Garet

That looks so incredible, I really wish this had been there when I last visited, it had snowed and for the first and probably only time in my life I had a completely empty Disneyland, i'm not really a parade person but i've always enjoyed night-time shows or electronic light parades if its not too crowded. I'd love to see this one up close and get pictures but I bet you'd have to get there super early to film as close as this one. People were sitting for Fantasmic almost 4 hours before it started on my last sunny trip. Although the great thing about a show like this one is if you are not overly interested in filming or taking photos you can see this one from pretty far away i'd imagine.

^Those are some great pictures, judging by the first one I guess the train goes backwards in front of the guests when it leaves the station for the journey to Diagon alley and the next train that pulls in you would have seen just the back end of a carriage? I'd assumed it would since its a funicular railroad, but considering how picky JK Rowling can be with things and it being like the books, I would have thought that the train going in reverse for a journey would have been hidden from view. You must get a great view from Dragons Challenge looking at the track if you go over when the train is in the station.

Where does T Express fit in in terms of El Toro vs Balder etc debate?, It's the only one i've been on so far but really want to get out to Liseberg one day and wonder how it compares.

Fixed From the movies thread, correcting someones spelling but then getting it wrong yourself. It's Kurt Russell

' Wait, WHAT?! Sea Paradise had bumper boats in a dolphin tank?!?! I must be misunderstanding something. Yeah, I really do want to go back to Sea Paradise and spend most of my time there (except for some Blue Fall) looking at the exhibits. That's a deal! I've read several TPR Sea Paradise trip reports with some amazing shots of the fish, including the Sunfish. No question, the next time I'm at that park, I'll spend the majority of the time in the aquariums. And riding Blue Fall. According to page 10 it is so: http://www.seaparadise.co.jp/english/guidebook/top.html It definitely wasn't there when I visited last! Definitely need to go back, I remember wondering why that fish had it's own tube in the seperate dolphin tunnel aquarium away from the main one, I didn't realise until Elissa mentioned them on another TR that they were such a big deal, explains why in the much busier osaka aquarium there seemed to me more people crowding around to see that fish than the manta ray and whale shark. I liked Sea paradises aquarium a lot although I ended up going through it 3 times because I stupidly missed the bit near the entrance to go see the whale shark viewing area twice Edit: Just noticed on that map that surf coaster now reads surf coaster levithan opening 15th March, I wonder if it was just a name change with the reopening or they did something else?

An update to my original post on our recent trip to Everland they were allowing you to collect fastpass tickets again and again, there was no scanning or checking tickets of any kind so it could be exploited but people for the most part were gratious and took only one per time slot, there were a few who would go to multiple booths across the park but since you ended up in a 30 minute line once you were allowed in it didn't really give you much of an advantage to try and gain more than one per hour. I also finally found an example that wasn't Everland or Harry Potter with Alton Towers doing a trial run of a ride that for now won't have a standby queue and only a ticketed queue: Source:Towers Times I still wonder how people will take to these systems, especially on busy days if tickets run out when we visited Everland Korean's seemed to be enjoying it but we visited on a quiet day and the express tickets for T Express didn't seem to run out at all. There quite a few attractions that were reservation only but you could pick any time of day and things like the kids indoor playground were extremely popular with families which meant you had to be at the park quite early to stand a chance of getting in at a decent time or at all.

Everland released an app recently that shows rides opening times and wait times and it's changed the game for getting around the park completely, There was always a few line information boards around the park but with the app people are always checking it in lines if something that is usually busy drops quiet people will hop out of lines and flock to that area. We went to Lost Valley to use our queue passes and the line was only 30 minutes so we hopped in and saved them and when we hopped off the line was already climbing back up to it's usual business, it normally peaks around 120 minutes. We were walking out of the entrance and people were just flooding in. The same thing happened with the rapids in the late evening when it dropped to a station wait, by the time we got there it'd jumped back up. The app is a little strange that it includes "virtual wait times" so when T-Express is in its fast pass only hours it'll always display 60 minutes or if the 3d cinema showing is only every hour even if the line is empty.

