David H

So a lot has been talked about here. Here's my take on them, and some other observations: Yes, Expedition GeForce beat Bizarro this year. But it was VERY close. It came down to a 21-16 vote between the two. That's not exactly a sweeping victory. And New Texas Giant was pretty close behind, too, losing to EGF 12-5, but coming very close to Bizarro at 19-17, with its tie with Skyrush somewhat of an outlier. For the second poll year in a row, Mirabilandia is the ONLY park in the world which can claim to have the TWO top 10 coasters on EITHER poll. If the park was smart, they would market that impressive feat in its advertising! iSpeed even managed to jump up two notches to #8, despite 3 new coasters debuting above it, for an effective jump of 5 notches. It's hard to believe that it debuted at #36! I wonder how high it would rank if they shut off the mid-course brake! Shambhala at #6? That's probably totally due to the inexperience of the few riders. Plus the first year B&M effect. Expect it to drop significantly in the next few years. Then again, I haven't ridden it, so maybe it's the next sliced bread? Judging from the other B&M hypers, I'm not holding my breath, though. Mega-lites? Yes, they're THAT good. Well, maybe I think they're a BIT overrated. But they're amazing rides. They really pack some seriously strong ejector airtime and intense directional changes in the middle section of the ride. Do they ride that differently? I found that they did vary somewhat, but that may be a matter of factors like when you ride in the day and how broken in they are when you're riding. They definitely broke in when I get the chance to ride them later in the day. My top 40 are all very tightly packed, such that a small change in quality can mean quite a few notches on my list. I got to ride 3 of the 4 over the course of a month on my Asia trip last year, with two of them a week apart on the TPR China part of the trip. I thought that Fly Over Mediterranean was the best of them, although I did ride it later in the day than any of the others. Note that it would have ranked at #6 if it had gotten just two more votes. Which is a shame, since there were more than 30 of us on the TPR trip! Mega-Lite in Shanghai's Happy Valley wasn't quite up to speed during our morning filming session, but it picked up some speed later in the day. Kawasemi was somewhere in the middle for me. Piraten wasn't running as well as I suspect it could have during ACE's Scandinavia Tour last year, which might explain it's drop this year from 6 to 13. I personally have them ranked between 15 and 36. Speaking of Chinese coasters that didn't get enough riders, Sky Scrapper would have ranked at #21, if a few more of the people on the TPR China trip had voted! That would have easily made it the best flying coaster in the world -- which it assuredly is, in my book! it's my #5 steel overall. Cheetah Hunt? I imagine that if you cut off the first 1/3 of the ride that it would rank higher. It has some good moments, but overall, I found it not worth the wait. And yes, it has longer lines than anything in the park. It's their newest coaster, so of course it does. Millennium Forceless finally out of the top 10? Hallelujah! Still, yes, it will end up at #1 in the Golden Tickets. But that's because it's probably the single most popular coaster in the world, in terms of overall popularity. If there's any park that EVERY coaster enthusiast worldwide feels that they MUST visit, it's Cedar Point. And MF is the biggest crowd pleaser there, no matter what I personally think of it. Yes, a lot of well travelled enthusiast like myself think it's way overrated, but it's easily on more top 10 lists than any other coaster on the planet. just look at the number of riders who voted for it. The only coasters in the poll that got over 200 riders were the Cedar Point coasters, Nitro, the Orlando coasters, and the groupings. Which brings up an interesting observations. People seem so overly excited about Gatekeeper. I get nearly daily updates from salivating fanboys and fangirls on my Facebook feed seemingly every time anything happens. (A Gatekeeper worker was just seen going to the bathroom! Time for a Facebook update!) Yet, despite the excitement over a relatively new coaster type, none of B&M's wing coasters have made much of an impact in the poll. SFGAm's X-Flight did the best at #58. Wild Eagle only managed to hit #87, despite Dollywood giving ACE first class treatment (including a serenade by Dolly herself) at last year's convention. Yet everyone's SO excited about Gatekeeper. Do they really expect it to be THAT much better than the others? Yes, it's Cedar Point, but, geez. Don't read too much into individual rankings much below 50, especially below 100. A bunch of people wrote asking why similar coasters ranked 10 or 20 notches differently. That's just the reality of a poll like this. Depending on who rode which in any given year, the rankings can really vary, especially as you get lower in the poll. It's not uncommon to see jumps or drops or even 50 or more notches from year to year for no real good reason. Silver Star, trimmed to death? It was when I rode it, but that was 10 years ago. Hopefully, I'll see what it's like now in the Summer. Superman; Krypton Coaster deserving of being higher? I'm a huge B&M looper fan, and I put it SLIGHTLY higher at #37 than it's #54 ranking. But I tend to rank most B&M loopers higher than the rest of you. I doubt that it will jump higher, even with more people visiting this year for Iron Rattler. Remember, ACE had a convention add-on day there two years ago, so a bunch more people have already ridden it recently. But the way the poll works, more riders shouldn't really affect the rankings, unless the ride changes. The highest grouped coasters is actually the Batmen at #77. It seems that most of the lower half of the top 10 got pushed down my the new additions, with a few coasters managing to hold their ground or even move up. Some notable drops: Pyrenees dropped 11-22. I really wish someone could explain this to me, especially with Katun holding at #9. They're pretty similar rides, although on both of my visits to both parks Pyrenees was significantly more intense, especially in the middle of the ride, with the most effective cobra roll on the planet. I suspect that a lot if it is due to the smaller ridership giving different groups of riders with different opinions on the B&M inverteds in general. Because a quick look at the ballots shows that most people who rode both of them had them similarly placed. Larry, if you're reading this, I'd love it if you explained why you put Katun so much higher than Pyrenees. I'm not doubting your opinions. I'm just genuinely curious, since we have similar tastes in coasters. The only thing I can think is that the older more forceful B&M coasters really shine in the back row, where the forces are the most extreme. And during an ERT session on a group tour fewer people will get the chance to ride in the back. I'd imagine that a lot more enthusiasts (at least those from Europe) have been to Italy without a big group than have been to the middle of nowhere in Japan! Atlantis Adventure should be renamed the Bounce Coaster. It's gone from 28 to 13 to 21 to 12 to 24. I think this shows particularly well how coasters that haven't been ridden my many people in the poll can have unreliable rankings. Which is why Mitch doesn't list them without at least 10 riders, which AA just met, thanks to my visit this year. Since I ranked it quite a bit lower than others, I took a quick peek at the spreadsheet to discover that my ballot alone changed 20 of the pairings, or 6% of them! Yes, 20 of them, because so many of them were so close. In fact, at 19 ties, it had more than any other coaster in the top 90. (And lower than that, you're bound to see a lot of ties, because a lot of people group the lower coasters.) And if you consider that really only the pairings with the top 70 or so would really be in dispute for a top 30 coaster, having 20 of those 70 changed by ONE ballot shows how volatile the rankings really are for less-ridden coasters. Without my ballot, Atlantis Adventure would have ranked at #18. Carowinds' Intimidator seems to have felt the new B&M effect, dropping to 42 after debuting at 21. Despite near universal hatred among enthusiasts, X2 managed to jump up from 32 to 25 when a bunch of newer coasters should have knocked it down. I'm guessing that this is the result of more people now having ridden it since the overhaul. Grona Lund's Insane probably has had the biggest fall from grace of any once top ranked coaster on the list. It dropped from 20 to 40 on the last poll, and all the way down to 110 this year! I'm guessing that it's just not flipping as much as it did in the first year, like on that legendary TPR Scandi tour, which everyone raves about. I know that when I went two years ago with ACE, we weren't getting nearly the crazy rides we'd heard about, no matter how much we tried to unbalance the ride. I wonder if it has just gotten less flippy with time, or if the park has adjusted it to lessen the flipping. I know that outside of our ERT session, the park wasn't allowing unbalanced rides. After staying steady around #50 for several years, Steel Dragon 2000 dropped down to #94, which is closer to where that once record-setting tall -- but uneventful -- coaster belongs. I put it at #151. Heibe Fahrt dropped from 60 to 114. Was it ever really that good? It was weird to notice that I was the ONLY person to ride most of the coasters in Taiwan in this year's poll, with the exception of one other person who has been to Janfusun Fancyworld.

