rctneil

I've ridden it several times now and I wouldn't say it's rough. It's more like it shakes and vibrates quite a bit and there is a sudden jolt on the second part of the cobra roll (see it in the video above). Saying that it's not the smoothest coaster in the world but it's not the roughest either. I actually enjoyed it on my last couple of rides and the mid ride pause is actually a nice relief as it is extremely disorientating. It is such a shame that Alton have had such difficulty with it and it was maybe rushed quite a bit at the end in the hope of getting it open. The track does look in a terrible state for being less than a year old though. It makes Nemesis' track look brand new in comparison in some places. I look forward to riding it in the dark at Scarefest though.

Day 3 of TPR's Taiwan trip took us to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village. The park was about 15 minutes away from the hotel we had stayed at. We arrived nice and early and immediately ran into an issue. The park didn't want to let us in! They couldn't understand what we were there for and thought that we were a bus full of lawyers that had come to attack them for having ride that seemed very similar in name and theme to another popular ride at other parks. After a bit of negotiation they relented and let us in, closely followed by a member of the parks management team. View from the deck outside of the hotel that morning across Sun Moon Lake The park entrance. Looks very aboriginal and cultural don't you think? Ooops, photo from another da...Nope, This IS at the same park believe it or not. The park had a lot of themeing based on the popular Japanese anime series of 'One Piece' Awaiting the rides to open One of the parks main attractions is a coaster called "Space Mountain", no obvious clues as to what they were worried about to me!. The coasters station was inside a huge indoor section of the park at the far side. Welcome to Space Mountain. The ride is basically a small Vekoma coaster in the dark. I can't remember any lights during the ride or much theming apart from the station itself which had a huge rocket hanging from the ceiling unlike anywhere else. The coaster had a nice speed to it and we all got plenty of rides in. Robb managed to somehow get the park to turn on the back of house lights so we could ride and see what was in there. It turned out to be a large shed where the park stored a ton of stuff. It was better with the lights off. Not similar in any shape or form. Just next to Space Mountain was the Jurassic Boat Ride. Not much more to say really. It was a boat ride around creatures from the Jurassic period! Much better than the Jurassic Boat Ride in Pigeon Forge At the other side of the park, opposite the massive indoor section, the park had a really nice looking drop tower themed to a UFO. Really nice ride and it looked like the ops were glad they had someone to finally ride it. Robb has a great video of it so go check it out. I'll wait here... A really cool Intamin drop tower ...Back?, ok, good This looks a bit more cultural The park had what looked like a really nicely themed SLC called Mayan Adventure. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for us, the park ride had suffered quite a bit of damage during an earthquake and was totally closed. Ah well. Just a reason to go back if we get the urge to want to ride an SLC. oooh, a Vekoma SLC, Doesn't look too open to me hmmm KT awaiting people to finish riding the drop tower More hmmmm.... The second major attraction at Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village is a Mack water coaster. I had not ridden one and was looking very much forward to finally getting to ride one. I had no idea that the dip in the middle at the top was taken backwards so that was a nice surprise. The whole ride was really well themed and it was great watching the exploding water grenades go off as the boat returned to the station. I think Robb took a video of this but I have not not seen it yet. Must go and scout it out. Caribbean Splash Skloosh!! One unique part of the park was it's cable cars. You can catch the cable cars which takes you to the top part of the park where you can change to another set which take you high over the hills to see the stunning views over Sun Moon Lake. We were told that it was a must do attraction there and I was so glad we took the time to do it. At the skyride station at the far side we hopped off, walked around and hopped back on. The Skyride Not this visit eh Amazing views The half way station OMG, So thankful we didn't have to walk it all! Sun Moon Lake Back at the halfway station, we decided we would walk back down to the amusement park through the culture village area. This basically consists of a variety of little downward sloping paths next to displays, small shops, and descriptive signs explaining all about the aboriginees of Taiwan. You sure it's this way? Just outside the entrance to the park was the European Garden. European Garden Around mid afternoon we left the park and made our way to Atayal Resort. This was a very very nervewrecking drive around extremely windy hills and roads. The bus driver just went for it and at one point overtook a rubbish bin lorry on a bend with a steep cliff on the side!. We made it to Atayal Resort in record time. We saw this from a distance and had no idea what it was. It turned out that it was at Atayal Resort and we still had no idea what it was! Park Entrance What is this? Bit run down It was very very busy Atayal Resort was decidedly empty when we arrived so we found the map of the park and knew that two possible coasters may be found here. The whole park was nicely landscaped but totally dead and things were looking like they hadn;t had much upkeep for a very long time. We started walking to where the map said the first one was and a guy from the park told it was closed for maintenance and that fit in with the sign over it's entrance. Robb persuaded the park staff to let us ride so they let us in and off it went! The second group of us then hopped aboard and the op pressed the "Go" button and nothing happened. We were obviously too heavy we thought, a few people hopped out and she tried again but to no avail. Robb decided that the battery just needed time to charge up and as the op kept pressing the "Go" button keep relieving it of power, it failed to operate correctly. So we hatched a plan to get her away from the control panel. Robb then declared we all get off and wander around for 10 minutes. We did the aforementioned wandering and then hopped back on and the plan worked! Around it went! Credit got!!! Mission Accomplished. Thanks for the persistence Robb! Closed, Totally out of order. No way this is operating Pretty flowers oooh, We got to ride a closed coaster. Can't wait to see the POV of this one! Keith was extremely excited he got the credit Whilst we did our wandering, JC had gone off to scout out the other coaster that was meant to be at the park but could find no sign of it so we gave up hope of that one. It also seems like our group will be some of the last, if not the last, people to get to ride that Dragon coaster as it didn't seem like that park would be open for much longer. After the stop at Atayal, (oh, yeh, that park had a very strange extremely loud generator and turbine sound going on. No idea why! Sorry, I just remembered that), we drove to our next hotel (yep, this is a 1 hotel per night trip!). Taiwan has pylons on stilts! Skillful The starter of my evening meal. Not my cup of tea. Thanks JC for finishing it off! After our meal we set off to the local Sogo store (where else?) just to have a wander around and play with the remote control helicopters in the Toys and Games department and then we all called it a night. Next up SCARY VEKOMA TILT COASTER day!. Till then...

