azza29

Good to see it'll be up and running again, and the converted trains don't look too bad either. This will definitely help to bring some energy back to that corner of the park. Not sure when, but hopefully I'll get to ride this sometime next year!

Couldn't agree more. Two hours of movie filled with 45 minutes' worth of plot. Checked out Big Hero 6 a few weeks ago while I was in Orlando, great film. Went to invite some friends to see it with me here in Melbourne before realising it won't come out locally until after Christmas! And film studios wonder why piracy is so rampant...

Pleasant - Gwazi. I don't know if my taste in rollercoasters is going downhill but I definitely had fun with this one. It was rough but still hauled through the track like there was no tomorrow. Unpleasant - Hair Raiser. I know some B&Ms can get the rattles over time but this was a whole new level. The coaster did not stop violently shaking from start to finish. Spectacular location but definitely the least re-rideable B&M I've encountered.

This year I've added: - Helix - Falcon's Fury - Escape From Gringotts - Seven Dwarfs Mine Train - possibly a few others in Scandi that I didn't realise were "new for 2014".

Great pics, Ross. Hong Kong Disneyland might not have the same quantity of rides as the other "Magic Kingdom" parks, but what's there is (mostly) pretty good quality. Grizzly Mountain is definitely my top pick of the Disney coasters, and Mystic Manor has some impressive practical effects. Once Iron Man and that other new ride go in it should be a solid full day park.

An enjoyable read, and some great pics, Neil. I didn't realise there was any photographic evidence of my riding that tiny kiddie coaster in Norway!

This has been a lot of fun the last couple of years, and my secret Santa did a fantastic job in 2013! I'm happy with pretty much anything, but to help with ideas here are some things I like: Batman, The Muppets, LEGO, Indiana Jones, anything theme park related. I have a small theme park magnet collection so definitely happy to add to that. Really hope whoever I have to buy a gift for posts on this thread, really helps to get them a good gift rather than just random stuff!

So I should be on track to get the last prize this time around, although I'll have to craft the donut machine. Would really like to get alien Burns from the next round but suspect travel plans are going to get in the way. My town will be a good place to dump your gremlins next week...

^Good to hear Fantasmic is excellent in Florida as well. Disneyland's is the high water mark for me in terms of theme park shows (with Waterworld running a close second), definitely looking forward to seeing the DHS version in action in a couple of weeks!

Thanks Ross. I hear rumours it'll be open again soon, good excuse to head back! To be fair it was quite easy to make a full day of the park, even with Battlestar out of action (although I did spend the last hour marathoning Transformers via the express queue). I can't imagine the park is too excited about their biggest pair of coasters sitting SBNO for an extended period of time either. Once this is back open, and Puss in Boots coaster comes on line, USS will have a really solid lineup of rides. It did seem like the use of original IPs rather than licensed themes allowed the team to be more creative in their approach. Centering HHN around a character definitely adds to the "immersive" nature of the event.

