azza29

Tie between Superman Escape and Xcelerator for me. Xcelerator is a little more thrilling but Superman's dark ride section makes it a close call.

Thad, you need to at least get the Liseberg update out before we go back there!

The Ghostbusters dark ride alone makes me excited to visit, and the overall selection sounds pretty good for a brand new park. On face value at least, Motiongate certainly looks to have a greater depth of attractions than IMG Worlds of Adventure.

Definitely a sad piece of news. I doubt anything less than the removal of all animals from the park will make the animal rights groups happy.

Got all the prizes from round two, and 250-odd coins hoarded for tomorrow's update. Hopefully they'll be a little more generous with the crafting items in this one as I'm well behind on that.

I was pleased to find out that a tour of Kinky Boots is coming to Australia later this year, it looks great!

Great pics, Dave. Sounds like Ferrari World is becoming something of a destination park. I'm curious, did they give any hints as to when the shuttle coaster might be opening?

^

The rumour doing the rounds is that the new attraction will be an Intamin Suspended Twin Hammer: www.intaminworldwide.com/amusement/RoundRides/Suspended+Twin+Hammer/tabid/141/ProductNumber/Suspended+Twin+Hammer/language/de-DE/Default.aspx If this is indeed what they're adding, it certainly fits the space they're currently preparing for the ride. I'm cautiously optimistic - Movie World definitely needs some flat ride capacity, and it would add some much-needed "kinetic energy" to that corner the park as well.

