rctneil
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Posts posted by rctneil
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^Yep--signature item.
Awesome, I look forward to trying some. I assume it's the Cinnamon Bread of Dollywood and the Apple Fries of Legoland sort of item then?
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I need some boysenberry pie!!!!!!
Is this available year round? I keep hearing good things about it so would like to try some whilst I am there this time.
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When I rode it in 09. (One and only ride on it). I could t see the attraction to be honest. It hardly span and didn't spin but I'm looking forward to giving it another chance. Especially now that I've ridden two more of a similar style (Space Fantasy and Euro Mir)
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Sounds awesome. I forgot about the elevator station system. It's similar to the one the Big One has I think. Should be interesting to take a look around!
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Sounds excellent. Look forward to yhat
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The bus arrived at the park around 10am and I was scheduled to return on the earliest bus back to Singapore which was at 16:15 and I'm glad I did that. It gave me plenty of time to do the park. Especially if you have visited other Legoland parks you will have no problems whatsoever completing the whole park in a couple of hours. I did visit on a Tuesday though so queues were hardly a problem. No idea what it's like during a weekend.
I also highly recommend booking at least 2 days in advance with WTS Travel. I forgot and tried to book the night before when I got back from Universal and it wouldn't let me. As my hotel was only a very short walk from the Singapore Flyer, I headed down to the WTS office super early on the morning in the hopes they would allow me to book on the day. I think they only allowed me as I was travelling alone on this occasion. phew!
My wife and I had been discussing Legoland as option as part of our time in Singapore, and honestly the 4.5 hours you spent in transit/immigration/customs loudly told us that we should pursue something else given the limited number of other attractions of appeal in Johor Bahru. Thanks a bunch; there's not a ton out there from coaster enthusiasts about it.
I have to say that the whole process through WTS Travel was very efficient and they handle everything including the purchase of your Legoland entry ticket so you waste no time once at the park. It's just the immigration and customs that slow it down. Mainly because they had no more than 2 lanes open each and the Singapore and Malaysia immigration are in two separate buildings either side of the river so it's off bus, through immigration, on bus, drive, off bus, through immigration, on bus and drive. Then rinse and repeat on the return leg. Bit of a pain.
There is so much to see in Singapore anyway to keep people entertained.
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The cylon isn't actually in the queue line but is opposite the loading bays after the queue line. Feel free to use my photo if needed!
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Did they relax the rules at USS? When I went a few years ago everything went into a fluffy, fluffy bunny filled with medicine and goo before riding mummy or the Battlestar rides and they had wavy metal detectors at Battlestar so I missed out on a lot of things I wanted to snap in the line. Judging by your pictures I might need to make a trip back to finally get my cylon picture.
Nope, no relaxing those rules. Lockers were mandatory for BSG and Mummy. I was allowed to wear glasses on Mummy but not BSG. Wavy metal detectors were in use at BSG for both sides.
I got the photos of the stations first thing in the day but didn't use the real queueline for that! That's why I couldn't grab anymore photos later in the day.
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The bus arrived at the park around 10am and I was scheduled to return on the earliest bus back to Singapore which was at 16:15 and I'm glad I did that. It gave me plenty of time to do the park. Especially if you have visited other Legoland parks you will have no problems whatsoever completing the whole park in a couple of hours. I did visit on a Tuesday though so queues were hardly a problem. No idea what it's like during a weekend.
I also highly recommend booking at least 2 days in advance with WTS Travel. I forgot and tried to book the night before when I got back from Universal and it wouldn't let me. As my hotel was only a very short walk from the Singapore Flyer, I headed down to the WTS office super early on the morning in the hopes they would allow me to book on the day. I think they only allowed me as I was travelling alone on this occasion. phew!
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Love all the models scattered around the parks
The 4D cinema was cycling their films between the four shown here. I saw Spellbreaker and have seen the Chima one last year in Billund
Next up was a ride on "The Tower"
Excellent views of the park and the surrounding area of Malaysia
Buildings like this were dotted around the park where you could pop in and build a model and test it on a race track or earthquake shake plate.
Hmmmm, shall we come back to this later on?
