Garet

For those interested in seeing the interview: http://www.itv.com/news/2015-07-08/rollercoaster-victim-joe-pugh-tells-itv-news-im-not-angry-at-alton-towers/

The Hwaseong government has announced they are aiming to have an "international park" come to the area in 2021. The hashtags mention Universal Studios and Disneyland as examples but it could be anyone's guess, an international chain could be anything. The post also mentions Sentosa as an idea of what they want the area to become. It's worth mentioning since the Hwaseong area is the same province where Universal Studios Korea was originally going to be built. They ask what people like about parks: scary rides, cute characters or dinosaurs (the area has some tourist attractions based on fossilized eggs in the area, a dinosaur is also the areas mascot and little statues of him and others can be seen in a few cities around here) the pictures they chose to represent these options are.... interesting. In other theme park news Caribbean Bay, Everland's water park, now has a queue time app. It's been a long time since I've been to a waterpark outside of Asia, are smart phones a common appearance in waterparks while people are swimming there too? Waterproof bags to wear around your neck are quite popular at Caribbean Bay and people tend to take their smart phones into the water... I'm just not that brave. With lines that can be over an hour long for even ordinary tube slides, an app is quite handy to have without having to trek to the entrance to see the board.

Turns out we have a KidZania here in Korea too, not sure how it would compare to Japan but was quite surprised how many options they also have: http://www.kidzania.co.kr/web/eng/facility

Is this an edited photo or photographer humor? I see Maverick in there! Great photos by the way, especially the ones with fireworks! He means getting Maverick's train in shot. You can see TTD and MF's train going round, he probably meant he wanted all 3 trains in one shot.

Our Tuesday/Wednesday days were pretty light at both parks. I think it has less to do with weather and more to do with timing. Sunday/Monday were significantly busier at both parks. We saw 60-90 minute lines for Journey on Monday, but 25-45 on Tuesday/Wednesday. Rain most certainly will affect the crowds, but on a weekend day, not as much as you might think. Thanks for the advice, maybe it's just me stuck with the Korean school year deciding my holidays that leaves me with 3-4 hour lines. Apart from either the last week of July or Christmas week, I get some time off in February every 2-3 years as a reward but I think like Korean schools, a lot of the Japanese schools are probably closed then. Maybe I just need to wait even longer between trips and hope the Korean Thanksgiving lines up nicely with a weekend to give me a 5 day break

Any tips for getting a good DisneySea day and how did the rain affect the lines for Disneyland? That's the second TR of yours I've seen with 30 min waits for Journey and I've never been able to time it right for TDS. I've been on a snowy day for TDL where everything was walk-on by afternoon (seems the Japanese are a lot less tolerant of snowy days than rainy ones) although it was a shame that day was before Once Upon A Time, but for all my TDS trips I've hit lines of 3-4 hours from opening until the lines close just after fantasmic (thank god that year was when they decided to try single rider for tower of terror). I'm starting to think I need to flip my logic, maybe since TDS has quite a lot of big indoor rides so I think that it seems to be on bad weather days that most people also go there and do Disneyland on good weather days perhaps? I know Disney also has a lot of indoor rides but more outdoor ones than sea does. My 1st trip to TDS was after a few days of snow and the sun came out and the park was packed and time after that I decided to try during really bad weather but went too far it was torrential rain and wind so most of the rides were closed. At opening this was the sign, most people went to tomorrowland at opening or to an indoor ride, lines went down by 15-30 minutes about 2 hours in and the lines dropped off completely by 2PM ironically around the time they got most of the closed rides open by around 11a.m.

I think it's Kia, Six Flags has some kind of deal with them. I remember last year when I visited Gradv, there were Kia Souls all over the park. Cute little cars lol. No giants hamsters though sadly Managed to catch the whole advert today, it's a hyundai advert. A flame eater spewing fire as one car drives through a carnival in the middle of SFMM. Then the bit I saw yesterday, 5 cars driving at night as TC duels behind them and then they park up with the ferris wheel behind them.

Just saw the advert that the ferris wheel was for on Korean TV. Was flicking channels on mute and spotted Twisted Colossus lit up at night and 5 Hyundai's driving past it in the parking lot (or Kia's as I said I was flicking but it seemed to be a Korean manufacturer) They then parked up and you could see a lit up ferris wheel behind them.

My wife really liked the golden mickey's just for listening to the various disney music being performed even if the bits between songs were nonsense so we've seen it a few times. She got pretty bored with the Lion King though and it became a one and done show for us. Here's a photo from when google kept performing "auto-awesome" on my photos of anything involving lights or fireworks....

Can't remember it's name, but I loved the place where they put the roast meat into a baguette.

It's a little thing but I really like how the sign says the ride's queue will close on the ride as opposed to when the ride will close. There are too many parks that have a rides closing time and then after you've run across the park found the line closed earlier than you thought it would.

Did Kristen get her sea paradise sunfish credit?