Tokyo Disneysea Moving on to the highlight of this trip, and arguably Disney's best park anywhere, we finished our time in a Japan at Tokyo Disneysea. I knew this place would be great, but was still overwhelmed at the level of detail that runs throughout the entire park. Think Cars Land or Diagon Alley-style immersion, and apply that to an entire park - it's very clear that no expense has been spared to make DIsneysea stunning. The attractions are generally excellent. Journey to the Center of the Earth is definitely one of Disney's best dark rides, and Indiana Jones is just as good in Tokyo as it is in Anaheim, maybe even a little better. Even the second-tier rides are very, very good - we made multiple repeat visits to Sindbad, 20,000 Leagues and Aquatopia. As with Tokyo Disneyland, the attractions that have been brought over from other parks are all "plussed" in some manner, Tower of Terror and Turtle Talk in particular have some great improvements on their American counterparts. And if that wasn't enough, Disneysea has some excellent live entertainment as well, from a brilliant Little Mermaid live show to what is easily the most spectacular version of Fantasmic! Waiting to get in, notice the blue sky. We were lucky with the weather at Disney, I think it only rained on one day while we were there, and June is typically the wet season. Entry plaza with spinning globe might be reminiscent of Universal, but nothing else in this park is. You enter the park under Hotel Miracosta - if you didn't stay there overnight, of course. Rooms at the hotel start at around 0 a night, and that's if you don't want to stay on the Mediterranean Harbor side. I was super excited when I realised we'd be visiting on my birthday, so I dutifully went to guest services for a sticker. This made for a very fun day - when they noticed the sticker, cast members would applaud and exclaim "Happy Birthday!" I loved it, even if my group got a bit sick of the theatrics after a few hours. Mediterranean Harbor and the hotel are themed to an Italian port city, complete with gondoliers. The gondola rides would stop whenever there was a show on the harbor, which because it's Japan was like every 30 minutes. So I guess I'm saving this for a future trip. Yeah, they built this from scratch! And this too. The scaffolding gets in the way a little, but Mount Prometheus cuts an imposing presence. Heading from Mediterranean Harbor to Mysterious Island, this bridge is better themed than most parks! There are two rides and multiple restaurants inside this mountain. And it occasionally erupts. The amazing thing is, you can't even see any seams, let alone a show building. So this is inside Mount Prometheus, everything has very Jules Verne-steampunk aesthetic. The Nautilus sits in the lake, waiting for its next adventure. I love how they left the tunneling machine here, as though it was used to build the ride. I only ever saw these signs in English, maybe the Japanese think Westerners need help figuring out where to take a photo? Hearing that Journey gets some long lines, we grabbed a fastpass and then went straight into the standby queue. As it turns out, most locals go to Toy Story first thing, so the wait was all of five minutes. After taking an elevator to the centre of the earth, we were ready to board. Journey is probably the most immersive ride anywhere in the world. At no point is there any feeling that you are in a show building, it really is as though Disney built a ride because they found an amazing lava monster below their park. Granted the immersion dropped a little when we were evac'd out of the queue (like Test Track, it's not the most reliable ride) but I'd suggest that this ride alone is worth visiting Disneysea for. The "other" ride inside Mount Prometheus is 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Due to some refurbishments on the queue it was a little hidden away, but I'm glad we didn't miss this one. You ride in a submersible (pictured) and take a journey through caverns deep in the ocean. The sensation of "going underwater" is very well done, and if this was in one of the US parks I think it would be many people's "Top 10 Disney Rides" lists. A little further away from the mountain, this is where the Arabian Coast meets the Lost River Delta. And here we have the best-looking terrible ride ever built. Raging Spirits' immaculate presentation sadly doesn't make up for its failure as a rollercoaster. The queue was estimated at a lengthy 90 minutes, and with fastpass unavailable we decided to go single rider. The cast member really tried to discourage us from doing this, claiming that the wait would be even longer, but we were all on in five minutes. Again, much better to look at than ride. The layout isn't too dissimilar from a Pinfari looper, and the restraints are only slightly more comfortable. At least it has an inversion. The effects are great though, plenty of fire throughout and this cloud of mist would always appear right before a car came through. Jeff looks pretty happy that the beating has come to an end. The Arabian Coast "port" is loosely themed to Aladdin, and once again was incredible to experience. The Magic Lamp theater housed a slightly strange show about a magician who found the titular lamp. It wasn't bad but just didn't make a whole lot of sense, even with the English subtitle device they gave us. The building is quite spectacular though. Moving on to the less regal parts of Agrabah/Arabian Coast, still intricately detailed. It does remind me a bit of Epcot's Morocco pavillion. You'd think this building housed some sort of ride, or at least a meet-and-greet. Nope, they went all out for a shop. Even the toilets get the "whatever it costs" treatment. million of Flying Carpet ride. This was good fun - the riders in the front control the height, and passengers in the back get to tilt the vehicle. Sindbad's Storybook Voyage was the surprise packet of the trip. I went in expecting a Little Mermaid-style dark ride, but instead it's a full Small World-meets-Pirates musical boat trip, complete with catchy song. The premise is that you follow Sindbad on his adventures around the world. The animatronics in this ride are amazing - each one has as much movement as the characters in Pirates of the Caribbean, and there are