David H

Ocean Park was really an awesome park, easily one of my very favorites of the whole trip! They had some great rides and really well done animal exhibits in an incredibly spectacular setting. Seriously, I don't think any other park can match its setting (although Tibidabo and Parque de Atracciones Monte Igueldo come close.) I even went back two nights later for their Halloween event (which was why one section was called Psycho Valley), and it was amazing. Totally world class and nearly on the level of Knotts and Universal, I thought! What I particularly liked about it was the unique theming they used in the mazes, including a lot of uniquely Chinese and Hong Kong themes. More on that when I get to that point in my own Asia trip report.

Mitch has added 5 coasters to the poll since it was first posted. Four of them were added today. If you've already voted, you might want to e-mail Mitch with the updated lines for any of these coasters you've ridden. Apparently, Goliath (the moved and renamed Deja Vu from SFMM) got forgotten. For those of us who went on the TPR China trip, three of the popular coasters there were left out, but have since been added. Well, Dragon in Clouds wasn't exactly popular, but all three of the other Vekoma SLC's with cobra rolls were listed, so that one should be, too, unless they decide to group them in the future. If you're using the drag and drop ballot generator by Jordan Hatch, all of the newly added coasters are at the BOTTOM of the ballot. If you're using the text version, they two US coasters are where they belong in the list and the three Chinese ones are at the end of the China listings. Texas Giant - Six Flags Over Tex, TX Goliath - SF New England, MA Mountain Peak - Jin Jiang, CN Stingray - Giant Wheel Park, CN Dragon in Clouds - Happy Valley Chen, CN And a side note to those of us on the China tour: PLEASE VOTE. The Chinese coasters only got 11 votes on the wood poll, at least one of which was from an actual designer of wood coasters there. If the steel poll gets fewer ballots from us, then the China coasters won't rank, because they need a minimum of 10 votes to count. Several of the coasters (the mega-lites, flyers and 4D) on the trip will likely rank highly. It would be a shame if their rankings don't count due to not enough of us voting!

^ If I had to guess, I'd say it's because the Intamin coasters are probably more expensive, and most parks that could afford one probably already have at least one wooden coaster already and may not be in the market for another. I honestly still think it was an odd choice for Six Flags Great Adventure, especially so soon after Kingda Ka. But I'm certainly glad that they did build it! And I'm hoping that the gamble paid off for them. Remember, Everland gets TWICE the attendance of Cedar Point, Kings Island or ANY Six Flags park -- or any US park outside of Florida or California, for that matter. They can definitely afford one, and didn't already have a wooden coaster. In fact, it was probably even more of a draw because it became the ONLY wooden coaster in the entire country! And with Eagle's Fortress closing, they definitely needed another adult coaster. I wish that more American parks would put in more wooden coasters, in general. And certainly some Intamin woodies. But I can see how the investors and owners and managers may not feel that it's a good investment right now in the US markets. It will be interesting to see if the hybrids and particularly the looping woodies will change that dynamic significantly or not. Look at how the wing coasters are taking off. Maybe we'll see the same thing happen with looping woodies?

^ Yeah, Lotte World and Everland really are world class parks with world class coasters. Honestly, each of them needs one or two more great coasters to be real "don't miss" places to visit. But what they have is already better than most other parks have. But both have a lot more to offer than coasters. The dark rides at both parks are pretty neat. And if you can mange to get to Everland for their Halloween event (which starts at the beginning of September), their mazes are really good, as I'll talk about more in the next Everland update (right after the DMZ one.) From everything I've heard, Eagle's Fortress would be a real great candidate for a preservation effort, since it's actually a great coaster. Unfortunately, I think it's too late and the problems are considered too bad too fix. But they really need one solid steel coaster to cement the park's place among the world's best. But T-Express is already enough to make the park worth travelling around the world for!

No way. It was Mrs. Peacock in the library with a rope.

