Garet

Is the stopping part way through the ride for a lift hill on many eurofighter style rides? Saw had the pre-lift hill bit and Fuji had its launch section first. I loved the one at Fuji but it would have been great to have the lift and beyond vertical drop at the start and the launch halfway through the ride instead of the way it is. Although saying that the tension was great stopping at the bottom and knowing what was coming but that probably could have still been achieved at the start

What makes the suspicious about Carsland in Tokyo is the total and complete absence of the Cars franchise in the park. There is no merchandise, there is no feature of Cars in any one of Tokyo Disney's abundance of shows, so on and so forth. The only and literally only mention of Cars in Tokyo Disney Resort that I'm aware of was the easter eggs of Mater and Lightning. Monsters Inc, Bugs Life, Toy Story, Incredibles, and even Tangled have all had much greater presence in the parks in recent years through characters and shows. I wouldn't be surprised if we see a large franchise based addition to Tokyo Disney in the near future but I just don't think Cars has the popularity to do so. This guy was sitting out autopia last time I visited.

They've removed all mention of it from their article now anyway and just say technical incident instead now.

Tower Time has this, doesn't say where it get's it sources from.

Perfect, thanks for all the awesome advice, my girlfriend hates the coasters but enjoys the rest of the rides so i can single rider them. out of interest which rides did you notice had single rider, i couldn't find much info online.

Is there any benefit to the parks when they do this, making them able to be seen only from the ride? Everland did the same thing this year, they brought in cheetahs, hyenas, giraffes, hippos, lions, elephants and even white lions etc for the zoo but they can only be seen if you go on the new safari ride (also pushing multi hour lines right now) and just wondered what's to be gained for the parks by making them that way. Is wild artic the same, I remember going to Florida when I was 9 years old and really wanting to see belugas, and it being after wild artic but I can't remember if there was a way in without watching the film?

I think this will be great for universal, whenever i've heard from people who went for the Harry Potter ride, they've gone to walk around the are and that's all they talk about or the butterbeer, they talk more about going around the castle in the queue more than they do the actual ride. Maybe Springfield will be the same, as much as the Simpsons ride is a draw and the kwik-e-mart, im sure something the fans will enjoy more than the ride is to walk around mini-springfield and drink duff beer.

Did you try the drink they mentioned that was going to be exclusive to the area? How was it?

Last part of my fuji-q day I still don't understand how they reached this number.... ... even with the japanese explanation Walking around the mid-way at this point This was a fun little ride with no line so I decided to try it. The rapids had one of the longest waits of the park and I didn't see the point in waiting since they had splash glass during February, I didn't feel like being squashed into a boat with some random people A random run around and scan your card attractions, nobody won when I tried it. Another run around attraction Finally got to try one of these, even though it was much smaller I preferred this more than when I rode windseeker. Only a 15 minute wait so I decided to give it a go. The pizza ride. Normally I find these really pretty but I wasn't a fan of this one, is there an uglier giant frisbee out there? An overview of the mid-way They had an ice skating rink set up when I visited. Seemd popular with the couples, although trying not to be a creeper, i photographed the emptier part. The ice-skating rink with mt fuji and a roller coaster in the background... I almost found Fuji Q pretty. On to my last credit. Sorry not many pictures, it was hard to take any from the queue line so most were taken before opening or of the last trains. The mascots of Fuji-Q Thanks for a good day, Fuji-Q

More Fuji Q: Eejanaika and Fujiyama Eejanaika seemed to have the most organized loading and unloading of all the rides They were running a yellow and blue train when I visited Close up of the train That's a lot of missing seat covers! Since X2, is this the only 4D coaster with the old style trains? I couldn't remember the difference between "spoon" and "fork" versions and which one was the new style and which was the old. Smile, you're at Fuji-Q

Although it hasn't changed at the top of the page the yellow box now read it won't be opening on the 24th: http://www.altontowers.com/

Well, just look at the message Alton posted. It says "Unforseen Testing Problems"... Of course that's gonna freak the GP out. It's probably a marketing thing by Alton to increase the suspense while they fix up a problem with the effects or something (guessing it's the effects, as during the onride POVs they weren't on). Actually it says due to unforeseen teething problems, which I think is greatly ironic for a ride named the smiler. Although that may have been the point by alton towers who knows with their PR.

500 comments already on facebook full of people complaining how last minute it was.... and how it's to make sure its safe instead of a potential death-machine knew I shouldn't have looked.