With tensions getting worse between North and South Korea, and with North Korea today threatening a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the US, I wonder how much longer DMZ tours, like the one I showed a few updates back, will be available.

^ Agreed. Maybe that's why I was so much less impressed with Expedition Everest a few weeks ago when I rode it. Grizzly Gulch is so much better! I was wondering why they made us walk the long way around at one point in the night. I thought it was because of the park buyout that night, but the fireworks makes sense. I LOVE Philharmagic! Probably because it focuses on my favorite run of Disney movies of all time: Little Mermaid, Beauty & the Beat, Aladdin, and Lion King. I thought it was interesting that they have it in English in Hong Kong, while Japan's is all in Japanese, even the songs. But that was true of the whole park, where they tried to have English translations or versions of shows and rides. I remember seeing an English showing of Stitch (using the Crush technology). They even had a completely separate queue for Jungle Cruise in English. (There was also a third queue, I think for Japanese?) I guess it makes sense for a city that only 13 years ago was run by Britain, although very few people left in the city seem to speak English as a primary language. I wonder if Shanghai's Disney will have much English. Lugging around all of the souvenirs certainly became a chore, especially with the airlines' baggage weight requirements. With all the stuff I bought at HK Disneyland, I'd definitely go over the weight limits for my remaining flights to Taiwan, Osaka and home. Luckily, our Disney hotels' staff was very helpful, and boxed up and bunch of stuff and shipped it home for me, basically at the post office shipping cost. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't outrageous, either.

When I said Mountain Peak was Chinese, I meant that it was IN china. It's not a knockoff. Just like if I said that I thought that Montu was the best American steel coaster, even though it was made by B&M, who are Swiss. Mountain Peak is an ACTUAL Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang. And a damn good one, too! Let's see if it STAYS good, though! I actually now have one less than an hour and a half from my house at SFNE, but I haven't ridden it there yet. And yes, I'll be doing day-by-day updates, too. I only posted this since I'd already written it up for the Roller Coaster Dream Chinese coaster group. So I though I might as well make use of it, since I only had to pick out some pictures for it. I thought it would also give a nice overview of the highlights of the trip for those who don't want to read the more detailed updates. And whet the appetites of those of you who do! Plus, it gave me a chance to post the pic of Bill and the hat and Chinese girls early!

Yeah, they can add the sticker to your ticket. But if you don't already have a ticket purchased when you want to start reserving your fastpasses, will you be able to do so, and then have that info transferred to the new sticker on the ticket? I'm sure it's possible to do. But will Disney go to the effort to give access to this feature to guests who aren't ideal? We'll see, I guess. If not, then I'll just have to make sure to get my tickets form them online in advance in the future. Still, it was nice saving a few bucks AND getting an extra day on my recent visit by buying from an authorized ticket reseller. It still worked in their favor, because I paid for parking and food on that extra day.

^ That video is even more disturbing than all the Harlem Shake videos. Personally, I don't get the whole Harlem Shake craze. The videos aren't even funny. Yes, I have a sense of humor (I'm on this site, after all!), but what's funny about them? And making more and more videos about it doesn't make it any funnier. Yet, somehow, the song debuted at #1 on Billboard's Hot 100 chart last week, based primarily on Youtube hits, a historic first (mainly because Billboard just started counting video streams in their charts; otherwise, Gagnam Style surely would have hit #1.) While I do enjoy and appreciate some internet memes, I'll never really understand the popularity of 90% of them. I do, however, think the screaming goats in the middle of music videos are funny!

