Garet

I think due to working a private school full of young children I can't currently go to UAE since we had a huge MERS outbreak here in Korea and the whole area shut down for over 2 weeks and parents are extremely sensitive. When the outbreak was at its peak there was a lot of panic and everywhere was a ghost town. Our location was literally in the middle of 3 of the most infected hospitals as well. It's annoying because the huge outbreak numbers were more due to the culture of people hospital shopping and people skipping out on their quarantine (still went on business trip, played golf with friends, even a doctor who should have known better went to a medical conference) and even though the one pretty close to us only had 4 cases, it was where the outbreak started and spread from there to almost 200 people with mass panic since the guy had been through our town and others by public transport to a few places. Considering how low the numbers are for UAE to the general population, the chances of catching it are probably less than winning the lottery but super annoyingly parents threaten to not send their kids when they hear of teachers going out since it's still so fresh in their mind (even though 99% of the cases spread in hospitals not the general population) so I think my chances of visiting will have to wait until 2017/18.

Well, after posting an article about a Korean Disneyland from people similar to the one I quoted above, I told you to take it with a huge pinch of salt but it seems the park is happening again, I saw newspaper articles in some of the Korean dailies today and an English one has it as the main story , here's the article: Source and Overhead Art and another article from Yonhap: Source I just bought a house back where I first stayed in Korea that's not too far from here Not sure how far it'll be with traffic since roads can be clogged in that area but they are extending a subway line towards my town for 2020 which will hopefully make some transfers for getting to the park easier, and I'm sure there will be a lot more freeways once construction is happening and it gets closer to opening.

Now I'm curious. What B&Ms haven't you ridden? Me too, I tried to work it out, not including one's still under construction, and I thought of 3 or 4 before giving up.

I think only two, Vampire (pre-floorless) at CWoA and Iron dragon at CP.

^ Since that announced area was where I live I still see news, this one came up today: Taken from google translate. Source Take it with a huge pinch of salt since it was only a few months ago, I posted newspaper articles claiming a Disneyland was coming. There's been so many proposed parks for Korea I've lost count, off my own memory and a quick TPR search we have: Universal 4 times (2012, 2014, 2017 - the adverts in my town when I first arrived and now 2020) a MGM Park, Paramount, Disney, Robot Park in Incheon, Legoland & concept art for another Lotte World from Goddard Group.... and 1 or 2 I can't remember who the brand was. I think the only one out of all of those that actually ever broke ground and started construction is Legoland coming 2017. From the previous article: I don't think any of them were built in the end, unless Legoland was secretly heavily delayed. I've mentioned in a few of my posts before but quite a few of the existing parks haven't really got too many new rides in the last 10 years, outside Lotte World's new gyro-spin, the last thrill ride I think was almost 6-7 years ago for the whole country with a mix of upgrades of existing rides or new family rides for the bigger parks.

Sorry if this is a stupid question but is this a normal policy for both American parks? I've only ever seen a breakdown at TDS and I remember those passes being single admittance, one ticket for each person who left the line, and not even allowing you to go to the most popular ones since I thought I would finally get to ride Toy Story Mania but the small print said it was where I couldn't go. It seems a weird policy considering what people said about the 120 minute wait especially with all the talk about overcrowding, long fast pass lines, and the attitudes of people. If you were in a big group, so in what happened to you (This isn't meant as a dig, so please don't read into it that way,) then now for one guy who didn't want to use his pass and gave it away, that's now 5 extra people taking the space of one. Could a family in line claim they are separate, get 4 passes and then they skip at 4 attractions together due to one breakdown? I mean when you think how many people left the line that number seems staggering. Why wouldn't it just be one ticket for each person who leaves so numbers stay the same?

^ Are they definitely fastpass for the ride or timed entry's to control how many people go into the HP area? I know USJ makes people get timed entry tickets if they haven't got a 5 or 7 pass and didn't USO also give timed tickets at one point?

