Santa07

You’d need a pretty damn good RMC to beat Rivals... a raptor certainly won’t cut that. DW are going in the right direction with the family experiences since it’s something that isn’t too hard to beat MW at. The capacity is probably no worse than Buzzsaw, ToT or Tail Spin though 😉

Looks like TPR have created their own version of Mitch Hawker's Coaster poll: https://coasterpoll.com/. Still in beta testing so there are quite a few bugs and missing coasters (especially Australian ones). Still looks like something worth checking out since I reckon this could easily become one of the more popular coaster polls around.

The water show looks great! Looking like SW Carnivale is going to shape up a lot better this year.

It certainly wouldn’t be impossible to make you feel like you’re doing those movements though - think of how a mad house does it.

I didn’t want this thread to turn into another case of “who’s top 10 is better”, because we’ve had plenty of those over the years... but since it seems I must explain: this is nothing more than a personal opinion, I don’t expect people to agree with my list. The three Disney coasters I’ve mentioned are great, fun rides, but none of them match the sheer thrills and intensity ToT provides (if you want to argue that then go do it somewhere else). I wouldn’t call RnRC or Crush’s Coaster a Disney masterpiece - Pirates, Star Tours, Disney’s ToT, maybe even HSM yes - but RnRC isn’t much more than an indoor roller coaster with lots of lights, and Crush’s second half isn’t much better than Scooby theming-wise. I doubt someone like @pushbutton would have a similar top 5 to me, but I still respect his personal opinion - some people prefer big, thrilling coasters while others prefer less intense ones that provide more of an “experience”. Happy new year.

Just like last year's thread. What are your favourite coasters you rode this year? For me: 1. DC Rivals (MW) 2. Taron (Phantasialand) 3. Superman Escape (MW) 4. Black Mamba (Phanta) 5. ToT (DW) 6. Colorado Adventure (Phanta) 7. Hyperspace Mountain (DLP) 8. Rock n Roller Coaster (Walt Disney Studios) 9. Crush's Coaster (Walt Disney Studios) 10. Arkham Asylum (MW)

Yeah no, I can't see DW removing its signature attraction any time soon. It may be expensive to operate and maintain but it's one of the few things keeping guests at the park. And I personally quite like the roar. MDMC would be a good candidate for relocation/removal if they were tight on land - but they're not so it's not really hurting anyone keeping it around.

This is a massive leap in the right direction for Dreamworld, a flying theatre is perfect for the park (or even for the GC in general) and something that will definitely bring the crowds back through the gate. A WWW expansion is something that should've happened long ago so very glad that's on the cards too. A dark ride has the potential to become one of the best rides on the GC - looking forward to seeing what they have planned for that.

Walt Disney Studios This park is nothing like what's next door: it's a very ugly park and our parks are a lot prettier than this one. Apart from ToT and the France area of the park, it's basically a bunch of sheds sitting next to eachother. Basically what you'd get if MW took away all its theming and greenery. That said, despite the poor appearance of the park, it does contain four great rides (Ratatouille, ToT, Crush's Coaster and RnRC). Ratatouille was a 70 minute wait, but luckily the single rider queue was basically a walk-on. This is a very good dark ride - great 3D scenes and the trackless technology is really cool. My only complaint about this ride is that some of the effects were mistimed a little, which sorta ruined the magic - for example we started spinning slightly before we were "hit" by the mop, and the champagne water splash was slightly out of sync with the video too. It's not a perfect dark ride, but still Disney-level quality. 7.5/10. Tower of Terror was the ride I was looking forward to the most in this park, and it did not disappoint (probably my favourite ride out of the two Disney parks). A great theme (even if the narration was in French), and a ton of airtime. It's not really that forceful, but it's such a fun ride. 10/10. Crush's Coaster is a pretty low-capacity ride for Disney standards, so had a long wait all day (even through the single rider queue). It is a fantastic coaster though, and surprisingly intense in some sections. The theming and lighting inside sets a great atmosphere too. Pity the queue was so long because I would've liked to ride this one again. 8.5/10. Rock n Roller Coaster is definitely the most intense ride at the two parks. The ride layout isn't too dissimilar from Hyperspace Mountain - a launch, a few inversions, but mostly just turns in the dark. I'd really like to ride Xpress Platform 13 at Walibi Holland (which is a clone of the ride) to see how it compares without the lighting and soundtrack. For an older Vekoma with OTSRs, I was surprised to find this ride as smooth as it is, with very minimal headbanging. 8.5/10. Unfortunately I didn't get to see the car show (would've been interesting to see a car show that was actually good) or experience the tram tour (which was closed all day). RC Racer was a walk-on, so I did it quickly for the credit - no different to surfrider really, just no spinning seats. Really looking forward to seeing some more Disney parks in the years to come, and definitely planning on spending a few days wherever I go next time. Overall, here's how I'd rank all the rides I did at the two Disney parks: 1. Tower of Terror 2. Star Tours 3. Pirates 4. Hyperspace Mountain 5. RnRC 6. Crush's Coaster 7. Phantom Manor 8. Ratatouille 9. BTM (pretty big gap here in terms of how good the rides are) 10. RC Racer 11. Indiana Jones