TPR Best of China Tour overview. This is going to be a different type of update. Candice Fu of the Chinese Roller Coaster Dream club asked me to write up an article for their online newsletter about the TPR China trip. I wrote an overview that touched on the highlights of the trip. I think it makes a nice preview of the trip, so I decided to post it here, along with some pictures of the best parks and coasters of the trip. This should give you a good idea of some of the awesomeness that was this trip. Read the rest of my updates as they come in for a more detailed look at the trip and the parks. It's gonna be epic! Last September, I visited China with Theme Park Review for a crazy tour to much of the country to visit the best amusement parks and roller coasters China had to offer. It was a wild, crazy, exhausting trip, but I am very glad I went. We really got a sample of the best that Chinese parks had to offer. In addition to all of the big parks, we also visited a large number of small parks, just so that we could add the roller coasters to our lists of ones that we had ridden, a process we tactlessly call “credit whoring,” if you’ll pardon the crude language. While those weren’t really the highlights of the trip for me, I did find it fascinating how many small amusement parks China has, often tucked away in city parks or zoos, or similar places. The first leg of the trip was Beijing. I was glad that we got the chance to visit historic sights like the Great Wall of China, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and the Olympic Bird’s Nest and Water Cube. We did some “credit whoring” at Shijingshan and Sun Parks, which had a surprising number of coasters, several of which I was too fat to ride! That was the first time I had ever been denied a coaster ride due to weight, and it was depressing. But our main goal in Beijing was to get to Happy Valley. Crystal Wing may be typical B&M flying coaster, and a clone of the Superman: Ultimate Flight coasters in the US, but we all agreed that the very extensive theming really made it a much better ride, especially with all the near-misses with the scenery! Unfortunately, Extreme Rusher was broken down, so we missed the first S&S launched coaster of the trip. Victory Kingdom was also a highlight, mainly due to its nice theming and it’s really good flat rides. Most of them may have been what we jokingly call “Chinese knockoffs”, but the flat rides were a lot better than the “Chinese knockoff” roller coasters! Our next leg was in Chengdu. Probably the most fun ride of the entire trip (and probably my life!) was our rides on the Tagada ride at Floraland. The ride operator clearly was having a lot of fun giving these crazy Americans a wild ride, unlike any that we’d ever get to ride in the US, with our overzealous lawyers! Check out Robb’s video on youtube to see the craziness! Chengdu’s Happy Valley had what I thought was the best of the four Intamin Mega-Lite’s with its Fly Over Mediterranean coaster. I’m not sure why, but I felt that it was the most powerful of them all, and I rode three of them on my Asian trip. The middle section of the coaster with its ejector airtime and fast directional changes was intense. Our last stop in Chengdu was to the panda sanctuary, where most of us paid to briefly hold a panda, which was an amazing experience! From there, we went to Wuhan, which has quickly become famous among coaster enthusiasts worldwide for Happy Valley’s misspelled Gravity Group Dauling Dragons coasters, with the first ever high-five element, which lets riders of both coasters almost touch hands over their heads as the trains turn sideways. It may be a gimmick, but it’s an impressive and fun one. And the coasters themselves were as crazy and intense as you’d expect from the Gravity Group. Unfortunately, OCT Thrust wasn’t yet finished, so we missed yet another S&S launched coaster! Shanghai was probably my favorite city in China. Luckily, we got to explore the city, visiting the China Pearl Tower (and its coaster inside!) and with a boat cruise on the river, which let us see the gorgeous skyline at night. Many of us would also explore the city at night, especially since our hotel was so close to the Nanjing Road shopping area. Jin Jiang Park surprised us with a nice coaster assortment, including Mountain Peak, which was a standard Vekoma Giant Inverted Boomerang, but was somehow much smoother than any of others in the world, all of which I’ve ridden. Most of us thought that it was the best GIB anywhere, and not just because some of us got a rollback on it. Shanghai’s Happy Valley probably had the best collection of coasters in the country, with the Intamin Mega-Lite, the B&M Diving Coaster, and the awesome Gravity Group wooden coaster Fireball. Plus, I got to meet kindred coaster spirit Roller Coaster Dream’s president Candice Fu, who I spent some time with at the park, getting in one last ride on Fireball, as we rushed back to meet the group to leave the park. We just had time to get in a ride on the great compact Vekoma flying coaster Stingray, which the park was nice enough to let use rid just before the park was exclusively for a group that had paid to have the park to themselves. We only visited two parks in one day in Changzhou, but both of them were excellent, with extremely good theming. World Joyland is known around the world for having knockoff World of Warcraft theming. And while the theming is amazing, the B&M flying coaster that seems to have two different names – Starry Sky Ripper and Sky Scrapper – was even more amazing. I thought it was the most intense coaster B&M has built in years, with a unique and creative design, and absolutely full of the positive G forces I love. It was easily my favorite steel coaster of the whole trip! Later, we met up with Candice again at China Dinosaur Park, a park I wish we’d had more time at. And not just because Dinoconda is one of the world’s only S&S 4D coasters, but because of all of the great theming, too. But we had to rush out to catch a flight that ironically ended up being cancelled! Once we got a rescheduled flight to Guangzhou the next day, we visited the huge Chimelong Paradise park, home to two big cloned coasters in the accurately named Dive Coaster and 10 Inversion Coaster (which we all counted out as we went through them!) and the surprisingly good Motobike Launch Coaster. The park also has a Half Pipe coaster named Half Pipe and a Young Star coaster called YoungStar. Clearly the park spent a lot of time coming up with original names! Later that day, we headed to the very strange, but also very charming Chuanlord Holiday Manor park. Their coasters may not have been all that special, but their Ghost Ship Gothenburg was excellent, and the people in the ride were very effective and genuinely scaring this group of jaded park enthusiasts, often with nothing more than a t-shirt on a stick! In Shenzhen, we started at Knight Valley, which was this huge, sprawling park on the mountainside, on multiple levels, with stairways and escalators between the levels. It seemed like a really nice park, but unfortunately a large number of the rides weren’t open when we tried to ride them (although some people said that some of them opened later.) Luckily, they had the excellent Wood Coaster by GCI, which was one of their best. And the view from the top of the mountain was spectacular. Ironically, our last Happy Valley of the trip in Shenzhen was the company’s first While none of the other coasters were all that great, we finally got on an S&S launched coaster, the excellent – if a little rough -- Bullet Coaster. We crossed the border into Hong Kong, where