Everland Discussion Thread

[Tim2009]

https://news.naver.com/main/read.nhn?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=001&aid=0012488346

https://www.everland.com/web/everland/now/news/1222075_10436.html

Everland just announced they will be no after-shows (where people come out and get hit by water right after main performance ends) in 'Shooting Water Fun' performance, due to the media article, revealing that authorities alerted the Gyeonggi-do and Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to investigate, fearing there is serious risk of virus spread due to lack of social distancing and masks becoming ineffective after getting wet. 

 

 

Edited June 28, 2021 by Tim2009
adding link to Everland announcing no more after-shows

[Garet]

 

Everland are introducing a paid fast pass to the water park for the summer season, limited to 300 a day for roughly 40 dollars you can skip 3 lines: Mega Storm, Wild Blaster and Tower Boomerang or Tower Raft. The water park and Everland is currently pretty dead due to record high corona numbers but pre-corona these slides could get 2-3 hour lines each in the summer.

[Garet]

Due to corona still spreading Everland has closed the water park already for the season. Typically they would run the smaller indoor section in the winter months but the whole park will be shut from tomorrow.

[Garet]

I really don't like Everland's new smart line system. A bunch of rides are reservation only until 2pm, but on weekends they're all snapped up instantly so you're locked out of 7-8 rides for most of the day. It's like Ride of the Resistance except it's a third of the park and you can only choose one. I assume it's a corona control thing but then why until 2pm? Hopefully it goes away considering 91% of the adult population here have got vaccinated. And since people are locked out of a bunch of rides/in a 3 hour virtual line it pushes up lines and crowds on the other rides. I get Halloween is busy but if it's for crowd control, it's not exactly working:

 

 

In the spirit of fairness, Lotte World which doesn't have virtual lines does also look like this at Halloween though:

Everland have announced they'll open the gates earlier and give more space to wait before the official opening of 10am for people to reserve a ride, but it just means most rides will be gone earlier. I feel lots of parks have tried virtual queues this year due to corona, but nowhere seems to have cracked the code on making it successful. T-Express is running an all day virtual line but since everything else is sold out and it's the only line left it has resulted in some big lines....

 

[Tim2009]

Indian multinational news channel, WION, just released a video report featuring Everland. 

 

[Garet]

^One of the cubs, Kangsan the youngest of the 5, sadly passed away yesterday. The park has introduced a bunch of merch and new characters based around the 5 cubs and pushing them hard on social media to coincide with the year of the tiger, and had even been running some dance competition based around Kangsan specifically just a few days ago but it's been removed from the site.

[Tim2009]

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2022/01/113_321998.html

It's extremely tragic event for Everland...

[Tim2009]

https://news.naver.com/main/read.naver?mode=LSD&mid=sec&sid1=102&oid=214&aid=0001173931

Everland just got hit with the disaster, which is criminal case. 

Woman (who was the guest) detected suspicious activity in the woman's restroom near the Snow Buster (sled riding area). 

It was revealed that someone was filming secretly with the phone, from the next room. 

According to victim's statement, culprit was covered with the coat, while trying to act like a woman. 

He tried to flee to man's restroom, but arrested. 

According to police, it is assumed that the man used the backdoor of the woman's bathroom to get in there. 

It was revealed that the culprit was a part-time employee of Everland. 

According to media, Everland had another incident of spycam last month (for this incident, culprit escaped undetected, and case remains unresolved). 

[Garet]

After disappearing at the start of the pandemic, Everland's nightly show/fireworks will be returning. It seems Time Odyssey will not be returning instead the new show will be filled with BTS songs and called BTS Over the Universe premiering March 18th.

To give you some examples of the night-time shows since a lot of what's advertised in this picture, are used for every show here's some of the previous summer shows set to music. One year was when the Jukebox show was themed to musicals:

 

Another was themed to movie themes, with Harry Potter, E.T, Pirates, Indiana Jones, and a Superman finale but I have to highlight here the Chariot of Fire segment where they took the fire park of the name literally:

 

 

 

[Nrthwnd]

^ That "Chariots Of Fire" segment (second vid) was a - may - ZING!!! Great use of fire AND movement.

Thanks for sharing the videos!

