Gutterflower

Not much to say that the title doesn't. The park is in Penglai and is home to a Chinese rip off SLC and Motorbike coaster but they've completed the installation of their new Mack mega coaster and it looks like a Blue Fire clone to me. Sure is big. Sources: http://www.vhcoasters.com via http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2529316761

I rode Fireball in January 2012, A few months before the re-tracking and it was fine roughness wise. There were one or two spots where it was a little shaky but nothing to worry about. It still made my top 3 easily. The fact they still went ahead and re-tracked it is a good sign.

Thanks for the comments guys. I enjoy doing this every year so It's good to get some feedback This got me wondering and I did some investigating last night and you can find the results below. In the final section I decided to take a quick look at theme parks themselves before goofing around a bit. There are also a few graphs which I didn't feel provided useful information but were at least interesting. One graph was produced in response to a comment posted about the graphs in part 2. To get us started the graph below simply shows the number of operating parks on each continent. Being the largest continent it's not surprising Asia has by far the largest amount of parks, Europe is surprisingly high and North America is third. I suspect the fact that the USA is the only park heavy country in North America is probably the reason it's third behind Europe, A continent which is composed of many smaller but park rich countries. Using the statistics we've already dug up on the number of rides we can calculate the average number of rides per park as shown in the graph below. Here North America finishes top by a significant margin and is the only continent to break an average of two coasters per park. Australia has a surprisingly strong showing here with their few parks notching up only slightly fewer coasters on average than Asia. Obviously the minimum average possible here is 1 as the RCDB only lists parks which have a coaster. (There are a couple of operating parks which no longer have a coaster but they only exert a minimum influence). I took this one step further and split it down into the countries we had in part one. Denmark excels here and is miles ahead of everyone else on the list. (If there is a country with a higher average I haven't found it yet) Several countries average 2 or more coasters per park while most countries on the graph average over 1.5. As with some of the graphs in part 1 it's worth noting that if countries such as Senegal or Tajikistan were included they would only obtain an average of 1.00. The RCDB also lists parks which are under construction at the moment. The locations of these are shown in the graph below. Asia dominates this graph with the majority of new parks going to China. The list is probably not massively accurate as parks under construction often won't be added to the database until coasters are confirmed by the parks themselves. Hopefully though it gives an idea of the rough trend around the world right now. While there are plenty of parks under construction there are also some sat around rotting away. The RCDB also lists SBNO parks and coasters. The following two graphs show which continents currently have the most. While these graphs don't really provide useful information they are at least quite interesting and do make me a little sad. For the record I imagine information on African parks is lacking so the numbers are probably be inaccurate. I would be interested to know how many of these SBNO coasters are at currently operating parks. The RCDB gives info on one last thing in this area. The database lists all the coaster companies currently operating around the world. It's possible to split this down by continent and the results can be seen in the graph below. In this era of globalisation this probably doesn't mean a whole lot as companies have the ability to manufacturer where they want. B&M have a facility in the USA despite being a European company while S&S are an American company yet manufactured Dinoconda in China. However it's nice to see both the USA and Europeans doing strongly here. I'm willing to bed the number of Asian companies has increased rapidly in recent years. And for the final serious bit, kailisun98 on Themeparkreview mentioned (in response to the total company coaster count graph in section 2) that the only reason Intamin have a higher number of coasters overall is because they have been around longer. It certainly seems plausible but It got me thinking if there was an upper limit to the number of coasters a company could have open at once. After a certain amount of time coasters will become too old to keep in good condition and will become uneconomically viable. I wondered if there is a point where the number of a company's coasters closing equals the number they open each year and their total coaster count plateaus. Given the data I had at hand on B&M and Intamin I created a graph showing the total number of coasters that each company had operating (excludes SBNO) any given year. (There's an issue here somewhere as the resulting number of Intamin coasters doesn't quite match up and is out by 4 but it should only make a minimal difference, this could be Coasters on the DB that don't have an exact closing date) This pretty much disproves my theory and proves kailisun98 correct. B&M caught up in the early 2000's but have dropped back a bit in recent years as Intamins output has increased. I'm still interested to see if the plateu theory will work for coaster companies which have been around longer but the further back I go the less data there is. Now for a little bit of fun and a graph which shows no meaningful information what so ever. In part one of this set of articles I used population figures to plot the number of people per coaster. Taking the top coaster from Mitch's poll used in section 2 Expedition Geforce, its theoretical maximum throughput of people and the population data I calculated how long it would take for every person in each country to ride it. Pointless I know but if you queued in China or India you would probably die before you got to the front of the queue. The RCDB also lists records including the fastest operation coasters in the world. Using this list its possible to calculate how long it would take to get to Mars if you used the worlds fastest coaster Formula Rossa as your mode of interplanetary travel. So turns out roller coasters wouldn't be the best way to reach mars. OTSR probably wouldn't be conducive to a comfortable experience either. It would only take two months to reach the moon though. So failing a NASA attempt at landing on the moon again we could always use Kingda Ka. (if you ignore escape velocity of course) So that's it for Statistics this year. If anyone has any comments or requests I'll be happy to look into things (I have another 2 weeks at sea to burn). Hope you enjoyed it. A big thanks to everyone who contributes to the RCDB for the data and for Duane Marden in particular for keeping the whole thing going.