Really is there a link, I couldn't find it on there page and no mention on the facebook, even on the ticket page it still says: Don't miss our world's first 14 looping rollercoaster, The Smiler! Experience the ultimate correctional device - a combination of 14 loops with a variety of marmalising special effects, get corrected from 23rd May 2013! Looking around the smilers web-page and can't see it either. Why do I get the feeling all this will lead to sadly is more people complaining about their damn bogof dated vouchers (although this is why I try to never like a theme parks facebook page)

Honestly the wait times didn't bother me, the problem i've been so negative with Everland over Lotte World this year is I can only visit on weekends and since they still use a hand out of paper fast passes, people grab and then line-up again and take multiple so they are gone within an hour of opening (all the fast passes are on 4 rides in one section of the park at the bottom so people will dash down to get them) and on really busy days even the chairlifts and little childrens rides have 45-60 minute waits or multiple hour waits for the new/bigger rides so you have no option but to be stuck in the lines and have to really plan out your day whereas Lotte world has been really good at having fast pass on a ton of rides this year and has the same system as Disney choose a ride scan your ticket and you can't get another fast pass until later which means they don't run out so fast and you can skip over some waits as well as find a ride that has a shortish line to wait in while you wait for your fast pass time for bigger rides. I kind of felt the same with Fuji as Lotte World, Though I couldn't buy the priority passes they were still there an hour after opening and there were a few available still later on in the day for some of the older coasters so it wasn't like I had to dash to get them. The flat rides had anywhere from a 5-30 minute wait and some of the weird run around the inside of a building and get the weapons attractions had no wait at all so I felt like I had some freedom in my day and how I went about the park if that makes sense. However I could have just been very lucky with my day, though the coasters had the lines, the rest of the mid-way seemed really empty.

Yeh, one train was entering the batwing, while the other was exiting the batwing. Obviously that isn't going to happen on the real ride but it was referencing that the trains will duel. Has it been confirmed that they will actually duel? I thought that was still a rumour. If it does happen, I wonder how long it will last? I've seen idiots throwing things before at Thorpe Park, I'd think if they are synced so they go through the inversions close to one another it won't be too long before some idiot tries throwing something.

Part two, Takabisha. I'm not really good at narrating roller coaster photos so i'll just post them and put in comments here and there. Takabisha did have a nice path that ran around a lot of the ride making nearly all of it accessible for picture taking. Testing early on I'll end this first half of fuji Q with this pretty picture second half to follow later this week.

Part 4: Fuji Q This was the park I had most planned for, I'd check everyday the weather forecasts right down to the wind conditions to make sure I had the perfect weather, found a day with 0 winds and the super accurate Japanese weather lady said 0 chance of rain, and a few clouds, I'd gone over every trip report to plan out my day exactly, I would go to shinjuku an hour early and find the bus,I was going to get priority passes and have two go's on each coaster and then...... an ATM ate my debit card. I checked my wallet, I didn't have enough for the park and the buses i'd reserved. I decided to head to the shinjuku bus ticket place and cancel my reservation, only to find that I'd completely forgotten about the much cheaper return ticket and entrance Fuji Q combo pack.. I had exactly the right amount for it (and I mean exactly I had to live off half a bottle of water that i had in my camera stuff for the whole day and walk the two subway stops to get back to my hotel). I should point out that take note of the rules on that website and pick-up your tickets half hour or so before the bus leaves or a day or two before. Even in a cold February with buses every hour, the 3 buses that left first thing in the morning were packed and there were people waiting to pick-up any unused tickets. I'm convinced 50% of Japan must skip school, there were teenagers cramming a lot of the bigger parks like Fuji and Disney to the point where there were 3-4 hour lines even though I saw 0 families. Before I begin my review I should also point out that on the day I visited the fast pass ticket booth near the carousel was open almost from opening of the park, heck it was open earlier than most of the roller-coasters. Also strangely despite having the shortest line and most efficient set-up Eejanaika sold out first followed by the new euro-fighter and the haunted house. So now I had to face Fuji with no priority passes, but time for the question everyone faces.... Did I have a good day at Fuji Q? I've split my opinions into two sections one for experts (people who have been to Fuji-Q) and one for beginners (people who haven't been yet). I strongly recommend skipping over this first paragraph and go to the beginner part if you haven't visited yet. Fuji Q For Experts Shockingly, I had an extremely good day at Fuji-Q, maybe it's because due to bad luck I spent the past year ending up at Everland around the same time a new ride has opened, a special event or when T Express has been closed so that even the small world knock-off has an hour line and the chairlift just to leave has a 45 minute wait so I was well practiced in what to expect or maybe I just managed to find a legendary dead day for Fuji Q. However I actually think the reason I enjoyed myself so much is you see so many terrible horrible reviews that you approach with the lowest expectations and walk away pleasantly surprised. After my last day at Everland, only resulted in 4 rides, all I had written down for Fuji was eejenaka, dodonpa, takashiba and experience a star flyer. So I was quite surprised when I had most credits done within 3 hours of being in the park and plenty of time to look around. I really do feel that reading so many reviews where almost no-one had a good day had lowered my expectations so low that it actually came off better because of how I pictured the day in my head. Beginners start here There were however a lot of things that seem to be standard Fuji Q based on other reviews. Signs were up when we arrived at the park saying that most roller-coasters wouldn't open until an hour after opening, only fujiyama was open at the park opening with dodonpa opening half hour later (it didn't) and eejinaka and takashiba opening an hour after opening. There were a lot of loading issues as well, seats were randomly blocked off on the already low capacity dodonpa and they were very extreme on the nothing in your pockets policy, a whole train had to be unlocked for when I had a tissue in my pocket when the ride-op patted my pockets during the seatbelt check, I hadn't even noticed it when I reached in the same pocket to pull out my phone. Takashiba seemed really in-efficient with its station set-up, lockers up one end and loading of only one train at the other far end which resulted in an empty train constantly waiting since people would forget and have to walk all the way back down to put more in their lockers then come all the way back to the trains. Also only one train load could go put there things in lockers so quite often the train had been waiting for at least a minute before they even began loading. I've seen Euro-fighters with 2 trains loaded at once, I wish they had that set-up or let more people use the lockers at once so they could wait for the train in advance. At the start of the day Fujiyama had an hour wait running 2 trains with the line way out of the station area and onto the mid-way, much later when I was deciding whether to check out thomas town or gain a credit I wasn't overly interested in, I noticed the line was really short and only half the ramps were filled. The line took me almost 90 hours because they'd removed a train for no reason 3 hours before closing. I also heard lots of announcements for rides closing the queue lines while waiting, this started 2 hours before closing. Overall though i'm glad to have visited, although my first ever 4D coaster didn't quite live up to my expectations, Takashiba definitely was worth the visit for me, I've never been a fan of eurofighters, i've always felt by the time i've gone over the vertical lift i've missed the beyond vertical drop before my eyes have caught up with the rest of my body but the slow decent on Takashiba really was fun. I also loved the launch on Dodonpa, the force of it seemed to make intamin cable launches feel gradual. On the bus and I have blue skys, hopefully a sign everything will be running today. And we've arrived I'm on the first bus of the 3 that left in the first batch of the day, time to run to be one of the first at the entrance Holy crap, there's about an hour before opening, and already the entrance is way off in the distance and the line was already starting to snake around the car park. The line cleared out pretty quick though. The park was full of teenagers on dates, whatever happened to japanese people never skipping school, the park was so full of teenage couples that the second longest line of the park was the hamster cloud coaster. Oh look a ride that was advertised as opening half hour after opening and it hasn't. Shock. They had the two last seats blocked off on the trains for most of the day for some reason. One of the first trains of the day I am quite glad I rode this first, I think it may have been having troubles on the day I went because the line was advertised at 3 and a half hours at mid-day when all the other rides were under 2 hours. I'll shut up now and let you look at the pictures of Dodonpa now. I wasn't sure what this but I saw a lot of people going in, it was just a bunch of static models for an anime show, I'd never heard of it but I guess if you're a fan of the show you'd enjoy it. Something about robots, humans, and giant robot bug things so pretty much like most japanese anime then Since Takabisha only had a 80 minute wait and didn't look like it was getting smaller, I headed their next.