[Garet]

Stopped by the park last week and finally rode the Safari upgrade to do a mini-TR. My son had a great time and that's the main thing for us and why we will keep showing up to the park and he's been asking for us to get annual passes so we'll probably end up getting them now he's over 110cm but there were a few dampeners behind the scenes.

 

Reservations are required for the 3 big rides on weekdays (T Express and the 2 Safaris) and 10 rides on weekends until 2pm. You have to be scanned into the park to use the reservation system but even on the Friday we visited, the safari ride sold out in 10 minutes and T Express shortly after. That doesn't sound too bad but we were at the park 9am and maybe 7th in line at one of the many many scanners which opened 10am exactly. We were scanned in around 10:05 and grabbed some of the last reservations. The English announcement said 'Mobile phone app isn't just recommended, it's essential'. We stopped near the entrance as soon as we entered to grab reservations and my wife said some family who were 2 behind us missed out because the people in front of them were in the middle of updating their app.

Weekends, the park gets around this by opening the scanners earlier and letting people wait on main street but it means most rides are sold out 10am exactly. It was a corona thing but I'm not sure how it helps when being locked out of 10 rides drives up lines considerably elsewhere, both of people with nowhere else to go and people with time to kill with virtual passes who would usually be in the other lines.

I think also people tend to grab reservations just because they can. The indoor kids area was sold out instantly but when we went in there with our tickets we saw only one other mom and child. Capacity with the system seemed to be an issue as well. T Express was running one train the whole reservation time, but once it ended they added a second train and I waited only 25 minutes.

 

I don't have many pictures this time, people who've seen my TR's over the last decade plus know the park hasn't really changed in 15 years or so but more rides have disappeared since Corona hit or have been downgraded (The Vekoma Mad House has become a shooting ride with some light rocking back and forth next to the horror house which also became a screened shooting ride) so we didn't spend that much time doing things outside of the children's area.

 

 

So here are the 10 rides that are reservation until 2PM on weekends. Weekdays are only the A-tier rides. You can grab one ride from each tier but A tier will sell out 10am as soon as reservations open. But at least the train is available...

And gone 10 seconds later so now most of the crowds are locked out of 10 rides for the morning.

Indoor areas or rides are also reservation only from the app.

As are shows.

Here's the train waiting time for the rest of the day once the reservations ended.

We usually go to the park at 2PM when all rides are open and reservations have finished but since we were at the park at opening for a change I snagged some panda passes.

A depressing indicator of how long Corona has been around. The baby panda was born just as Corona hit. I figured when Corona finally ran its course, I'd trek out to see the baby panda. Now we're seeing record numbers of cases and that baby panda is now just a panda.

A second red panda has joined the exhibit.

Onto the main reason we came to the park early... To see the filming of Back to the Future 4.

Not sure if it is just a weekday thing or a problem with the cars but despite the press photos showing two car trams, all of them were only pulling one the day we rode.

All of them have the vents but also the trunks were open on all the cars as well, it was only 20 degrees when we rode but summer heat can hit 37C.

The new trams are very nice and open though. You can see how much vision you have when riding.

Approaching the first gate.

The view wouldn't have been this clear from the old buses.

Apparently the new low to the ground trams make for good scratching posts.

More views from the new trams.

I can't show you what happened next since TPR is PG-13 but there was quite a lot of it happening on this tour in the lion area.

Unlike the bears who were all passed out.

So that's the new Safari World Tram. I'm not sure if they run two trams on weekends or there's maybe a design or overheat issue but it does mean this is the hardest ride to snag reservations for and even on a quiet weekday lines were over two hours all day.

And the park was quite quiet on the day we visited as well.

On our way out I grabbed a snack. Seemed kind of funny to put cute faces on something you're about to rip apart.

The reservation system is really hard to deal with, there's a lot more SBNO rides covered up, and the ride part of the park is unchanged so there isn't too much to do.

I've written most of this TR as an enthusiast. However as a father, I'll always have a great time. My son doesn't care if the park is a time capsule. He loves it there, and it's still his favorite park so the park will keep getting my money. When we are there early, there's always also the zoo and multiple gardens (that replaced Eagle's Fortress and another that replace the Small World boat ride) to walk around in until the reservation times have finished and queues can spread out again.

[SharkTums]

I think it's going to be a problem moving forward that a lot of the parks instituted annoying "covid" procedures and policy's and they're just going to stick around cause it's easier and cheaper!

[Garet]

Quote

Today ( 21st ) around 1pm, a lion collided with a safari tram for viewing at Safari World in Everland, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, and the door was broken.

No one was injured in the accident, but the lion's head and legs moved inside some of the trams , leaving about 30 passengers in panic for a while.

Everland explained that the accident occurred when a group of lions in the cage had a physical fight and one of them bounced off.

However, as there were several more lions around, it was a situation that almost led to a major accident. Some passengers on the tram said they took out a fire extinguisher inside and prepared for emergencies.

The accident appears to have occurred during a 'fight', that is, a fight for rank, between a lion that recently joined the group and an existing group of lions. Recently, Everland said that it would introduce a late-night safari tram and enshrined 5 rare white lions.

Today's safari tram with a broken door is different from the existing safari bus, and it was found that it was newly introduced in May of last year.

The tram manufacturer explained, "The glass is broken, but there is a double safety device inside."

Yongin City Hall explained that the safety review and safety check on the tram had been completed.

Everland announced that it plans to suspend the Safari Tram service until tomorrow ( 22nd ) and take supplementary measures after safety inspection. In addition, priority to use Everland was given to over 1,000 waiting passengers.

Source

So far Everland's only acknowledgement is that the ride will be closed today and tomorrow.

[Nrthwnd]

"...a lion collided with a safari tram...."

That alone, was worth reading about.

But I'm glad they had a fire extinguisher, handy.

[Garet]

Unsurprisingly, Safari World will did not reopen today and will remain closed for a while:

 

[Garet]

One of the things I haven't really mentioned in my TRs are potentially why the zoo and gardens gets additions while the park hasn't changed in a while. On the Korean site there's a whole premium side (https://reservation.everland.com/web/el.do?method=productMain) of behind the scenes zoo tours or doing a family jeep for the safari rides (e.g. $270 for 6 people), in the spring/autumn night time safaris, cabanas in the garden or premium restaurant meals etc. These are extremely popular, the safari rides have quite a few cars for the private tours but even with the cost and fleet, especially now the rides are locked behind the reservation system, the premium stuff sells out fast enough to the point that they advertise when the next tickets will go on sale.

On 4/13/2022 at 5:17 AM, SharkTums said:

I think it's going to be a problem moving forward that a lot of the parks instituted annoying "covid" procedures and policy's and they're just going to stick around cause it's easier and cheaper!

So from the previous TR I mentioned you have to get to the park an hour early to try and secure your choice of one of the A-list rides: T Express or one of the Safari rides to make sure you're scanned into the park at opening. Well, the park has quietly added a plan-it program to the reservation site where reservation slots of rides have been allocated. Since it seems the standby lines being closed until 2PM will be around a while, I guess if people ever visit the park from abroad you should grab those to make sure you can do everything. Looking at prices it seems, they are selling the 5 pass online for $80 for 2 time reservations of the a list rides and a anytime pass of 3 out of Hurricane/Thunder Falls/Shooting Ghost/Magic Swing/Amazon Express or the 3 pass for $46 (one A list and 2 of the others) but they can also sell out.

It kind of leaves you with no easy day to go, weekdays the park is slammed with students on trips everywhere, but weekends you'll hit a lot more rides locked behind the reservation system.

In other random news:

• The Safari ride has reopened.
• The park cancelled the fireworks last Friday-Sunday even though the weather was good. Although no reason was given a lot of people noticed the fireworks cancellation matched perfectly with they days Joe Biden was in Korea so the rumor is the fireworks were cancelled due to that. Korean theme park fireworks cancelled due to American President's visit is one of the weirder rumors I've ever heard.

 

Due to toddlers not coming with built in crowd calculators we were in the park during blossom season, a time I usually avoid so I want to end the park with some nice pictures. Like I said before, we like the park, all the staff are incredible and the park has long opening hours so I guess on the plus side, not being able to ride forces us into parts of the park such as the parade and gardens that we would usually skip.

 

[Nrthwnd]

^ The night time parade looks wonderful! Thanks for sharing your visit.

[Garet]

The carousel is closed until further notice after a fire broke out while the park was open. Unfortunately I can't copy the article and there's nothing official on the official site but here's the link: https://biz.insight.co.kr/news/401292

[Garet]

Welcome to another 'The Other Side of Everland' TR.

We rode a fair amount of stuff but as you've seen just on my TR's on this page, the ride side of the park hasn't really changed in a decade and I've already posted so many photos in previous TR's so I didn't really see any need to include them here. However the park has always been clear it's supposed to be more than just rides with new gardens (bye-bye Global Village and Eagle's Fortress), new zoo areas,  shows, parades, and parties. Having a child means I've got to spend a lot more time seeing parts of Everland I usually skip past and appreciate more.

I know I say this most TR's but Everland is one of the few parks where I find we get more done on the weekends than weekdays. There are occasionally dead days but we did a bunch of stops over the summer vacation and school days and found we had a more enjoyable time visiting on weekends, although disclaimer we always went in the afternoon once the rides were no longer locked behind the mobile app.

I'm always thankful to live so close to a park open 10:00am-10:00pm 365 days a year. Makes for very easy staycation plans. We tend to visit the park in the afternoon just because the humidity and heat are pretty bad but a lot of people have the same idea and the shuttle buses were packed in the afternoon. This picture was during high season for the water-park which was open 8:00am-10:00pm so luckily for us most of the crowds headed there instead.

Construction update: The right side of main street is getting an upgrade with a bunch of named restaurants,

It's been so long since I had Mexican food so I was happy to see something is coming.

I am pretty unfamiliar with this chain. I asked some American friends but responses were all over the place from 'It's pretty good and the guacamole is nice' to 'A step above Taco Bell but that's it'

Can anyone guess why this KFC is so famous?

Sadly, the new Safari World cars are still only running one tram per car. At this point I don't see it returning to the 2 trams per car they planned when they retired the buses, especially since the ride is locked behind the mobile app until 2PM and has a lot of premium add-ons for this ride on the site, from private safari cars  at $200 for a group of 6, paying to get one of the reservation passes in advance at around $80 (with 4 other ride skips) and with the ride closing around 5:30 the park has now just announced a Night Safari at $15 a person.

Decided to take a quick stroll in the garden since we had tickets for the stage show next door at 5:30

In all honesty, apart from the Madagascar 3 show from almost a decade back, I've never bothered to see the stage shows since it's another locked behind the app reservation ride, but we were surprised when we arrived at the park at 4PM to find it wasn't sold out.

It's for little children but it was nice to get out of the heat for 30 minutes. There were even screens either side of the stage with English subtitles which was pretty surprising considering the number of English viewers must be tiny compared to how many Koreans but it's another case of Everland going above and beyond.

There was a surprising amount of wire-work in this show for the actors.

Aww, I hate shows that always do dragons or other threats and use projections for the fire. It's always lame and not scary....

... I stand corrected! And it wasn't a one time thing either there was quite a lot of fire. It's pretty close to the disabled seats too.

All in all a charming little show, a lot of effort must have been put in both by the 8 performers and the behind the scene workers.

Things I never thought a young child would want to do: Attend a dance party full of crowded adults dancing and jumping. IT looks pretty quiet form the back where it was drier...

...but make no mistake the main party area was packed. Out of all the new things my son has made me try at Everland, the Summer dance party might have been the hardest. It's been 15 years since I graduated from university, I don't have the energy to party and jump up and down, singing, and bumping into people dancing for 30 minutes anymore.

We had ponchos but it didn't matter. Every 30 seconds we'd get hit and be soaked completely. Even after one hit I'd have been dryer riding Pluto at IoA 5 times.

Taking a quiet stroll to the start of the parade route to catch the night parade.

It's a tradition for us to end the night with the parade ever since it returned after a long corona hiatus. We tried to add fireworks to the routine, but whether from weather, tiredness, or Joe Biden, we always seemed to miss them since they'd run the non firework wet version.

Remember how I mentioned Everland runs a ton of premium add ons you can buy online. And that even though they can be pricey, they tend to sell out so often that the park can even advertise when the next batch will open to reserve? Well, you can now ride in the night-time parade. This one isn't too highly priced at $100 for 2 people.