As seen in the last section China has more roller coasters than anywhere else these days so I thought it would be interesting to break this down a bit. As anyone who has been to parks in China knows Spinning Mice, Powered Coasters and Jungle Mice are ubiquitous. Thankfully the RCDB puts all these rides into their own subsets so it's possible to make a break down for each country. Below are two pie charts comparing the USA and China which shows the percentage of rides that fall into these subsets in each country. The slice labelled other rides will in theory include all larger and theoretically more thrilling rides (However Junior rides like roller skaters are included in Other) Amazingly (or perhaps not) Wild and Jungle Mice take up over a third of all coasters in China while the featured ride types alone make up almost 60%. This is in comparison to the USA where all the featured ride types make up only 13% of all coasters. There are of course other types of family rides in the USA and China but this graph is just handy as a simple guide. Moving on to something a bit different I decided to take a look at the top 100 roller coaster according to the popular Mitch's Poll. I took the top 100 rides from the 2012 poll results and split them up by manufacturer. Below is a graph showing a breakdown of the top 100 by manufacturer. Impressively B&M have 45 of the top 100 coaster while Intamin take up 26. Other manufacturers split up the remaining 29. If we take a look at just the top 50 then Intamin and B&M take up an even larger chunk of the pie. Intamin increase their slice significantly here compared to B&M which suggests the rides Intamn do have in the poll are tend to be in the top 50. Both companies are well known for building quality roller coasters and these graphs show their reputation is well deserved. B&M currently have 85 operating rides worldwide and Mitch’s poll puts the 10 rides with the Batman: The Ride layout together, this means that out of 85 total coasters, 54 of those (63.5%) are in the top 100. Below is a simple graph showing the number of operating coasters from all the companies which had coasters in the top 100 with the addition of a Zamperla, Togo and Golden Horse for comparison. (and a little amusement) This shows that quantity certainly isn't quality with the most plentiful 4 firms only contributing 2 of the top 100 coasters. There are a couple of things to mention about this graph. First is that it includes both steel and wood coasters. Secondly is that due to the way the RCDB lists things it includes rides which companies may only have worked on in part. For example both Giovanola and Intamin worked on Shockwave at Drayton Manor, UK so it will be counted under both companies. On a side note Arrow without S&S would place just below Mack while S&S would sit between Giovanola and Premier. I decided to take a closer look at the top two companies from Mitch’s poll B&M and Intamin and see how their rides break down in terms of Geographical spread. The following 2 graphs show how Intamin and B&M’s rides are split worldwide. These graphs show the number of rides in the labels rather than percentages but it’s clear the biggest market over the years for both companies is North America with Europe second and Asia catching up in third. The lack of B&Ms in Africa, South America and Australia could be due to the high cost of one of their rides being out of reach for smaller parks. While both companies are doing well in Asia they will suffer competition from local Chinese firms who don’t always follow copyright law. While no direct knock off B&M’s or Intamins have surfaced yet Beijing Shibaolai Amusement Equipment and Golden Horse both offer B&M imitations. Hebei Zhongye Metallurgical Equipment Manufacturing are also constructing the delayed 11 looping coaster at Jinling Happy World which looks very similar to the Intamin multiloopers. Talking of everyone’s favourite IAAPA cast out’s Golden Horse. Here’s how their rides break down geographically. All but two of their rides reside in Asia (119 of the 131 are in China). The two that can be found in North America are bizarrely found in Honduras. Moving back to more popular companies I decided to break B&M's coaster output down a bit more. The graph below shows how all their rides are split by type. For this graph I used all rides built up until 2013 so it includes the Flying Over The Rainforest and Nitro but does not include the wing coaster due to open at Heide park in 2014. Inverted Coasters are clearly their largest market although we haven't seen many built in recent years. Wing coasters already take up 7% while Stand-Ups have stayed stagnant for years. Seeing this made me wonder exactly how B&M's output varies year on year. The next graph is quite confusing to begin with but it shows the percentage of B&M's output each year which has been taken up by any given coaster types. Worth noting is that relocated rides are not counted, So in all these graphs Iron Wolf was built in 1999 and is not shown when it was relocated in 2012. Looking at this you can see the Stand-Ups in blue which disappear after 1999 while in 2013 Wing Coasters take up the majority of B&M's output. The graphs shows the popularity of their Inverted rides has died off since the 1990s The Flying Coasters have not be particularly consistent sellers while the Mega Coasters have performed strongly recently. B&M have been building rides for almost quarter of a century now so I decided to take a look at one measure of how their rides have progressed. I took the average height of rides built each year and put the results in the graph below to show how the average height of their rides has increased over time. Here we can see a slow but steady increase in the average height of the rides built each year by B&M. Unfortunately I could not find information on the height of either Hair Raiser or G5 so they are not included. However they are unlikely to have affected the graph significantly. Interestingly if you stacked up every B&M built so far on top of each other they would stand around 12,300ft tall. Almost enough to reach Lake Titicaca the world's highest navigateable lake. That's it for section 2 next time I'm going to have a look at the parks themselves before goofing around a bit with some stupid statistics.