I doubt the closed beta will begin until well into the middle of summer. They still have a ton of work to get the game ready for a Fall release. I'm interested in seeing how they manage the upper tier of rewards (200+) as they're not quite as clear cut as 100 and below. I'm not even sure about how the 100 will work. I assumed by the description when they said a new coaster train or flat ride, you would take one of the existing rides such as the wooden coaster and ask for a train on that pre-existing coaster, such as timberliners or even a decoration of one of the trains already included but the comments section seems to make it seem like people are thinking that they will get a new roller-coaster from scratch, e.g. asking them to make an aqua-trax style ride. With 77 backers plus whatever amount pledges in the extension, that seems a lot to make considering there's only 20 coasters and 30 flat rides in the platinum, although I know the staff mentioned in the comments for flat rides it's as simple as saying "make me a scrambler", I wonder what the limits are for the coasters in those tiers.

For those who missed it, there is still time: http://funding.themeparkstudio.com/projects/theme-park-studio-3/

Rather embarrassingly considering I'm living here, you are right I just realized the calendar i was using was a 2012 calendar so yes 16th-20th if i can get the extra two days off from work, will it be much quieter this week than that week? This may also explain why when looking into costs, the two day ticket right now stopped on the 30th september.

They've always been very open with answering questions, you could always ask on the kickstarter or facebook about it although i'm sure they'll just tell you it's because it isn't the final version yet.

I'm planning on going to Hong Kong the first week of October for Korean thanksgiving, how busy do the parks get? We were thinking two days for Disneyland since the website doesn't mention fast-pass for the two new rides so we assume we'll be waiting and we want to see it all and get in a few re-rides (plus the cost between a 1 or 2 day ticket wasn't too bad) but we aren't sure about Ocean Park since there is only a one day ticket however we heard it has a high attendance rate. Is it possible to do all of Ocean Park (including a quick look around the aquarium and see some pandas) in a day or should we plan and save for 2 days? Thanks in advance.

It looks like at 2:53 it says YOLO on the original (mirrored version). Six Flags won't be too happy with that .

I think it comes with 20 coaster types instead of 15, although with all the people who have pledged $100 there will plenty of extra trains to download anyway once the artists have made everyones requests...... I wonder how long it will take for them to make all those requests after the game is released.