we stayed on Disney property at Disney’s awesome Hollywood Hotel. But first, we went to Ocean Park, which has what has to be one of the most spectacular settings of any park, on the mountainsides of Hong Kong, which you take an underground train or an amazing cable car ride to get up to. It also had a great new B&M floorless coaster called Hair Raiser, appropriately named because of the several moments of unexpected airtime. I ended up liking the park so much that I would go back two nights later after the TPR trip was over to check out their Halloween event, which was absolutely world-class, with a bunch of uniquely themed mazes and monsters roaming the entire huge, sprawling park. But in between, we first did some sightseeing up to Victoria Peak and on a sampan on the harbor, and checked out the nighttime laser show. Then we enjoyed Hong Kong Disneyland, with its great new Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars coaster (a cross between the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coasters and Expedition Everest) and Space Mountain, which had Halloween theming in it! And that was it for the official trip. I stayed in Hong Kong for an extra two days, doing some more sightseeing, going back to Ocean Park, hitting the nightclubs, and taking a day trip to Macau to see the amazing House of Dancing Waters show and to take the terrifying Skyjump off the Macau Tower. Overall, it was an incredible trip. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy China as much as I did. I was planning this trip as a sort of “checkoff” so that I could say that I’ve been there and to its coasters and parks and not need to go back. But I really enjoyed myself and am sure I’ll return some day. The parks certainly weren’t perfect. Ride operations were often horribly slow. Rides were closed for seemingly no reason, even when the parks were busy. (They opened Golden Wings in Snowfield for our filming session at Happy Valley Beijing, then closed it and never opened it again that day to the public, even though Extreme Rusher was broken down!) And there were certainly a lot of cloned and knockoff coasters, where I would have liked to have seen a lot more creativity. The knockoff coasters were often even rougher than the originals, although I actually enjoyed a lot of the knockoff flat rides. And a lot of the parks, particularly the Happy Valley parks deserve a lot of credit for some really nice theming that was usually better than most of the theming at US parks, outside of Disney or Universal. They definitely had theming that was a lot better than anything you’d find at any Six Flags or Cedar Fair park. And I’ll give credit to Chinese parks for really embracing creative dark rides and haunted houses, rides that we don’t see as often in the US. It was also nice to see that even with all the knockoff coasters, there were also a bunch of really creative new coaster designs going into Chinese parks. All of the wooden coasters were great, especially the Gravity Group ones. Sky Scrapper was one of the most intense and creative B&M coasters ever. Dinoconda was rough, but exciting. Stingray was a surprisingly intense, yet compact design. Disney even tried something new with Big Grizzly Mountain. And some of the clones they did have were among the best of their clones, like Crystal Wings, Mountain Peak and absolutely the two Intamin mega-lites, not to mention the various B&M dive coasters. That said, what made the trip unforgettable was being able to do it with a bunch of great people from Theme Park Review. Robb and Elissa Alvey’s incredible planning made everything go as smoothly as possible. And there’s no question that we would never have gotten as many rides as we did without Robb getting the parks to do filming sessions with us on the rides. And it’s always great to travel with a group of crazy coaster nuts to keep up the energy and enthusiasm, seeing old friends and making new ones, including a new friend in Roller Coaster Dream China! Before the official trip began, while some people were credit whoring, a few of us headed out to the Forbidden City in Beijing. The Great Wall of China. It's not every day you visit one of the world's great wonders! Crystal Wings at Happy Valley Beijing. It may be a Superman Ultimate Flight clone, but it's awesome theming makes all the difference, when you nearly collide with a manmade mountain! Probably the most insane moment of the whole trip! The Tagada ride at Floraland in Chengdu. Happy Valley in Chengdu offers a study in contrasts. The awesome Fly Over Mediterranean Intamin mega-lite, next to a Vekoma SLC. At least it was a real SLC, and not a knockoff. Yes, there will be BOOBS in my PTR! That should bring some of you back! And lots of silliness with random Chinese girls, who wanted to take pictures with white people! We got to hold a panda! The newest Happy Valley in Wuhan has the awesome misspelled Gravity Group dueling coasters Dauling Dragons. In Shanghai, we took a maglev train that goes over 300 km/hour (that's over 185 mph.) We took a boat cruise on Shanghai's river, to enjoy the city's amazing skyline at night. Would you believe there's a coaster in the bottom ball of the China Pearl Tower? Some Chinese knockoffs, like this one at Fisherman Wharf, were so horrible and painful that they made us wear padded helmets! Some of the Chinese versions of clones were actually way better than their US counterparts, like the Mountain Peak Deja Vu clone at Jin Jiang park in Shanghai. Happy Valley Shanghai probably had the best collection of coasters overall, including the B&M Diving Coaster, a SheiKra clone. But the real star of this Happy Valley park was the awesome Gravity Group woodie Fireball. Robb managed to get us on the great Vekoma compact flyer Stingray, even though the park was closing for a buyout! Changzhou's World Joyland park is known most for it's appropriating of World of Warcraft imagery without permission, but its very intense B&M Flying Coaster with two names (Sky Scrapper and Starry Sky Ripper) was easily my favorite steel coaster of the trip! China Dinosaur park also had awesome theming, plus Dinoconda, one of the world's only S&S 4D coasters. Guangzhou's Chimelong Paradise were really creative with naming their coasters, like this dive coaster called "Dive Coaster." And guess how many inversions that "10 Inversion Coaster" has? Chinese parks had lots of dark rides and haunted walkthroughs, from the really cheap and ghetto to the very modern. But most of us agreed that Chuanlord Holiday Manor Park's Ghost Ship Gothenburg was easily the best and scariest! Shenzhen's Knight valley made really good use of their mountainside terrain with the awesome (if not creatively named) Wood Coaster. We finally got on a S&S launhed coaster (after missing two of them) at Happy Valley in Shenzhen on their Bullet Coaster. What a place to build a park and coasters! One of my favorite parks of the trip was Hong Kong's Ocean Park. Here's their new B&M floorless coaster Hair Raiser, with several surprising spots of airtime to raise your hair. We took lots of group photos, like this one at Hong Kong Disneyland. Hong Kong's Disneyland got a much needed expansion with the recently opened Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars coaster. All good things must come to an end. Our last meal together featured an appearance by Chef Mickey! But my trip didn't end there! I went back to Ocean Park for their awesome Halloween event. You'll be rewarded for waiting out the updates with pictures from the park that no one else was able to get! Then after that, it's another two weeks in Macau, Taiwan and back to Japan!