I'm with you in that I much prefered the vanilla drop over false drop, even though it's a tiny fall into the brakes before the real drop, I felt the vanilla drop seemed to hit the brakes a lot faster than I expected, i'd honestly expected the differences to be minor between the two, it was still worth experiencing both though so glad you did. I also combined both parks but i'm glad I did sea paradise first, i'm a big fan of aquariums and with the open aquarium and the huge inside one I ended up spending a lot more time at sea paradise than I planned, I actually preferred that aquarium to some of the bigger ones i've done just because on a weekday it seemed quiet enough to enjoy and get to look at the exhibits without being jostled and pushed. It's just a shame the bumper boats with dolphins wasn't open when I visited. I actually quite enjoyed the rapids ride, It wasn't overly great but it took up quite a compact area compared to others that never seem to really get very rapidy. Cosmoworld is one of those parks i'd really love to do on a TPR trip someday, I couldn't find any pay one time options when I visited so ended up just getting the two credits, the pseudo air time log flume credit and the ferris wheel before having to save my money for the other parks on my trip, seeing these pictues makes me wish i'd got to check out the dark ride options.

Everland's a crowded park anyways, plus with operations you got to pick your days carefully, we are only a 20 minute drive from the park so we use the app and weather forecast to guess the crowds. We went on Sunday since my wife predicted due to wednesday and friday being a public holiday and a very low chance of rain it'd be fairly quiet (turns out this thursday is the busiest day yet this week with lines of over an hour even for the flats whereas we walked on 90% of the rides on Sunday) TR coming soon . I'd be interested in hearing why you think Everland has terrible operations though since this has only been an issue for me within the last year or so. The ride operators are still incredibly efficient and friendly but its the overall park operations I haven't liked this year. Saying that i'm glad to see Lotte World overtake Everland, looking back at some of my first TP's from when I arrived in Korea I really didn't enjoy Lotte World compared to Everland but over the last few years Lotte World have really worked hard to make the park amazing whereas Everland has slowly gone down for me. Lotte World have added mutiple attractions all over the park for different people and updated old ones (Atlantis got a 6 month refurb to return it to its "original glory"), put themed facades around the chain restaurants to make it blend in and now seem to run fast pass even on dead days to give people the option as well as working with Goddard Group to re-do the entrance area, added new food options and just generally improved the park all around. Sadly with the space queue lines can still be a problem when it's busy though for some rides Everland on the other hand while still a fantastic park has switched their rides to half day operations on weekdays so rides alternate when they are open and can result in longer lines than there used to be (still a lot of weekdays where the park will be dead though if your lucky), never run the regular fastpasses for the two rides that are listed on the map as having them (at least I have never seen them with them even on busy days) which means pthe only option is the $80 star package that gives them one time access to 3 rides and entrance and have switched a few attractions so they are fast pass only rides with a system which involves just showing up at one of the multiple booths around the park and being handed paper tickets without any form of scanning meaning people can exploit it. They also tiered the season pass so the prices went up if you were some-one who could only go on weekends since the old became the smart season pass with a few black-out dates. Also even though the ride is only a year old they cut the kids 3D movie to only 1 showing an hour instead of half hour much to some of my youngest students disapointment. These are all minor things and again Everland is still a great park but with only one new major attraction being added whereas things like Eagles Fortress and the big wheel just stand rotting away and with other additions being just changing the movies on existing rides, I feel Lotte World has put a huge amount of effort into improving their park and attractions and refreshing popular ones (again Atlantis) and in terms of operations whereas quite a few areas of Everland have started to feel old (and not in a good way like some of Disneys older rides ) and the operations and new systems feel like i'm being forced to spend more time and money than I used to. It's nice to see Lotte World have got a big increase after all the little efforts to improve the atmosphere of the park. i'm quite suprised how highly some of the smaller water parks of Korea did, some of them i'd never even heard of and looking them up don't seem to be too special. I guess Koreans really love their waterparks.