Those of you who know me well will know I have casually done this for the past three years, I'm doing it a bit early this year as I plan to be away later this summer and I'm currently sat on a ship in the North Sea with nothing else to do. This year I have decided to step it up a bit. I'm using my blog http://www.vhcoasters.com to post a series of three articles this week. As usual though I shall post them directly here as this is one of the places I have done this yeach year. Those of you who saw the last three years that I did this will know most of the graphs in the first section. The second and third sections will take things a bit further. This is very much a work in progress so anyone who has any comments or errors that you think would be good to include I will be happy to see what I can do and fix any errors. Anyway the first article I posted is contained below. I am a geophysicist by trade so the combination of maths and roller coasters has a certain charm for me at the same time this is all for fun and the numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt. I shall explain why as we progress but in essence as we go back in time the numbers are harder to verify and there is always going to be a little error room with all the facts and figures found on the Internet. All numbers used here unless stated otherwise are taken from the excellent RCDB on the 27th of July 2013 and all errors and mistakes are my own. So without further ado lets looks at some figures. First up let's simply look at the countries who have the most roller coasters. Below is a selection of countries with a good collection of coasters. Interestingly this is the 4th year I have done this and the first year that the RCDB lists more operating rides in China than the USA. The USA and China are the places to live for the sheer number of Roller Coasters, Together they have more roller coasters than every other country in the table combined. Meanwhile the UK and Japan are punching well above their weight for their size while the rest of the list is a bit of a random jumble. This list only tells part of the story however. If we start to look at other factors we can begin to get a better picture of where is best to live for the dedicated enthusiast. For the graph below I took that latest census results available from each country in the list and compiled a graph listing the number of people (in 1000s) per roller coaster in each country. The thing to remember here is that the smaller the number the better. For example, In China there are 1,915,000 people for every roller coaster. However in Denmark there are only 144,000 per coaster. The USA fairs fairly well here too and the smaller European countries all do well. One thing is for sure, If theme parks take off in India there may be some huge queues to start with. Another thing to take note of here is that the graph only shows the 21 countries with high coaster counts that I picked from the RCDB. If I was to plot up countries such as Nigeria or Senegal which all have really low coaster counts and high populations they would have really high ratio's and dominate the top of the graphs. However this isn't the only factor we could use to help us here though. There is no point in having a decent number of roller coasters if you have to travel for days to get there. So I took data on the size of each country and calculated how many roller coasters there are per square mile. (Australia you would do poorly here I'm afraid) This time larger numbers are better. Russia loses badly here but then again most of Russia is a barren frozen tundra not really conducive to a good theme park. Again as is to be expected the smaller countries do well while the USA does slightly poorer this time and finishes in a very similar spot to China. On a side note, if the Vatican built an Intamin mega coaster it would instantly reach the top of both these graphs. Let’s leave this train of thought for a while and look at the state of the industry as a whole. Below is a graph showing the number of roller coasters which have opened worldwide in the last 20 years. It is worth noting that as this graph is based on data from the RCDB and as such figures for earlier years are likely to be less accurate than more recent ones. Worldwide it looks like the industry is in pretty good shape. 