Photo TR: An Englishman in the Orient

[Coastinmiller]

It's a shame I am going to miss this with the TPR china trip, I was really looking foward to doing this park. Thanks for the insight to this park, hpefully I will make over there one day.

[simon8899]

Looks like they've fun parks over there...

 

But I guess I'll do China in one of my next lives....

[SharkTums]

It's a shame I am going to miss this with the TPR china trip, I was really looking foward to doing this park. Thanks for the insight to this park, hpefully I will make over there one day.

 

We keep saying we're only doing China once...then we went back...now we're going back again! I'm thinking we'll do another TPR Trip in 2016 for Shanghai Disney and more!

[larrygator]

Gutterflower - thanks for the pictures and descriptions of the rides. It made it easier to add your PTRs to the Park Index.

[Coastinmiller]

It's a shame I am going to miss this with the TPR china trip, I was really looking foward to doing this park. Thanks for the insight to this park, hpefully I will make over there one day.

 

We keep saying we're only doing China once...then we went back...now we're going back again! I'm thinking we'll do another TPR Trip in 2016 for Shanghai Disney and more!

 

Nice, that will give some times for the little ones to grow up a bit and me venture back out. Too early for a deposit on that??

[Gutterflower]

I can't wait to check out the Mythos rip off restaurant! What kind of food did they serve?

 

The food we ate was Chinese but angled a bit more towards westerners. We had the battered prawns, a fried noodle dish and spicy meatballs. Along with unhealthy amounts of tea. All excellent.

[SharkTums]

^Looks great, thanks for sharing! Was there an English or picture menu or how did you order?

Edited February 1, 2012 by SharkTums

[Gutterflower]

^ Yes they had a picture menu, although there was no English typeface, It was easy enough to pick things out as the pictures are pretty big.

 

Following World Joyland we spent a day enjoying the sites of Shanghai before Oli headed to Bangkok, Since I have spent time living in Thailand before I decided to skip Bangkok and head to Seoul to visit some friends instead, As my friends worked during the day this thankfully gave me the chance to visit a few of the Korean Parks. My first stop was Everland, unless you have been asleep the last few years you have probably heard of Everland, They not only have the current #2 wooden coaster on the planet they also had the very highly rated Eagles Fortress Suspended coaster.

Getting to Everland is easy and the website lists a number of busses that go directly to the park. However opening later in 2012 is the Everline, A Seoul Metroline that goes directly to the park. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverLine_Rapid_Transit_System making the already excellent Seoul metro just that little bit better.

 

Upon arriving at Everland I saw something I really didn't want to see. A sign telling me T-Express was shut.... I had mixed feelings about this as in China I had seen several signs for rides that said they were shut but in reality just opened a little later. Unfortunately upon arriving at T-Express my worst fears were confirmed, the ride is closed until the end of February.

 

Now I really really wanted to like Everland, And it is undeniably a beautiful park. The setting is stunning and the park is generally really well themed, but without either Eagles Fortress or T-Express the park is essentially just a really nicely designed kids park. The main ride open was Rolling X-Train which is a standard Double Loopscrew coaster. The Vekoma junior coaster is nice and there's a nice selection of flats/indoor rides but I can't deny I was massively underwhelmed in the end by Everland. It is incredibly painful to see arguably 2 of the best coasters ever designed sitting dormant without a single rider between them. What made it worse is that whole swathes of the park were covered in hoardings for refurbishment. The hoardings managed to detract massively from whole sections of the park that otherwise would have looked really good.

 

Anyway On to the pictures.

The day before heading to Everland we headed up to the hill in the middle of Seoul via the cable car.

The views from the top were excellent.

The whole area is really nicely done.

Although once again the tower's designers skipped on the aesthetics.

There were more of these padlock things everywhere.

But it was a lovely relaxing afternoon.

The entrance to Everland

The whole main street is really nicely done.

A panorama of the main street area.

Random panda... the best kind of panda.

Nicely designed food area.

Racing coaster is a nice (non-racing) vekoma junior coaster.

It's custom designed and fits nicely into the landscape.

It's a nice ride but slightly telling that this was essentially the best coaster in the park on my visit.

Some nice themeing in the kids area.

The obligatory big wheel is present.

Not that's what I am here for.

Yes it was fairly cold, so obviously the water rides were out of action no rapids or log flume for me today.

This is not what I wanted to see T-Express closed till the end of Feb. I guess I should have noticed the ride isn't currently listed on the website but there's no specific mention of it being closed.

The snow attractions were open however.

It is an impressive ride.

And that drop combo towers over the park.

A panorama of the whole massive structure.

The whole park is built on a series of hills, somewhat like Legoland in the UK but a whole lot bigger.

There were a number of nice dark rides such as a nice shooting ride and a Vekoma Mad House.

There is another kiddie coaster at the park, i gave this one a miss.

The main coaster open today was Rolling X-Car. a Loopscrew with new Vekoma trains.

The ride is fine if a little rough and uninspiring, The poster in the queue showing coaster history were a nice touch.

It's just a pity the Korean have a tendency to graffiti everything in the queue line

The flats around Rolling-X-Car are nicely themed though

This Top Scan looks excellent.

Next up I headed up to Eagles Fortress to take some pics of this dormant monster.

NOW.... is it just me or does this poster suggest this ride is just being refitted? I don't want to cause undue excitement. Can anyone here read Korean?

Next to Eagles Fortress is this super sized swinging ship

The ride does look in excellent condition. Seems odd they haven't removed anything since it closed.

It really is tough to get pictures of this from the paths.

Back to Racing Coaster for another spin.

The ride provides a nice little kick for a junior coaster.

The helix mid ride provides some alright G's

The station area.

The ride criss crosses a couple of the paths up the hill.