Decisions, decisions, decisions....
Time for pizza!
The park also has their own version of the Lego Star Wars experience.
I know hardly anything about Star Wars but that doesn't detract from be awestruck as how incredible the models in there actually area.
It's all terribly impressive actually
I know those two characters though!
On the way out I got attacked by Lego Darth Vader!
I took a quick detour to have a look at the Legoland Hotel
Love the custom carpets!
The amount of minifigures behind the reception desk is incredible!
Great fun play area in reception for kiddies
Heading back to Singapore through the borders once again. Return journey took around 2.5 hours due to long queues at the Singapore border.
Later that evening I took a wander around the opposite side of the marina from where I had been a few nights ago.
Love the views of the city
This is the Marina Bay Sands hotel
Oooh! This looks familiar from earlier. This is the Merlion
and back to my hotel!
Thanks for joining me!
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So, sorry about the delay but I am back for day 2 of my mini Malaysia trip!
Today, I headed out early and headed over to the Singapore Flyer to locate the WTS travel office and book a seat on a coach to Legoland Malaysia!
Where should I visit today?
This is where I headed to from the hotel this morning
On the coach heading to Malaysia! During the trip we had to go through all the hassle of all the Singapore and Malaysia customs etc. In total the trip to Legoland incl customs at both borders took around 2 hours
Yay!
The Legoland hotel!
I don;t think this really needs a caption does it?
I love the Hollywood style sign on the hill
Miniland is all asian based... obviously
This is a model of Kuala Lumpur airport. It's huge!
Including the little trains that ferry you between the airport buildings
The Singapore area
I recognise this from my visit in 2012
I'm sure I recognise this too. I wish they had included the roller coaster to get down from the wall too! I love the little Pandas!
Heading to Lego Kingdoms
Think I have seen this model at all of the Legoland parks I have visited
I'll be back for this one shortly.
First coaster of the three at Legoland was Dragon's Apprentice. It's a Zierer ride.
The Dragon here is a much bigger version of Zierer's Force coasters. It also includes the normal dark ride section before the ride part, It did seem much longer than the other Dragon Coasters and the dark ride section had a cool little fake launch part before the lift.
This also happened to be my 600th!
Owl you'll all doing?
Has to be one of my favourite Lego models at a Legoland park.
The final coaster at the park is Project X. It's the standard wild mouse that (I think) all but Windsor has.
The queue did take a while unfortunately but eventually I got my ride. I should have waited a couple of hours as when I returned, the ride was walk on. I rode several times and the ride op then decided to just keep sending me around without unlocking my restraint so I got more rides even if I didn't want them!
It's a fun ride anyway!
Love the views of the waterpark that you get during riding
Wheeeee!
I've seen these at all the Legoland parks and am still yet to ride one!
Next up was Technic Twister. As always themed really nicely and I thought the actual ride was more forceful than Accelerator at Universal
Heading to Lego City
I think the master builder who built the video camera had a bad day
This is the new Lego Friends Live theatre
They have the Fire Academy here too!
and the Flying school
Onto the Land of Adventure
This is very similar to the others
It's a Sally shooting dark ride
They seem to really like Ribena at this park so why not build a Ribena Berry out of Lego?
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Corkscrew at Sea World Australia for me. Odd I know but it was!
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So, yesterday I got to FINALLY ride Millennium at Fantasy Island after all but one of the coasters being closed on my previous visit.
This ride is amazing! It's silky smooth! I had heard people say that it was smooth but I honestly did not expect it. No headbanging whatsoever! A very very pleasant surprise!
Now, I did also ride Odyssey again yesterday and apparently it is running a brand new train from Vekoma. Purchased in the offseason and only installed for the start of this season. Hearing that news I was expecting an ever better ride than it was last year as I thought it ran pretty well and was a pretty decent ride overall.
What a let down! It was headbanging galore and I came off with a horrible headache.
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Excellent report Craig!
Shame about Thorpe. Not been since the start of the year and it wasn't great then. I have to say Colossus has run very smoothly the last few times and great to see the repaint has progressed as I saw tester patches at the start of the year.