I still think if Drayton Manor invest heavily, a Mega-Lite would be a fantastic addition and would really draw in the crowds. The issue seems to be that parks want rides they can easily market along worlds first and unique things but Mega-Lite do not really provide that. But what Mega-Lites provide in bucket loads, parks do not really seem to understand. Any, that was a bit off topic. Really looking forward to the next part of the report when we take the bullet train down south.

Wow, I did not know about that insane attendance figure. I take my comment back but do think that the zoo could do with an overhaul and maybe some more keepers as a lot of the animals didn't look too healthy. Tobu Notazoo seems to roll off the tongue nicely!

Robert, Great report of the Tobu day. Kawasemi is such an amazing ride and never gets old no matter how many times you ride. The heartful farm area was extremely well done and it's a shame that the zoo is not up to those standards. I personally think Tobu should scrap the zoo and focus on the amusement park. This is Robert's report, not mine. My reports are nowhere near as good as this one. My journalism skills just aren't up there but I try. Neil "Needs to ride Piraten" Tonge

Yes, That spider was MASSIVE and I totally walked straight past it and missed it on the way up to the platform! Larry, As far as I can remember, I don;t think we were given dessert most times unlike Water Melon at the end of every meal that we had in China. We did get served that sort of purpleish rice pudding that we had in Hong Kong after the first meal at the hotel by E-DA and I remembered that I had enjoyed it so I tried some and this one was stone cold! I forgot to mention that the PR lady at Janfusun had no idea why we wanted to ride and film on their coasters as she said they were rubbish. and that was the PR person!