2000 was an excellent year possibly because many parks built rides to celebrate the passing of the millennium. While it’s unlikely the 2013 numbers are complete yet they are already higher than 2012 which is a good sign. To get a more complete picture I also decided to take a look at how many coasters have closed over the same period of time. While the 2013 figure here is almost certainly unreliable and real numbers for 2013 are likely to come out towards the end of the year, it does appear though that the number of rides closing has steadily increased over the years. Again this could be down to uncertain closing dates on rides prior to 2003 or it could be down to simple economics and the recent recession. However it’s good to note that we are still building more rides than we are removing which means we are still in credit. As a side note due to the way the RCDB works, relocated rides are counted as both closed and opened so will feature on both graphs. Before moving on I decided to look at many people’s favourite type of roller coaster and look at wooden roller coasters, the next graph shows the number of wooden rides built over the last 20 years. As you can see the market is small but fairly steady. It’s dropped a bit over the last 10 years compared to the 1990′s but this could be down to economics. 2000 was a great year for wooden rides but amazingly 7 of the 16 wooden rides built in 2000 are already closed. With the success of Outlaw this year I am hoping we will see a resurgence of wooden rides in the next few years. Now let’s get a more precise picture of the industry and have a look at some continents individually. The graph below shows the number of coasters built each year in Asia, Europe and North America over the last 20 years. Sorry Australia, South America and Africa you would all be way down the graph. (Don’t worry Antarctica is even lower, Penguins don’t ride roller coasters much) The interesting thing to note here is that while the numbers in North America have decreased quite a lot, numbers in Asia have increased by a similar amount. (Europe has stayed fairly steady throughout) While there are likely to be economic factors at work here another point to consider is that each company can only build a certain number of rides each year. If the rides are being built in Asia then they can’t be built elsewhere. Taking this one step further we can have a look at the same graph using the top country in each continent. The graph below shows the number of coasters built in China. the USA and the UK over the last 20 years. The graph looks remarkably similar to the previous one. What this graph does show well is just how many new rides are being built in China right now compared to just 10 years ago. The USA is actually building more rides in 2013 than it was in 1994 but still nothing like the heady heights of 2000. Interestingly many people in the UK consider 1994 a brilliant year with the construction of Nemesis, The Big One and Shockwave but it’s actually one of the least active years on the graph. But quality not quantity hey? After this I decided to take a look at what proportion of new roller coasters the USA and China are building within their respective continents. The following two graphs show this as percentages. As expected the USA takes up the lion’s share of coasters built in North America, Only dipping below 80% in 2009 and 10. This is in stark contrast to the Chinese market which has gone from almost nothing in 2000 to over 75% in 2013. That’s it for the first section of this series. The next section will focus on the breakdown of coaster types around the world, the Top 100 coasters and B&M rides.