We interrupt this TR with a picture of a Quokka. Why? Just to slow down your scrolling. And also my son had popped off to the gift shop to spend his money on some new merchandise from the zoo small animals upgrade and came back with what I assumed was a beaver but I was corrected and after a quick google search, have discovered the happiest animal alive.

So we had before had some bad luck with the fireworks. No-one in our family is big on BTS (son is too young and my wife and I are teachers so we get over exposed because of our students) but with the yearly Halloween overlay coming (although as of writing, it's already started) and no guarantee the BTS show would ever return, we decided to check it out.

Title screen: BTS Over the Universe

There was a lot of fire and laser but only a few fireworks for the first few songs.

More fireworks kicked in during some other songs especially Permission to Dance.

But the big finale was where most of the fireworks were. The music video for Dynamite that was shown on America's Got Talent, that was filmed here at Everland.

To answer the earlier question. The KFC building (disguised as a drive-in restaurant) is where BTS filmed the video for AGT.

The show has now been retired and the yearly Halloween Ghost Mansion show has taken its place. Perhaps it will be back next year but with BTS going on hiatus, maybe next summer will see the return of the usual musical jukebox.

After a hard day following a child overlord orders ('Can we get an ice-cream now?' 'How about after the train? Everyone's watching the parade near the station, and it's almost finished so let's do the train now. It's been sold out all day and closes at 5PM' One ice-cream holding child later 'Why is the line 50 minutes?') time to end the day (and this TR) with the new Everland beer '482 Safari'.

[Garet]

Due to the Itaewon tragedy, Everland and the rest of Korea are cancelling all Halloween festivities. This includes the non Halloween parade and fireworks while the country has a period of mourning. Most events were planned to run until mid November except Legoland which would have finished Monday. 
 

There’s a lot of anti Halloween sentiment now and whether the activities and festivals will return for next year is unknown. Everlands busiest period is usually Halloween as seen by these weekday queue times but overcrowding will be a sensitive issue for a while. 

 

Lotte World and Legoland announcements:

[Garet]

Couple of updates from around the park:

This might be one of the funniest failed Facebook translations I've ever seen. The original post was actually about fishing.

Lets start with the one negative: The smartline system has been simplified to one tier, instead of multiple tiers to try to spread out availability but I still hate the fact that you have to be at the park so early before opening to stand a chance and then be locked out of so many rides without a standby line on the weekends until 2PM, especially when time slots are sold online for a premium but the system is not going away anytime soon.

Due to the reservation system, we've lately been going to the water-park a lot this Winter since it grants free entry into Everland in the afternoons. This is actually usually the tipping bucket slide complex but the park instead of just boarding it up boards it up transforms the whole area into a winter spa with pools heated to 39C so it's not just the indoor pools even when the temperature was in the minus.

Heavy rain meant no night entertainment, so the crowds had cleared out by the time we left the water park, but all the rides were running so we managed to get a lot done in just a few hours.

On our second visit to the water park, the night-time entertainment was back. In the winter, the park doesn't run the full parade route but instead has a photo party in the main square where 3 floats come out and the characters disembark for photo-ops. The staff at Everland are always incredible, we arrived too late for the photos (completely my fault misjudging a queue line) but despite it being their chance to disappear and go on a break, two characters saw my son at the edges and made sure he still got a moment. That really made his day.

I really really wish more parks would embrace the sit-down culture for fireworks shows. It makes it much easier for little children to see and results in no children on shoulders. We got there 5 minute before show-time and despite being at the back of the crowd, this was still our view.

The winter show is Romance in the Sky, set to songs such as Marry You and All you Need is Love with heart shaped fireworks (although my timing sucked)

Again, this is the view my son had. I can't imagine how much different for my son it would be at just 120cm tall if everyone was standing up.

On our final trip the water-park was closed so we did areas that are normally closed at night. 

Sadly Lost Valley is still no longer using their amphibious vehicles to go into the water, but the giraffe encounter is still a highlight.

Decided to check out the new updated zoo area with walk through capybara exhibit.

The old cinema is now an indoor butterfly garden.I know I joke a lot about rides disappearing to become SBNO or turned into gardens like Eagle's Fortress or Global Village where, but the old cinema was always empty and this was picking up a crowd.

It starts with a pre-show...