So day 3 was at Janfusun Fancyworld. This park is quite in the middle of nowhere and surprisingly is home to Taiwan's 2 B&M roller coasters: A Floorless and a Dive Machine. We set off early from the hotel with a breakfast box and hit the park extremely early due to the fact that we were meant to be meeting up with the Travel Channel to perform some filming on one of the coasters. We arrived at the Fancyworld hotel to wait for the parks media person who then let us follow her on her moped straight to Insane Speed, the aforementioned B&M floorless. Our first view of INSANE SPEEEEED! The ferris wheel here has 2 modes of operation, today was the insane crazy mode! At least they got the type right in the name! The view from the station platform We were waiting on the platform before the Travel Channel arrived so Robb thought why not stop wasting time and get a few rides in and filming for TPR done in one fell swoop. Robb mounting the GoPro's Partially empty trains making the morning rounds We had a couple of rides and Robb got ALL his filming done in 1 cycle of the ride! GO ROBB! The coaster itself was an awesome little ride, smooth and a good number of inversions. Just a typical floorless coaster really. I just dread to think how many times I rode it and how many of those rides were my first ever go! The trip tried to confuse everybody by consisting of two "Keiths" Travel Channel arrive and start their hour and a half setup. At this point Robb persuaded them to allow us to wander off around the park to ride their other B&M and be back quickly ready for filming. The cavalry arrives. Vicky the Viking was overly present in this park The giant Starwa... Sorry... "Hill Escalator" nicely warned us to be aware of Sharks. This sort of looks slightly familiar G5!!! DON'T LOOK DOWN!!!!!!! G5 was the parks B&M Dive Machine. G5 is an exact mirror image clone of Oblivion at Alton Towers, UK. It was also much warmer to ride than Oblivion, had a much nicer colour scheme than Oblivion and had no queue! But we did manage to shout the typical "DON'T LOOK DOWN" catchphrase from the top! Remember, Welcome to Oblivion!, wait, err... no, Welcome to G5!!!!! Duh Duh Duhhhh!!!! Awesome view from the viewing platform. why can't Oblivion have this? On the way back to more Insaaaaanely speeedyness I managed to get a glimpse of other attractions that the park had including the big indoor area that we all thought must be at least be air conditioned and turned out not to be. This building was also the station of the KuKu Coaster, the parks little powered coaster. A set of S&S towers Just incase you thought that the park was closed on the day we went to make way for all the filming going on. Nope, the park was fully open and totally empty. I would say there we less than 100 guests in the entire place! and that can include our group and the small group of "extras" that the Taiwanese filming company brought in the fill up Insane Speed. This is where we are, just so we don't forget Janfusun Fancyworld also had this weird attraction which I wanted to try out but it was down and looked totally down and out. I was told it would be a ride once and never again type of flat. Back at Insane Speed, the film crew were still fiddling around and getting different shots: Anth was looking surprisingly cheerful considering the pole, that had just appeared from the contraption they were building on Elissa's seat just infront of it, was pointing straight at his face. Will I survive? - Yep, He did Anth is all well and good The said pole. The film crew then decided that "oh this pole doesn't seem very safe to me, let's fix that by covering the end with a tiny bit of blue tape. That'll keep Anth safe enough." Pole of doom And this is what they built onto Elissa's seat as she sat there for a very long time just to hold a GoPro just off to the side. It was tremendously hot and humid so one of the crew kept getting her bottles of water and wafting her with a plastic sheet to keep her cool! Saw Death Trap Contraption The park had a very nice (but very empty) waterpark The Starwa....Hill Escalator, I'll get this right eventually. G5! - At least you don't forget it's name Speeeedy! Robb wanted shots of the ride but as the park was empty, Anth was sent to keep riding just so some video could be taken. I think a few others joined him for this ride though. I'm on TV!!!!!! after our supposedly 1 ride on Insane Speed, we voted to give our thoughts using the iPad's set up just outside the ride. The voting! What did we think? Well you'll have to wait to find out After more Travel Channel things, I got to spend a small amount of time wandering around the upper section of the park. Up there was a coffee museum that was delightful in two ways: 1. It smelt of coffee and 2. It was wonderfully air conditioned. There was also a small haunted walkthrough with a stab in the back preshow. I apologise profusely to Miles for this walkthrough! After leaving Janfusun Fancyworld we made our way to our next hotel which was situated right next to Sun Moon Lake. Sun Moon Lake has a cycle path around it which is apparently one of the top 10 cycle paths in the world according to Michelle. It was a beautiful area and had stunning views across the lake and the hills beyond. Bitter Nut Trees Sun Moon Lake I think Anth is hungry. Yumm Night view from room balcony Our next park is Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village situated about 15 minutes from our hotel here. I know what you are thinking, oh no, a culture park. Wait! It was a surprise to us as to what awaited us and it was an awesome day overall, but that's all for next time. See you all then!