We have a press release here http://adventureworld.net.au/#/news-events/get-set-for-the-most-thrilling-ride-of-your-life/ The inversion list (a zero-g-roll, rollover loop, cobra roll and inline loop) sounds a bit different to SAW's but could that just be Gerstlauer naming them slightly differently to what I usually associate with those names?

That beginning does look very much like Saw. But I seem to remember the brakes/lift before the barrel roll and after the drop on Saw are angled upwards. But I may be wrong. Now I have a conundrum. I am visiting Australia in November\December and was planning on missing out Perth. But a new coaster is certainly tempting.

Fjord Dragon looks done. Still no word on testing though. the El Loco is up The mine train coaster now seems to be almost completely enclosed. There's a spill water in there too. Source: http://www.vhcoasters.com

I miss the days where I tried to spot black out and mad cobra at Suzuka. This would be a good replacement.

Great report as always. I've always like the way Formosa looked and think they add some nice themes to what would otherwise be some fairly standard rides. Following this whole trip with great interest as planning the exact same trip later this year (November time possibly). How are you finding getting around? From my research so far the infrastructure looks very good but there's not substitute for someone with first hand experience of it.

Thanks for the comments guys. I shall post some pictures of the city in a later update. For now though, more parks. Following our trip to Mtatsminda Park, Sallie wasn't feeling too well the next day so I decided to go on a little explore and find that ferris wheel we had spied from the bigger ferris wheel on the hill. It turned out to belong to Tbilisi Zoo which has a small amusement section. The park includes mostly kids rides but also had a Big Apple coaster which wasn't listed on the RCDB. Most of the rides look like they have seen better days and could do with a touch of paint. The animal cages were also a little small, although the majority of animals looked in good condition. Rumour has it the Zoo will soon be moved to a whole new site out near the Tbilisi Sea (actually a lake) and I think this can only be a good thing as the current site is slap bang in the middle of the city. The majority of rides here are aimed at kids. every park here has some dodgems. The park does look quite nice though and is nicely landscaped. There are plenty of flat rides dotted around. The only coaster in the park is creatively called "Coaster" These rides are ten a penny in this part of the world. And in any part of the world for that matter. The ride could do with a little bit of paint. The ride was really popular though. close up of the track. The smaller ferris wheel in the park. never seen one of these before. odd little ride. The ride was a little rough. I wonder how many big apple clones exist in the world. one final shot of Coaster. This is of course a zoo. and as such has some animals too. I have been to better zoos and some of the areas were far too small. But then again I have been to much much worse. The ferris wheel we saw from the previous park. This ride did not feel quite as safe as the previous one. the small chain as a restraint made this somewhat more unnerving. Zebras hanging around with some goats. Every one loves these guys. This was the coolest thing I saw all day. An albino peacock. (look closely there is a white head in all those feathers too) Many of the rides were carnival rides. One final shot of Tbilisi Zoo. Next up was a quick underground ride to Rose Revolution park.

Now for a less heard of park. After a few days in Istanbul we caught a flight to Tbilisi in Georgia, Tbilisi is a lovely city and a bit off the beaten track. It has a good cafe culture and reminded me of European cities such as Vienna with its mix of old architecture and lots of open spaces. The city is nestled in the surrounding hills and as such offers some beautiful views. Mtatsminda Park is situated on top of a mountain in the middle of the city and you have to get a funicular to the top to reach the park (you can walk the long way round). The funicular uses a swipe card system which handily is also works for all the rides in the park. again you can top this up at booths around the park with however much money you wish to spend. The main attractions here are the Ferris Wheel which offers stunning views of the city and the Loopscrew coaster which is built by SBL in China. It's not a bad ride, reasonably smooth but if you've ridden a loopscrew before you know what you are going to get here. Mtatsminda Park was the surprise of the trip for me. Beautifully landscaped and some lovely themeing on the kids areas. The park has a really nice atmosphere and is geared a bit more towards children than the thrill seeker. But you can easily spend a few hours here and have a great time. On to the pictures. Getting up to the park requires the use of this massive funicular to the top. This TV tower sits atop the peak. Unfortunately you can't go up. The park is really very green and this is the central avenue down the middle. The fountain marks the centre point of the park. There are some amazing views available. The huge ferris wheel sits on the edge of the park and overlooks most of Tbilisi. The new attraction this year is a drop tower, Not yet open though. I love the Loading graphic on the map though. Looks a decent size too. Some of the paths in the park aren't pathed but it sort of fits here. The ferris wheel can be seen from almost anywhere in the city. And as such you can see most of the city from the top. Ohhh i see you over there. The ride takes about 10mins and the compartments are air conditioned. Much of the park is hidden in the trees. It's a beautiful park. Reminds me of Tibidabo in Barcelona in terms of location. When on the wheel we spotted this little wheel in the city. I investigated this later. Some of the weird themeing in the kids area. The whole park had a very pleasant atmosphere. I see you over there. Really nice cafe in the trees. The toilets were a little odd looking. However be warned they are squat toilets. Kids play area. Nope I have noooo idea what this is. This was officially the wettest ride I have ever been on. Thanks to some ride ops who sized us up as tourists and timed the boats perfectly. Sallie after her drenching. This is why we got so wet. Both drops were timed for maximum wetness for us. you can walk round most of the ride. These guys got off lightly. At the top of the park sits this. familiar to anyone who's spent time in China. this is an SBL ride. The OSTR's aren't great but there is minimal roughness. just one small kick in the 2nd corkscrew. The ride was fairly popular and is one of only two looping coaster in the country. wheeeeee The ride looks well maintained and has a bright paint scheme which makes it stand out. The kid in the 3rd row looks terrified. The corkscrews are hidden away behind the station. The view from the top was pretty spectacular. One of the best views from any coaster I have ridden. One final shot as we head back down into the park. The little guy in the box is all over Georgia. Nooo idea what he is though. There are loads of little hidden shops and cafes around. And lots of fun little touches in the themeing. The park started to get busy around 1pm. Ohhh some minor copyright infringement there. Well hello Mr bin. Good day to you sir. The kids area for the park is extensive. The parks other coaster. The first of many big apple style rides on this trip. The ride was easily the most popular in the park. The new tower ride sits right at the end of the main avenue and should give a great view when open. Snake slides where pretty good fun. This park is really quite hilly. Not sure what this is but it looked fairly new. Themed dining area. The other weird attraction here was an area full of animatronic dinosaurs. Sallie lost this staring competition. There's handy facts on each of the 20 or so dinosaurs here. Coming Soon!... This new restaurant at the top of the Funicular is going too look really good when it's done. Park map to give you an idea of the layout. Goodbye Mtatsminda Park its been really good fun. Heading back down. There is a stop half way down for a church.