Sorry to bump an old topic but this water-park is opening next weekend: http://www.lotteworld.com/contents/contents.asp?cmsCd=CM0460 although a lot of the slides won't be ready until the following season may 2015. We hit lines of 2 hours at Carribean Bay when we visited so I dread to think what lines will be like next month with only 3 of the bigger slides operational (not counting the ordinary body/tube slides) I do think it's quite nice where it is despite being the other end of the country from Lotte World, some of the bigger water parks are already around Seoul or around the middle of the country with one or 2 more just opened around Seoul so I think with all the theming and publicity lately this is going to do very well with the people of Busan.

Vekomas are terrible save their GIBs, Intamins are unreliable, but B&Ms are both smooth and reliable... I would have agreed a few years ago but lately i've loved a lot of recent Vekoma rides, Grizzly at Hong Kong was great, Millenium at Fantasy Island was smooth and looking at my ride bucket list a lot of them are vekoma, intamin, RMC or a few other companies, I think i've only got 1 B&M on my list which id go out of my way for which is Sky Scrapper, yet for vekoma i've got their sting-ray concept, the tilting coaster and aren't Vekoma also working with RMC to make wildfire which I would add to my list?. I heard Kumali was quite a smooth SLC too. The last B&M I did had quite a rattle on my front seat ride (Hair Raiser) and as for the intamins coasters and flat-rides, on all my travels across Korea and Japan they've always been open when I went to the parks save for T Express and thats due to my astonishing bad luck, and Everlands strict weather policy more than reliability.

Korea parks tend to be like that. Lotte World has so many different shooting and 3d rides now extremely close together, Everland also runs more than one 3d film and Seoul Land claims to have a 3D, 4D and 5D ride all close together. I'm still surprised there is a gyro-swing when Lotte Worlds one (and drop tower) has had to add scream shields due to noise complaints from the noise carrying when it swings up high. Another blogger posted an update on this park: http://szsup.tistory.com/623 Anyone know the model of that drop tower/bungee I haven't seen one before that has one cable and wheel like in the video.

Thanks Elissa. Yes we'd like to do as much of Sentosa as possible but we're only in Singapore for 4 days so may only have a day and a half or so to spend there. We only had 4 days in Singapore and we ended up staying on the island and apart from Universal we ended up mostly doing half day trips into singapore and just enjoying the evenings on the island. Some of the island is pretty expensive but we just really enjoyed staying out there and didn't mind travelling into the city.

What does the blog say for some reason it's always impossible to access here in Korea, its one of the only sites I've encountered where It just times out.

As a teacher pretty much all the days I visit will either be weekends or the weekdays I can go count as school holidays so I hit the policies no matter what. I agree I'd also buy a pass normally for parks but the super package everland has includes entry and there's no option for people like me who have an annual pass where we can just buy it as an add-on since that one day super package is almost as much as the yearly pass for all my other trips. Although that star package for entry and a jump the line pass is a paid package you can reserve, the policies I mentioned above are the free fast pass system the park has once inside, since its the only possible way to ride for a good portion of the day I doubt they'd ever charge for it, they refer to it as a reservation system since your getting tickets that reserve you a place in the line instead of being allowed to just line up when you get there. I used Everland as a big example since this is my local park so it applies most for me and because it's the only park I know of that has 100% fast-pass only rides with no standby lines during certain periods (or all the time as in the hologram) When I created this topic I was more interested in finding out if this was a policy at any other parks or how people would feel about parks they visit or like taking up policies on making rides so they are only 100% time allocated during the busier periods. I do wonder if these fast pass policies would work if a park had a system like my magic+ so you could choose your times in advance instead of the allocated times on the day and having to run down to the entrances but I guess if people got to the park to find tickets sold out with no chance of lining up there would be problems. For what its worth people here seem to be completely fine with the systems, I think the map makes it pretty clear which is why most people will dash to one of the 3-4 ticket offices that allocates the fast pass in the lower ends of the park once gates open.