Very glad that Drayton is doing well. I hope they install something major in the main theme park side soon rather than Thomas Land. But it has to be said, that area is doing absolute wonders for them!
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I'm really looking forward to getting back to this Disney land. It's a shame Screamin will be closed but closed rides are apart of this hobby and we have to accept that
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Treasure Hunters FTW!!!!
And I'm glad you kept up with your Din Tai Fung credits along with the coaster credits. Yum!
Yep, If we hadn't have visited the Taipei 101 location I would have totally been unaware of the awesomeness I was missing out on! We just need some UK locations now!
Can we start a petition?
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Battlestar Galactica: Cylon, Mummy and Transformers were the top three rides for me personally.
Not Treasure Hunters?
Great report, Neil! Universal Singapore is an excellent park with some surprisingly immersive lands - Far Far Away and Egypt in particular are really well themed. And that version of Mummy is definitely my pick of the three. Can't wait to head back for Horror Nights later in the year!
Oh yeah, scrap those three, Treasure Hunters tops the list by a long way! Treasure Hunters I think had the longest queue of the day and that's INCLUDING using Universal Express! but I couldn't leave USS without a ride on it!
How did the Mummy ride differ from its U.S counterparts? Was just the theming different of was the actual layout different?Revenge of the Mummy in Singapore is an improved-version of its Orlando counterpart. The overall layout in Singapore is exactly the same as Orlando - but there are some slight differences that were made. For example, the transitions in Singapore were engineered MUCH much smoother and the turntable (thanks to Nolan) spins the other direction.
The biggest difference is the overall storyline and showsets - MUCH improved in the Singapore version. Beautiful queue - fully themed inside and out to an Egyptian temple/dig site. Very clear storyline. Very little use of video on the ride itself - for example, the turntable and launch are all full-size physical sets (rather then the video used on the Orlando version). Biggest improvement? No Brendan Frasier!!!
Thanks for posting the differences. Considering I have not ridden the Orlando version I had no clue so great to hear it's improved over that one. It was 100% better than the Hollywood one. As you stated the story was easy to follow and the theming outside and inside the ride are superb.
Dan, you'll be pleased to know that all photos (with the exception of a few iPhone ones) were taken with the same camera from Scandi last year! All repaired and back in action!
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Battlestar Galactica: Cylon, Mummy and Transformers were the top three rides for me personally.
I did eat and the park and found no problems whatsoever. Any food type you are into is available in at least one park location or another.
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Continuing from above:
This is Dino Soarin'
Time to try out Donkey Live. This is a unique attraction to Singapore and is sort of the same as Disney's Stitch Encounter type attraction. It was great fun, loads of audience participation and then everyone stood up and sort of dancing at the finale!
Next up was a trip to see Shrek 4D. I have previously seen this in Hollywood in 2009 so was nice to see again. The theatre here is much larger than Hollywood but the show is identical. I still LOVE the preshow with the three little pigs in their boxes.
Yep, another pic!
More rather unique seating on the carousel
This is either Stuart, Bob or Kevin
and this is one of the other two that the one above that is Stuart, Bob or Kevin isn't.
Back to Hollywood
Time to see Lights, Camera, Action
I actually really enjoyed this. It reminded me of backdraft a bit and I had to accidentally stand in one of the only two "super soak" points where the roof beam dropped down and soaked myself and the gut standing to my left.
At this point it was time for the second of the days showings of the Waterworld show. Excellent show and loved the SeaPlane launch at the end.
From back in you get a fun view of the new Puss in Boots coaster.
Another round of Mummy.
and back for a last ride here
I even managed to locate the Golden Egg!
Love the hidden details that lots of people will just miss and walk on by.
Best name ever for a cookie shop!!!
Even better ride when it starts getting dark
That's all folks!
This is the HUGE underground car park, taxi drop off location for Resorts World.
Thankyou for reading and many many thanks go to Nolan for taking time out of his day to show me around the park and helping me out!
Neil
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Hey all,
So, this story starts on an overnight ferry heading to Finland as part of the TPR Scandinavia tour last year. I was asked by my cousin if I would be Best Man at his wedding the following year. Agreeing straight away I then noticed the location of the wedding: Borneo!