Been looking at the TPR twitter, that BTTF shirt from uniqlo is always out of stock here in Korea, even online I can always find one with the logo but the delorean one has been harder to track down, might have to trek into Seoul this weekend. Interesting seeing the tweets from the Fuji-Q people. I feel like Fuji-Q has such a bad reputation that people always seem to have a good first trip because their targets and expectations are so low that when the weather works out people enjoy it. I feel like it's a park where you get diminishing returns with each trip as you begin to notice more and more things. On my first trip, I stayed in the same place and watched the weather forecast like a hawk and then had the hotel reserve the bus for me the night before when weather looked good (so basically my whole trip was working around Fuji Q.) On the 1st trip, I took my camera so was taking it really slow and just aimed for the big 4 coasters and came away pleasantly surprised. This was even the day an ATM ate my credit card so I had to tackle the park without any fast passes. It probably helped this was during the year when Everland was running half day schedules on rides so I was used to bad operations. Then my second trip without a camera (again working my whole trip around the weather for that park) I thought i'd get more done....and I didn't. I missed out on the fast-pass for the haunted house when I got off my first ride, saw the fast pass place wasn't open and went to grab another coaster and got caught in a way longer queue than I anticipated. I also found I noticed way more things now I had been before like: second cars being removed in the afternoon resulting in 2 hour lines even though it looked much shorter, rapids only taking 2 people a boat, the locker systems resulting in stupidly slow loading when someone forgets to remove their watch or phone etc.... I bring it up because I may be making another trip to Japan but it'll be a much shorter one so I may even have to skip Tokyo Disney than try and cram one park into one day (and nothing will ever top the completely empty snow filled 1st trip) wait it out for all the new additions coming to TDS and make my next trip after that just all Disney. I'm thinking of going place to place to parks I've missed before due to time. Maybe revisit Universal and then pick up Nagashima to finally try a 1st gen freefall and a ultra twister as well as maybe Parque Espana and ending in Tokyo for Thunder Dolphin and Joyopolis that were both closed on my last trip. I'm thinking that I could do Fuji on the way across, since I really do enjoy Dodonpa's launch and I've still yet to try the famous hospital, but this time I won't be staying in one place so I'll be at the mercy of the weather and it seems people enjoy the park less with each trip they make and even my 2nd trip went from good to bearable.....

Which is much better to me to constantly see new roller-coasters that are good and unique and have many of them, than go to a place that has just a few great roller-coasters and then sits the same for the next 10 years. I see new stuff in Japan each year that makes me want to go back before I've even left from my current trip. I have lived in Korea for 6 years and there's a lot of parks I still haven't returned to. I mean we have T Express and Atlantis here..... two really great coasters and that's it (and even Atlantis has turned off the water that makes it unique) except maybe the arrow triple looper and Korea silver bullet in the good category. You look at Japan and you see new things almost every year popping up and then some of the park in Korea sit almost the same from when they opened. The only new coasters we've seen coming in the last 10 years are for new parks like Legoland or children's grand park and are aimed at children (the latter having removed their thrill rides to make way for family rides). The boomerang here is SBNO and there's now reports the government is to close down Seoul Land (so minus 4 more coasters if it happens.) to make way for a people powered park similar to one in Europe.

I would also hope that they would make a new Pokemon themed ride then that area could be more than water rides, I just don't know how you make a pokemon ride? Plus, I don't know about Donkey Kong being right across from King Kong... A Pokémon ride is easy. All manner of flat rides could have cars designed in the shape of a Pokémon, or even several different ones. Imagine a Dumbo ride with 16 different Pokémon. There are a lot of possibilities. A pokemon dumbo ride..... where have I seen that before: http://kotaku.com/the-real-pokemon-theme-park-a-look-back-1703831133

Why is it only Japan gets all the cool flavors of chocolate, weird soda flavors and cool burger king and Mcdonald's stuff. I'd always hoped being in Korea next door, we'd see some of it but it always stays firmly in Japan. Oh well on the plus side, living here means Tokyo is only 2 hours away and Osaka even less.

You won't like Asian parks then, I've seen 45 minute waits for even the smallest of family rides and coasters on Saturdays.

I think picture 2 and 3 in the very first post show whats wrong with using the elevation of a selfie stick in the wrong places, if you're in an arena or a show and your raising it way above your head to shoot a "video for your YouTube" then your getting in the way of people behind trying to enjoy the show. As a teacher I've also seen a domino effect during school performances. Parents always have selfie sticks, especially in Korea, and as soon as some-one at the front raises a selfie stick to get pictures of their children, parents behind start to raise them since they can't get a shot and so on....

^ I think it just shows how well rounded pixar made the characters that everyone can find so many characters who stole the show for them.

I saw it and people say Bing Bong is the break out character but for me Anger stole the show.

^I think it started yesterday and is running for about 2 weeks, so you timed it perfectly.

Wasn't Tower Records in one of Robb's earlier updates? Seems any Nintendo fans on the tour should hurry back there before it ends: http://kotaku.com/visiting-tokyos-super-mario-cafes-1713298771

If this ever happens, then we are all doomed.

Mega Storm did open on June 20th after all, there are some pictures of the new slide here: http://witheverland.com/990

Mister Donut manages to live on in South Korea as well but you won't see it as often as Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme.