Everland Discussion Thread

[Garet]

The water park has reopened after being closed 5 days for disinfection.

 

Edit: I'm hearing T Express may also no longer be reservation only, with the current outbreak the park is completely dead on all rides, so it may have been deemed not necessary.

[Garet]

One week after reopening the water park has closed again due to tougher requirements the government has laid down in the fight against corona. There's no reopening date yet, and although the indoor area runs all year, with the gold season over and some parts of the outdoor area already finished for the season, there's a chance they could just finish the outdoor area for the year.

 

[Tim2009]

Just for a reminder:

 

According to information obtained from Everland Community Cafe in Naver, there are two things to know:

 

1. Water Park reopening date is set as the first day of March 2020. This means this year's operation of water park is completely finished.

 

2. Everland will have Halloween Season this year, but there will be no zombies due to the corona. This means there will be no Horror Maze and Horror Safari this year. Only Horror Amazon Express will operate at night time.

[Garet]

^ Considering the outdoor park doesn’t open until Late May or early June I assume they’re talking about the indoor part with that date. The parks official statement still says to be determined I’m not sure how accurate the March 1st date is until the park puts out something more official.

 

According to official news outlets the park had a 3rd confirmed case although this time it was not a guest but a part timer worker on the life jacket kiosk. The park had to close again for this and have decided to stay closed until the restrictions are loosened but no news outlet has yet claimed it’s closed until March 1st.

[Garet]

Everland is number one trending in South Korea (a nice replacement from the weekend where the number one trending was Captain America ) after the band BTS filmed their video in the Rocksville section of the park for America's Got Talent (whose logo was used to hide the KFC logo)

 

[youtu_be]

[/youtu_be]

[Garet]

Have they named the baby, yet? Looks sooooo cute!

 

There's now a vote in for it. The parents are Le Bao and Ai Bao so most of the names relate to that. Roughly translated, the choices are: Chao Bao, Ssing Bao, Ssing Ssing, and Pu Bao.

 

Source

 

And since I'm updating:

Source

[Garet]

Everland had a confirmed corona patient visit their park. There's a little bit of a worry since the post location mentions Starbucks where people would have been maskless when drinking and it was during a 3 day weekend so the park was very crowded.

[Garet]

 

Everland had another confirmed corona case in the park on the 22nd October. Like before with Everland's Starbucks the main focus is on the restaurant visit from 12:44-2:14. I wonder if the parks are required by the government to post these notices, normally the parks news section posts stay forever but all of these and Caribbean Bay's notices of Corona patients seem to get removed as soon as the park can.

[coasterbill]

South Korea's virus response just seems so impressive... especially because this entire time you could have ridden an operating Intamin pre-fab .

[Garet]

^I think Everland might be the biggest park in the world (in terms of attendance) to have closed 0 days during this whole pandemic. Followed by Lotte World with I think a grand total of 2-4 days closure.

[Garet]

Quote

A popular K-pop girl band has stirred controversy in China after its members were accused of mishandling a baby panda on their reality TV show.

The stars of Blackpink were filmed this month cuddling three-month-old cub Fu Bao at a South Korean zoo.

The clip appears innocent enough, but the scenes have provoked fury in China, where the treatment of pandas overseas can be a sensitive issue.

As anger grew, the band's label said the video had been taken down.

Pandas are an emblem of national pride to many in China, the only country where the animals live outside captivity. China loans the animals to countries worldwide as a way of strengthening diplomatic ties.

This is where Fu Bao comes in. He was born in July to two giant pandas who arrived in South Korea from Sichuan province in 2016 as part of China's "panda diplomacy".

Last week Fu Bao, meaning "lucky treasure", was introduced to an adoring public for the first time.

But Chinese wildlife groups say there are strict rules and regulations around the treatment of pandas, which are classed as a vulnerable species by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). Only trained professionals are allowed to handle them, they say.

Giant panda death in Thailand raises questions in China

So, when Blackpink released their panda video on YouTube earlier this month, the four-piece band made headlines in China for all the wrong reasons.

Chinese media and online commentators accused Blackpink's members of putting the panda at risk of harm.

The China Daily newspaper said there was "a risk of transmitting zoonotic infections as some of the members own pet dogs and cats".

Others said the girls wore too much make-up and touched the panda's mother without wearing masks and gloves.

Weibo, China's version of Twitter, saw millions of views on posts using the hashtag "Blackpink touched panda cub wrongly".

"China's national treasures are in South Korea, yet Koreans are not abiding by the rules in handling them. Why are Blackpink privileged?," one user fumed.

Someone else called on Chinese authorities to "bring our national treasures back", while another urged the band members to "apologise publicly".

"I don't understand the lack of common sense at this Korean zoo," one wrote.

The controversy intensified when a Chinese wildlife group got involved.

The China Wildlife Conservation Association (CWCA) said it wrote a letter of complaint to the Everland Resort in South Korea. In it, the group urged the zoo to "immediately stop" anyone apart from keepers or vets from touching the panda.

The band are yet to speak publicly, but their music label, YG Entertainment, has addressed the panda furore in a statement.

It defended the band's panda meeting, arguing that "all members wore hygiene gloves, masks and protective clothing" at all times.

Blackpink smash YouTube premiere record

'I could have been a K-pop idol - but I'm glad I quit'

However, it acknowledged the anger, adding that "in respect of international co-operation practices and recommendations from panda experts who say that non-professionals having close contact with the baby panda can cause misunderstandings, we decided to withhold the release of the related video".

Blackpink are not the first South Korean band to come under fire in China.

Last month, South Korean boyband BTS were heavily criticised in China after one member made remarks about the Korean War. Some BTS-related products were removed from Chinese websites.

Source

 

Wasn't expecting Everland to show up on worldwide news outlets today over a panda visit but there we are. Also the baby panda has a name now Fu Bao

[Garet]

With Corona about to hit 500 here for the first time since March, Everland will be giving some of its most popular rides including T Express  a virtual queue system from today.

 

edit: looking at the app today crowds were very light  virtual queues were around 25 minutes for T Express  however it seems even on a very light day Lost Valley stopped reservation quite quickly so that might need to be your first choice  

 

the app also has to be switched to korean to work as well at the time of writing

Source

[Garet]

Quote

Appellate court confirms Samsung executive's prison term in union-busting case

 

 

SEOUL, Nov. 26 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul appellate court on Thursday confirmed a prison term for a Samsung executive for sabotaging labor union activities at an amusement park run by a group affiliate.

The Seoul High Court rejected an appeal by Kang Kyung-hoon, a vice president at Samsung Electronics Co., and confirmed the 16-month prison sentence handed to him in December 2019.

Kang was accused of leading and engaging in groupwide efforts to neutralize the labor union at Everland, an amusement park run by Samsung C&T Corp. between 2011 and 2018 by targeting members and leaking sensitive personal data.

The court said Kang inflicted a "substantial amount of damage" to the union by attempting to neutralize it, mobilizing employees at the group's now-disbanded Future Strategy Office that he led and Everland.

The court, however, noted that the crime was committed as part of Samsung group's labor union policy, as opposed to Kang's personal gain, and that Samsung has been stepping up efforts to normalize its management-union culture since the case was brought to light.

Samsung Group Vice Chairman and Lee Jae-yong said in May that the group will scrap its decadeslong "no union policy" once and for all as part of efforts to overhaul outdated practices.

Source

[Garet]

With Corona hitting 1,000 a day, the government announcing popular tourist winter spots, such as mountains to watch the January 1st sunrise (a Korean new years tradition), ski resorts and sledding slopes must now close, and Everland being so devoid of crowds that every ride, even T Express and the safari rides are running mostly empty trains, Everland is now closing..... their rubber tube snow slope in the corner of the park to comply with government regulations.

 

I think at this point Everland is determined to be (probably) the only park in the world to have been open 365 days in the year 2020. At least out of the worlds most visited parks, I think they're the only one to go without closing.