Trip planning then started shortly after I arrived back in the UK from that trip trying to help get family and friends to the venue in Borneo at the same time from over 10 different countries, all with their own planned holidays before or after the event. (I take my hat off to you Elissa! Trip planning for others is very hard work!).
Ok, let's skip a lot here. Off to Malaysia I fly, get through the wedding which goes superbly and a few days later I fly off to my post-wedding destination: Singapore!
After a look around Singapore in the time I had on my arrival day, I headed over to Sentosa at the south to spend the day at the newest of the Universal parks:- Universal Studios Singapore!
After a grabbing a taxi from my hotel to the Sentosa area, I was dropped off by the Casino and the large shopping area at Resorts World.
I had planned to meet up with Nolan that morning who very kindly offered to give me a tour of the park. After the usual stop at Starbucks, I headed to the VIP meeting point, located Nolan and the day began!...
I found one of my favourite asian restaurants: Dinn Tai Fung! I was introduced to this place by Robb & Elissa on the Taiwan tour in 2013 so was very eager to return. I actually managed to do this the previous night at a different location but it was good to see many of these around Singapore!
YAY! I made it to my third Universal Studios park!
Managed to find Nolan for the tour around the park! Much appreciate you taking time out of your day for this.
The "Main Street" sort of area is the Hollywood area.
Home of the Minion Mart!
Heading towards New York. I'm sure you can all guess my first location
From New York into Sci Fi City
Past Transformers: The Ride. I'll be back for this later!
Looking back towards Transformers
Accelerator is the parks really awesomely themed teacup style ride
First ride of the day! Battlestar Galactica! (I actually rode the Human side first but the Cylon train was in the station so I took some pictures!)
Nicely themed queueline
I've not seen Battlestar Galactica but i'm guessing this is a Cylon!
Time to ride the Human side first. It was a fun ride but pretty tame. It rode pretty smooth and was re-rideable so all good. The Cylon side was much more intense compared and I enjoyed it much more. I LOVE the launched lifthills (especially front row of Cylon) and this was also very smooth. The mist in the craters at the beginning and exit of the vertical loop were great.
Right, as promised it was time to ride Transformers. Having only ridden two rides of it's type (Curse of DarKastle and a typhoon themed one at a Happy Valley park that was awful), and the fact I have not ridden Spiderman (I've walked the track, seen all the videos, heard the soundtrack, sat in the vehicles and seen the rides movement, just never ridden it!) I was very very much looking forward to riding this. It did not disappoint! Really decent length attraction that is beautifully done. Can't wait to ride it again in Hollywood in September!
Heading back through the New York area now.
Now into one of the small side streets
Ooooh!
and more ooooh's!
Here's Nolan's own personalised window! (How awesome must it be to have your own window at a park!?)
There's that big red and blue ride again.
BSG just looks stunning sat over the water like it does.
My Cylon on ride photo. I didn't realise the camera's were so close to the bottom of the lift so a bit of an odd pose in this one!
My Human photo is more normal looking
A view from BSG over to somewhere Far Far Away.
Back towards Hollywood and the main entrance. The weather is so clear today that you can just about see as far as Madagascar!
More loopy goodness
Third coaster of the day is Revenge of the Mummy. Up until this point I had only ridden the Hollywood version of the ride. I had been told that the Florida version was much better and I knew this one was a clone of that ride but with different theming so was very interested in trying it out. This one is SOOOO much better. Great ride. Really enjoyable!
Looking at the entrance of Treasure Hunters. We'll come back for that later in the day.
Looks pretty similar to Hollywood's judging by the ride vehicle.
After visiting Egypt it was time to jump to Isla Nublar or otherwise know as... Jurassic Park!
First up here was Canopy Flyer. This was a short but fun ride and riding backwards vs forwards gives two entirely different experiences. Great fun and people here seem to love it.
Singapore's version of River Adventure is very unique. This one is a rapids ride called Rapid Adventure. As I didn't feel like getting wet so early on, I returned for this later in the day.
I really like the themed kiosks
We've arrived at Far Far Away!
