Garet

My middle school was close to a discovered Anglo-Saxon village so we used to have field trips and themed days around Anglo-Saxon stuff but essentially it's the German version of the word from Old Norse since all of these rides are named from Norse mythology. I honestly can't remember too much of it since Anglo-Saxon history/historians/a very picky history teacher have a lot of definitions for what is Viking or Norsemen and differences including mythology. Most of us were more interested in just hiding out in and pretending to watch the movie they projected in the visitors center nearby.

I think since Gardaland announced the Jumanji ride, it seemed extremely likely but there's now official confirmation that the Jumanji license is to be used across multiple properties: Source

^ Probably, there are actually quite a few of them already in the UK at smaller parks that have been a hit. Pleasurewood Hills has one: And so does Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach: And Paulton's Park in their Peppa Pig area, which I believe was also brought across to the Florida park:

No matter what the park says some people will not believe it and this rumor's basically going to become COVID-19. People arguing about who is right and wrong, are officials lying and old tweets to prove/disprove conspiracies, and still here years later. We'll see peaks of discussion and it'll fade and then when a deadline is missed, the rumor will mutate into a new variant closing date and rise up again and it'll keep repeating it until the date is eventually right, and then the 'I told you so' people will appear.

Drayton Manor has announced that they will be adding a new Vikings-inspired area this year with a new Disk'o Coaster, the UK's first Zamperla Nebulaz ride and more! https://www.draytonmanor.co.uk/vikings Vikings. A whole new land of discovery. Opens Spring 2022. Vikings will propel guests into the centre of the action with exhilarating rides inspired by ancient gods and legends, and unforgettable experiences designed to transport adventurers of all ages back to a bygone era. THOR Introducing the eagerly awaited Disk'O Coaster. Thor is a new vibrantly coloured family thrill ride, named after the infamous god of thunder. It will send those brave enough to board spinning in a giant wheel across a coaster track for the ultimate weightless sensation. LOKI Introducing the UK’s first Zamperla Nebulaz. Loki is a family thrill ride with eight gondolas and four arms rotating in a fast-intermeshing orbit. Inspired by the malevolent god of mischief, Loki will send passengers soaring to new heights, offering a truly hypnotic experience from both the sky and ground. SLEIPNIR The new Sleipnir attraction will take mini explorers on an exciting journey through a training school, where the legend of the ancient Viking mythical horse will teach them how to become a powerful god. JORMUNGANDR For younger thrill seekers looking to brave their first mini coaster, Jormungandr is the family-favourite Buffalo Coaster re-imagined. Taking guests onboard an epic voyage through Vikings, with incredible views of the theme park and its nearby lake. WALHALLA After a long day of voyaging, guests can refuel at the new Walhalla restaurant. Inspired by the historic heaven that warriors were said to visit after battle, Walhalla features traditional wooden benches surrounding a sizzling BBQ pit. Perfect for feasting in true Viking style! VIKINGS THEMED HOTEL ROOMS For anyone wishing to extend the fun overnight, guests can enjoy one of 10 brand-new Vikings-themed rooms at our onsite 4-star hotel. Featuring Nordic-inspired furnishings and traditional wooden panelling embellished with shields and paintings of distant Viking voyages, guests will be immersed in the mythical surroundings of legends for the evening, before waking up to feast like a Viking again and refuel for another day of fun and adventure in the theme park.

From Screamscape again I mean all rides don't last forever, and essentially at some point, this will come true, whether November, 5 years time, 20 etc.... but I'm not a big fan of encouraging people to go to guest services or the people who manage social media and online contacts and pester the poor workers over something that may or may not happen.