So considering the first park was a dud we headed back into Istanbul and the girls went shopping. This allowed me some time on my own and I headed down the road to Atlantis. This is a small family entertainment centre in a shopping mall in Istanbul which has one small coaster and a number of flats. The coaster is called Cilgin Kopekbaligi (Mad Shark) and is built by SBF. its a very odd ride. The lift hill has a 90degree bend in it and after a nice sharp drop the ride consists entirely of one large helix into the brake run. I'm not quite sure why as they certainly had the space to do more with it. To say its a good ride would be wrong but its smooth enough and the unneeded OSTRs aren't overly annoying. The park uses a card system which seems to be popular in this part of the world. You essentially buy a card for 2 Lira ($1) and top it up at various stations positioned around the park with a set amount of money, the coaster itself costs about $3. The station The first drop is quite nice and has a nice kick to the right. However after that first drop the ride is just a big helix all the way to the brake run. I would love to have pics of the train going round but as I was one of only 3 to ride it while I was there this was impossible. The park had a number of small flat rides. Each flat ride costs about 7 Dodgems are at every park in this part of the world. these ones seemed faster than most though. The park is listed on the Mall map as Atlantis but the card says Fun Lab... anyway this is the recharge card you have to buy to ride. Each ride has a turnstile you swipe the card on to enter and it deducts the required amount. Quite a cool system for a small park. Is it me or does the shark look Drunk? Another look at that first drop. There's a nice indoor drop tower here too. Down we go. A view from the top floor down to the rides area.

Hi guys. This is my first TR for a while but I was recently lucky enough to travel through the Ex soviet Caucasus region for a couple of weeks. Its a bit off the normal travellers routes but its well worth a visit if you have the chance. There are few parks there but I managed to visit many small parks in both Georgia and Armenia and came across a few surprises. On my way out I flew via Istanbul in Turkey and decided to spend a few days there before my flight on. Istanbul is a vibrant city and the hustle and bustle reminded me of South Asian cities like Bangkok and Shanghai. There are few major parks in Turkey but recently the construction of Vialand in Istanbul has turned a few heads with two brand new Intamin coasters and a variety of interesting flat rides. Articles such as this http://english.sabah.com.tr/economy/2013/05/27/turkeys-biggest-entertainment-park-vialand-opened-on-golden-horn mentioned the park was now open so I took the opportunity to go and visit. I knew the Intamin LSM wasn't built yet but I have seen pictures of people on the other rides so I headed down the river (Vialand is a pain to get to, its not on the metro network) and got a taxi to Vialand. However upon arrival I found the park is not open at all. The news articles mentioning the opening are lying. The shopping centre out front is open although not finished and actually looks really cool. But the park itself is not even close to an opening. Despite soft openings taking place on a few of the rides the park is most definitely closed. I spoke to a few staff around and they said the park proper would open mid July. There was however the option to take a tour of the park in its current state. They did want the full entry price to look around though (around £17 or $27), I was travelling with 2 non enthusiast girls this day who didnt want to pay to enter a closed park, so it was decided to check out the shopping centre. So my first part of this TR is not even a park. its the shopping centre in front of a park. I did head back to the park later in the trip but I was Cameraless so don't have pictures. But here are my thoughts on the park so far. - It's small, very small. - The themeing is good but reminds me of Chinese parks like Happy Valley. It looks good but its all a bit disconnected. - The Intamin Family coaster looks really good and could provide some good airtime. - The drop tour looks pretty cool with the top sticking out of the building but most of the ride enclosed. - The park will be really quite green when finished with loads of trees and a large garden section. - The spill water style flume looks great. They've done really well themeing a standard layout water ride. - The park is way off the transport infrastructure and could struggle with visitor numbers. - If you want a rough idea of the park. Think a small Happy Valley with good landscaping. Anyway here the pics I took that first day. The taxi dropped us off at the back of the unfinished Mall section. The front gate looks the part. The parks mascot... a Duck I think. The Intamin LSM track by the entrance is still sat waiting to go up. the footers are in though. The themeing is nice but its not quite perfect. The castle however looks pretty cool. Swing and a miss. The shopping area is really nice. The art installation in the middle was kind of cool. Arty pic of an art installation. The area will have a small tram running through the shopping district. I thought they made violins? I would say about 50% of the shops are currently open. The park is certainly nowhere near done. Track waiting to go up. This ride could be one of the highlights of this year. But they just need to build it really.