^ Agreed, they have a hostel/Korean pension out the back and the hillside hostel as well but they're mainly for youth groups with guests as second priority (http://www.everland.com/web/multi/english/hb/hb_guide/use/How_to_Use.html)and I'm sure a lot of people would prefer their own shower and bathroom areas as well. Considering how many "love motels," as the cheaper hotels are referred to, are around the surrounding area I think a proper hotel is needed. On the map, the red circles are the hostels, one is next to the park and one is quite far away. Yellow circle is where the hotel will go. I guess looking at the location they wanted a hotel location where the guests can just walk straight in and out for both the water park and Everland and the only location for that is Eagle's Fortress (for reference, the B pin is the water park and C Everland.) but for me it's just a shame with the new subway line, as well as the bus depot being moved away from the entrance as well, and most cars having to park in the shuttle bus car park, they couldn't have just put the hotel a little outside the park and put it on a shuttle bus route instead since most shuttle buses only take 5 minutes from the car park/station as it is so it's not too out of the way and used the layout area of Eagle's Fortress for a new terrain coaster. I mean one of the hostels is already miles out and I believe Samsung own most of the area, with things quite spread out such as the transportation museum which is in the top right of the speedway. MA & MB are the closest car parks and you don't need a shuttle bus but they fill up super early, we've got to the park 1 hour before opening on some peak days and still missed out on parking there. 1-4 are all shuttle bus car parks, as well as parking lot 5 which is just next to 4 out of sight in the bottom right, this is also where the bus depot and subway station is.

Everland's gone quite cinematic with showing off their christmas decorations in this year's advert. Their Facebook page is currently celebrating 3,000,000 fans. [fbvideo] [/fbvideo] The park also announced the water rides are going into their annual winter shut down starting this Monday until spring, makes sense considering the temperatures are dropping pretty rapidly now after a very warm December. The park was pretty quiet last few Sundays, there wasn't even reservation for T Express running and lines were around 30 minutes on a warm-ish sunny Sunday and the middle area of thrill rides was walk-on. Yet the rainy Monday, lines were much longer.... I've never understood why weekdays here can be much busier than Sundays so often. Family rides were busier at around 30 mins though. T Express hasn't been down too much due to weather but it will probably go down in 3-4 weeks after the xmas vacations end since temperatures are starting to dip below its running temperatures occasionally. In all my years here, I still haven't been on the junior coaster, I thought with it being quiet I would try it out but lines never seemed higher than T Express at 40-50 minutes, granted it's a lot lower capacity but it has me thinking that as much as I keep moaning there hasn't been a ride aimed at thrill seekers in almost 7 years, I think something along the lines of Firechaser Express or Grizzly Mountain Cars would do really well as Everland's next coaster. Still nothing big happening over in Eagle's Fortress's hole. As much as I would love to see the hotel a little off-site (if you've ever seen an overhead map of the Everland area you'd be surprised how many things Samsung has here just outside of Everland & the water park) and another terrain coaster take it's place, I feel kind of glad it's not there anymore. For the last 4 years it's was always there just slightly in view reminding me I made a mistake not coming here on vacation and waiting until I got my job here and came out just a little too late to Korea.

Terrible.... Waste of 2 hours..... Some things should just be left in the past... I just watched the Adam Sandler Netflix movie

I feel like Fuji Q has a undisclosed minimum wait no matter when you visit. I went in a cold February when the park had quite a few more visitors by the look of this TR, and I hit mostly the same rides in the same order as you did (except I did Fujiyama at the end) and hit mostly the same queue times you did. I say that because Fujiyama had a 1 hour wait for me also in the morning and like you I didn't want to push my luck (I lost my debit card in the morning so couldn't get passes like I planned, I literally only got to go to the park because of bus deal and lived off 1 bottle of water and walked back to my hotel in the night) so put it as lowest on my priorities of the roller-coasters but since the line looked half of what it had in the morning when I passed in mid-afternoon I jumped in line but still waited over an hour. Big surprise, they'd taken off the 2nd train sometime 3 hours before closing so it was only 1 train operation so I sadly missed out on Thomas Town for the evening since by the time I'd got off it had been almost 90 minutes and stuff was already closed off (like you way before closing) I think in it also helped a lot of the people who went that day were young couples or groups of school girls, so the bigger coasters didn't seem to be where they went, the line for the new rapids and the Hamster coaster were huge and spilling out, your picture makes both look a lot quieter. I'd forgotten that Eejenaka had got a repaint and new trains, might have to re-ride it one day since it beat me up pretty bad on my only ever 4d coaster experience even on an inside seat.

Was thinking of going out mid-end of February but just noticed the rehab list to coincide with when I go: http://www.usj.co.jp/e/attraction/#rehab No Hollywood Dream, Jurassic Park and Space Fantasy, the 4D cinema is down or it could just be with just different movies with the Genesis/Titan thingy. I normally skip it since I've seen them before but I've never seen the overlays. Are HP fans still crowding the park? Plus no roller-coasters and the titan/genesis thing they do I'm thinking might be quite crowed....maybe I should just hold off for a while and postpone when the flying roller-coaster is open. I had wanted to do a quick weekend trip sometime before our child is born but I've always enjoyed AIR and wanted to try a more thrilling coaster so maybe putting it off is in my interest especially with Jaws being down with Space Fantasy if my days off are pushed. I still haven't tried Harry Potter yet but it's not exactly something I feel I need to rush for. So undecided.... I do really like Jaws and Space Fantasy.... but I'm also a huge BTTF nerd and who knows how long that will be around now it's set in the past. Also I had no idea there was a Woody Woodpecker cartoon attraction thing, is it like the Hanna Barbera simulator that used to be at USO or is it just a static movie?