Ah right, Thanks. I couldn't remember seeing it as I think I covered as much of that building as I could and didn't come across it.

That coaster looks pretty much identical to the Rainbow Childrens Coaster at Sun Park in Beijing that was themed to Tarzan. Maybe wrong though. Thanks for posting.

Yeh, that spinner was frankly nervewracking. It span like crazy. It was worrying as you really couldn't see much of the track layout from the pathway. I don;t think anyone did buy it unfortunately and it didn't have any batteries in it so we couldn't test it out. The flume was closed all day for maintenance or something so we had to bypass that one. Not sure what the dark ride was as I didn't see one. The roller skater indoors was called "Dark Ride" though.

Day 2 - E-DA Theme Park After driving all the way down south to Kiohsiung, we might as well spend some time at E-DA Theme Park. E-DA looked a relatively new park and it sounded like it had some pretty interesting attractions so we spent the day just wandering around and seeing what they had. At least we knew where to store our luggage that morning. We then set off on the small park shuttle bus to E-DA Theme Park and awaited at the entrance ready for the time they would allow us into the park to have some ERT on the very unique Vekoma Big Air. The E-DA characters First coaster of the trip - Big Air! Big Air seemed to be guarded by the giant Cyclops The park has a really nicely themed Splash Battle. Shame the water guns didn't seem to work though The Splash Battle Trojan Horse This is where you stock up on DooDoo apparently Our next coaster was called Dark Ride and was a brand new Vekoma indoor roller skater. Nice little ride and it had the new roller skater trains that are also used on Drayton Manor's Ben 10: Ultimate Mission Junior Boomerang. The ride did have one point that smelled weirdly of farts. I didn't believe Robb at first when he mentioned it but on the second ride around, he was right, it strangely did smell like that! Surely this is a tease of a certain park coming up at the end of a future trip? New roller skater! The 3rd and final coaster at E-DA was Rooftop Junior Coaster. This was a spinner on the top of the big indoor attractions building and over the side of the cliff. It span a lot. The Taiwan trip was similar in a way to last years China trip in way of guides. Thankfully our guide in Taiwan, Michelle was much better than any that we had in China. This was mostly due to the fact that A guide was hired rather than mandatory and I think this made all the difference. It took several days for her to figure out the group but as the trip progressed she got to know about TPR and how crazy everyone is. Michelle, our Taiwan tour guide They had a knockoff version of Soarin' called Fly over Taiwan and literally did what it said on the tin! The entrance was themed to an airport, even including the departure gates The seats, ready to Fly over Taiwan! - Note the sickbags The group We then visited one of the most bizarre attractions I have ever seen, it was called the Mermaid Aquarium and none of us quite knew what to expect and it turned out to be a room with loads of full wall screens showing underwater scenes with mermaids swimming about! odd. The park also had a Haunted Ghost Ship walkthrough. Can't say I was a fan of this. Now, there was also a simulator attraction and I think the story had a car and a dog in it but due to an incident I never got to experience it. Keith, Anth and I queued up, we went in, sat in the front row on the left hand side and were wearing our glasses and then suddenly, the left side slowly tilted down and then shot down so the front left corner smacked into the floor of the room with such a crash that i'm sure some damage must have been caused. We were evacuated, (sort of clumsily) and never got to see anymore. I think our, side of the pod had somehow lost it's hydraulic pressure and failed but it didn't reopen before we had to leave so that was that! Where's Anth going? Yeh, random games for sale. This one was titled, "Hit the Bum" Some afternoon entertainment After leaving E-DA we drove about an hour and a half north up to our next hotel, The Nice Prince Hotel Chiayi, which was about an hour away from Janfusun Fancyworld. I took this shot due to the fact that during our meal that evening which turned out to be an amazing help your self international buffet, that I suddenly received a text from Robb stating "We can see you" so I looked around at the above 7 floors trying to spot where he was hiding. The trouble was the corridors of the above floors went around all 4 sides of the hotel so it did take me a while. my photo attempt of trying to search for Robb This buffet also had UNLIMITED HAAGEN-DAAS ice cream. Yum! UNLIMITED HAAGEN_DAAS!!!!!!!!!!! Next up, the hottest day ever at Janfusun Fancyworld and my new favourite roller coaster Insane Speed!!!!!!!! (Only kidding)