I'm not sure that the entire intent from Cedar Fair was to close the place down. But I'm sure it was at the very least a serious possibility. But it was really a win/win scencario for them. Especially since they bought the park cheap. If the place did well, then they trun a profit. If it didn't, then they could close it down, cutting out the main competition for Cedar Point (and Kings Island, too.) Plus, they got a bunch of "new" coasters and rides for some of their other parks. X-Flight was a very popular addition at Kings Island!

On some varying points. First off, Robb, you said that we shouldn't rank coasters based on special events. But with that logic, then all of us should rank the Chinese Dauling Dragons lower, since one of the highlights of the ride is the High Five element, which supposedly the general public have never experienced, since the park never races the coasters, other than when we were there. I did get one ride later in the day without the other side running. Should I rank the coaster based on that ride only, since that is the more typical guest experience? In fact, that's more of a special occurrance than just a park coaster event. After all, to get racing rides on Dauling Dragons, we had to pay several thousand dollars and spend at least a week and a half on tour with TPR. To go to Holiwood Nights, all I have to do is send some money to TPR, ACE, ECC or another club and send some more money to Holiday World. It's not like you have to pass some test of have a high coaster count. Anyone willing to do a little online research and spend a little money can go. Dauling Dragons are great coasters, even without the racing and the high five. But they'd definitely lose a couple of notches on my list without them. And I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that feeling. I absolutely rank coasters based on my best experiences on them. I'm also smart enough to go to coaster events whenever I can, especially for top woodies, because I know that they'll run the best they can. I've literally never been to Knoebels or Visionland/Alabama Adventure or Holiday World or Silverwood or a bunch of other parks on any day that wasn't a coaster event with nighttime ERT. Hell, I've only been to Lake Compounce once when it wasn't a coaster event, and it's 1.5 hours from my house! Does that make my judgement biased? Not at all. I'm ranking the coasters based on their best performance that I've experienced. I just make sure that my experiences are the best they can be. Should I be ranking them based on the TYPICAL experience? Why? I don't CARE about the typical experience. I care about the best experience I can get for my money and time. That's exactly why I DON'T go to these parks at other times. If I'm going to spend the time and money to go to Indiana or Idaho or Pennsylvania or wherever, I want to get the best experience I can for my money. That's why I will always try to ride great woodies as late as I possibly can and in the seats that give the best rides. That's also why I don't generally ride in the middle of the trains, at least not on any notable coaster. If it's just a crappy credit, then I don't care. Or if Robb needs us for filming, like he did in China, then of course, I'll help fill up the train. But generally, I'd rather wait a train or even 5 to get a better ride in a better seat. That's where MY priority is. So, that's how I rank my coasters. Take Pheonix, for instance. Admittedly, I rank it quite a bit lower than many enthusiasts, at #28, because it's not quite as insane as I need a coaster to be to be at the very top of my list. But it's still an awesome coaster. Yes, it gives great rides all over the train, but if I were to rank it based on the few rides I've had (many years ago!) in the middle of the train, it would probably drop 10-15 notches. And if I ranked it based on the daytime rides I've had during the PPP, it would probably also drop 10-15 notches. But, since I base it on the very best rides I've had -- in seat #3 during nighttime ERT, with trains full of cheering, excited enthusiasts -- it stays as high as it is. And I think that's fair. I assume that many of those who rode it during the TPR trip with nighttime ERT with the glowsticks got an awesome experience that is reflected in their ranking. And that's fair too. As to Voyage specifically, people are forgetting one of the main reasons that it runs so much better during Holiwood Nights. It's not just that the park spends considerable effort fixing and tweaking it for the event (though they do). It's because the park spends the entire off-season retracking and fixing the coaster and its trains. Holiwood Nights is only three full weeks into the park's season, and during those weeks, the park runs with limited hours. So, the coaster hasn't yet had the chance to rip itself apart yet! If roughness is your issue with Voyage, then THIS is the time to go! In terms or roughness, Voyage IS giving the typical experience for anyone who goes early in the season. But, admittedly, the biggest reason to go is that Voyage really picks up speed and craziness as the night goes on! To the point that it gives a ride that I believe no other coaster on the planet even gets close to giving. The two TPR tours that have visited Holiday World visited the park in August. That time is just about the last time in the year that the coaster is open all week. It's already been running every day for over three months, with the coaster slowly tearing itself apart all season. That's probably the WORST time to go. Especially with the park closing earlier, which means Voyage is underperforming from what it can do later in the night. If you think that a coaster's ranking should show the typical guest experience, then a ranking based on its performance during the TPR tours is not at all the typical experience, any more than one based on a visit during HWN is. Just to be clear here, though. Everyone's opinions are equally valid. It's YOUR list., You can rank coasters however you want. We all have different things we value in coasters. And all our opinions are equally valid. Well, unless you disagree with me!