I never liked that USJ made the Harry Potter rides part of the 7 fast-passes at the expense of other rides that get bumped into the multiple option tickets of choosing 1 of 3. I'd much rather have Hollywood Dream on it's own or Jaws or BTTF (since it has no single-rider) than have Flight of the Hippogriff be mandatory or a wasted ticket.

Maybe this is just a few Asian parks thing (never saw it on my Japan trips) but either really late opening or split shifting the rides. So on quiet weekdays 3-4 rides won't open until around 1pm and a lot of rides that share an area will have one open in the morning and the other closed and then switch in the afternoon so you end up lapping the park 2-3 times. Plus it's really annoying being in a long line when you're surrounded by closed rides. I've actually found for almost 2 years now that the lines are 2-3x shorter on the Sunday than the weekdays just due to the park as a whole running at a much higher capacity. Granted this is very specific to my local park but here goes: Not allowing single-riders to line up for the roller-coaster without a reservation ticket during peak season when they run the ride without a standby line until mid-afternoon. I get that they are worried people who couldn't get tickets before they sold out might flood up the shared fast-pass (as in 0 wait as opposed to the reservation ticket)/single rider line and block the people with fast passes but it's easily wide enough to split in two and the cars are going around half empty due to reservation only. People barely use the single rider line even when the reservation is finished, I've never had more than 5 people in front of me on a weekend. And considering they make people line up outside the main entrance anyway, they could control how many people go into the single rider area. Also it means you are taking up valuable reservation tickets that groups could use when those seats would have gone empty anyway.

Yep, I've never understood why some people will stand in an hour line for fast-pass to avoid a standby line that normally isn't too much longer or run to a line for a ride that opens an hour after the park if that ride normally only has that same time for waiting. Last time we were at Everland, most of the crowd ran to Lost Valley which wouldn't open for another 40 minutes to grab a space in line. So 40 minutes wait for the ride to open and then another 20-25 minutes for the people in front to ride. Except the line never jumped higher than an hour all day and when we rode at lunch after most people had gone in the morning we waited 20 minutes.

I'm just waiting for one with Robb's commentary backwards now. !!!pool ed pool..... !!!ytsiwt

Relocation to future Nintendo Land perhaps?

Bad news Treasure Hunter fans, the express line has been removed (and Canopy Flyers line too) according to Dejiki: http://dejiki.com/2015/12/uss-update-2015dec/ I can see why, considering the capacity and how slow the regular lines could move sometimes especially after they introduced the unlimited express passes as well for people to use the lines more than once.