I mentioned this on my Everland posts yesterday but the more I thought about it the more I thought the idea of it warranted its own thread for discussion. I also had wanted to wait until I heard back from customer services at Everland to confirm how the system works before I posted it since while the Korean maps tend to explain it well the English signs on my previous summer visits were a little confusing and they'd refined the system since my last visit (and my Korean wife rang to get information too incase something had got lost in translation and wanted to know so we can plan our next visit). If i've repeated myself too much from my previous posts and the mods think I should have left it as a post on my other topic please delete this, I just thought it would make for an interesting discussion and I could go into more details here. I'm interested in either if any other parks do this already and what everyones opinions on the matter but how would you feel if any of your home parks or any park switched some of the rides so they were 100% fast-pass allocated rides only on certain days (e.g. weekends or public holidays) or during busier periods of each days. I mean there must be pros and cons for each, e.g. 100% fast pass would mean a lot more tickets available in time-slots but if they are sold out it leaves you really stuck waiting until the standby line is finally opened. Everland has quite a few different policies depending on the rides. I'm not going to focus on the safari ride or rapids which use regular fast pass systems or the newest ride Lost Valley which doesn't have a fast-pass line as such as different premium packages which include a line-pass since i'll cover that in more detail when I do a TR of the newest rides. I just wanted to give examples of the 3 different policies Everland uses for their free fast passes so everyone can compare and have an idea of how the system works. They have 3 very different systems. I should point out that apart from option 2 both of these apply to weekends only, don't let these deter you from visiting, if you visit on a weekday you should be fine. I'm posting these not because I can only go on weekends (poor me ) but because these are real life examples that i'm curious how people would feel if it showed up in their home parks since some of my friends love the system and having no line guaranteed if they plan whereas some of my other friends hate the idea of not being able to just stand in line when they want. 1. T Express (the staggered fast pass option) Everland first started doing this one everyday in the summer last year where T Express was fast pass only (you couldn't line up unless you had a ticket) from 10:00-5:00 with tickets opening at 10:00 and being allocated until they sold out. This was the system that burnt me twice last year since both times we ran there at opening and got tickets but since everyone is younger and faster than me our tickets were for early afternoon and on both occasions when our time came up it was closed for winds (it does get affected by winds a lot due to Everlands location it was down all of today as of my writing). Since T Express closes early due to the fireworks if it goes down for winds and isn't reopen by around 4 or 5 there is a very good chance it won't reopen. They've since refined this system into the current system which is as follows the reservation system runs from park open until 3pm on weekends. If you run down at park open until 11am (or if tickets run out whichever comes first depending on how busy the park is) they will issue tickets to come back from T express opening time (normally an hour after ticket issueing starts) until 12. After that tickets restock at the start of each hour to come back in the following hour so for example after the first slot the next slow is 11:00- which will let out tickets until they run out that let you return from 12:00-1:00 and then if you miss those tickets you can try again at 12:00 when the next tickets become available for 1:00-2:00. you can go back and get another ticket after you ride if you so wish, at least they were on the day we visited but we tend to go on quieter days, I'm not sure if they are stricter on busier days but considering the booths for the tickets are spread across the park and they don't scan tickets I don't think they do limit them. After 3PM the standby line is open on a first come first serve basis if you want another ride or didn't get a ticket earlier, the wording confused me from customer services but after another email it apparently means a normal line until it reaches capacity and will be closed to make sure T Express closes before the fireworks. One thing that had confused me is T Express always advertizes a 60 minute wait so I didn't understand how the tickets were helping reduce lines but apparently for some rides like this