Besides differing tastes in coasters, I another big factor in how much people like or dislike Voyage is in when you ride it. Most of the biggest "Voyage fanboys", myself included, tend to go during Holiwood Nights or similar events. Not only does going to the event tend to make us more of fanboys, but those of us who already were fanboys (or even those of us who were already fanboys of Raven and/or Legend, before we first rode Voyage) know that's the best time to go to the park. Going then has two very big advantages. For one thing, it's early in the season, so the trains haven't had the chance to beat up the track as much yet. And late nighttime ERT just kicks Voyage up into a totally different level. So, you're getting crazier, wilder rides with less of the bad roughness. If you've gone during any other time, you're not getting either of these big advantages. And if I'm not mistaken, the TPR trips that have gone to HW have been later in the season and have not had any nighttime ERT, right? Now, it's fair for some to say that a coaster that doesn't perform well all the time doesn't deserve a top spot, but I'll disagree with this. I only judge a coaster based on the rides I actually got on it. And since I never go during the reagular season when there isn't an event and rarely ride the coasters there early in the day, it doesn't matter to me at all how they perform then! But others, of course, are free to judge their coasters any way they like.

It's not over-hype. Some of us absolutely love it. It's precisely its balls to the wall out of control feeling that I love about it. Honestly, no woodie I've ridden comes even close to it, in my mind. And yes, I've been on ALL of the top 10. We just have differnet tastes in woodies.

^ Well, it was certainly intentional! ^^ Yeah, Everland really is a huge park. But the one thing it's lacking is more decent steel coasters. Just having Eagle's Fortress open again would dramatically change that. But supposedly that won't happen. If not, they really do need one or two solid steel coasters to round out the park. I'm still amazed that the park manages to bring in 6.5 million people with only two adult coasters, one of which sucks! That said, if everything else in the park closed, and all that was left was T-Epress sitting there by itself, it would be totally worth going around the world to ride it! And there are LOTS of other things to do and see there. I didn't even see and show half of the park on this day. And even with the next night, too, I still missed at least a quarter of the park. The zoo area is pretty big and houses several rides, too. But I didn't get the chance to get over there on either day. I'll show more of the European gardens section of the park in the day 2 update, after the DMZ tour update.