Seats mentioned above are still out. Interesting to note I found the ride felt noticeably faster today in the heat, and the trims seemed to be a lot more noticeable to. Queue was looking like this from just after lunchtime so plenty of rerides today. Definitely recommend going this week before crowds kick in.

Next thing we know the entirety of WWW will be closing, gotta be careful with these water pumps

Disneyland Paris My first Disney park. I have heard only great things about Disney's level of quality, but even after hearing all these stories I was still blown away when I first arrived at the park. I only had one day to see the two parks, which meant I had a lot to squeeze in and had to skip over a lot of things. Even on a relatively quiet day like the one I went on, I found I would've needed at least two, if not three full days to see these parks properly. First ride of the day was Hyperspace Mountain. Formerly Space Mountain Mission 2, this ride underwent a pretty major refurbishment earlier this year, receiving new Vekoma trains with vest restraints (the same as HWSW) and a retheme to Star Wars. The ride isn't super fast or intense (apart from the launch and inversions its mostly just a few banked turns) but what really makes this ride are the projections inside the show building. It proves how much a basic ride can be elevated using theming and lighting effects (I'd love to see Phanta do something similar to Temple of the Night Hawk). If this was a standalone outdoor coaster with no theming, it would be a very ordinary ride (probably not much better than HWSW), but with the theming and effects it's definitely a top 10 coaster for me (although that doesn't really mean too much with the few coasters I've ridden). I'd rate this ride 8.5/10. Next up was Star Tours (using Disney's incredible FastPass system), which was also recently refurbished to make the upgrade to The Adventures Continue. Just... wow. POVs don't do this ride any justice, the movements of the simulator feel so real and everything is synced perfectly. Impressed that they even had scenes from The Last Jedi (which hadn't even been released at the time I was there). A 10/10 ride, definitely, wish I did it more than once. Headed over to the other side of the park and grabbed a FP for Big Thunder Mountain. Did Phantom Manor while I was over there - a very cool dark ride with some awesome effects. Unfortunately the stoppages of the ride do ruin it a little bit, especially if you happen to stop in one of the more dull scenes. 8/10. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril was next. I have one word to describe this - ow. This ride doesn't belong in a Disney park. The only decent part of the ride is the loop, which is surprisingly forceful. The rest is just headbanging and pain. 2/10. The FP timeslot for Big Thunder Mountain rolled around so I did that next. Honestly a little underwhelmed by this ride. The theming is fantastic, but I found the actual coaster a little dull. The only part of the ride I really enjoyed was the last section in the dark. I was pretty close to the front of the train though and I assume the back seat would be a lot more wild. I know it's been said on these forums before, but WWF needs effects similar to that last lift hill (youtube it if you don't know what I'm talking about). 7/10 (and that's mostly because of the theming, would be a lot lower without it). The last ride I did in this park was Pirates of the Caribbean, and I was once again very impressed. So much fantastic theming and effects on this ride, and a pretty decent storyline. My socks did get a little wet, but that's half the fun (in fact, this happened when we rolled off the lift hill, neither of the drops really wet you at all). 10/10. I just want to make a comment on how little things in a park can really take it to the next level. I did spend some time walking around the park soaking up the atmosphere, and two little attractions I stumbled across were the Nautilus and La Taniere du Dragon. The Nautilus is a small little underground walkthrough that is pretty easy to miss, but a nice little place to spend 5 minutes passing through. The dragon is unique to DLP's castle and contains a very impressive animatronic dragon. It's one of the tiny features that makes the place so magical. I'm going to throw my review of Walt Disney Studios in a separate post, because the feel of the park is completely different (spoilers: it's not a good different either).