Everland showcases literally the waiting time not how long you stand in line so the 60 minute line represents the wait you've had because of the ticket. The actual wait time depends on when you show up if you show up at the start of your fast-pass window when everyone else does then yes you'd have a long wait but show up nearer the end and it would be almost walk-on. It's hard to explain the virtual wait but hopefully number 2 will help. 2. The hologram show (choose your own time fast-pass attraction) This is probably the best one to explain how some of Everlands waiting times are displayed for some of the show rides or ticket rides like T Express. This one is permanantly set at 30 minute wait times because thats how long it is between shows, this attraction is only allowed to be entered if you have a ticket on all days. So for example if Everlands 3D movie is showing every hour like it was today because it's a quiet weekday the wait time is set at 60 minutes even though you can show up 5 minutes before. Anyway the fast-pass policy for this is that you go to the ticket booth and choose which time you want with the options being every 30 minutes from ride opening to closing. There are different holograms depending on the time so it helps you make sure you get the hologram you want. Since all time slots are available from park opening the earlier you go the more options but once all tickets are sold out you can't go on that attraction today. The indoor playground and madagascar stage show also offer this, you need a free ticket to enter and all time slots are available form opening both are very popular with families especially the indoor playground where the kids can play and be supervised while parents grab a coffee and sit around the tables at the edges so on busy days you really need to be there early if you have kids since people tend to go for return visits. 3. The flume ride (fast pass only at busy times) This fast pass is interesting, its another weekend/holiday only system. When the park opens the log flume has a standby line as per usual. However once the line hits 60 minutes the standby line is closed and a fast pass booth is opened which then allocates tickets one hour from when the booth opened giving a ticket with a 30 minute window running until 5pm. Unlike T express, these fast-passes run like a normal fast pass so once they are gone they are gone. They tend to go extremely fast during the summer so if you don't get one you have to come back at 5pm when the standby line will be reopened. Unlike T Express, the flume ride doesn't have to close early so the line isn't as much a first come first serve basis and you can just show up. So those are the 3 systems. Personally I actually don't mind policy 3 so much, maybe because the flume is one of those rides that is always busy when I visit and i'd never wait 60 minutes for it but if there was a fast pass as I was going past to come back later I would grab one since the flume is almost never closed. However I don't see why it can't run with a fast-pass and standby like most other parks would do. 2 as well I can understand it's to make sure people get to see the hologram they want but I wonder how many people just grab tickets because they are there but don't return for their time. I wish it had a reserve line so if people don't show up you can fill in the empty slots at show time but forefeit having the choice of which hologram you see. 1 is the policy I am really not a fan of. I'm just not quite sold on why its 100% necessary to only allow people to come back an hour later to jump in line, from our visits the line can still range from 30-60 minutes even with the passes so i'm not quite sure why it was decided T Express had to shut its standby line completely, maybe if there was a single rider line at the exit for the operators checking the lap bars to fill up the empty seats that tend to show up a lot more now since the attendant at the station entrance has to collect the tickets that were checked in the entrance and doesn't really get a chance to shout out for groups of 2 or 1 like they used to i'd be more sold on the policy. What are other peoples opinions? I should point out Everland also introduced a premium package option for $80 roughly that gets you entry to Everland and a guaranteed line jump for T Express (or the rapids), Lost Valley Safari and the other safari ride as well as a guaranteed hologram ticket(or to the indoor kids playground) and ticket to the madagascar stage show so if you do visit on a weekend and are worried its an option. You need to reserve at least a day before you go and is only advertized on the korean site so you would need a Korean to help you book it: http://www.witheverland.com/328 , Instead of doing frequent visits I may invest in one of these and visit the park once or twice a year to avoid headaches