This may seem like a silly change, but in case anyone rereads this and is wondering if the hunky Aussie changed to a hunky South African, or if they're imagining it, you're not. I just remembered it wrong. I've been updating my Facebook profile pictures with pictures from my latest PTR update. When I changed it back to that picture, I noticed that I'd said he was South African at the time. So, I guess I'd forgotten where he was from. Or maybe he actually was Aussie, and I got it wrong back then? Eh, who really cares, actually!

Cool update, Robb! I was just at Kennedy Space Center 3 weeks ago for the first time, despite all my visits to Florida. As a sci-fi and space geek, I wanted to check it out. I have to say that this new Atlantis exhibit will REALLY add to the whole package. On a side note, one night in Orlando years ago, just as we were leaving IOA, a bunch of people were looking into the sky. It turned out that one of the space shuttles was taking off. So, I did get to unintentionally see a shuttle takeoff! And at an amusement park, too!

Hell, it can be hard to remember details about a coaster you just rode, if it was in the middle of a crazy trip, with lots of other coasters. For my recent big Asia/TPR China trip, I can only remember a lot of the details when I look through my pictures and read other people's trip reports.

I don't remember all of the details about the funhouse at Everland, but I did walk through it quickly and I think everything was working. It was in the back of the Magic Land area, to the right of the park, between the Helicycle and the Magic Swing. Just in front of the gardens in the back of the park. I had to pull out the downloadable park map to remember exactly where it was. I noted with amusement that the spinny ride with the cars that just go up and spin is called Flash Pang Pang. Everland really was a huge park. I didn't ride or even take pictures of at least a half dozen medium sized or larger rides, not to mention a bunch of kiddie rides. And I didn't even get near the rapids ride or safari ride in the zoo section, since that area closed early. A funny side note on the return to Everland: I was in such a hurry that I think I completely forgot to show my foreign ID for the $8 discount. I don't remember If they had a twilight discount. But honestly, it was worth the admission price just for a few rides on T-Express. It's THAT good! Speaking of park maps, one thing I forgot to mention in my write-ups was that I downloaded park maps from the park websites (and sometimes from the TPR Park Index, whenever possible. I pretty much only had time to find the ones from the parks in Japan and Korea. Many of the parks in Asia don't have English maps easily available, so it was helpful to have these already printed up and ready. In the case of both Everland and Lotte World, they DID have English park maps/guides, which were what they had on their websites, as well. Larry, would you want my 2012 English park map I downloaded from Everland's web site? It's in pdf form and 1.76 MB. You might not want my Lotte World brochure and map, since it's strangely 102 MB! Maybe a bit big for the site, though I guess you could extract the maps from it. I also have maps from a bunch of the parks in Japan, though I'd have to figure out which ones I got from the TPR Park Index that you obviously already have! Most of them are a megabyte or two or less.

With steel coasters, there are a few factors that can enhance them over time. In the first few months, they can break in, which will help them speed up. After opening, the park and/or manufacturers can tweak them with everything from a reprofile to smaller tweaks. Little things like speeding up the lift hill or turning down the trim brakes (if possible) to increasing the power and speed of any launches can make a big difference in how a coaster runs. Never mind maintenance enhancing them from the last time you rode them. Train maintenance and track maintenance on steel coasters can make a big difference over time too. If the wheels need to be changed or if the train starts rattling a lot, than can use up a lot of that potential energy in rattling and/or friction that would otherwise go into speed.

Don't forget Kristin's too!