You got to remember just because a park is crowded doesn't mean most of the people are there for thrill rides and coasters, a lot want the zoo part and the fireworks. Yokohama Sea Paradise is also a park that normally makes the top 25 most attended and that didn't have any roller-coasters last year while Surf Coaster got new trains and a rehab. The crowds are normally from half day operations on weekdays since you can quite often find 1 ride an area will be completely shut while the other two alternate so one is open on mornings and the other on afternoons as well as half the kids rides not running. I always recommend to people that Sunday is the best day since everything is usually open but it's quieter than a Saturday. Generally weekdays can be a gamble, i've seen dead weekdays and some with massive lines (again with half rides closed), Sundays lines can quite often be shorter waits than weekdays just because all the rides being open can spread the big crowds. We went a few weeks ago and honestly the thrill ride section was one of the quietest with 20-40 minute lines throughout the day. Honestly the chairlift, kids coaster and bumper cars had longer lines than x train, rock spin and twist. Although it is nice that the parks have single rider for the thrill rides. The whole of Korea has been family friendly since around 2008, since T Express and Pantheon, the only ride with a high height restriction since then was a disk-o. Children's Grand Park rethemed their park and got a new vekoma family suspended in place of the old looper, threw out their almost brand new gyro swing and even the drop tower has a pulley on the outside to make it more like a giant frog hopper. Seoul Land have had the same big coasters pretty much since it opened and it's supposed to be a busy park as well. The boomerang down south is also now SBNO apparently and the only park currently out of development phase is a Legoland. Lotte World's additions since I've been here include: 3D upgrade to shooting ride 4d theater shooting ride kids talk to character show (like turtle talk/stitch) kids suspended whip ride kids flume ride (drop is extremely tiny) 4d trackless shooting ride gyro spin (only high height restriction addition I've seen) circle vision dome ride wild river simulator wild wings simulator wild jungle simulator new night parade and show kids road train Everland's additions (might have missed some): 2nd safari ride indoor kids cafe/playground 3d movie based on popular kids tv show (Pororo 3D) Rio 4D re-theme of train ride to Thomas the Tank Engine new "cuter" park mascots Madagascar stage show (now retired) Charactorium (Inside building full of acitivities involving popular children's characters) re-theme of existing ride to Korean barbie New fun house that has a maximum height restriction of 1.5m K-Pop hologram show Pride in Korea 4D and VR experience new family flume ride Gondola to help transport people across the park sideways (the other chairlifts go up and down the mountain) miniature garden glamping village (think cabanas for water parks but rental tents to relax when you visit Everland) pandas (2016) hotel (2017) retheme or upgrade of the it's a small world knock off boat ride (16/17?) I am disappointed that I never got the chance to experience Eagles Fortress and as I've mentioned in my last few TR's, I have been going to the park less and less when there is literally only 4-5 rides I still end up doing so of course I wish every year for just 1 nice big coaster or thrill ride to come to this country but as a jaded enthusiast I'm not the target audience. I don't think all these parks in the whole country would be making these additions for almost 10 years now with out researching first and knowing what will bring people through the gates. This years attendance might be lower since the MERS outbreak kept people away during the busy months but each year the attendance has gone up. One last thing, I feel like our definition of busy is very different from theirs. To us an hour wait for an older roller-coaster or 40 minutes for a thrill ride might be long but I have quite a few students who visit Korean parks regularly who go to Japan or China and would probably consider some American parks quiet on days we would think it's busy. I had one of my eldest students a few months ago tell me he thought he went to DisneySea on a quiet day because he managed to get a Toy Story fastpass this time without running.

Snow, hail and strong winds makes for bad operations at Everland, with the usual weekly closures on top of the rides that had to go on on weather standby about 80% of the rides were down today but it makes for pretty pictures: All credit to Everland's Facebook

Seems Toy Club starring the parks new mascots is replacing the now closed Madagascar. This show actually ran temporarily last year over Christmas in place of Madagascar when the new mascots where introduced but the fact that this year it has X-mas edition on the bottom as well as Madagascar's permanent retirement makes me think that like the fireworks/gardens/parades/tree and entrance street it will be the same show but rotate with each of Everland's season festivals throughout the year.

http://www.lotteworld.com/contents/contents.asp?cmsCd=CM0248 (sorry, posted link that only showed the app earlier by mistake) Lotte World launched a new smart phone App and increased the number of attractions that run fast pass from 10 to 13. The park used to have a similar style to Disney where you would go to each ride get a fast pass ticket and the next available time would be printed on the bottom although they are currently still there as of writing. Right now, they are running a smart phone app as well as kiosks for people who don't have the app. They are also currently running the old style scanner at each attraction (although the 3 new added rides: gyro spin, bungee drop and the tilting tea cups don't have these since they weren't on the old style) although I wouldn't be surprised to see them phased out in the future once people get used to the kiosks. Sadly I don't have anymore information since it only went live yesterday and the app isn't available for iphones yet for me to even screenshot to show you. Looking at peoples facebook it seems the app let's you reserve 3 fast passes until they've been used up (so the same as Disney I think?) but I'm not sure about the kiosks since the picture above looks like they reserve more. Sorry I'm not exactly clear on some of it like the kiosks, the new system only went live yesterday and I haven't seen it come up on Korean blogs yet.

^ I think on my next visit I will try and track down the Korea tour operator my old co-teachers used and splash out for an express pass 7 and avoid the timed ticket altogether. The website says only available on the day but whichever operator they use gives them a valid QR ahead of time.

My friend is a member of Screamscape... That's funny, because I am the one who took the pics and I don't know you. Here is the rest of the gallery from the trip. https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOwRKU6amGMy8wEDuNY3_GFLZSf26wF-5sIM1DkaM05ThvnEHxw3s_1t0O0c5irMA?key=NlhnTUl4bE4xUi1JaktHN0l0QS1ITG4zOGVONW1n Great photos, looks like you had a nice quiet trip judging by the BTTF sign. Last time I was there it was one of the quietest rides and even then it was 30-40 minutes.

I'm going to assume there will be one, perhaps in the part not yet built just because this will need to be able to pump out riders as fast as it can. My students where there in October and Hollywood Dreams line was 4 hours for backdrop and that has dual station and a MCBR so I dread to think how long the line for this would be if it doesn't.