Phantasialand This was the first theme park of the trip, and my first theme park outside of Australia. Since I visited during December, the park was in the middle of its Wintertraum event, which meant a very Christmas-y atmosphere around the park, and the short days resulted in plenty of night rides on some of their coasters. Upon opening I headed straight to Taron, which was unfortunately was suffering from technical difficulties (Intamin seal of quality ). My first ride of the day then became Colorado Adventure, the park's mine train. I was expecting a reasonably tame ride, but was very wrong as this coaster was mayhem from start to finish, throwing you around in the very open trains. Plenty of ejector airtime, and the loose lap bars made it even crazier. What's more, a large portion of this ride is in the dark, making the crazy turns and strong lateral Gs even more unexpected. My favourite part of the rid would definitely be the main drop after the second lift hill. Overall I'd rate this ride 9/10, this was definitely one of the most (pleasantly) surprising coasters of the trip. Next up was Talocan (the park's top spin). For me, this is the definition of a perfect flatride - incredibly forceful, fantastic theming and special effects, great to watch off-ride, and a killer soundtrack. It certainly wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea due to the repeated inversions, but this is definitely my new favourite flat ride. The only problem I have with this ride is that it makes Wipeout a lot more underwhelming now ). 10/10. Feng Ju Palace was my first Mad House, and overall I wasn't too impressed. The mad house concept is very cool but it needs a good storyline to make it a great ride, something this one didn't have. Definitely not the worst ride in the park, but I'd only rate it 4/10. Mystery Castle was my next ride. This is an enclosed shot/drop tower, with a very immersive theme. I would've been very happy to queue for a long time for this ride because of how fantastic the queue's theming was (however on the day I visited it was a walk-on). As a tower ride, I didn't find it as forceful as Batwing, but still thought it was a great ride. 9/10. Raik is one of the two coasters in the park's Klugheim area, and is a Vekoma family boomerang. Whilst the theming of this area is top-notch, I didn't really enjoy the coaster. The trains were very restrictive for a tall person like myself, and the ride didn't have too much force. That said it is a kiddie coaster - and does its job as one very well. 5/10. Finally got onto Taron... and initially I was quite disappointed. This ride has been hyped up so much and I was expecting to be blown away. Unfortunately I didn't get that on my first ride, and came off a little underwhelmed. However I found later in the day, this ride became the coaster I was expecting, especially in the front row, or at night. The ride starts with a turn out of the station while the ride's awesome dispatch music plays, before the first launch knocks your breath away. From there, it's a series of very snappy transitions, intense turns, and surprising headchoppers. The ride begins to lose its intensity towards the end of the first half, but then the second launch kicks in and you're thrusted to the ride's top speed. The second half of the ride is even more intense than the first. The sensation of speed passing through the buildings and rockwork is amazing. My only disappointment with this ride is the airtime isn't as strong as I was expecting - while the first airtime hill and one or two of the twists provide decent airtime, it's not nearly as intense as DC Rivals' airtime. Additionally, the airtime hill at the end of the ride is completely forceless due to the trims before it, which is really disappointing. Overall, it's truly a fantastic ride and I have certainly joined the Taron fanboys. Definitely something that needs to be ridden at night as it's by far the craziest night ride I've had on a coaster. Unfortunately, it does take some time each day for the ride to get warmed up. I'd rate this coaster 9.5/10 - DC Rivals is still my #1 coaster but this is not very far behind. I then did Das Verruckte Hotel Tartuffe, which is a very entertaining walkthrough/madhouse style of ride (I'd rate it 7/10). After that was Maus au Chocolat, a very well-themed shooting ride. I rode it twice but found it to be a little boring on the second run. Also rate this one 7/10. Next up was Winjas Fear and Force, a pair of Maurer spinners. Heads up - spoilers follow and if you haven't ridden this and are planning to do so sometime in the future, I'd recommend skipping this paragraph. These two coasters are very messed up due to several 'trick track' elements over the course of the two rides. Both use an elevator lift, which tilts you at the top, dropping you straight out of the lift. Additionally, towards the end of the ride the two coasters have a piece of track that tilts you (Fear tilts you forwards, while Force tilts you sideways). Finally, after the break-run, a section of track on each side bounces while you move over it. The main parts of both rides involve a mix of spinning sections and drops/airtime hills. I really enjoyed both sides, although ironically I found the Fear side more forceful, which is why it is my pick of the two. 7.5/10 for Force, and 8/10 for Fear. Temple of the Night Hawk is a very long and dark enclosed rollercoaster, and is known for being a very boring ride - something I can confirm. The entire ride is forceless with very little theming (and the theming that is there is a bit confusing). I didn't find it as bad as some of the reviews I've read made it out to be, but it's something I didn't need to ride again. 4/10. Black Mamba was my first B&M, and I was certainly not disappointed. Smooth, intense, and a really fun ride. The near misses with the rocks and trees makes this ride even more fun. The ride's drop is surprisingly forceful, as is the first loop. The 0-G rolls are a lot of fun. The second half of the ride is mostly made up of turns, helixes and tunnels and isn't as good as the first half, but is still very enjoyable. At night this ride is even better as there is very little lighting around the ride which means it is very hard to see where you are going. My only complaint about this ride is that there is a little bit of headbanging (but it's not too much). 9/10 for this ride, it would be 10/10 if it didn't have the headbanging. I thought I was a little crazy for doing Chiapas in the middle of Europe's freezing winter, but it wasn't actually too bad as you only get a light spray of water. This ride is fantastic - it's something that will make you feel so happy every time you ride (mostly due to the soundtrack). Here I was thinking Wild West Falls is a top notch log flume - but as I discovered it's possible to get a lot better! 10/10 for sure. The rest of the day was mostly re-rides, with Geister Riksca (I think that's how you spell it...) my last new ride of the day. I was the only person I saw on the ride, and I worked out why - this ride was just really, really weird with no storyline whatsoever. A couple of the scenes were quite cool, but I spent most of the ride wondering how long it would take so I could get back in the queue for Taron. 3/10. Overall, this park is beautiful, with so much quality of theming and detail everywhere you go (expect for maybe Temple of the Night Hawk). I was really impressed that the park had almost all of their rides running during winter (as far as I was aware the only rides that were closed were water rides). I didn't see any of the shows as I preferred to get re-rides on my favourite rides (in total I got 9 rides on Taron, 5 rides on Black Mamba, and 2 rides on most other rides I enjoyed). The crowds were very low when I visited, almost every ride was a walk-on except for Winjas (which were about 5 minutes each) and Taron (which was about 15 minutes - however the single rider was mostly empty which I made the most of). When F.L.Y. opens I'm sure this park will be even more amazing. Very jealous of people like @Coaster Hipster who are able to visit amazing parks like this fairly regularly.