Day 11, part 2: Seoul, South Korea. Everland, day 1! Now it was time for Everland, one of the highlights of the entire trip. Like Lotte World, which I visited, Everland is a world class amusement park. Over 6.5 million people visited it in 2010, which puts it at #13 in the world, behind only some Disney and Universal Parks, its neighbor Lotte World, and Ocean Park in Hong Kong. To give you some kind of scope, more than twice as many people visit Everland as Cedar Point, Kings Island or ANY Six Flags park. What’s amazing is that it does these kinds of numbers with only TWO adult coasters operating! But it’s still a pretty huge park. There’s a whole zoo section that I would have liked to have checked out, but simply didn’t have the time for. (I knew I should have gotten out of the hotel earlier!) And the park is spread out enough with a lot of hills, that they have BOTH a cable car and a chair lift inside the park to get you from section to section. While the coaster selection is pretty meager, they’ve got a lot of flat rides, dark rides and shows to keep people busy. And tons of theming, too. In fact, I didn’t actually even see half of the park on this day. Note that if you’re a foreigner visiting Everland, they will give you a discount of about the equivalent of $8 US dollars if you print a coupon from their website or show your passport. To get to Everland, you can take the subway to either the Jamsil Station (home of Lotte World) or Gagnam Station (in the area of the city made famous in Psy’s Gagnam Style video!) Then take the bus from those stations to Lotte World. There’s also a third bus between a subway stop and Everland, but do NOT take it, because it takes a long winding route and stops a ton of time! I learned this the hard way on the way back on Friday night! It literally took 30-45 minutes longer than the other busses! The park is out in the mountains, and the bus actually drives quite a bit past the sign for the park before you actually get to the park itself. The park has its own bus area. From there, you walk over to the main parking lot and take a shuttle bus to the park itself. At the bus waiting area, I had my first surprise of the night, when I saw signs for the park’s Halloween event, which would be starting THE NEXT NIGHT! Damn, that was bad timing! I’d normally look for this sort of thing, since I LOVE park Halloween events, especially haunted mazes, but I wasn’t expecting the park’s Halloween event to start the FIRST weekend in September! I hadn’t even gotten onto the shuttle bus to the park, and I was already thinking that maybe I’d have to come back one of the next nights, if I could squeeze it in! As soon as I got to the entrance, I could see tons of Halloween theming, which was kind of weird when you consider that it was only Sept 6th! The main street area is already well themed and impressive, but there was a ton of Halloween theming on top of that. I headed straight to the kiddy section of the park to get the kiddy coaster out of the way first. Herky and Timmy’s Racing Coaster is themed to the race of the tortoise and the hare, which is odd since it’s only one coaster, not a racing pair, as you might expect. It’s a just a Vekoma custom junior coaster, which is actually better than most kiddy coasters, but still nothing particularly special. Luckily, there wasn’t much of a line, so I rode, took a bunch of pictures as I quickly walked around the kiddy section of the park, then headed back up to the main park for the next credit. Rolling X-Train is a fairly standard Arrow double loop, double corkscrew coaster, but for some reason, they’re replaced the original trains with new sideless ones from Vekoma. Needless to say, adding Vekoma trains didn’t make it any more smooth or rideable! In fact, the most interesting thing about riding it was that from the lift hill you could see a bit of the Eagle’s Fortress Arrow suspended coaster sticking out of the woods! Yes, it’s still there, but it’s not on the map, and you can’t see it from anywhere I was in the park, other than from the lift of this coaster. The park doesn’t even acknowledge that it’s there. Which is a shame, because everyone I know who’s ridden it has said it was amazing and easily the best suspended coaster ever! The second most interesting thing about Rolling X-Train is that the queue goes up stairs to the elevated station, and those stairs are a good place to get some pictures of T-Express, which is the main reason to come to the park! On the way over towards T-Express, I passed the Zamperla Dragon powered “coaster”, but didn’t really have the time to ride it, and didn’t need to since I don’t count it as a coaster, and would be riding MANY of them on this trip! I did take the time to go through the Spooky Fun House walkthough, which was a lighthearted interactive walkthrough with fin features like ghosts mooning you! Unfortunately, the Mystery Mansion shooting dark ride was closed all day. I took a few pictures of some of the rides and the Madagascar Live show arena (with statues of the characters outside) and grabbed a piece of some sort of chicken in tasty sauce on a stick and headed over to the park's main attraction: T-Express. With very few exceptions (Disney and Universal parks come to mind), theming and ride selection alone don’t make for a world-class park. A world-class park has to have world-class coasters! Or at least one. While Everland has lost its first