Thanks to some insanely cheap airfares I scored earlier in the year, last weekend I was able to make a quick visit to check out Universal Studios Singapore, as well as their Haunted Horror Nights event for 2014. It was absolutely worth the long flight there and back, as not only is USS an excellent park, but the haunt event was a lot of fun (if not particularly scary). The first thing that struck me about the park is how extensively themed everything is; most of the park is completely immersive, "built" environments. This is in stark contrast to somewhere like Universal Hollywood where the show buildings are clearly visible. Even though a lot of the rides can be found at other parks, I feel like USS sets them up better - for example, The Mummy is basically the same ride, but it's way cooler entering through what looks like a real Egyptian temple, rather than a beige box. This extends to other rides too - Shrek 4-D is in a huge castle and the Madagascar boat ride is inside a massive container ship! There are also a number of rides unique to Universal Singapore, which I'll describe more with the photos below. The Haunt event was very well done. I've never done a haunt at any of the USA parks, so I wasn't really sure if I was going to like it at all. But I was definitely willing to give it a try, and had a fantastic time! The production value was everything you'd expect from a Universal park, and everything was based on an original IP. I wouldn't say any of it was particularly "scary", but then I'm not really someone who gets scared by this kind of thing. There were certainly a few surprises and gross-out moments, and purchasing the Express pass was definitely worthwhile. There were four main mazes: - The L.A.B. or Laboratory of Alien Breeding is your standard "alien experiments gone wrong" maze. This one probably had the best production value of the lot, with some very impressive masks and makeup on the actors. A room where you had to push through a bunch of bagged corpses hanging from the ceiling was probably my biggest gross-out of the night. - Jack's 3-Dementia was a very brightly decorated, clown-based maze where everyone was given 3-D glasses to make the neon colours blur and pop. The effect was very trippy and disconcerting, and made for some fun surprises. - Jing's Revenge was a bit of a weird one. From what I could tell the story is about a schoolgirl who went crazy and started killing people in her school. Or maybe she died and is haunting the place. At any rate this one didn't do much for me, the actors mostly stared at and shushed you, which wasn't all that exciting. - Mati Camp is probably my pick of the bunch. Basically zombies in a military camp, with a really fun maze and some great scares. The ending where you are "disinfected" was particularly cool. Apart from the mazes there were some excellent scare zones, and a couple of really solid shows, which I'll describe more in the pictures below. Overall this was a very fun event, and I'm already making plans to return next year! Hello Singapore! Sadly I was not staying in the Marina Bay Sands, but my hotel was still decent enough. They call it an "Arts" hotel, and this is why. This is the BACK of the building, by the way. Great mural! The rooms were small but fairly efficient. Each one has a different motif, painted by local art students - I scored "bamboo forest". Free breakfast including tea service. Nice. Although I did shy away from the cucumber and pineapple "salad". In Singapore, The Doctor has a side business selling bottled water. Sadly, there was no time to stop for Heavenly Wang this time around. The city at night. Singapore is incredibly easy to navigate and get around. Not pictured: the 90% humidity. First night I went to check out Sentosa's Crane Dance. This is an outdoor show, as per the picture seats are a little easier to come by here than Fantasmic. Two huge cranes with fountains and LED screens do stuff. Then they fall in love and the Resorts World Sentosa logo appears. The story might be a little shallow but the show is really cool. The cranes are massive, and move very organically. Next morning, it's Universal Studios day! Pictured: two coasters we won't be riding, and an awesome castle. The casino isn't open yet. Theme park it is! Obligatory entrance photo. Minions are big here too. Little preview of horror nights in the shop window. This is the "New York" street, with a few of the haunt props hanging around. On the right is Sesame Street: Spaghetti Space Chase. This might be the closest thing I've seen to a Muppet dark ride. I kind of liked this one, even if the ride ops thought it was hilarious that a big Aussie bloke had decided to ride. The inclusion of the Yip Yips definitely makes it a winner in my book! Lights Camera Action! was a fairly standard "movie effects" show, probably made more effective by the fact that the sound stage it's in isn't terribly big, so the audience is much closer to the action. I liked this one right up until I got very wet from a "falling crane" effect. During the day the Pantages theatre is playing a Sesame Street show. I ventured in while trying to dry off from the aforementioned special effects show. Definitely one for the kids, would have benefited from the addition of Oscar the Grouch. Frankly I've always found Elmo to be super annoying, I wonder if Grover feels the same way? Sesame Street meet & greet on the steps of the New York Public Library. If this had been a Ghostbusters greet I would have been in there for sure! Statue of Liberty looking a bit worse for wear. Some of the big setpieces were quite impressive. Transformers! Almost exactly the same as the one in Hollywood, although I think the projectors are higher resolution in that one. But still an excellent ride. And this is why I bought the Express Pass. Definitely worth it! I think this is supposed to be EVAC? I'm not really a Transformers aficionado. Still a modern art sculpture for a little longer at least. Apparently it's getting closer to opening but no luck on this trip. A little obscured by the haunt theming, but The Mummy's entrance is truly impressive. The ride itself is a little different from the Hollywood version, with a longer dark ride section. These things are huge! Indoors was air-conditioned too (like a real tomb?), which was a definite plus in the heat. Treasure Hunters promises very little and delivers even less. It's definitely more for kids but even