Gravity Max pleasantly surprised me. I was expecting it to be headbanginess hell but it was extremely smooth and a really awesome ride. Just wish it had been a bit longer.

Hey, Thought I might as well put up a quick overview of Theme Park Review's run around of Taiwan earlier this year. Enjoy! I landed around mid afternoon at TPE and after an hour or so in the customs line got into the arrivals hall only to be met with what looked like thousands of people holding signs. I knew someone would be waiting for me and it took around 15 minutes before I spotted our guide. Due to Anth getting stuck in Shanghai and his flighting arriving several hours later it was decided that I should go to the meeting hotel in Taipei. The drive was about 1 hour from the airport to the Howard Plaza Hotel. I checked in and then decided to have a wander down the street to see what was around. I bumped into Robb & Elissa and a couple of others who were returning from their wanderings. I set off in search of a coffee and eventually managed to come across a Starbucks and surprised myself in (just about) managing to order a drink using my extremely limited Mandarin phrases that I could sort of remember from last years China trip. (Knowing a few, even a tiny amount of a foreign language and at least attempting to say it really does help in people actually wanting to help and try to understand what you are getting at.) I returned to the hotel to have a nap after not being able to sleep on the flights. View from the hotel window. I spent several minutes sat watching all the bikes jumping to the front of the queue at the lights and then all speed off when they changed. (oh what an interesting evening! ) The Howard Plaza even had a piano inside a pool. Strange but it works I guess! The next day was culture and travel day. So we met up and said hello first thing in the lobby and then set off for what is Taiwan's tallest building, Taipei 101. Our guide took us to an area a short distance from the tower where we could take some photos and then we headed to the tower itself. Taipei 101! - I bet you can't guess how many floors it has? The tower has a shopping mall on the lower floors but we headed to grab our tickets and head up the tower in the worlds fastest elevator! This looks like the correct place Proof of the worlds fastest elevator. View from the top Right in the centre of the tower at the top was the damper. (This counter balances the shaking from earthquakes). You could walk into the room with the damper to see it. The aforementioned damper There was only a small portion of the outdoor section open for people to observe from and they kindly let people know that jumping was strictly prohibited. Looking up inside the shopping mall part After a trip up the tower we met up at Din Tai Fung, thanks to R&E's excellent recommendation, and had our first group meal of the trip. Excellent food and would highly recommend it to anyone. Our dumplings at din Tai Fung being hand crafted! After lunch we started our long drive from Taipei to the Kiohsiung area ready to hit our first theme park E-DA the very next day. Random photo out the bus window during the long drive On the journey we actually passed by several of the places we would be visiting over the next week. We passed Leofoo and saw a sad sight of their Intamin Impulse all scaffolded up after the incident there earlier in the year. We also passed by pretty much the main attraction of the trip even though we were all terrified of the thought of it - Gravity Max at Lihpao Land, the Vekoma Tilt Coaster. THE SCARY LOOKING VEKOMA TILT COASTER! - We'll see you in a few days time! The hotel restaurant provided a chinese meal for us that evening Evening meal at the hotel We then wandered around the hotel area and a few of us took a ride on the huge Ferris Wheel ontop of the mall opposite the hotel. The hotel also had a mini Bellagio fountain show, whcih turned out to be very strange indeed. It started out with it's fair share of music but then a track started and was "All I want for Christmas, is you!". It was very strange hearing that as I thought "I'm in Taiwan, watching a dancing fountain show, synced to christmas music in this hot weather at just before midnight". At that point I knew the whole trip was going to be totally crazy and bizarre (including the following Japan trip). Dancing Fountains Ferris Wheel ontop of the hotel shopping mall. The hotel itself was situated in a very strange place. It had the E-DA Theme Park right next-door and the hotel was very nice but was surrounded by a load of buildings that were just shells, totally empty and unfinished. It did make it all seem a bit creepy and deserted. Anyway, Enjoy and E-DA should be following soon.