world class coaster in the now closed Eagle’s Fortress, it’s gained a world-class wooden coaster in Intamin’s T-Express. T-Express is a wild coaster with a steep first drop, several spots of ejector airtime, some great laterals and a bunch of directional changes. Since it opened, it has never ranked below #3 on Mitch’s Internet woodie poll, and has hit #1 twice (once in a tie), and it’s #2 again this year. (That's an exclusive spoiler, kids! You read it here first!) It even managed to hit the top 40 the last two years on the Amusement Today Golden Ticket Awards, the ONLY coaster in Asia to manage that feat on either the wood or steel poll. (Well, since Aska in Japan closed, at least.) That’s an impressive accomplishment, given how few of the people on AT’s poll have been to Asia! Personally, I ranked it at #5 (or #4, if you don’t count Aska, which is never likely to operate again and may even be torn down by now.) It’s not quite as balls to the wall intense as my very top coasters, but it’s almost there. And #5 (or #4) in the world out of 156 woodies I’ve ridden is pretty damn impressive! Also, I rode it in September, so it may be even faster and more intense in the warmer summer months. So, I headed over to T-Express, hoping for a bunch of rides on a world-class woodie, only to run into my second unplanned surprise for the day: T-Express closes its queue at 8 PM, two hours before the park closes! DAMN! I wish I’d know this, or I’d have gotten there much earlier and saved the crappy coasters on the way for later! They had a sign at the ride’s entrance, but not anywhere else that I know of in the park. Apparently, they close it early for safety because of the fireworks from the park’s night show at 9PM, which is understandable with a wooden coaster. But it still sucked! This is why I usually head right to any park’s signature coasters, as soon as I get to the park, but with T-Express WAY in the back of the park, and all of the other coasters in the front, it seemed to make sense to do the park the way I did. But now all I could do is get right in the line and try to get a few rides in before it closed. And that was the hard part, thanks to all of the horrible line-jumping. Seriously, the line jumping for T-Express was some of the worst I’ve ever seen at parks. Not just because so many people were doing it, but because huge groups of people were doing it. One or two people would get in line. And over the next half hour another 10-20 people would push their way through the crowd to join them! Normally, I wouldn’t allow more than one or two people to ever cut me in line, but in another country where I don’t speak the language at all, I didn’t feel comfortable making a scene, even if I was in the right. But the queue was 30-45 minutes, and in that time enough people cut me to push me back at least a train or two. And T-Express was awesome, so I didn’t want to miss any rides, thanks to selfish line cutters! And with time running out before they closed the ride, on my second time in the queue, I simply put my hands out and didn’t let anyone pass – which resulted in a lot of people trying to argue with me in a language I didn’t understand! I was able to get the point across to the few who spoke a little English that it was they who were breaking the rules and trying to cheat me (and the rest of the people in the line), not this crazy foreigner somehow taking their rights. I even managed to get this nice couple who had also tried to cut me and who spoke English on my side, when they couldn’t argue with my point that if their friends weren’t willing to wait to ride with them, then why should I? They then explained my point to the others I was blocking! Before long, there were well over a dozen kids unhappily stuck behind me. Eventually, I let the nice couple actually go ahead, since they’d been nice about it. But my strategy worked, since I made it around for a third time in the queue just before they closed the line! In the park's defence, they actually do have signs up telling people to enter the queue with their entire group, but they can't really enforce it with the queue all within the structure and no one from the park in the whole queue area. On a plus note, there was some neat explorer type theming in the queue, and they even set up a standing open casket that people could take pictures in for Halloween. Like all good coasters, it left me wanting more. By this point, I’d pretty much decided that I would HAVE to come back one of the next two nights to do the two haunted mazes and to get some more rides on T-Express! Later, I’d figure out the logistics of this at guest relations. From T-Express, I caught a show at the Space Tour 4-D Theater. The show at Space Tour was exactly what you’d expect: a cutesy show featuring a bunch of animated Everland characters fighting some bad guy with crystals in a fantasy show that had absolutely nothing to do with space! OK. From there, I’d wanted to try to see the night show, but they had blocked the way, for safety. So I had to settle for seeing the fireworks above the stage from a distance, but not what was on the stage itself. Oh well. But I got on the chair lift back to the front of the park just before the SWARMS of people leaving the night show got there! From there I walked around and took a bunch of pictures and did some shopping. I also went to guest relations to try to find out some details about the Halloween