then there's not a lot to hold their attention. I ended up sitting in the front and "chauffeuring" a couple around this mostly disappointing ride. Cue the theme music... Jurassic Park River Adventure has a very similar setup to the other Jurassic Park flume rides, except riders are in a raft rather than a boat. It was pretty wet, but seemed more "complete" than its Hollywood counterpart. And the T-Rex actually works at this one! Canopy Flyer might have been a little short, but overall was a fun coaster, and a bit faster than I'd expected. Definitely a good "first" inverted coaster. Some great theming all over the park, like dino mouth speakers! Noted. Little daytime preview of Rapunzel's tower for tonight's haunt. Waterworld is probably the best daytime theme park show anywhere. The entry plaza is pretty big for this ride, I assume it's a future expansion pod. One of the best parts of the show - dumping water on clueless guests. Splash! Bang! Smoke! And the money shot! Not really any different to the Hollywood one, although the actors don't list their film credits at the end of the show here. I was a little taken aback by how extensively themed the Shrek area was. This is almost as good as Cars Land, although with less rock work. Okay so the Shrek films got a little forgettable after the first one. I think the frog used to be the king? The castle, of course, is bigger than Disneyland's. It houses Shrek 4-D, which I've now seen on three continents. And it's exactly the same each time! Puss in Boots doing his ting. Angled photos are more pleasing to the eye, or so I'm told. Enchanted Airways is your standard roller skater. Thanks to the express pass I rode front seat. Score! Shrek's house is pretty much just like the movie. You can even walk up to the outhouse if you want. Nobody is inside. Donkey Live! a.k.a. Donkey Talk With Donkey These shows live or die depending on the audience, and this bunch just weren't into it. The cast did a good job making up for it though. New coaster - hooray! This looks a lot like a Zamperla Volare, which is somewhat concerning. Inside the half-built tower is an eggbeater lift. More construction. Whatever it is, the footprint is pretty significant. The final "land" is Madagascar, Dreamworks' third-best IP! Madagascar: A Crate Adventure is a very long, Pirates of the Caribbean-style boat ride. Overall this was fun, but kind of felt like it was too long for the amount of content in there. Maybe if they'd made it a third shorter with the same budget, there might have been some more interesting animatronics or effects. An absolutely HUGE container ship hides the show building. Once again this part of the park has some excellent themeing. Night fell, and it was time for Horror Nights! I met up with my mate Colin, who was in town for the tennis and decided to join me for this event. We got in the gates fairly quickly and a huge crowd waited behind us. The opening show started with a protest against Jonah Goodwill, a military dictator. So he turned up... ...set a dude on fire... ...and turned out to be a demon. The whole show was really well done. I'm a sucker for pyrotechnics, of which there was no shortage! Jonah was good enough to stick around for photo ops though. So not all evil. Scary Tales was the first of the haunt zones we checked out. Basically weird versions of fairy tales. The concept was pretty decent, but the whole area was too packed with people to be effective. Still, the setpieces were really good, especially Rapunzel's tower. Blurry random beastie. Shooting in low light without a tripod ain't easy! First maze up was The L.A.B. Here weird alien creatures have escaped their cages and now growl aggressively at the passing public. Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed in the mazes. Lines for the mazes were incredibly long. We were very happy to have bought the express passes. Shrek's castle looks pretty awesome at night too! Next up is Canyon of the Cursed. This scare zone had an Old West bent, and placing it in the Egypt section of the park resulted in a fairly effective Western/Mummy hybrid theme. Canyon was probably the most effective scare zone, with plenty of room for people and actors to move around, and a lot of theatrical fog to hide the actors. Undead mummy horses lined the walkway. Kids, this is why you don't stay out in the sun too long. Just a corpse escaping from her coffin. No biggie. Express passes kept paying off all night. Asian dressed as undead Indian. This may or may not be offensive, I'm not sure. Let me tell you a ghost story... woooo... Mati Camp was the best maze of the night. It had some really good scares and actors and was probably the most "frightening" of the bunch. New York street at night. Another superb scare zone, with monsters all over the place. Overall the set design and execution was top notch. As the Transformers wait climbed into triple digits, our express passes became even more treasured. As I mentioned earlier, Jing's Revenge was the weakest of the mazes. The production value was still there, but it just wasn't particularly scary, and the background story didn't make sense either. Jack's 3-Dementia - trippy and very fun, and very disorienting. It might just be me, but I don't think those are his real abs... Bogeyman was halfway between a maze and a scare zone, in that you had to line up for it and they were only letting through a handful of people at a time. This made for some very effective scares. This one was genuinely creepy, with lots of places for the monsters to hide and jump out. Some girls just don't do well after midnight. Just in case you'd decided to bring the kids, Spooky Elmo was for sale. At nighttime the Pantages Theatre hosted a different show - Jack's Nightmare Circus. I can't stress enough how different this was from the Sesame Street production I'd seen earlier in the day... This show was this highlight of the night for me. Jack (on the right) is auditioning new acts for this circus. Three acts performed, including a contortionist, a pair of figure skaters... ...and a sideshow freak. Naturally they all end up dead by the end of the show. This one had some great gags and very fun production numbers, and was an excellent way to end the night. Overall HHN4 was well above what I'd expect from a regional theme park, and definitely something I'd check out again. Congratulations to all involved in the event - you guys put on a great show!