A cartoon avatar than a work colleague drew for me. Pretty much use this as my avatar everywhere these days.

I'm not 100% sure on this but I assume that Touch ID is just another way of unlocking your device. I'm pretty sure they will have a secondary backup option of a passcode too. Touch ID just simplifies and makes the unlock procedure even simpler.

As my 4s is now approx 2 years old and I skipped the 5, the 5s is the perfect reason to upgrade. Just got to look at pay monthly contracts versus buying out right and sticking with my current provider of GiffGaff. Decisions, decisions.

Awesome trip report so far Robert. Really looking forward to seeing the rest of it when it follows.

I just saw this topic and my thoughts jumped straight to the Gyoza at DisneySea. Really excellent food. A pic of each style: IMG_2702 by rctneil, on Flickr

Grand Canyon at New Southport Pleasureland.

How about that god awful Looping Toboggan that we rode at Fisherman's Wharf? That was terrifying. I also feel unsafe on the upside down lift of G-Force at Drayton Manor.

To give Fuji Q a credit, Dodonpa is a cracking ride. The launch is epic and the top hat is just out-of-your-seat insane! Takabisha is a nice addition to the park, good length too, and Eejanaika is still rather unique among coasters and they can make a good change from standard coasters (even if they are not the smoothest of rides.). But overall, It's 100% the staff, operations and weird non consistent rules that make Fuji Q an annoying park to visit, rather than the ride selection. Wondering who has the photo of the fastpass sign with all the coaster logos crossed out due to Elissa buying them all! How many did you end up buying that day?

I think Vekoma get a bad rap from a lot of enthusiasts and I think it mainly stems from how widely available their SLC's and older Boomerangs are as those seem to be the Vekomas that most complain about. I think people ride those and complain that they are rough but no one hears all the enjoyment and and praise when people ride a good Vekoma. Some of the Vekomas i've ridden over the last few months have been fantastic, for example, Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars is one of the smoothest rides i've ever ridden. It seems to have amazing throughput, awesome ride and (on the day we visited) ran flawlessly all day. Gravity Max (Yes it's old) but it run superbly, nice and smooth and a very unique ride experience. Shame it's not a slight bit longer. Roller Skaters too are not bad and most run nicely, especially the ones with the new trains. Big Air is a nice smooth ride, yes, it has no turns anymore but it's smooth and thrilling. The GIB's are great. I totally didn't give the first one I rode at MM much praise. I honestly don;t know why because to me it seemed to run fine. The one in China also ran nicely. I have to say not all of their SLC's are terrible. As Chuck stated Kumali is one of the better ones. I did ride it about 1 month ago and it is rougher than previously but I guess that is to be expected. I think Vekoma really are doing great things to iron out there reputation for some of the not so good SLC's and boomerangs.

What confused me in the Haunted Hospital was they briefed us on safety and rules in the first room, and then did the pre show in the second room and went over safety for a second time. oh and not forgetting about having the remove shoes in order to ride Eejanaika and having to remove my well secured watch, only to place it into a locker which is locked by a solid metal key which is worn on a flimsy and loose thin band around my wrist which has no chance at all of flying off and injuring someone unlike my totally secured watch, on Takabisha! Loved the report from your day at Fuji, Chuck.

I'll just post this photo:

I've ridden 7 of the top 10 worlds tallest and are: Top Thrill Dragster - Cedar Point Superman The Escape - Six Flags Magic Mountain Tower of Terror - Dreamworld Steel Dragon 2000 - Nagashima Spa Land Millenium Force - Cedar Point Intimidator 305 - Kings Dominion Fujiama - Fujikyu Highland