This looks to me like a castle. It's definitely bigger than Disneylands!
Now, Puss in Boot's Giant Journey only opened a few short months ago as the parks newest attraction. It's a suspended roller coaster which occupies a very very small plot of land at the end of Romeo Drive. It's quite short and if you are looking for extreme thrills then this ride won't be for you but the people over here love it as it proved very popular and is perfect for ALL members of a family to enjoy together. Once again the ride is themed nicely and the drops are big enough that as soon as you start to feel some forces then the car pulls out of them to keep it suitable for all. The park seems to call them "Anti-gravity zones".
Looking down Romeo Drive
Pretty unique vehicle designs. The restraints can comfortably accomodate a wide range of people too.
Nerd photo
Time for the final coaster of the park. Enchanted Airways. It's a standard Roller Skater but has a great train theme and plenty of themed characters around.
I found Shrek's Swamp house.
Didn't go in though!
Looking towards Mummy and Treasure Hunters
The carousel here has the most creative seats i've seen on a carousel ever!
Another photo of BSG? Oh go on then!
Next up is the parks take on Small World. Here it's called Madagascar: A Crate Adventure.
Great theming and sets throughout
Time to go on a Space Chase... with spaghetti of all things!
This is a Peter Pan sort of ride with suspended ride vehicles
Quite strange and quirky but it was very busy and popular with everyone.
Back to Sci Fi City for another ride on Transformers!
Getting the low down on the upcoming mission
Then another ride on each side of BSG. Here's the Human side entrance
and if you couldn't guess, the Cylon side entrance.
Entering Egypt from Sci Fi City
Time to try out Treasure Hunters. Treasure Hunters is a car ride in Vintage style cars around Egypt. The ride offers great views of the park.
and is even better because it has an animatronic Hippo! They are (alive) and well in Singapore
Far Far Away in the distance
Time for the inevitable...
Rather interesting getting to ride this as a rapids ride. The boats are very strange as they flex and allow water to run through the centre of the boat around the sets of 2 passengers.
Entering the tunnel at the end of the ride and lifting up with the T-Rex coming down directly above you is excellent!
I love the attention to detail on the driers here!
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Awesome news Robb! Can't wait. It's going to be an epic event!
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Green Lantern is a ride that I am not going to go out of my way to get the credit. I think every other major credit I need at the park is included in the ERT, so it really want be a huge deal if I don't get it.
As I have only ridden the two scandinavian ZacSpins I am very much looking forward to riding Green Lantern, however I ahve heard from many people that the ride is so tame now that it's nowhere near as good as the two I have previously ridden.
Two very amazing experiences on the ZacSpins have to be:
- Water Challenge on Insane at Grona Lund. How awesome was this. Not easy by any means. I remember surviving pretty well up until the final turn before the breakrun where we suddenly flipped and all the remaining water I had just shot up into my face and soaked me.
- getting an unbalanced ride on Kirnu at Linnanmaki with Jim. We both sat on the same side (facing the breakrun) and the opposite side was empty. The ride ops asked us multiple times if we actually wanted to do it and we kept saying yes. They then warned us about our feet before the lift and we were both utterly confused. Then when the car exited the station backwards towards the bottom of the lift, the car tilted with us both facing down where our feet where pushed very hard against the concrete and dragged outwards! The ride was totally insane and crazy. Very very intense.
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Well it was meant to be Alton Towers today but the weather was forecast to be horrible so we put the visit off. Maybe in two weeks time.
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^. Yes. Blackpool's Wild Mouse is still one heck of an awesome ride.
Photo TR: Thorpe Park, Drayton Manor & Alton Towers
in Theme Parks, Roller Coasters, & Donkeys!
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Nice report Craig. Since accident the park has been very quiet but I think it's building back up again.
I agree with what you say about CBeebies. The area is a fantastic revamp of the farm and they've done a great job with it. The whole area has SO much more atmosphere than it ever used to have. I just wish they would open an entrance to it from nearby Spinball.
Yep, Nemesis is still as awesome as usual and each time i've been it's been walk on for the last few hours of every day so many many rides on it can be enjoyed (especially back row left seat!)
Neil