starbucks' My son finally got to see the tiger feeding. I missed my T Express queue pass time-slot for him to see it but he was very happy to finally see it, so it was worth it. The park has added quite a few feedings to the zoo lately to see the animals up closer. We saw signs for the penguins, monkeys, tigers and the red panda.

It's a different model but the 360 version in Gyeongju kind of rattles with a noise and the seats almost vibrate once it starts going full circle and that's also a Zamperla. Could just be a thing for their discoveries? Looked up my TR from last year.

I heard one of my favorites from the broadway 'He Lives in You' is on the soundtrack, did they add it to the film? I get the feeling it might have been put in as a credits song considering its album placement though.

I only have the Japan version to go off of, but it wasn't just the reveal, it was the mini build-up, with the opening notes of the score as you approached the door with the timing of the score kicking into full gear just as the door flings open, you go from a small channel to that large area and you see your first dinosaur. Here it just feels anti-climatic, I've seen the new movies but none of that music sticks out so not sure what the music is at the tank, and unless I missed it earlier in these new POV's you get some of the original theme in the middle of the ride after the CG dinosaur which just feels random and less impactful. I dunno maybe I'm being picky but that small tank doesn't give me the sense I'm entering Jurassic park like the original large area does.

If you've seen my TR's you'll know I preach weekends and Sundays over weekdays and I'll try and explain again here before I do the TR's. Hopefully, you'll be fine for August, I was just there on a busy Saturday and it was quiet. I queued in traffic for ages on Saturday and we parked and took the shuttle bus and 90% got off and headed to the water park. There is the gamble that you can luck out on a dead weekday or a super busy weekend but for some reason lines tend to be longer and a lot more rides are closed on the weekdays. I've noticed a lot of the staff are really young, so i'm not sure if it's because the park has part-timers on weekends and less staff on weekdays or they are full-time and it's just to keep the cost down but... well you'll see in these pictures. So Everland has this thing where they set minimum queue times even when it's a walk-on (perhaps it's assuming you wait one cycle) so for most thrill rides a walk-on is posted as 10 minutes. And T Express was 20 minutes so around 10 minutes of waiting, or a couple of trains. I thought it might be because the forecast said slight chance of rain... ... but the water park was crazy, with even 80 minutes for a speed drop body slide And then here is the following Monday, T Express running a 90 minute line. You can also run into the dreaded split shifts on rides too, so you end up having to wait around for rides to open. And even let's twist had 4 out of 6 arms with no riders on a Saturday. Now onto the actual TR, it'll be a short update TR since it was just me and my son again and once again, like my last TR, I ended up spending almost an hour at the new tiger area. I took my son to the zoo, no interest in the far off tigers. The old Everland tiger exhibit, no interest. But this one has a keeper feeding station and the tigers will go right up to the window next to it and my son has learnt to park himself right next to their feeding zone. Although I worry they're arguing who gets to eat the tasty toddler. I know I normally make snarky comments about Everland ripping out attractions for non-attractions but i'm ok with this replacing the hologram theater. Here's the new Penguin Island area. It's mostly just the old exhibit and the seals old area combined into a bigger pool now the seals are in the old polar bear area, but the penguins seem much more active now they aren't staring at a predator next door through glass. Lost Valley with it's updated sign. Here's the new raptor escape room thing, it was sold out v early even on a quiet day and I don't think I could have convinced my son to go in anyway. Rotating House is closed for refurbishment, it doesn't state what will happen but the guide map lists it as becoming 'Lenny's Magical School'. I hope they keep the rotating room and just re-theme it since these rides aren't that common. The 10 year SBNO ferris wheel has now become a digital screen in the night-time show. I also noticed the Heli-cycles that have been closed for a few years have just been left to rust and get overgrown. I wanted to get a better picture but my son was rushing me to the carousel. T Express was flying through trains, if i'd known the queue was going to be so short, i'd have tried to bring my wife or the in-laws this time to take care of my son and grab a few laps. I'll end this mini-TR of park updates with this seasons theming on the tree. As you can see here. Those stairs lead directly to the air-gates so yea walk-on not 10 minutes.

It's a liberty that that is being taken away. That's the issue IMO. And like I said before I understand why they do it on a ride like SV which always has a long line. But when the back is open, nobody there, letting my friend and I go to the back instead of row 5 has no impact on how the line moves. On Wednesday when I was assigned a row on Raptor the line was 10 minutes long... And I'd gladly wait an extra 10-15 minutes if it means I get to pick my row. Like I said, most of my experience is Asian parks. There’s no real entitlement here or liberties. If the staff want to assign seats you take that seat. If the line is empty or you see an empty seat you almost never stay on or hop in, you walk around and go through the queue again. If you have a season pass, you don’t get early entry or preview the ride days, your reward for having a season pass is just going in for free. I’ve been posting Korea updates here and met a few enthusiasts and their attitudes are very different. There aren’t any enthusiast events like coaster mania or Holinights and I don’t think I’ve even ever seen a media day. A couple of people have quite a lot of followers and they cover everything out of their own money because they want to and enjoy it. They even don’t rush to cover new rides first (at least the ones I’m willing to meet again) to avoid huge lines. From the huge bloggers to normal guests everyone is the same. You show up have fun and just accept what the staff say. You just enjoy what your given.

Maybe I'm just used to Asian parks but I've been to so many parks where you don't get a choice of row and the fact people react like this in a hobby that's for fun is just weird to me. Yes, some seats are better but it's not enough for me to fly off the handle and let it wind me up this much. I've done trips where I might not go to those parks again or for a long while waited for almost an hour for Hair Raiser at Ocean Park (single rider line was closed) and probably the same for Draken at Gyeongju World and both times the staff would assign every-one to keep the line moving. Sure I had a place I wanted to sit but at the end of the day that's the person (probably with orders from higher-ups) to keep the line moving and get as many people through as possible. It’s not enough to ruin my ride or day at the park to still be upset by the time I get home and am writing on TPR