a few hundred of them! One group member in particular liked Sindbad quite a bit, so we returned to "follow the compass of our heart" a few times. I wasn't complaining, it's far preferable to Small World. Eruption! The opposite side of Mediterranean Harbor has something of a Game of Thrones-King's Landing vibe. Lots of turrets and ramparts. This is kind of Disneysea's equivalent of Tom Sawyer Island, a playground of sorts to explore and discover. The fortress contains a number of science-based diversions, including this clock that uses a pendulum to knock over pegs. Or this painting, all skewed... ...until you look through the viewfinder. The cannons were fun. Sadly my efforts to sink carve out additional Fantasmic seating were unsuccessful. There was a minor attraction here too, the Leonardo Challenge. A cast member gave you a sheet of paper and a starting point, and you had to figure out puzzles based on things around the fort. As it was entirely in Japanese this proved surprisingly challenging, so I was pretty proud that we managed to finish. For my lunch we went to Magellan's, like everything else at Disneysea this was an excellent choice. Magellan's has an "explorer's club" theme, with artefacts and paintings from around the world. Considering it's a Disney restaurant it wasn't too expensive either, and the food was great. Happy diners. I think this one is up there with Mythos in the "best theme park restaurant" category. I got a special dessert, along with the standard applause and congratulations. Heading around to Port Discovery, we found the hotly anticipated Aquatopia. Both trackless and pointless, Aquatopia is nonetheless much more fun than you'd expect. Just in case we thought the park had run out of spectacular, here is the American Waterfront. If you're making a list of "top Disney bathrooms" (and you really shouldn't), this would be #1. Like all of the ports at Disneysea, American Waterfront is ridiculously detailed. Gotta love those moving pictures. Maybe this is the ticket to my big break? Not that I have any need for this... Big Band Beat is a live jazz show housed in the Broadway Theatre. This one is incredibly popular, and has a definite cult following. Also, it was entirely in English, so we understood what was going on! From the moment that curtain went up the crowd were very enthusiastic. I'd love to find out how an American jazz show garnered such a strong following at a Japanese theme park. Toy Story Mania is just as popular in Tokyo as its counterparts around the world, possibly more so. I get why people like this ride but do not really understand why it's so ridiculously popular. The fastpasses for this get snapped up very quickly, so the best way to ride seemed to be to go right at park opening and get in the standby queue - we only waited about 15 minutes compared to 90 later in the day. The Hightower Hotel houses Tokyo's version of the Tower of Terror. The drop sequence on this is a little shorter than similar rides elsewhere, but it has a very cool preshow and queue. Aforementioned queue. After seeing the preshow once I had to immediately head back to figure out how the effects worked. Shiriki!!! Mermaid Lagoon is a mostly indoor port, unsurprisingly themed to The Little Mermaid. Flounder's Flying Fish coaster is the best credit in the park. Every second car is having a good time! Apparently smoking is bad for fish too. The outside of Mermaid Lagoon looks great... ...and the "under the sea" effect indoors is quite something. All the rides here are aimed at younger kids, kind of like A Bug's Land, but not terrible. Staring contest! Inside this theater is King Triton's Concert. This is a new addition to the park, having replaced the previous show. I was expecting something along the lines of Voyage of the Little Mermaid at Hollywood Studios, and could not have been more wrong. King Triton's Concert is a full-on musical spectacular, with some amazing wire and stunt work, and visual effects. It was quite popular, and deservedly so. Once night fell, the park took on a whole new look. Aquatopia had been fun during the day, but took on a whole new silliness at night. There were no lines, and I think we ended up riding it for half an hour to try and hit all of the different pathways. Spin, look at rocks, spin, look at fountain, go backward, spin, spin again, go forward... Aquatopia! If the update of Luigi's Flying Tires resembles anything close to Aquatopia I'm sure it will be very popular. Indiana Jones Adventure was also better at night. I like the one in Anaheim a lot, but Disneysea has completely outdone them on the theming. No lengthy tunnels under the railway here, you really are in an ancient temple! And Paco is even more entertaining than Sallah. So the ride itself is quite similar to California, a few differences here and there but I'd have a hard time picking which one is "better". On the night we went though, the ride ops were basically having a party - I've never seen people enjoying their job so much! This ride is right at the back of the park so there wasn't much of a queue in the evening, and on our third re-ride they decided to serenade me with a rendition of Happy Birthday - awesome! I've always been a big fan of Fantasmic at Disneyland, and at Disneysea it gets a much bigger arena. The story is similar but the show has been significantly upgraded, and it's quite easy to find a good spot to watch. Maleficent still gets her comeuppance in the end. Characters waving scarfs from the Mark Twain are charming and all, but this hat makes for a much more impressive finale. The park looks equally stunning after dark. There is a bar on the SS Columbia, forgot to check it out this trip. Next time! In case you haven't noticed, it's super easy to take great photos of Disneysea. Let's not forget the popcorn. There are about a dozen flavours of popcorn available from carts around both parks. They ranged from plain old salt to chocolate or honey. My picks were black pepper, and this jalapeno and cheese offering. Toyville's lighting package reminds me a lot of Luna Park Sydney at night. Straight out of the thirties. That's it from Disneysea, and indeed from Japan. If you've read this far, thanks very much. I hope you've enjoyed my trip report and are already researching how to visit!