Both, I like to read the TR's in the nice multi-page format (less pictures a page loads faster on my phone or the offices super slow wi-fi) then head over to the forums and discuss it or read other peoples opinions (although if I want a laugh and the TR has offended some die-hard park fans *cough* Parc Asterix *cough*I just go straight to the TPR facebook page to see the crazies come out ). But normally the only park index updates I read are either new ones I see on the home-page or a park i'm specifically interested in visiting in the near future. Before I subscribed to the TPR update thread I missed updates occasionally and had no idea there were some official TR's posted in specific discussion threads.

Everland has some really wierd policies. After a disasterous evening trip in the winter where it turns out that they now shut down half the park a few hours before closing (and even then they were alternating ride times so each ride was only open for half the day in the open areas) we decided to foresake the usual winter trips and plan on going in the spring instead. I'm going to go with my camera and do a full TR of the new rides soon but I was just curious if any other park has this kind of fast-pass policy. From what i've gather from contacting the park to ask and from the english maps as well as peoples blogs T express and the log flume on weekends are fast-pass only rides once the line hits 60 minutes. Once the line hits 60 minutes you have to have a fast pass to be allowed to queue in the 60 minute line. Apparently they sell out super early since everyone makes a mad dash to grab them once the park opens. You get a ticket that tells you what hour to come back and join the line, I really hope it's wrong but i've heard about this on other blogs in korean and saw it on an english blog too (http://gdaykorea.blogspot.kr/2014/04/everland-t-express-roller-coaster-seoul-korea.html) and a korean blog. If you don't have tickets to join the queue you have to wait until after the fast-pass times have ended (3pm for t express and 5pm for the flume) Heres some korean blogs about it: sorry I can't translate but here's the links where you can see in pictures nobody is lining up outside t-expresses entrance where you would normally wait http://www.witheverland.com/385 and the flume where you can see people in line waiting to be allowed in line after 5pm when the fast passes end http://www.witheverland.com/328 I really hope i'm wrong and there was just some confusion from mis-translation but i've also heard from some co-workers who used to go in the evenings that now go in the mornings due to the new policies. Apparently their are two dashes: people to grab fast passes (queue passes?) for t express and daddies who sprint to grab a spot at the new lost valley safari ride which opens half an hour after the park while the mums walk the children down (from previous experiences of the other safari ride the line cutting is unbelievably terrible despite signs saying it's against park rules the staff generally allow it with families) This policy is only weekends so if you ever fly out to Everland definitely visit on a weekday if you want re-rides. However for people like me who can only go on weekends it's a policy to be aware of. Edit: Forgot to add their new show/ride thing the k-pop hologram is also ticket based, imagine something like turtle talk but instead of the computer animation interacting with guests its a recorded hologram of a famous korean singer/band performing as if it's real. Instead of standing in the line and waiting for the next show (they go every 30 minutes) and letting people in until the theaters at capacity it's another ride where you need to visit a ticket booth to get an allocated time for which show you can see. This one makes a bit more sense to make sure you see whichever hologram you are most interested in but another reason to make sure you hit the park early since its another attraction you won't be allowed to line up for if it has sold out.

My head hurts from the sideways pictures, you mentioned having to rotate the camera to fit in the shots but you can rotate the pictures back after you've taken them

I'm getting a shreks house vibe from that restaurant.

I don't know, a lot of people seem to enjoy the idea of the water rides but don't like getting wet. Here in Korea, the Koreans seem to like their water rides dry. I've never got wet on either the log flume or rapids in lotte world since one has the little wind screen and the rapids seem to go out of their way to stop the boat from splashing (it just seems to rock as it goes around) and the water level was lowered a few years ago on Atlantis and i've never seen anybody able to touch the water since (although I have yet to visit after it's 6 month rehab claiming to return it to its original glory to see if that includes the main pool of water). Heck Everlands rapids come with covers to pull over yourself and on every visit i've had people will always use the covers. On my visit to Japan there were covered splash boats and on my visit to Fuji Q the rapids ride had glass put up all around the boat so you couldn't possibly get wet and it still had a 2h line (but thats probably just because its fuji q operations and they were only allowing 2 to a boat..... so the line was probably only 20 people)

I'm super excited to see what people come up with when the flat ride maker is released on the 16th.

So what's the limit before a project could be considered cancelled? I keep hoping to hear something about the polercoaster but my searches just led me back to this topic.

I did not realize studying Chinese in China grants one access to all Chinese amusement park knowledge. I thought it was still difficult to get accurate information on many projects. I was going to quote that but the Yin comment made me hope it was sarcastic. However since I just married a Korean, work and live in Korea you are more than welcome to ask me about all the secret future plans of Everland

It's still listed on their site as operating, I was tempted to visit when I went a few years ago just to actually have tried one but with rumors of Thunder Dolphin re-opening after I left (which thankfully came true) I never did visit to see for myself.