New theme park for Turkey, Ankapark.

Ankapark is opening this Monday (according to RCDB)!!!

I can't wait to see what come of this park, the sheer bizarreness of this place makes me super intrigued to see how this play out. Does anyone have any updates on what's been added since the last update?

[FiorellI Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

Ankapark is opening this Monday (according to RCDB)!!!

Unfortunately I wouldn't be so sure about that. Here is why:

Since November 2017 the park didn't post any news on their Facebook page. Wondering about this abrupt end of information flow I searched the internet and found this article.

There you can read that the initiator and protegé of the project, Melih Gökçek, was removed by its party (!) as major of Ankara. He was replaced by Mustafa Tuna, which is not that big of an AnkaPark fan as his predecessor.
The new major was shocked that the park has already cost around 400 million dollars and decided to put the whole thing up for a public discussion.

Now, three things to consider:
1. There was already a big investment, and just cancelling the project would vaporize the money spent.
2. On the other hand, the initial idea was to drag millions of tourists to Ankara, which in my opinion is not very likely to happen. The number of tourists declined dramatically lately in turkey and the main destinations are still Istanbul and the Mediterranean coast.
3. If I remember correctly, none of the coasters was a custom model. So they will be able to sell them more easily.

Sad rumors, I know. But I hope this park will go live sometime, maybe even on April 23rd - who knows?

[FiorellI Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

And I hate that it looks I was right about this.

Still no website of Ankapark, no footage of the opening anywhere. Don't plan a trip to this park (go to Istanbul and Antalya instead ).

[IntraTraxI Guess Donkeys Are Okay]

Sorry to bump this thread, but, I am the bearer of good news. A company named GBM Trade and Steel Enterprise Group obtained the rights to operate the park for 29 years. It will open March 2019, and OCT Group will be running the park.

Source: Turkish news website article - https://www.emlakdream.com/ankaparkta-acilis-hedefi-mart-2019/

Just checked up on the park's rcdb page, and it turns out that after changing their name to "Wonderland Eurasia," the park has finally opened! This should be interesting to follow...

Here's a few articles talking about the park opening for those wanting some more details (I have not read them all in full):

https://www.dailysabah.com/ankara/2019/03/20/europes-biggest-theme-park-wonderland-eurasia-opens-in-turkeys-ankara

https://blooloop.com/news/wonderland-eurasia-ankapark-opens-ankara-turkey/

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/03/20/giant-theme-park-opened-despite-rusty-roller-coasters-other-safety-concerns/

https://www.trtworld.com/turkey/europe-s-biggest-theme-park-opens-in-turkish-capital-25119

Some intersting notes:

*Three of the articles said the park claims they have (or will have) 2117 attractions. I'd really like to know where this figure came from, did someone at the park's PR make a typo? This number seems absurdly inflated.

*Their website (Wikipedia says this is the link) is not up yet, showing just a loading page with "Coming Soon" in Turkish

*The park does have a youtube channel, with a video announcing their opening date (March 20th) and an "introductory video" (linked below, has some footage of the park)

P.S. Sorry if this is against the rules for posting significant news before mods, though I'm assuming it's ok since nobody has really been talking about this park, and this happened two days ago.

[jedimaster1227Delicious & Refreshing]

^You're totally fine to post something like this... When we mean major news, it is typically the big new attraction announcement, major park news for an often talked about park (like any of the major US parks, Tokyo Disney, etc...) or something that a park has sent us a press release about.

This is the first we've heard of this news, so thank you for sharing!

[yay101I donut like this custom title :(]

It's also really strange why their 10 inversion coaster is the only coaster, according to RCDB, that is open. I'm curious to what else is open in the park and what is still under construction/SBNO.

[Rollercoaster RiderWhy do I still have a donkey title???]

Almost a million guests in 5 days, Kiss The Ring

http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/index.cfm?pagetype=news&codeID=341263

[wsixflagsI Love Donkeys!]

Almost a million guests in 5 days, Kiss The Ring

http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/index.cfm?pagetype=news&codeID=341263

ahahahahahahahahahahah

[DirkFunkDon't make me kick you in the donkey!]

Almost a million guests in 5 days, Kiss The Ring

http://www.attractionsmanagement.com/index.cfm?pagetype=news&codeID=341263

Pretty wild that a theme park that was the target of grift investigations and thought to be impossible to profit on wound up being the most successful opening in history. We can certainly trust this because President Erdogan is an exceptionally ethical individual with only the best in mind for his constituents and would certainly never have a regime that would demand false information being transmitted to the world at large for the purpose of elevating Turkey's stature. Just as all the thousands and thousands of people he has had imprisoned or executed were really trying to bring down the nation he is so single handedly capable of leading into the 21st century.