event. I also found out that the park's shooting dark ride (which had been closed today) would be open the next day. Another good reason to come back! Apparently, they had two haunted mazes back by T-Express, which you’d have to buy upcharge tickets for. The guest relations ladies strongly suggested that I get my tickets in the morning, since with the next day being the first day of the Halloween event, the mazes were likely to sell out. The only problem with this idea was that I’d be spending most of the day on a tour of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, and would not be able to get to the park before 6-7 PM! The ladies very kindly offered to walk all the way back to the mazes to get me the tickets the next morning, if I gave them the money for them, which I was happy to do! (The tickets were only something like $5 each.) They asked what time I wanted my tickets for, but when I told them, I wasn’t sure when I could be at the park, they offered to call the mazes the next day to make sure they’d honor my tickets whenever I needed to use them! How’s THAT for customer service?!? Talk about going above and beyond the call of duty! On that happy note, and with plans to return to this huge park the next day, if only for a few hours, I headed back to the bus area and took the bus back to Itaewon. Tonight’s very Korean dinner was KFC! I walked around the neighborhood checking out the scene, popping into a few bars and clubs along the way and talking to random people. One American guy walked around with me for quite some time, and made a point to tell me several times that he was straight. But somehow I had the feeling that he was hoping I’d make a more overt proposition to him, a feeling that was somewhat confirmed after he’d left to supposedly go to bed (perhaps hoping I’d ask to join him), and I later saw him back on the strip between the two hills following a tranny hooker into the back of the tranny bar! He was actually a good looking guy, but I didn’t want to be that kind of gay guy who randomly propositions supposedly straight guys on the street. At least not when I’m sober! Amused, I decided it was time to call it a night! I had to get up early the next day to head to a nearby US military base. That’s not somewhere you might expect to find me, but I was taking a really neat tour of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, which will be in the next update. And after that, I return to Everland for more! The entrance to Everland. You can already see some Halloween theming! In early September! Yes, Halloween starts very early at Everland! The park's "Main Street"- type area called Global Fair. This pretty "Magic Tree" will look even cooler at night! Spooky! Oh, wait, that's the name of the ghost in the haunted walkthough "Spooky Fun House" I'd visit later. Pororo is apparrently some famous cartoon in Korea. But no time for that now, with credits calling! Let's eat at the Oriental Restaurant! In Asia. Herky and Timmy's Racing Coaster. Which doesn't actually race anthing at all. Some non-racing track. Some nice theming in the kiddy section. The whole park is full of hills! Now, that looks more interesting! Too bad it's actually a painful mess! Rolling X-Train. One of the best features of the ride is that you can get some good pictures of T-Express from the stairs in the queue! See? This is the coaster you WANT to be waiting for. Unforunately, you're actually waiting for a painful Arrow looping coasters with Vekoma trains! I'm not even sure where this cable car actually goes. It's not even on the park map! The hotel in the back of the park, maybe? Yay! I managed to catch a train! I'm coming, T-Express! Let me just get this painful thing out of the way first so I never need to ride it again! Do I REALLY want to ride this? I have a feeling this is gonna hurt! The things we do for credits! Just to give you some idea of how big the park is. The chairlift can come in handy for getting across the park. But I wanted to see and do some things along the way. I did take it back, though. Just be sure to beat the crowd from the night show when it ends! For the whores, the park has a powered Zamperla Dragon "coaster". Can you tell that Spooky Fun House takes its scares VERY seriously? See what I mean? Spooky's getting fresh! I'm coming. I'm coming! The Madagascar Live show theater is huge! You can also see this show at Gardaland in Italy this year. Yeah, I fit right in with this bunch, don't I? More Halloween theming. The two haunted mazes and the main Halloween area are actually near T-Express I caught that train a little early! T-Express' trains have some night LED lighting on them that look cool in the dark and make for some neat photo effects on crappy cameras like mine! But first, let's get a snack! Or maybe not! Instead I got some chicken on a stick from another counter. Not everything was open in the Horror Village yet, but the entrance to T-Express was inside. See? Time to get in line and have dozens of kids line jump in front of me! I love wooden coaster queues that are within the rides structure, with wood all around you! Theming. The train races by while you wait to ride. There's nothing like a big woodie to cheer you up after being line jumped! Some theming in the Horror Village. The fireworks from the park's nighttime show. Ooh! Ahh! The Magic Tree gets scary at night! That's it for Everland for tonight. But I'll be back tomorrow!

