Noxegon

I really wish they'd stop pretending that their poll is international...

Eh? There's three more in Europe...

Well, lets see. 1) Insist that riders leave all personal possessions in station l0ckers. This includes the contents of zipped pockets and glasses with straps. 2) Waist level seat belts (not seen on any other Eurofighter AFAIK) which the operators insist on checking and pulling to painfully tight *before* the overhead is lowered. 3) Pushing the overheads as tight as possible, and buckling seat belts into overheads. 4) Rechecking everything again despite the green lights on the car indicating restraint locked. 5) Read out safety announcement in Japanese. 6) Ask riders if they understand. 7) Dispatch. As larrygator says, ninety seconds actually isn't bad for Fuji-Queue. The only reason that was being achieved was that the l0cker process was handled separately from the boarding, which I'm certain doubled throughput. Such a pity the coaster was so good... hopefully a clone will be built in a pleasant park at some stage.

It was doing one train every ninety seconds or so for my visit, so I'd say three hundred per hour approx.

I was there last week. In summary, it's a great ride in a bloody awful park. I hope I never have to go there again. http://www.bannister.org/coasters/trips/2011/0909.htm

Eurostar is on the far side of awful. It looked amazing, but rode worse than a SLC on a bad day. Like others have said, Olympia Looping probably has the edge, though I'd give an honourable mention to Alpina Bahn.

The new S&S sit down launched coaster in Beijing is splendid. Mirabilandia could do far worse than one of those -- though it would be an odd choice given the recent addition of iSpeed.

Looks good.

Seems like I was lucky when I managed to get on Shock; it's a superb coaster, well worth the wait. Hopefully the park will sort out the reliability issues soon. FWIW, my impression of Rainbow MagicLand is that it'll be a nice park when they've finished it. It's a shame they felt the need to open before they were fully ready.

Having ridden that coaster, I feel the word "rescued" is quite appropriate.

Thanks.

^ Thx.

I'm going out there in a few weeks. Can you explain how the fast pass system actually works?

Have you heard anything about an opening date?

So just to debunk that rumo(u)r thoroughly, here is a photo showing the clearance to the metal cross-beams in the helix. Yes, there's plenty of rust in the picture, but there's no way at all that taller people would hit the bars. Clearance

^ Agreed. I've seen many good photos completely destroyed by someone putting a hideous watermark across the middle of the image that totally detracts from the picture itself. You'll note that there are no watermarks of any kind on my main site or on the various photo TRs that I've posted here. When I set up ThemeParks.ie I decided early on that I wanted to put a date and description on all full size images in as unobtrusive a way as possible. Maybe I'm not being totally objective, but I don't really see that in the same category as a watermark given that it is both out of the way and easily cropped off if someone felt so inclined.

http://www.koryotours.com I've seen that story about metal beams too, and it's crap. The author was referring to the Loop Coaster at Mangyongdae, which is a Meisho ride built by the Japanese; there's plenty of clearance to the cross-beams, and always has been. I'm pretty tall, and I could have had my hands in the air without hitting them. Having said that, there was (and is) rust on the ride track and supports, which you can see in my pictures. It doesn't affect the ride quality though; the Loop Coaster was fairly smooth; the Double Loop was more typical Meisho (!) but nothing unmanageable. In all cases the restraints were working just fine.

A few weeks ago I visited the Democratic People's Republic of Korea with fellow Club TPR member George Greenway. It's taken me a while to get around to it, but I've finally posted my pictures. Here are some direct links to the full photo albums: Kaeson Funfair, renovated two years ago and of international standard, featuring a ride collection from Zamperla including a fairly decent Volare (yes, really). Taesongsan Funfair, the oldest park in Pyongyang. The big coaster was SBNO unfortunately, but the mouse was open (and insane!). Mangyongdae Funfair, the largest park in the country with three coasters and a ride package from Meisho; this was broadly similar to Japanese parks from the 1980s. For those interested in the rest of what North Korea has to offer, I've put a more general photo album on Facebook. Here are a few images to whet the appetite: Loop Coaster Kaeson Funfair Insane Mouse Enjoy!

September?! Bugger.

Indeed not -- but are the belts actually required with the GCI restraint design? I don't know the answer to the above, but I point the reader towards the many coasters out there that run with lap bars only.

I've been on Tower of Terror at GRC, and you're not missing much honestly; it's very rough. Anaconda however is another story; that's a very good ride indeed. FWIW, if you want obscure, I rode five coasters in North Korea a fortnight ago, and enjoyed all of them (even the Volare, which was probably the least obnoxious of that family).

I think that there's scope for a category of "obscure" credit, as opposed to "rare" credit. Stuff that's way off the regular enthusiast routes, like the parks in South Africa for example.

Yes, it has opened. I rode it today. There are trims on the big drop (actually, it's the first one) but they don't affect the train much. The wacky turn towards the end is pretty intense. Actually, the whole ride is pretty intense - and pretty good.

Yay, an excuse to spend another few days in Surfers Paradise (not that I really needed one...)

I was going to say something about the ride operators making all the difference, but at Parque Warner... probably not!