Adding ZipWorld to the to-do list for my next UK trip. Great photos Neil!

Looks like I'll miss out on the Donut Eating Machine, started too late with this one and a weekend away with little wifi access didn't help. But overall enjoying the event, seems a bit "meatier" than previous ones.

Canopy Flyer at Universal Singapore on Saturday. Possibly the saddest credit I've ever "achieved".

I'd be in if this runs again. It was great fun last year!

You'll definitely, definitely want a car. As someone who's also used to driving on the left, it's not too hard to get used to driving on the opposite side of the road. For my last few trips I've booked cars via rentalcars.com - they're just an agent but include all the insurances in their quote, so no haggling at the rental counter. Also doesn't matter which day you visit, always get at least a Gold Flash Pass at SFMM. Always worth it.

So Once has opened in Melbourne, saw it on the weekend. Excellent show with a fantastic cast, definitely deserving of its accolades. Always enjoy a story that doesn't take a predictable path, although the lead girl is kind of irritating. A couple of memorable tunes in there too. And as a fun bonus, you can go buy a drink from the bar on stage during the interval!

Doubt I'll get the chance to ride it next year, but Fury 325 is my pick. Twisted Cyclone is looking pretty sweet as well.

They do that for anything. No change is too small to escape their wrath! Just from a planning perspective (I'm visiting WDW next month) FP+ is a whole lot easier. Pick the 3 rides you most want to do, then sort out the rest on the day. Seems like a no brainer to bring this to the west coast, especially when people are lining up for 30+ minutes to get a paper FP for RPR (which is definitely counterintuitive!).

^I'm not sure if Universal is even taking that day from Disney. It seems more likely that families are skipping SeaWorld or Legoland to visit USF/IOA instead.

Of the above I've only been on Helix so far, but I'd have a hard time seeing any of the others being better than that. It definitely topped my expectations and didn't let up from start to finish. Some great airtime in the back row and the night rides added a bonus thrill. I don't think everyone in the group had quite as glowing an opinion but Helix had everything I love about coasters.

Great update, Thad. Legoland was definitely a park that was better than I'd expected, and Polar Explorer was a great surprise. I didn't mind Ghost either, definitely targeted towards a younger audience but the theming was alright, especially the giant spider out the front.

I don't know if a POV of Soarin' would do justice to the actual ride. That said, the film is getting kind of dated and I'm looking forward to the rumoured update in a few years.

^Nice, checking out Gone Girl tonight. I saw The Skeleton Twins earlier this week. Not sure if it's everyone's cup of tea but I thought it was great. Fantastic performances from Kristen Wigg and Bill Hader, including one hilarious, very memorable rendition of "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now". I love films that have a decent script, and this one was extremely well written. Also in the "saw it at the local indie cinema" category is Boyhood. I wasn't sure to expect from this one and had suspected the "12 years to film" thing might be a bit of a gimmick, but it was actually really good. Despite the film's long running time it didn't drag at all. Don't want to share the plot as it kind of spoils the film, but I wouldn't be surprised to see it pick up an Oscar for Best Picture.

^There was a lot of dirt being moved around when I was there in June, but nothing vertical.