There wasn't much of a crowd when we visited, so they were waiting to fill the train between dispatches. But like a lot of Japanese parks the ride ops at La Qua are very safety conscious and do not rush the loading process, so operations are typically slower than you might see in the US or Europe. A day pass might still be worth it - there's a great Spiderman-style dark ride (Tokyo Panic Cruise), and the flume ride (closed when I was there) looked good.

After riding Tulireki, hopefully they've figured out how make the ride less bouncy if that's the case. I will be surprised if this turns out to be a spinner, but having seen the layout (especially what looks like an unbanked 180-degree turn) it's not completely out the question I guess. Definitely one of the most "interesting" rides being built this year, anyway.

Thanks for posting this report, I'm thinking of heading to Yas Waterworld during a long layover in Abu Dhabi later this year. I'm curious to know - how long did you guys end up spending at the park?

Booked my tickets to Little Shop of Horrors this week. Very much looking forward to this one - I thought the film was great so can't wait to see it on stage. Also grabbed my seat for Book of Mormon, which starts its Australian run in January next year. They really are selling tickets that far ahead!

^I'm skeptical of VR as well, have tried a few demos and while the tech is impressive it doesn't seem like something I'd like to use for an extended period of time. But I'm keen to check this out next time I visit Europa, at least for the novelty factor.

That castle looks enormous, reminds me a little of Shrek's castle at Universal Singapore! I am very interested to see how this park is received once it opens.

Obviously the park will be ruined! Based on that artwork the new "bend" will be much more than just a bunch of trees. The riverboat ride is a bit long anyway, and that corner of the park needs an update so it's great that it'll get one courtesy of Star Wars land.

I managed to get 10/20 right. That was a fun quiz.

Those new trains have onboard audio as well, I have not had the chance to ride yet but hear they are a significant improvement on what was there previously. The old Cyclone queue was looking very tired/dilapidated so it's great to see that part of the park get some love. Dreamworld on the whole is looking far better than it did 3-4 years ago, a number of rundown areas have been updated and refreshed, something the park really needed after being somewhat neglected by the previous management. Hopefully a big new attraction isn't too far off now that they've spent a few years making smaller improvements.

I'm up to part 15, and have just unlocked Mrs Sinclair. I would happily part with donuts for her brother Llewellyn, A Streetcar Named Marge is one of my all-time favourite Simpsons episodes.

Thanks for the trip report, Liseberg is one of my favourite parks. Balder, Helix, Hotel Gasten, Flumeride, Lisebergbanan - plenty of great attractions in one place!

It's great that the park is continuing to improve the parade. I saw the Magic Kingdom's Electrical Parade for the first time in 2014 and while it was good, seemed like a bit of a nostalgia trip for the older folk. In comparison Dream Lights actually felt like it belonged in this century, and some of the floats (particularly Genie) are quite impressive.

Mick Doohan's Motocoaster would be my pick. Good concept, terrible execution. The ride does very little with its speed, notwithstanding the bizarre restraints.

It took about two minutes, a bit like getting a fast pass. You scan your group's tickets at a machine and are told immediately if you've been successful or not. So either everyone in the group wins or everyone misses out, they won't split people up.