Day 13: Seoul sightseeing. Today was going to be a more relaxed and casual day than just about any other day on the trip. I originally had planned to rush around and see a whole bunch of touristy sights in Seoul, but honestly, I’d already done a whole lot of sightseeing with 2 days in Gyeongju and the awesome DMZ tour. So, I honestly didn’t care if I saw too much today. I used the opportunity to sleep later than I probably did on any day of the trip, since I didn’t have any parks to go to, and with the an early flight to Beijing the next day for the TPR China trip, I knew I could use the sleep now, while I can get it! I also used the opportunity to catch up on some e-mail and to do some late planning for later in the trip. By the time I actually got out of the hotel, it was actually late afternoon, which meant that my plans were somewhat foiled, because many of the big sights in town closed at 5 or 6 PM on a Saturday. But whatever. I figured I’d go to some of the larger palaces in the city. At the very least, I could take pictures outside of them, which was fine with me. So, I took the subway to the station closest to the Palace District, home to several of the Five Grand Palaces of the Joseun Dynasty, built in the 14th and 15th centuries. However, most of the building have been destroyed, burnt down or otherwise damaged over the years, particularly during many wars with the Japanese, and have been rebuilt and restored several times over the centuries. On reflection, I probably should have gone to the Gyeongbokgung Palace first, since it was open an hour later and I might have actually gotten in for a bit. But I was stubborn and tried to get in everything. And honestly, with the layout of the area, it would make more sense to go the way I did. So I headed to this huge park complex that included Changdeokgung Palace, Changgyeonggung Palace and the Jongmyo Royal Shrine, intending to at least get pictures of them all from outside. On the way, there was a park that was actually up a flight of stairs that had been hosting some music event which was wrapping up. I headed up there for whatever long shots of the palace area I could get. It’s a good thing that I did, because those would be the best and pretty much only pictures I’d get of any of those sites. It turned out that the entire area was walled up with tall stone walls – this area was one of the back gates, and it was closed. Oops! I'm not sure if these ways were ancient, or were added more recently. So, I took what pictures I could, and walked a LONG was around the wall, in the hopes that maybe I could see more from the other side of the park – with no luck. I did, however, get some pictures of a very nice gate at the main entrance for my troubles. Even the Jomono Royal Shrine across the street was completely surrounded by tall walls. I’d foolishly assumed that publicly owned parks would be open all night (or at least in the early evening), and that I’d get to at least see the palaces and take some pictures, but it’s wasn’t to be. So, I headed back towards the nearby Gyeongbokgung Palace -- the Palace of Shining Virtue -- to see if I could have any better luck there. But it was closed and walled up too. I saw a whole lot of people going down the street next to the palace, so I decided to follow them and see what was back there. It turned out to be a whole market area, with lots of street vendors and stores and restaurants. I got several different kinds of meat on sticks, which were very tasty! When I headed back to the palace, I saw that one of the side entrance areas was open, with only a guard at the drive-up gate. He let me go in to the grounds to try to take some pictures, which was very nice of him. I couldn’t get too far, but I was at least able to get some pictures of the outside of the throne hall building. The front entrance gates were also very photogenic. I walked around the area a bit, looking for some of the other sites from the maps, and eventually decided to give up and head over to the N Seoul Tower before it too was closed! But when I went down into the Gyeongbokgung Palace subway station, I came across the free Seoul Metro Art Center, an underground gallery of modern art. I stopped in for a bit and actually really liked a lot of the art there. There were also a lot of old statues and other art all over the station. What a nice way for the city to give tourists heading to the palaces as well as locals a nice taste of both historic and modern art. Next up was one of those weird situations that happen when travelling that wasn’t expected, but turned out to be one of the coolest moments of the trip. On the train, I started talking with this really hot and very friendly guy from South Africa. He happened to be getting off at one of the two closest stops to the tower. I’d actually planned to get off at the next stop after it, because the massive Namdaemon street market was nearby. But the stop he was getting off at also had the popular and trendy Myeong-dong shopping area right there. So, it was a nice stop too, though I’ll admit that I got off there to spend a bit more time with the hunky guy! So, we were outside the station, chatting and he was inviting me to go out drinking with him. I admit I was torn, but I really wanted to get to the N Seoul Tower, which was closing soon. Suddenly hundreds of college age kids came down the street, all dancing with headphones on. They had signs that said “We are Silent Disco. We dance with YOU!!!” Apparently, everyone had rented the headphones, which were playing dance music sent to them all wirelessly. The next thing we knew, two hot college girls put their headphones on our heads, and we were dancing in the middle of the street! And there you had my Facebook profile picture for the next week! After the Silent Disco passed, I reluctantly decided to ditch the hunky South African, because I really did want to see the N Seoul Tower and make it to at least ONE of the sites I’d planned to visit that day! I walked around the crowded shopping area for a little bit on the way to the tower, and ran into the Silent Disco again at the end of their journey, where they had a big stage set up with DJ’s that weren’t quite so silent. After dancing a bit, I moved on. N Seoul Tower is built on Namsan Park on a mountain in the middle of the city. To get up there, you can take a long, winding road by car or bus. But the best way is to take the cable car up there. It was a good thing I got there when I did, because there was quite a long line for the cable car. Eventually, I got on the cable car and headed up the mountain. When I got there, I went right for the tower, because it would be closing soon. While waiting for the elevator, I saw the Teddy Bear museum, which would have been nice to visit, but time was running short. They also had a display of many of the world’s tallest towers and buildings, which I thought was odd, since the N Seoul Tower was one of the smallest ones they profiled! Admittedly, those others weren't built on a mountain, like this one was, but you would they would have highlighted that fact. The elevator was at one time the fastest in the world and made my ears pop. It was a pretty typical big tourist tower, with gorgeous views of the city, nicely lit up on a Saturday night. For those keeping track, this was my third tower of the trip and my second cable car. There would be more! When I got back down from the tower, I took some pictures of the park and the city from the elevated park, and then took the cable car back down to the city. I walked to the Namdaemon Market, which was supposed to be open all night. But only about 5-10% of it was actually open. Still, that left a whole bunch of eating opportunities. I decided to get a stir fry pork dish with some onions and kimchee in it, but took it home to eat while I packed. Strangely enough, the pork turned out to be basically bacon. I also bought some strange looking sausage from another vendor, but honestly, when I threw it in the microwave in the hotel it smelled vile, and I ended up only having a tiny taste of it before throwing it out. I took a cab back to my hotel and ate the tasty stir-fry. I had planned to try to get over to the Hongdae college area, where the cities best bars and nightclubs were supposed to be. But at this time it was after midnight, and I had to pack and leave early in the morning. So, I packed and had everything ready to go, then had to decide whether to try to sleep for a bit or to just stay up and hit the clubs on Homo Hill. Screw sleep. I’d done that all morning! It was Saturday night and time to boogie! So, I headed over to Homo Hill, and ended up spending time in almost every bar and club and chatting with lots of people from all over the world. But I started at Queen, which I’d left the previous night, with plans to come back that got a little delayed. It was definitely my favorite club of the night, smaller and packed, with everyone singing along to lots of pop songs, both in English and in Korean. Shakira and Kylie sure are more popular in Asia (and most of the rest of the world) than they are in the US! I had quite a few drinks, but not so many as to make me pass out and miss my flight! (A lesson I learned with nearly disastrous consequences in Ibiza, Spain a few years prior.) I ended up staying out until just before I had to leave for the airport. I showered, and headed out on no sleep to catch a cab to Seoul Station for the train to the airport. And that’s all she wrote for South Korea. It really was an amazing week. I’d gone there with the intention of probably never going back. It was more of a checkoff kind of thing, mainly to finally get to Everland and Lotte World. And I ended up having a great time. There was so much to see and do, and the people were so nice. There’s no question in my mind that I’ll eventually end up back in Seoul at least, if only for Everland and Lotte World – and Itaewon! Next up, two weeks into the trip, David finally gets to Beijing for the TPR Best of China Tour! From my hotel, you could see the N Seoul Tower (with a little help from the zoom!) I'll get there eventually. The Popeye's Chicken places in Seoul actually have Popeye in their logos. Seoul is such a mix of old and modern styles. Right across the street were big hotels. From the hilly park, this was the best view of the palaces I was going to get, since they were now closed. I believe this was part of the Changdeokgung Palace You could also see the rear gate of Changgyeonggung Palace from here. A closer view of the rear gate, which is very closed! From here, I could at least see the tops of parts of the palace complex! The main gate of the palace. Here's what I missed! I started up at the rear gate, right under the word "Map" and walked all the around to the main gate at the bottom of the map. And then back. A neat building. The street market area I happened to run into by following all of the people heading there. Some historic shrine or something that they built a roundabout around! I really liked the architecture of this neat trio of buildings. The throne hall building at Gyeongbokgung Palace. Much of this lighting actually came from a nearby VERY bright LED billboard! The main gate of the Gyeongbokgung Palace. The pair of lions guarding it aren't in most of the pictures I've seen of the palace gate online. I'm not sure if they're new, or were moved here, or if they were being restored and are now back. Down in the Gyeongbokgung Palace Station, there's a really nice free modern are museum. Some neat modern art at the museum. A Silla-era statue in the train station. There's ancient art all over the station. The Korean government actually numbers all of their "National Treasures," and proudly displays their numbers on all of them. This is #91. They're everywhere! They even have sodas in Korea. Many of the subway stations are integrated into underground shopping malls. We are Silent Disco. We dance with YOU!!! They danced with me and the hunky South African. Facebook profile picture! Afterwards, I ran into the Silent Disco again, after most of them turned into their headphones, and they had a regular stage with DJ's for the crowd to dance to. The Myeong-dong shopping are, packed on a Saturday night. There were lots of weird characters selling all sorts of things. I have no idea what he was selling! Some kids climbing on a statue of kids playing on a seesaw. Who recognizes the logo on the shop on the right? T-World is the sponsor of the T-Express roller coaster! In line to take the cable car up to Namsan Park and the N Seoul Tower. The cable car. Even if you don't go up the tower, the view from Namsan Park is really nice, especially with the city's lights at night. A pagoda in Namsan Park The N Seoul Tower from underneath in the park. "Haechi, Seoul's symbol, is an imaginary creature that helps realize justice and enhance safety and happiness." And sells merchandise! At the base of the tower is a mall with stores and restaurants... and the Teddy Bear Museum! Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to stop in. Seoul, all lit up on a Saturday night. The dark area in the picture is the park below, which is on a mountain far above the city. Obligatory shot ruined by bad reflections. Using the zoom. While waiting in line for the elevator down, I saw this cowboy. Seriously, dude, you wore your cowboy hat to Korea?!? The view from the park again. So, I get to Namdaemon Market, which I was told never closes. This doesn't look good! Luckily, a few stores were open, and a bunch of eateries. These dishes of food were actually all plastic, giving me flashbacks to Japan! The plastic version of the dish I ordered actually looked nothing like the much nicer looking photograph of it! The sign for my motel, which was down the alley and up some stairs from here. Despite staying there for five nights, I only just noticed that this was a transgender club next door while going through the photos for this update, believe it or not! Culture in the hotel lobby. Kind of nice for a love motel, eh? My pork stir fry. Yes, that's bacon. Bacon counts as pork!

I really have to get myself to the West Edmonton Mall for MIndbender! If TPR does get around to a Pacific Northwest trip, I'd hope that it could be either an official part of the trip, or at least an add-on.