This actually looks pretty cool. But I am confused on one thing. The announcement states this. What's the reference to a backwards loops about? I may be being a moron (it happens quite often I assure you) but it looks forwards to me.

Pictures of some of the new rides already up No sign of the Intamin but there are footers in for it. Source: http://www.vhcoasters.com

http://www.vialand.com.tr/corporate/about-project.aspx The official site still says 23rd of April. That must just mean the shopping mall on top of the hill though. But even that doesn't look like it will be finished in two weeks. So I have noooo idea.

I can confirm he is not. Still very much a construction site. Source: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=102044149

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEzOVtMFxjk They have released another little construction video. Shows a nice little peek inside their indoor boat ride towards the end.

A couple of different pictures I managed to dig up. The Seatbelts are an odd touch. Source: http://shusarides.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-1.html

Triple post but they are all different days Here's some more info about the 3 known coasters I dug up today. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Explore the Wild Wild West on a family roller coaster! This exciting coaster will take you through the world of old American West. From the ravines and the ranch grounds of the cowboys to the parlours and the saloons of the pistol wielding outlaws and sheriffs. This ripping ride will drop you from the height of 66 feet and send you speeding through tunnels and abandoned gold mines at a thrilling speed of 65 km/h. Apparently, this journey is not going to be an easy one. After all, surviving the Wild Wild West was always a rollercoaster ride! Speed through the Sherwood Forest in this junior roller coaster! Hey kids! All aboard this junior roller coaster! It will take you through the world of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. So, get into your bandit mode and gear up for a fun ride! To the moon and back in India’s first dark roller coaster ride! Hop on to this high adrenaline rollercoaster that takes you into outer space. You will get launched into deep space among galaxies and black holes zipping through various planets and meteors. This coaster is uniquely constructed inside a massive dome, which itself is a sight from miles away. The Deep Space coaster works on the Linear Synchronous Motor (LSM) magnetic launch. Unlike a normal roller coaster, which makes a slow first climb, this dark coaster will shoot you to crazy speeds in a matter of mere seconds. So, gear up for this truly out- of- this- world experience! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Interestingly there is no mention of the parks B&M Floorless but a park map does show a fourth coaster called Nitro in the Americana section. Perhaps it won’t open with the park or maybe it will be unveiled at a later date. Only Time will tell. Source: http://www.vhcoasters.com

Hey good pictures. Strangely some versions of that park map/model/rendering show a third coaster outside the current boundary of the park. Could this be used in the future? There is also this really cool timelapse video of construction released by the park Sources & http://vhcoasters.com/2013/03/15/vialand-update/

Looks like the park is almost complete. This video shows mainly a freaking HUGE frisbee and what looks to be the Zamperla mine train and previously unannounced Junior coaster. Source: http://vhcoasters.com/2013/03/14/adlabs-imagica-shows-off-giant-frisbee/

Building this must be a logistical nightmare, But glad to see track work coming along a bit, That 2nd roll looks wonderfully misshaped

If Alton submitted the plans fully knowing that these inversions were going to be included* then that is actually a pretty brilliant piece of misdirection, They have managed to create a situation where we enthusiasts have been speculating about what the gimmick will be when the truth is that the very first "most inversion record" rumours were probably spot on the money. It sure drummed up a lot of speculation and hype and it cost them nothing. I can't say I always agree with Merlins marketing but well played Alton, Well played indeed. *the coaster is under a general planning application so as long as they don't change the major structures it doesn't matter about the changes to track.