 

[Garet]

 

Everland's baby panda will go on display from 4th January. Panda World will become reservation only with only 20 people allowed in every 20 minutes. People have already started booking their spaces here

[Nrthwnd]

^ Awwwwwwwww. Name yet? And what the heck is he/she holding onto?

[Garet]

^I've seen English article refer to her as both Fu Bao and Pu Bao from where they've romanized the Korean alphabet. Personally, I think it sounds more like Pu(Poo) Bao.

 

It's one of the penguin teddy bears from the gift shop.

 

Edit: The weekend was fully booked to see the panda so quickly so think I've missed my chance.

[Garet]

Everland have announced the retirement of the Safari World Buses. The announcement ends with New Safari World coming soon. The fact it mentions goodbye to the buses after 45 years makes me think it will become an extension of the zoo area but some other channels seem to think it means new buses are coming.

[Garet]

Source

Spotted in the Everland car park.

[Garet]

 

Everland will be switching to tiered pricing for their entrance from June 1st with summer weekdays mostly being the C catergory, autumn weekdays/summer weekends the b catergory, and fall weekends the A catergory. Although the water park is closed due to covid, the park is normally very quiet in the summer due to the intense heat and humidity to the point water park guests used to get in free in the evenings to boost the numbers, so it'll be interesting to see if the cheaper tickets have any effect.

[Garet]

Everland have announced the water park will finally reopen May 21st after being closed down in August last year due to corona, although the park will have a reservation only system in place for the foreseeable future.

They've also announced the new Safari World (same ride, jeeps and trailers instead of the buses) will open May 14th. The park has virtual queues that they allocate to the rides depending on the day and how busy it is so I probably won't be heading out to ride anytime soon. Wednesday was Children's day, one of the busiest holidays for Everland, and some virtual queues had 4 hour waits... if you could even join them, with the most popular rides selling out 20 minutes after opening and all of the rides operating them booked up by lunch leaving most people having to wait until 3PM when the real lines opened up.

[Garet]

The official reveal of Everland's 2021 addition, Safari World will now become Safari World Wild Tram

 

Source

[Garet]

Quote

Five people in their 20s who work part-time at the theme park Everland have been diagnosed with COVID-19. According to the city of Yongin, Gyeonggi Province on the 28th, part-time worker A was diagnosed with the virus the day before. The route of infection of Mr. A is not yet known.

Afterwards, as a result of conducting a full investigation of 150 people in contact, four additional confirmed cases were confirmed. It is reported that four of the confirmed patients, including the first confirmed person, spent time together last weekend evening. Most of the contacts are said to be part-time students living in dormitories with the confirmed patient. Currently, about 30 people have tested negative and the rest of their colleagues are being tested. Everland conducted self-quarantine of their work facilities and dormitories after the outbreak of the confirmed case. In Everland, about 1,100 out of 1,600 part-time students live in dormitories. The Gyeonggi-do epidemiological investigator plans to conduct an on-site assessment of the risk of infectious diseases in the Everland dormitory on the 29th.

Source

[Nrthwnd]

Good to know they're on top of this ....

.... Right?

[Garet]

 

So Korea has a new trend here to try and boost the economy and get more people to get vaccinated and it's 'Vaccination thank-you discounts.' The cinemas are offering cheap tickets to 2 people if one of them is vaccinated ($5/6 a seat) and some expensive hotel buffets are now offering up to 50% off a table of 4 if one of them is vaccinated. Everland is now getting in on this and is giving 35% theme park and 40% water park discounts to any citizens of Yongin who get the vaccination.

 

Not sure how people feel about these discounts since Korea was pretty late to the vaccination game so I believe only people 60+, 1st 2nd grade teachers, healthcare, soldiers and emergency services workers are eligible right now so there's a lot of people who do want to be vaccinated but can't yet. There is an app for leftover vaccines if there are no-shows to avoid throwing away unused doses but vaccines have been pretty much 100% booked up by eligible people since the app went live two weeks ago.