The ride is nicely hidden from the main midway, just popping above the trees

Thankfully some of the bigger hills have these to make life easier

Some nice themeing.

Another large flat ride.

A lot of areas of the park were under refurbishment. this was just at the end of Main Street.

Bye Bye Rolling-X-Car... you weren't too bad really.

The entrance area is in my opinion the nicest area of the park.

I got the bus back to Seoul, It stopped here.... It did not live up to it's name.

This trailer played approximation 1 gazzilon and 3 times on the bus.... Tomorrow I head to the interesting, slightly bizzare but undeniably fun Seoul Land

[Gutterflower]

So the award for longest gap between Trip Reports Goes to....

 

Anyhow I've finally found time to carry this on so following my disappointment at Everland I headed to Seoul Land the next morning with a bit of a hangover and low expectations. I've heard mostly bad things about Seoul land and the coaster lineup doesn't inspire confidence.

 

However I found I really enjoyed Seoul Land. Sure its fairly Ghetto but I enjoyed all the coasters. They weren't great but they were alright and not too rough, While the park staff were friendly and being the only Westener in the park I got a ton of offers from school kids to ride with them which was pretty funny.

The cheap entry price deal came as a surprise and it seemed to be because I was a foreigner.

 

The park does have a hidden Gem though. The shooting Dark Ride "Den of THieves" was great fun and miles better than the one at Everland.

Something this highlighted for me was you can go to any standard park on a good day and have a better time that visiting worlds greatest parks on a bad day. For me I had a much better time at Seoul Land than Everland just because Seoul Land made me feel more welcome and had a great friendly atmosphere.

 

Anyway on to the pictures.

The park the theme park is in is stunning. even in the cold.

Like Everland the park had its Snow Attractions open for the winter.

The parks entrance area has seen better days.

Yeah it was darn cold too.

Cheap? yes... Tacky? Certainly... but i liked the parks fairly ghetto vibe.

Even the geodesic domes happy.

The park has a decent line up of flats.

My first credit here was this fairly odd wild mouse.

It uses Arrow style track and was a little rough but not too bad.

It wont win any awards but the helix at the end was fun.

Lotteria food for lunch... Think Mcdonalds but more greasy.

Next up was the Meisho double loop. Again its quite rough but it won't kill you. The loops are fairly intense and I do like the colour scheme

The other big credit is the strangely named Black Hole 2000.

The ride sprawls across the back of the park with the corkscrews coming around halfway round.

This ride was pretty rough but I've been on worse.

And those corkscrews are REALLY high up.

Some of the more random parts of the layout.

I didn't credit whore today

Ghetto but a good laugh.

This thing was huge.. but sadly closed.

Once again due to the freezing conditions the flume was shut. Sad times.

The final credit was this little thing.

The lift on this thing is just about the loudest lift i've ever heard.

Ropes course. Always good fun... but also closed.

This was a big surprise though. Didn't know what was in here but its a really well themed fun shooting ride.

Smokers can smoke in the smoking areas... Although they did appear to be tucked away in some forlorn looking alleys.

This did look fun. but that double drop looks really quite odd with a big flat section between them. After this i headed across town on the Metro to Lotte World

[Gutterflower]

After leaving Seoul Land I made the short trip across the city to Lotte World. This was easily the busiest park of the trip and resulted in about an hour and a half wait for Atlantis Adventure. However it is a brilliant park and perfectly located slap bang in the middle of the city.

 

Atlantis Adventure doesn't disappoint at the air time in the top hat is insane. French Revolution isn't a bad ride at all and I like its little S-Cuves after the loop, The random section around the roof through some tunnels it pretty strange though. Comet Express is awesome but very very strange. I can't figure out if the thing is powered all the way round or just part of it. An odd Intamin ride indeed and stupidly hard to find.

 

The parks other rides are all pretty awesome too Gyro Swing and Gyro Drop are insane and even the indoor water rides are a step above everything else on the trip so far.

 

Anyway on to the pictures.

The entrance is in the shopping mall and you can walk out of the subway into the park.

The entrance is in the shopping mall and you can walk out of the subway into the park.

First Stop was French Revolution.

its an old school Vekoma Looper but its not too bad. A little rough but nothing spine breaking.

Nicely themed cars too.

The ride winds through the park.

The lift hill is nestled up against the wall of the mall.

The dive into the helix finale is pretty sweet.

yeah this place is huge

HELLO UP THERE.

On the way outside... did someone say disney?

This is what I am here for really.

And boy did it not let me down.

This ride pops in and out of the themeing with almost alarming randomness.

Back into the castle.

Being below freezing there was no water in the pool... So i guess this is just a Trax...

The changes in direction on this are excellent and the cars do make you feel nice and exposed.

Up and Over we go. Feels weird without a splash down.

The loading is slow but they load 2 trains at once which is a nice touch.

My first Gyro Drop. And its pretty darn good too.

Sure is tall.

Indoor log flume. didn't get to ride this but it looked pretty good.

This crazy lady was doing some acrobatics on a balloon in the main hall.

she was guided by some blokes with ropes.

The inside of the park is gorgeous

ice rink on the lower level with some shops

This looks pretty cool from below too.

The main hall is massive and they cram so so much in.

BEST attraction of the day. there was a little cafe in the same mall that you paid a little to get in and then they gave you a box of Lego and the tables all had lego board surfaces.

Sinbad was pretty awesome. I have NO idea how they fit the ride in. It's really rather long.

Curved Escalator? I didn't even know this was possible

 

Thats it for today. Next back to China for some smaller parks.

[SharkTums]

It's so cool seeing Atlantis without water. Thanks for the TR!

[Erik Johnson]

This is such a fantastic trip report. I am not sure how I missed this one earlier. I probably will never make it to Korea, so I really enjoy looking at all of the photos.