Well, apaprently I was wrong. If my sneaky sneak peek of the results is correct, then both of the Dauling Dragons ranked in the top 10, above Wood Coaster. Fireball, while just outside the top 10, beat out Wood Coaster as well.

Yeah, there were a bunch of those regular sit-down bathroom stalls with video screens over near the zoo area.

I wonder if the Madagascar LIVE show will be more or less the same one that's now at Everland.

Yeah, Ocean Park was awesome. I even went back a couple of nights later for their world-class Halloween event. A water park seems like just what the park needs in hot Hong Kong, to make it a multi-day destination. And the new subway line going straight to the park will make it even easier for tourists without cars to get there. Until now, they had to take a bus or taxi there. Admittedly, taxis are cheap -- it cost me under $15 (and I think under $10, if I remember correctly) from the other end of the island, near the Hong Kong Central area. But being right on the subway will only help the park attract more tourists!

This policy changed at WDW about 8 months ago. They no longer allow late FastPass returns. People were in a huge uproar when they heard about this change (naturally), but since it went into effect, seems it really hasn't impacted much and you almost never hear about it. Good to know. As of October, they were still allowing it at both Tokyo parks. Or maybe I just looked nice, and they were being nice? Or they figured it wasn't worth trying to explain it to a stupid-looking American?

Two words: high five.

I gather that you didn't realize that if you show up late for your Fastpass time at pretty much any Disney park that they'll almost always let you in? At least that's been my experience. I had similar issues with planning my days at both Tokyo DIsney parks, in terms of scheduling both Fastpass rides and regular standby lines. But they'd always let me ride, even if my time had passed. (Plus, single rider is your friend, although they were only running the single rider line on SPlash Mountain and Indian Jones while I was there in October.) Does Universal Japan have an app? I didn't find one in the Android market. Or is it iPhone only? Or was that just for Singapore you're talking about?

Robb, I think you and I may be among very few on the China trip who ranked both Fireball and the Dauling Dragons above Wood Coaster. In fact, we ranked all four coasters pretty similarly. But I think the GG coasters were a bit too rough for most people to rank as highly as we did. I liked Wood Coaster a lot, but it needed just a bit more "oomph" to make my top 20. But GCII coasters are always crowd pleasers, and Wood Coasters was one of the best of them.

^ I'm not sure if I'm more disappointed to have missed Popeye's or the credits! The funny thing is that I always forget there's a Popeye's a 10 minute walk from my house. I don't think I've been there in over a year. Thanks for the consolation, though! I'd originally not even planned to bother with Children's Grand Park, but decided to add it, since it's right in the city and only one stop from the line to Jamsil for Lotte or Everland, and others had said I could easily fit that into a day with Seoul Land and Lotte World (even though I actually didn't.) And I'd only planned to stop in quickly to get the creidts and maybe see a few animals on the way. So, it wasn't any big loss. If I'd had to lose out on any solo park on my solo part of the trip, this would be have been one of the least painful losses. And surrounded by two amazing parks, it was hard to be too disappointed. And I enjoyed Seoul enough -- especially Lotte World and Everland -- that I imagine I'll be back within the decade. So, I'll have the chance to go back at some point. The only question will be whether I'll bother to go back to Seoul Land to get the mouse credit, in case I forgot to ride it.