After disappearing at the start of the pandemic, Everland's nightly show/fireworks will be returning. It seems Time Odyssey will not be returning instead the new show will be filled with BTS songs and called BTS Over the Universe premiering March 18th. To give you some examples of the night-time shows since a lot of what's advertised in this picture, are used for every show here's some of the previous summer shows set to music. One year was when the Jukebox show was themed to musicals: Another was themed to movie themes, with Harry Potter, E.T, Pirates, Indiana Jones, and a Superman finale but I have to highlight here the Chariot of Fire segment where they took the fire park of the name literally:

So with Corona still running rampant in Korea, and some of the parks still having reservation policies on rides that sell out instantly, my family and I have taken to checking out some of the smaller pay per ride parks that are littered around the edges of the country while also enjoying the ocean views and fresh sea-food restaurants that are there. It's been something I wanted to do for a while because these parks change rides so often that you never quite know what you're going to find there so it made sense to use 2021-22 to check out these less crowded places. The first TR is My Land located on the island of Wolmi, not too far from the international airport. This area is quite popular not being too far from Seoul and the China Town area for people who want a breather away from the city. The locals seem to realize this because on my way to the park in my car, every old lady was trying to wave me down to park at their restaurant for $2 all-day parking. Honestly, this park was a little weird both for the rides and the systems, it seems to mostly be owned by the same company since looking back at the park on street view the rides constantly change areas, but there were quite a few separate ticket booths so you had to first find the booth and buy a ticket for a specific ride at that booth even though prices were the same. The rides weren't exactly made by well known companies either and cycles could be really short, and though we found some nicer parks later that my son really enjoyed, I'm featuring this park first since it was probably the biggest out of all the parks we visited and for reasons you'll see later. Welcome to My Land. So straight away, you may have noticed something strange about this park. This parks claim to fame is apparently that it's Pirate ships swing up to 110 degrees when you ride them. This first Pirate Ship definitely tries to compete with the others by offering a pretty high swing. I keep saying Pirate Ship but I should be more culturally sensitive. In Korea, they've nearly always called Viking. Remember this if you ever visit, it's on the immigration test. Unlike most rides, this one had it's own ticket booth and sits on it's own outside of the park. I have no proof of this but since this one is named just Viking and sits outside of the park I've made up my own head canon that this was here first before all the others and has refused to move out as bigger and newer rides come in. It's the Carl Fredricksen of Viking rides and since I'm pretty sure no one else is going to trek out here to visit the park or do a TR, no-one can prove otherwise. Although it wasn't running too crazy on my visit, this ride does definitely swing pretty far, to match the posters claims. Onto the main area of the park and there's one of these that can be seen at a lot of carnivals but are actually pretty uncommon here in Korea. However, one thing that is common in Korea are the Tagadas/Disco Pang Pang. These things always attract a crowd, both of riders and people who like to watch people get tortured. This one came with a DJ who would pick on certain riders. They especially like to pick on foreigners. I was a coward and didn't want to ride. If I want to get ridiculed in front of a bunch of Korean's, I'd just go teach one of my classes. So why am I bumping this park's TR to today? It's election day in Korea which means interviews with AI's of previous/dead/imprisioned president's but the one that seems to make the international news is the election results full of the most random CGI situations. Previous elections had candidates on the roller-coaster T Express, duking it out Mad Max style or racing on a ski slope and this park popped up today as one of the graphics. I've instantly dated this TR! I feel like more people would watch the elections if they could watch Trump and Biden enjoy some rides together or duke it out Mad Max style as the results came in. It also seems like the US election in that a lot of people aren't too fond of either candidate. My favorite part is the minor candidates don't even get to ride, they just get CGI'd into observers on the other ride's platform. I wasn't kidding about Mad Max being one of the ways to announce election results. Let's move on, this park also has one of those frog hopper type rides, but it didn't seem too popular. On to the second viking. This one is different from the other one in that it's bigger. If that wasn't clear enough, it's also called Super Viking. I bet your wondering why the park would have two vikings but only one tagada... well don't worry the park balanced it out with a second tagada 50m from the first one. Next is another swinging ride. The park used to have an actual Huss Frisbee called Hurricane, but decided to replace it with this 90 degree swinging ride named.... Hurricane. This one had carnival levels of spin on the actual disc and could be pretty nauseating. There was also a merry-go-round at the park but I completely forgot to take a picture of it, so this is the closest thing for a park index photo. Rounding out the middle area is the chair swings. and one of those old simulators with gull wing doors that still live on in RCT. There was also this drop tower, that operated with a counter-weight and pulley from an unknown manufacturer. Fun Fact: Have you ever ridden a drop tower and wondered, what would happen if the tower didn't actually stop at the bottom? Happened on this ride. There's a 3rd viking, just in case the non-existent crowds at the other two make the lines too long. This one is called Eagle Viking. It's not tall or has a crazy swing like the others, so I guess it's just there for the people who really enjoy riding Pirate Ships but are disappointing there just isn't enough Eagle theming on them. The newest ride to the park was Mega Swing 360. This thing really lived up to it's name. In that on the day of my visit, you did literally a 360 swing and then the power got cut. Not just in terms of the swing but even the pendulum spinning or brakes. The disc starts spinning, you rotate back and forth a couple of times and do the 360 degree swing.... and then the disc locks into place, drop back to 90 degrees and you swing very slowly back and forth for the next 2 minutes until the ride stops wondering WTF just happened. Watching on YouTube, it doesn't seem to be the usual cycle but it definitely was the one given to all riders on the day I visited. Maybe it was a good thing, because the ride also seemed to be a knock off and required an over the shoulder seat belt that was put on after and over the restraints. I bet you're wondering, why does this park have only two Tagadas but 3 Vikings? Well don't worry because this new area of the park (that used to be the car park) also comes with a 3rd Tagada. This is that new area, they also moved the ejection seat from the main area of the park over to the side here. As you can see this park, is very big on its swinging rides. You can get an idea of the size of the park here. They really cram all of it into a very small space. Squid Game cash-ins were extremely common in the area. These used to be only a dollar but with popularity exploding, they were selling all alone the ocean front for $3-5. While at My Land they had adverts for their sister park only 400m down the road. After 3 Viking's and 3 Tagada's, and being so close to the other park I'm sure there'll be completely different rides to experience.... right?