...before entering into the garden filled with photo zones.

There's also flower bouquets sprayed with honey or cards for butterflies to land on so people can see them up close without risk of crushing the butterflies.

The tulip festival was also in full bloom. New this year is the area being themed to fairies.

Speaking of SBNO, the upcharge robot arm VR was removed after being closed since corona first hit.

and the old bird walkthrough area was relocated so now it's a fenced off concrete wall. It's been this way for a year now and it's next to Everland's collection of dark rides as well as quite a big space, so hopefully something becomes of the area instead of an eyesore like the old Helicycles and track that's sat rotting for a decade.

WIth spring, the photo party goes away and the full parade returns, if you don't care being up close, there are vantage points around the route....

... and gives you the chance of beating the crowd to the fireworks and getting a prime spot on some of the raised pathways, away from the crowd area in the front.

Sadly my Iphone 7 camera died after years of being bashed around on Asian roller-coasters for nearly a decade so these were all shot from the self camera. This show is Time Odyssey. Pre-corona, it involved live actors and projections on the SBNO Ferris Wheel but they've both disappeared in favor of using the screen.

027.MOV
028.MOV  

I've attached the finale of the fireworks that I shot myself. Judging by the sheer amount of tripods and professional gear we saw there's probably daily uploads shot much better but I figured it was better to attach my own videos than just link to someone else's YouTube. I'll be honest it was through the self camera and I got bumped a bit so it's not smooth but I'd rather get bumped by people having fun than get the perfect shot any-day.

Edit: not sure how to make the videos show in the forum without downloading so I'll add to my Youtube.

 

[Garet]

Everland are adding a 2nd movie to their 4D cinema. They'll run a new extended cut of the current movie Monster Family in the mornings (a short film set at Europa Park and made by Nwave studios/Mack Media starring the characters from the movie of the same name and it's sequel) and a new movie Return to the Lost World also from Nwave studios.

They're the company who made a lot of simulator films. If you've ever been in one of those old style simulators with the gull wing doors and rode the Astro Canyon Coaster movie that seemed to be the default since the mid 90's that's them. 

 

[Tim2009]

Breaking News: Everland's 'Magic Tree' (which you can see after getting into the park) caught fire. 

Thankfully, there are no injuries, and currently it's under investigation what caused a fire. 

https://news.nate.com/view/20230512n29250

According to the Korean media, this 'Magic Tree' fire was quickly extinguished in 25 minutes, thanks to combined efforts of Everland firefighting team and firefighter from Incheon Songdo Fire Station. (Article has a photo of firefighter from Incheon Songdo Fire Station, who aided Everland firefighting team in their firefighting efforts.) 

He was in off-duty at that time, so he visited Everland with his wife and son. 

Everland proposed that they will provide new cloth for him, but he refused, stating that he already has one. 

One member in online Everland community posted the aftermath of fire. 

It's a tragedy this famous tree got damaged by blaze. 

[SharkTums]

Oh no!

[Garet]

Everland's pandas successfully mated again resulting in twins (2 girls):

 

Source

Source

 

Popped by the park a few weeks ago:

t

There's a weird tipping point end of may/start of June where the park will be rammed and the water park pretty quiet, and then the next weekend it'll completely flip. In the background is the ticket office, not the entrance...

... and the line also curved back around and down the road. Like I've said before, you have to be scanned into the park to get a reservation for some rides and the biggest rides you need to be in the park within 5 minutes of opening, with the line that long and being locked out of 10 rides until 2PM we ran back to the car for swimsuits we'd packed just incase.

The indoor pool was open but outside was just the lazy river and one slide, the park's main slide Mega Storm pictured in the background. We waited 40 minutes for our 2 rides on Mega Storm and maybe 20-30 for the indoor tube slides.

Maybe I'm the minority but I'm ok with just having the signature attraction open and getting in re-rides on one slide in the quiet period, since the summer can be crazy busy when the park is now fully open and lines can go up to 250 minutes and tickets at $80.

We did our usual after water park tradition of food and fireworks in Everland, here's how the tree looked after the fire.

The Monster Family sign has been replaced with this sign to represent the new attraction.

And the old Robot Arm VR was now this exhibit.

And as usual we caught the fireworks before heading home.