And personal opinions, too. Some people can ride a top ranked coaster on its best day ever, and still won't love it. Hopefully, the poll can get a good average of everyone's feelings and experiences. That's admittedly harder with some of the lesser ridden coasters. But everyone's opinions are valid. As long as they agree with mine!

No problem. Like I said, I got a lot of help on this trip. So, it's only fair to give it back! As for the rest of the trip report, coming right up....

^ Of course, in order for it to work, you'll most likely have to buy your tickets directly from Disney in advance. Theoretically, they should be able to allow you to book your fastpasses and the like in advance, and then link your profile with future tickets that you buy, but I don't think that will happen, at least not for quite a while. So, no more cheaper tickets from other companies! Not if you want to use all of the advance features, at least. And right now, tickets bought from other retailers (even official ones) still do not have the chips embedded in them.

You're going to have to pay for those bonus coasters, Laura! I agree with Robb and Chuck that we can only vote on what we've actually experienced. All coasters have variances that will factor into each of our rankings. Did you ride only early in the day when it hadn't broken in? Was the train nearly empty, slowing it down -- or giving it more of a rattle or shuffle, like in the case of some B&M's? Did you get an awesome nighttime ERT session? Were the staff particularly slow and annoying? Had the ride just gotten some much needed maintenance? Was some of the theming not working? Had the coaster just been greased that morning? Were the trim brakes on extra hard? Was it running badly due to weather? Had you not slept enough or weren't feeling well, which made you more sensitive to roughness that usual? Was the crowd particularly annoying? Or was it all TPR people having a great time? Or were you just in a great mood? All of these factors can alter how we enjoy coasters. But should we start handicapping our rankings to account for them? We can only rank the coasters based on how we actually experienced them, not how we should have theoretically experienced them. Look at my own rankings for the mega-lites. There are 21 notches between them. When you're down in the 100's or higher, that's not much. But in my top 40, that's quite a difference. But that was how I experienced them. In the case of !305, I do feel somewhat bad, since they've changed the ride. But that IS what I experienced. And if I shouldn't be able to vote on it, then neither should all of the people who only rode it when it first opened, before they added the brakes, since it may have run better back then. And people who rode a ride before it got maintenance shouldn't be able to rank it either. That becomes a slippery slope, since most of us wouldn't be able to vote on coasters any time they change anything. And if I305 is as good as everyone says, then all of the ballots that place it higher should effectively nullify my vote, especially since so many people have now ridden it. I also feel somewhat bad about Atlantis Adventure, since many fewer people will have ridden it, which will give my lower ranking of it more weight. But honestly, if they shut the water off for part of the year, and that slows down the ride, then shouldn't that be reflected in the ranking, at least somewhat? And remember that I have no idea if having the water off DOES slow it down; I was just speculating based on the fact that I ranked it lower than others have in the past. But let's say that it does impact on the ride, and they decide at some point to shut the water off all the time. Does that mean that all the people who only rode it during the TPR trips shouldn't vote on it any more? I don't think so. As Robb says, the best way to make the poll MORE accurate is to vote yourself. If everyone does, then this will all come out in the wash.

I'll answer these questions here, since they're of general concern and could help others who might want to plan a similar trip. As we get more specific, though, we should probably take this to e-mail, since most people won't care about the specific details. I found that flights between Hakata and Seoul were only cheaper if you bought a round trip ticket, which I didn't need, and you might not need if you take an open-jaw trip. (In fact, I was just looking, and the price of a one-way was basically the same as the round trip, right now, at least!) When figuring the time and expense differences between the plane and the boat, remember a few other factors. Seoul's airports are 30 and 60 minutes from downtown, so add that time and expense into the calculations. Plus, you'll have to get to the airport an hour or two early for an international flight. But most importantly, remember that you'll be taking the train 2/3 of the way back down the country to get to Gyeongju, which is significantly closer (and cheaper) from Busan. There are supposedly lockers at SinGyeongju station, where you can leave your bags on the way, although I didn't need them, since I stayed in a hotel there. However, one advantage of going to Seoul's airports is that they are the only place you can get a sim card or portable wifi device If you want one for your phone because roaming charges are too expensive. But I managed just fine in Korea without access to my phone. Yes, the park rep at Kijima surprised me at the park entrance while I was waiting for it to open. I was probably easy to find, as the only white person at the park! Still, it was a very nice welcoming gesture! Most of the parks I contacted didn't reply, probably because no one there could read English. Most people in Seoul seemed to speak at least a little English. I didn't take many taxis because their subway system is so good, but I didn't have any real problems when I did. But the taxis were cheap, and a godsend in Gyeongju, where I was trying to do too many things in one day. In Gyeongju, the driver was more than happy to take me anywhere I wanted and wait for me, because I imagine that what was a cheap fare for me was possibly food for his family for a week! He didn't speak much English, but enough to get me where I needed to go. For park schedules, I can only go by what they posted on their websites, but I think they were all open all month. In Japan particularly, they don't really have much in the way of seasonal help, so they have to have the employees there anyways. I hit Mitsui Greenland on a very busy day for the park, certainly busier than on any day that TPR has been there. But that was because it was the last Saturday of the Summer, and they were having a fireworks show that night. Even then, nothing had a wait of more than 40 minutes to an hour, and mostly only the three coasters in question, plus the alpine slide. I deliberately chose that park for the busy Saturday because they were open VERY late, until 11 PM, so the extra hours there made up for any time lost in line.

Did you get attacked by staff or fanboys when you crossed that gate? I can just picture a dragon coming to life and burning you to a crisp if you cross the barrier! (Luckily, for you, the stone dragons in that area are gone!)