I wonder what this means the differences will be between the magicband and the ticket with touch features and fastpass+ for those not staying on Disney property. And how much extra they'll charge for the actual magicband.

^ The zoo was way in the back of the park, past even the looping toboggan. I think those girls were in there for a while because they were tyring to get a TON of fish in their container. Everyone I saw in there had like 50+ fish in their small containers and were still catching more. Since they charged by the container size, not by the number of fish you caught, I gather that people were trying to get more fish for their money. I just hope they had somewhere else to put all of their fish, because getting 50 DEAD fish isn't a bargain at any cost! Unless you're eating them, I guess. Or for cheap cat food? Damn. I should be saving my good jokes for my own PTR thread!

Chuanlord was a weird, quirky park, but I kind of liked it. Unfortunately, the zipline was closed by the time we tried to ride it. I'm not sure if it was because of the rain. One thing that I'm not sure if most people realized. Remember those paper tickets they made us all wait for? That we never actually needed for anything? It turned out that those were for the multi-level maze of a zoo in the back of the park. So, Robb actually paid extra for tickets that probably only a handful of us used, thanks to our oh-so-helpful tour guides. And speaking of the zoo, it featured a statue of the giraffe (well, i'm not sure if he's supposed to be the same one as the one in your picture -- he had different clothes, but the same glasses) pulling down his pants and flashing his privates at us! The scary part is that he wasn't the only animal statue to do that in the zoo! (I'll post pics when I find them when I get to that day of my update, probably several months from now!) As for the fish in the pool, I think you had to go in and wade in and catch your own. I think those girls were getting their own. They sold mini tanks that you could buy and then fill with as many fish as you could fit in them. Somehow I doubt that they told people that they'd need a MUCH bigger fish tank for the many, many fish they were squeezing into those containers. Which meant that likely all of the fish they sold were dead from suffocation and swimming in their own urine and feces within a week, if not a day or two! And the Ghost Ship was definitely the best haunted attraction we did in China, although I think some of the mazes at Ocean Park were better -- but I don't think any of you went back to the park for that.

^^ He did manage to get one reservation at the last minute, but he had a travel agent checking several times per day for him for cancellations and openings. But he's also a pretty knowledgeable Disney park enthusiast and was staying on propery for over a week, which allowed him some flexibility. (He admits he put off making his reservations too long, because he was too busy.) I wonder what people just showing up at the park, who don't know about this system will think about it, if it becomes harder to get on the rides they want to ride without waiting a long time. Still, as I said, this will be good for enthusiasts like us, who will be forewarned, and will get advice from even more knowledgable enthusiast friends. We'll know enough to make good choices and good plans. But at what point does taking a vacation start to become more work than fun for casual park-goers? It remains to be seen if they'll appreciate the benefits they can get from the system, or become frustrated with it. It will also be interesting to see how flexible the system will be with changes. If I book my trip very early and plan out my days, and someone decides to join us, will it be easy to add him to our plans, or rearrange things together? Or will we be splitting up several times per day because we all have different Fasspass times?

What I wonder is how spontaneous people will be able to be if all of the Fastpasses are sold out in advance. I was just at the Tokyo parks, and by mid-day all of the fastpasses at either park were sold out. For the newer rides, they were gone in an hour. And this was on slow days in the off-season. Will they now be sold out before the park even opens? This is already happening with the more popular restaurants. A friend of mine went to WDW last month, and tried to get reservations about a month early, only to find that one or two ofd the restaurants he wanted were completely booked for the entire trip. Will this happen with Fastpasses? This is the kind of thing that will be great for most of us on ofrums like this, because we're smart enough and knowledgable enough to plan a good day way in advance. But I wonder if casual park goers will get left behind, and not be happy about it. And is this the phase where they're going to implement different levels of Fastpass availability, based on how much you're spending at the resort, with those at premium hotels getting more passes than those at the budget resorts, who get way more than those who don't stay on property? I imagine that it won't be long before you'll be able to buy extra Fastpasses either, alhtough I'd definitely make use of that!