Garet

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

Everland live streamed their new night show yesterday on Naver Tv/Youtube. It seems they've found another use for the SBNO ferris wheel (around 5:20 into the video) [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] I showed in my last TR, the updated tiger area, with the seals moved over where the polar bear used to be, they've improved the Penguin area, now housing 60 penguins, and it looks great. The old exhibit was basically a small house, platform, and pool with the penguins looking nervously at their neighbors the seals. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

This isn’t even remotely true though. There’s plenty of times there have been people who disagree with him on this site. You’ve got in the extreme corner your home park defenders who get upset if he just says a ride is very good than the best thing ever such as Baron at Efteling or Taron as another example. Or a more milder example is I think Robb really loved Steel Vengeance whereas some people said it was good but too much for them. I think the fact he’s posting on a site full of theme park enthusiasts with the same taste and experiences means the majority will come to the same conclusion and in this case yea, most non Harry Potter fans say that it’s a fun ride but no substitute for Dragons

Apparently Fuji has a VR center where people too little or young to ride can experience Dodonpa/Fujiyama through VR: http://www.fujiq.jp/en/attraction/hobododonpa.html Everland also has one next to T Express but ironically the height restriction is almost as high as the real thing. At least Fuji-Q's has no restriction.

Was shopping today at a toy store with my son and they had a pile of Marvel Endgame jigsaws on display. Seems weird they can use every actor's likeness but their biggest star. At least it's one who wears a robot suit. A google search shows it happened to most of them.

... f*cking really? [attachment=0]Untitled.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=1]2.jpg[/attachment] Yes fucking really. Season passholders and members are let in at 10:20 Granted most of my experience is Asian parks, but I thought most parks that let people in early normally the idea is just that it gives you the chance to be front of a line before the crowds get there in that time for when the ride does actually open? My last two park trips were Gyeongju World and Everland. I always head back to Phatheon since Gyeongju World always has a sign apologizing for block testing to finish for the first 10-15 minutes before Draken opens (and Phantheon has one train so it'll end up being the biggest line later) and Everland lets crowds in early because it's so busy that crowds block off the ticket booths and every morning I avoid T Express because even if it does open exactly with the park it can be one train ready and one being prepped and tested so I just wait until it's 2-3 train operation since a transfer really can slow down the wait. My point being the staff already have a long shift and I don't think people realize how much checks and tests have to go into getting it completely up and running.

Big Grizzly Mountain is great at explaining visually why it has a backwards section and its launch with the cable snap or the dynamite. Is there anything in this to justify why there is the drip track or spike. I heard this rollercoaster has narration so have they gone with telling the riders everything instead of showing?

Honestly, I think unless both sides were bike style, I think a half and half would cause chaos for the groupers and slow down the queue because you'd end up with a bunch of people probably wanting 'bike style' after waiting in line or even some groups of friends maybe breaking up to a row each to ride the bikes instead of together.

[youtu_be] [/youtu_be] Well that’s an interesting ad campaign that keeps popping up before YouTube videos. The korean makes it clear it’s saying Water Park but the tag line on the description is What the P**k

Has Godzilla been popular elsewhere? Was thinking of checking it out but it already left the theater near me after only a couple of days and even the big shopping mall in the city has just 1 showing at 10 PM. Sometimes films leave quick to make way for the Korean movies but only Parasite is airing and I can't remember the last time a big action movie left the theater this fast.

I'm sure some of our TPR members would love the spinning but this looks like my worst nightmare. [fbvideonew]https://www.facebook.com/FOX10Phoenix/videos/825499071170481/[/fbvideonew]

^Thorpe Park runs both sides of theirs.

Isnt it already the world smallest dueling hybrid, which would make it the first park with three hybrids? Just as I hit the submit button I realized that yes thats all already true, but decided not to edit my post in an effort to let some geek get his rocks off by correcting me. It's like clockwork. All I'm waiting on now is nerdy jokes about an aquatrax coming to the park. Because that joke. Is. Still hilarious... Aquatrax's are just a myth anyway. Only the less exciting Trax exists now.

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I wrote this years ago after my first trip but I feel like the fact that you read and hear so many horror stories and have such low expectations when you go there, that when you even have an ok-ish day or get all the rides you want really makes you happier than you would be at other parks. Over-hype is a dangerous thing and I've walked away from movies or rides not as thrilled as I would have been going in blind (which is my own fault, I know) because it wasn't 'the rapids ride to end all rapids' etc but Fuji almost seems to benefit from the opposite.

I think it's a reference to a British kids show called Tugs. Imagine somebody who made Thomas the Tank Engine said 'Let's do the same... but with boat's,' Don't think it did well, I remember having a VHS of 4 episodes from a 2 pound bargain bin when I was really young.

This part kind of makes me hope it's queue tv videos and that it won't be as screen filled as we expect but let's be honest Universal doesn't have the best track record here on their over-use of screens.

I think it's supposed to be more focused on Cruella and a back story for her, basically what Maleficent was for Sleeping Beauty.

I realize they are still in the top 25 but I think this is the 3rd year in a row Everland and Lotte World have decreased with their attendance and they have the biggest two drops of the top 25 parks. It's blamed on less visitors from China but I think that was what was quoted last year as well. Considering how big the population here is and how little competition the big parks have, it's surprising to see how much they rely on Chinese tourists. Even Everland's water park lost 13% of its attendance, they quote Chinese tourists again but i wonder if it may also be due to more competition from those lake inflatable bouncy courses really taking off as the place to cool off in the summer.

Gyeongju World has an interesting system in that the water park has a back gate that leads directly into the area of the theme park across from the splashdown boat and it becomes a water park ride during the hot summer months and the rapids and flume become the only water rides for the theme park guests,

Did they even need this 'North America first' to begin with? I think a new Harry Potter ride sells itself without the marketings teams need to justify why they can ignore Verbolten.