Disneyland Time to take a look at one of the world's best parks, Disneyland Tokyo! I'm not much of "Disney person", but I'm definitely a big fan of their theme parks. Having previously been to the Disney parks in Hong Kong, Anaheim and Orlando, this one was set to be a highlight of my time in Japan. So Disneyland Tokyo is quite similar to Orlando's Magic Kingdom, with its big wide walkways and sprawling layout. Almost every ride the two parks share in common (Pirates, Jungle Cruise) has been improved in some way, while others (Pooh's Hunny Hunt, Monsters Inc) are different entirely. Having heard about the popularity of this park I was a little nervous about the crowds, but wait times were pretty manageable providing you used fastpass efficiently. Pooh's Hunny Hunt was my most anticipated "new" ride in this park, and it didn't disappoint. The Japanese version of this makes the equivalents in the US and Hong Kong look pretty poor by comparison. I rode Mystic Manor last year and felt that while it was a good ride, the trackless tech wasn't used to its full potential. That certainly wasn't the case on Hunny Hunt, where the vehicle paths seem genuinely unpredictable. This ride definitely represents DIsney at its best. Being theme park pros we arrived well ahead of opening, and the locals were savvy enough to do the same. This looks like a long line but everyone got in quickly. There's no train station at the front of Tokyo Disneyland, instead you enter the Main St "arcade". Also note the complete absence of electric scooters, or strollers carrying eight year olds. The whole area is covered to account for Tokyo's often wet weather. We were extremely lucky and had almost four days of clear skies this time around. First stop is fastpass (of course!). Monsters and Pooh run out the quickest, we decided Pooh would probably be worth a standby wait (it was) so went with Monsters instead. Space Mountain was in rehab mode, fortunately we'd already visited at the start of the trip, before it was closed. This version is quite similar to the Hong Kong/Disneyland Space Mountains. Star Tours is always fun, especially in Japanese. This one never had much of a wait so we rode it a few times, still never got that Death Star ending though... Don't think a dessert can qualify as "adorable"? Try these little green men dumplings! The Monsters Inc dark ride is certainly well ahead of the one in California. The deal is that you shine a flashlight at Monsters and they react, which I thought was a cool way of adding interactivity without bothering with point-scoring. The queue room is quite impressive, too! So Fantasyland is almost exactly the same as Florida, except with Disneyland's Snow White and Pinocchio rides thrown in. They might be low-tech, but I always enjoy the classic Disney dark rides. Inside the castle was an art display, followed by this room which looks like it was designed for a princess meet-and-greet. But today they were just letting you take photos on this chair. One group member likes Small World so much that we rode four times. It's not any better in Japanese, in case you're wondering. As I mentioned, Pooh's Hunny Hunt is a great ride. It uses the trackless technology really well, especially in the "dream" room. I am kind of surprised this hasn't made its way to the other Disney parks, as its far better than the dark rides found elsewhere. The queue is also impressively detailed. They were doing this 15 years before new Fantasyland arrived in Orlando! More queue. Despite this being one of the most popular rides in the park we managed to ride it a few times in a row with 5 minute waits! Jungle Cruise had recently received an upgrade, with new special effects added. The spiel was, not surprisingly, in Japanese. I wonder if the backside of water got a mention? The queue jokes were still in English though, corny as ever. Rather than running around the perimeter of the park, the railroad here does a lap of one side, with just a single station. The dinosaurs are still in there, though. Being neither a Stitch nor Tiki Room fan, I wasn't really that excited for this attraction. But it was actually quite good, and the most I've enjoyed the singing animatronic birds to date. Haven't had a picture of Jeff with a bear for a while, here's another one. Speaking of bears, the vacation version of the Country Bear Jamboree was presented here. This wasn't bad, and I would recommend solely for Trixie's Japanese rendition of "Achy Breaky Heart". Hilarious. For lunch we decided to try the Blue Bayou. This is essentially the same as the on in Anaheim, and on this occasion we scored the coveted "bayou-adjacent" seating. Selfies ensued. The food here was excellent, and it was fun to watch the ride as we dined. Pirates in Tokyo is most similar to the one at Disneyland, with a slightly shorter "caves" section. Jack Sparrow was absent from this one, which is either a plus or minus, depending on your point of view. Big Thunder Mountain is just like Orlando's version, and very popular. A look back over "Westernland", as the Japanese version of Frontierland is known. Lines were consistently long for this one, fortunately we had fastpass this time. Waiting in line in Japan, people do seem much more patient than in Western countries though - and I don't think we encountered a single instance of anyone cutting or even trying the "catch up" to their group. We took the raft over to Tom Sawyer's Island. I love these Disney islands - no queues, plenty to do, a nice break from the bustle of the "mainland". They have a riverboat too. (I could have subbed in this photo from Orlando and nobody would know...) There was plenty to explore, including the fort. The cave network on the island is extensive, and it took us a while to see everything. Haunted Mansion was once again excellent. I think this must be the best looking "mansion" of them all. Splash Mountain is based on the Magic Kingdom version. It was also very popular, and had the longest wait of all of the attractions we visited. Worth it though, this is a great ride. The park had just launched some soap dispensers that squirt a Mickey-shaped foam bubble into your hand. There was even a queue to try this out! We found a viewing spot for the parade. It's common here for the first few rows of people to sit on the ground (most people bring blankets to sit on) so those behind can see. It was great how considerate people were in this park, I didn't experience any of the "must be first" mentality here at all! The Tokyo Electrical Parade is like the one in Florida, except it's been updated since the eighties. Pete's Dragon makes an appearance, with smoke! Genie's float was particularly cool. The whole thing was like a giant video screen, changing colours to the beat. Awesome! Like a Middle Eastern airline, Prince Ali (fabulous he!) had a bling-heavy float. The park had a short fireworks show in the evening, but the main even was the castle projection show, "Once Upon a Time". This is a spectacular display, even better than at the Magic Kingdom. There is a big "reserved" seating area in front of the castle, you can enter a daily fastpass-style lottery to try and secure a spot. We were unsuccessful on our first try but won tickets on the last day. Apparently this is a big deal, some locals near us were going nuts when they found out they'd scored seats. The view from the reserved area was excellent, and the show was much better front-on. I really like how they've used lasers here to highlight the projections. That's it from Tokyo Disneyland. For such an iconic park I didn't end up taking a whole lot of pictures - probably because much of it looked so similar to other Disney parks. That will not be the case for the next (and final) update from DisneySea!