The main website has gone live confirming an opening date of 31st of March: https://adventurebusan.lotteworld.com/kor/main/index.do Soft opening will be from 17th-20th and 24th March looking at the attractions opening schedule but it seems the flume ride isn't ready yet. The list of attractions is here: https://adventurebusan.lotteworld.com/kor/enjoy/atrn/list.do?pageIndex=4&scrollData=Y&ctgry=ATRN&detailsKey=140&orgSrchTag= 16 attractions in total although one of those is a playground and another is a talking tree so 14 rides for the park, most of which are aimed at younger audiences. A one day ticket is 47,000 won (around $38) and the park will sell skip the line tickets: 15,000 to skip 2 lines or 27,000 to skip 4. There are 3 big rides for the park, the Mack Blue Fire clone and Power Splash and the Zamperla pendulum, named: Giant Digger, Giant Splash, and Giant Swing. It does seem on brand considering the sisters parks bigger rides are: Gyro Swing, Gyro Spin, and Gyro Drop.

Still early but the parks could be closed past April. Although total case numbers seem small by other countries standards, Hong Kong has to follow China's policy of '0 Corona' rather than 'Living with Corona' as well as Hong Kong seeing their corona death rate rocket past the average of any other country in this pandemic.

^ Granted the numbers of viewers isn't big enough for Six Flags to care or even have an impact, but it seems kind of ironic that the Bizarro ride existed when the character never really made the jump out of the comic books so wasn't that well known and now the ride goes back to Medusa in the same year Bizarro becomes a main part of the Superman TV show.

Government mandated closure has been extended until at least April 20th.

As expected the deadline has been extended… all the way to at least April 20th.

I stand by what I said a few pages back. I really don't know why the focus kept being on on how steep it was, and aiming at thrill seekers. I really think with very few changes to that layout, maybe an ordinary back spike, and trains without comfort collars/lower height restrictions, it could easily have been aimed at families as 'children's first launcher' especially with the 4 launches aspect.