So some of you may remember around a year ago I was asking on tips for a Europe trip - a trip which has now been completed. While this trip wasn't a theme-park-focused trip, I did manage to hit up Phantasialand and the two Disneyland Paris parks. So this thread will be used to give my trip reports for each of these parks. I do apologise in advance for the text-heaviness of these trip reports, as I took minimal photos using only my phone's camera.

The park won’t be supet busy until Boxing Day, but do expect some crowds. Occasionally you do get really quiet Saturdays especially during school holidays when perceived crowds turn people off. I don’t think a fast track would be necessary but I’d just play it by ear and see how busy it is.

I love the backwards row, but find forwards satisfying enough for me (and I don’t have to pay $10 for it)

Good decision by the park. Wasn’t worth trying to revamp and the land is much more suited to a new large scale attraction.

or just whack a staff member out the front during busy times to help anyone open a locker and get payment afterwards if required

That fast track price is insane, but completely worth what you get. The wristbands attached to the machines look a little tacky, but it’s a lot easier for the park than changing the system to work without the wristbands.

199 does seem a bit pricey IMO but 139 is perfect, about time they pushed the price up.

Yeah that would be very painful. It was reasonably light yesterday.

DCR is AMAZING in the rain

If you think Jurassic World was a bad movie then you need to see more movies. I thought it was quite decent.

I'm interested to know what type of "simulator rides" they're thinking of. Are we talking flying-theatre-like rides or little fairground boxes with a screen?

I'm a mixture of the bottom four options. No, I probably wouldn't be that interested but would probably eventually go there sometime during the next 5 or 10 years. I'm also interested (not exactly worried) about how VR's take on TG will be and if it will live up to the US versions. And I would've taken a new coaster any day over TG (if they didn't just open a kickass one two months ago).