It probably doesn't really matter in which order you do the trip. The deciding factors will be on what your schedule will look like and when you can get the best/cheapest flights. For Korea, I went to pretty much all of the most notable parks and credits. Like I said, Seoul Land is very easy to get to, and easily done in an hour or two before Lotte World. It's not essential at all, but it does have 5 ok credits, including a rather unique mouse. I wouldn't expand the trip for it, but it's worth a quick stop. Children's Grand Park is also close, but won't reopen until 2013. Lotte World does have a fastpass type system, but I didn't see it being sold or really being used. There were signs for return times, and there was info about it in the brochures, though, so sometimes it's presumably used. And yes, a day for each park is probably fine, as long as that day isn't a weekend, particularly a Saturday! I did most of the rides at Lotte World, and Atlantis Express 4-5 times, and I didn't get there until later in the day. I only went back to Everland for a second day because I'd gotten a late start on my first day and because I wanted to get back for the Halloween mazes and shooting dark ride. All of the parks I visited on the trip before China were very slow, in their off-season, except for Fuji-Q. Many of the parks were nearly deserted. Not Lotte World or Everland, but they were nowhere near as busy as they can get, As for Gyeongju World, are you planning to fly between Hakata and Seoul, or take the ferry and train? If you're taking the ferry and train, Gyeongju is pretty much on the way. The city has a high-speed rail station called SinGyeongju (Gyeongju station is the one downtown in the city, but you definitely do NOT want to take the train there from Seoul, because it will take many hours longer!) right on the route from Busan to Seoul, although you'll have to take a bus to get to the main city, and then another bus to the park. Otherwise, if you're flying to Seoul, you'll take the same high-speed rail from there to Gyeongju. And yes, if you're not doing the touristy stuff, you can make a day trip of it. Honestly, even if you ARE doing some of the touristy stuff, you can still make a day trip of it. Just get everything done at G. World before 1, hit whichever coasters opens at 1 right away, then get out of there and catch a taxi to Bulguksa Temple and/or Seokguram Grotto You can also take busses to both sites, but they're much slower, and taxis are cheap in Korea. Mine even waited for me at the Grotto and took me to the temple for not much more. (They'd rather have a guaranteed fare!) I've heard you can rent a taxi for the entire day for around the equivalent of $100 US. As for the park itself, unless you go on a weekend, the park will most likely NOT be busy in September. There weren't even 100 people in the park when I went. I was warned that the indoor Space Tour didn't open until 1PM by an enthusiast who'd been there on his own, and was prepared for that. But with that coaster down for maintenance, they ended up not opening Space 2000 until 1PM instead. While it's not a great coaster or anything, it would be a shame to miss it while you're already in the park. And remember, they don't like to run Phaethon for only a few people. They certainly weren't as bad about it as other parks I've seen where they'd hold a train for 20 minutes for one last person! But it can be frustrating sitting in the station for 10-15 minutes for no good reason. If it weren't for this policy, I'd say that most do the park could probably be done in 2 hours, with multiple rides on Phaethon. Also, don't expect the Tagada to be open if the park isn't busy, unfortunately. Yes, Kijima Kogen is a pretty good haul from Hakata. Have no fear that there IS a bus, but I couldn't find any information about it in English on the web on my own. All of the bus schedules in the area were in graphic form, which made them nearly impossible to translate and search for the right bus. I e-mailed the park at park@kijimakogen.jp, and the PR rep was very helpful and provided me with the complete bus schedule. He also wanted me to make sure to let everyone at TPR know that we were very welcome at the park, so I'm sure he'd give you the same level of help he gave me. That said, don't make all of your plans based on the park hours that are out there now. I copied down that information early in the year last year, assuming that it wouldn't change, and never checked back until nearly the last minute. It turned out that two of the three major parks in the Fukuoka area had actually changed their hours for that weekend at some point during the year! (Luckily, in both cases, it was for the better.) So, I'd wait until at least the summer before making more specific plans about the parks and getting the bus and train schedules. By the way, for Mitsui Greenland, I'd recommend that you do pretty much the exact opposite of what I did for rides, if you get there at opening time. Head straight for Gao, which as the biggest ride in the park, will get the longest lines. Then go to the SLC and the Ultratwister. If you can knock those off early, you'll hit the rides with the longest waits in the park (except maybe the alpine slide, but that's way in the back of the park) before the crowds get there. I didn't do this plan because I got there a bit late, and all three rides already had 1+ hour queues. So I saved them for last, when I'd done everything else and the park was slower.

Don't forget: Ballots are due tomorrow! (Rent, too!)

^ Depending on your schedule, it sounds like the best plan for you would be to do pretty much exactly what I did -- or the reverse. The best plan for you would probably depend most on how much time you have and what your interests are. Such as how many parks you want to visit and what other things you want to do. I was mainly just looking to do the most notable parks with the most notable coasters. If you want to credit whore, there are a lot more parks you can hit, particularly several between Seoul and Gyeongju. I'd allow a day each for Everland and Lotte World, although you could easily add a quick stop at Seoul Land as long as Lotte World isn't on a weekend. If you're at all a fan of Halloween events and haunted houses, then I'd recommend trying to hit Everland on the Friday, since they do it on weekends in September, but you probably don't want to be there on a busy Saturday, where the lines will be long and the line-jumping even worse! Honestly, I REALLY enjoyed Korea, far more than I expected to. As I mentioned several times, the people there were super nice and helpful, even when I didn't need them to be! Are you just looking to do Seoul, or are you going to take the train and ferry to Fukuoka? If so, Gyeongju World is sort of on the way down to Busan for the ferry, and has the excellently themed Phaethon B&M inverted coaster. It's only a half day park, but remember that the coasters sometimes don't open until the afternoon, and also that you might have to wait for enough people to ride before they'll send a train out, since it's slow in September. And if you are at all into culture and history, be sure to allow an extra day for Gyeongju. Otherwise, one day (or less) should more than suffice. There are also a couple of mid-sized parks between Seoul and Gyeongju that TPR visited on their trip there, but they didn't have enough for me to justify taking the time to go there. Note that the ferry between Busan and Hakata isn't cheap (around the equivalent of $150 US), and it's a very good idea to book your ticket in advance, since it can sell out, but it's really cool. The JR Kyushu Jet Ferry (aka the Beetle) is significantly faster than any of the others, unless you want to take the overnight ferry to save on a hotel, though you won't get much sleep. As for Fukuoka, it's really easy to do just as I did (and TPR does when in the area.) Just use Hakata as your home base and take the train out to each of the three areas on different days. It would be very difficult to pair up any of the three main parks, due to the distance between them, but you can easily add Kashikaen Yuenchi and/or Wonder Rakutenchi as I did. 3 days is all that's really needed, although you might want to allow an extra day for weather leeway. And if you want to credit whore, there are certainly lots of other parks in Fukuoka and the area.

For visitors to the area, you can save a lot of money by buying a Merlin annual pass. It's good for Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Legoland Windsor, and Chessington Park, plus tourist sites, The Dungeons (all of them), Madame Tussauds, The London Sea Life Aquarium, and the London Eye. It also includes line cutting privileges at the Dungeon and Tussauds (or at least it did,) which makes a huge difference, with the long lines that both can get! I managed to get a coupon for a big discount on the annual pass from someone on E-Bay. I probably wouldn't have done the Dungeon or Tussauds, if it weren't for the pass, but I really enjoyed both more than I expected to. The Dungeon wasn't actually at all what I was expecting, but it was nice that it was quite different from typical haunted house attractions. It's a shame that they got rid of the Vengeance 5D attraction, though, since it was pretty cool, if brief. But it definitely backed up the queue through the entire attraction, so I could see why they got rid of it when they moved.