Honestly, although I thought John Cena as Peacemaker was fantastic, after the characters actions in the movie, I wasn't overly interested in seeing the TV show. But so many people told me to check it out, I binge watched it since I had a COVID positive student and just watched it all while quarantined waiting for my test results. Glad I did because his acting here blows me away, and for a character who I had very little interest in, he can emote with his face so well without saying a thing... the last two episodes especially, you could see so many emotions when he was listening to Economos on the comms. And I never thought the Wolverine F-bomb cameo in First Class would be topped, but damn if they didn't beat that here.

I also posted this in Hong Kong Disneyland thread but worth noting here for discussion considering how much more this park has been struggling than Disney. Hong Kong is being overrun by Omicron so it seems they may be closed for quite a while.

Somehow missed this news but the 2 week park closure that was supposed to have originally ended January 20th was extended and the park is still closed: The new end date is a week from today, however with hospitals overwhelmed right now and Hong Kong's Omicron crisis worsening (there are pictures of people on stretchers having to be put outside the hospitals) it seems likely that this closure could be extended especially since Ocean Parks announcement now states that it's until further notice. Hong Kong is seeing 4,000 a day which seems low but with extremely strict quarantine measures including all cases, no matter how severe, having to be hospitalized and going to quarantine camps for close contacts including for the health workers who get exposed, coupled with the vulnerable elderly, it seems the hospitals are overwhelmed compared to countries like Japan and South Korea that are also seeing record numbers but relatively low occupancy rates on the corona wards and can continue 'living with corona'.

My random collection (My wife calls it the shelves of random crap): I tend to pick up one small thing with each trip, so most of this is from the Asian parks with a little Paris Disney thrown in. Also we see a lot of Japanese animation exhibitions (but also occasionally Disney, Pixar, and Aardman) as well as international musicals pass through Korea so there's stuff from there mixed in. The nano-blocks were from all the trips to Lotte World, Korea went through a phase where they were everywhere so I used to get them off the Seoul street vendors on my way back form the park.

Little curious on this one getting a huge drop. Since Korea still doesn't grant tourist visas due to corona, I'd assume the people who could include it on their polls are mostly unchanged from previous polls. I'm also assuming that since South Korea isn't really high on a lot of peoples destinations list, most of those riders are going to be enthusiasts who are well traveled and constantly gain a lot of new credits. Is it a case of there being a big over-lap of people who have ridden T-Express and have also ridden the 'new to top 25'? Edit: Was looking back at things I voted for and saw Shockwave from Drayton Manor but also noticed G-Force is in the poll, but it was removed 2-3 years ago I think.

^

That's not literal enough for Cedar Fair. However there is another ride that could become Flight Deck:

^ Lotte World Busan will be opening soon and the park will be 365 days a year. They will only have a Blue Fire clone and a Power Splash and temperatures here can be -20 in Winter so I'd assume they looked into whether there would be a dry mode for the coaster to operate because otherwise that park is going to be down to only 1 coaster for 3 months a year. I know before it permanently became just a Trax (they ripped out all the water jets on the track), the sister park in Seoul used to find a way to operate the Aquatrax in the winter to make sure the same problem didn't happen.

^ Honestly, I think this ride should never have been aimed at the thrill seeking crowd with the marketing focusing on the steepest drop even if it was planned before VelociCoaster. With just a normal back-spike and potentially a different manufacturer you could have had a much lower height restriction and focused on the 4 potentially slow accelerating launches aiming to pull in groups of families with younger kids as a gap between the smallest coasters and the bigger launch rides of Cheetah Hunt and Hagrids.

Considering Antarctica isn't that old so presumably, the cars haven't been scrapped, I wonder if we'll see them repurposed for a new ride somewhere either here or at another park in the chain.

Living in Asia with 365 day open parks, I've definitely learnt to appreciate winter rides over summer any day. I did a bunch of parks in Europe in summer with no problems but here when it's 35C and 100% humidity... no thank you. Works out for me though since parks seem to empty out in the Winter. A snowstorm blew through Tokyo Disney around 10am and everyone just bailed on the park. They'll camp out hours before a parade in rain and heat but on that day I could stroll right into the shows and parades at showtime and be front row: