Gazza

Could you stretch it to 3 days for DL/DCA? If you've got little kids, and they can't ride certain things, couldn't you take turns and do many of the big rides on single rider anyway. In particular, DL/DCA is really good for that these days, and most of my favourites have single rider. https://disneyland.disney.go.com/guest-services/single-rider-line/

There's a big difference between $30m and $37m. Besides, if it cost $37m 10 years ago, you're not going to get it for that price in Australia today, given our higher labour/material/shipping costs.

How is it not too far off the price point?

The barrel roll at the end.

"Pendulum swinging attraction?" Its not a bloody gyro swing.

Ok so where was the big square building in the concept art?

Tokyo Joypolis https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/park-298-Tokyo_Joypolis This is located in the southern part of Tokyo on the bay. It is accessible by multiple lines, though the most interesting one is via the driverless Yukiramome line from Shimbashi, because you go across the rainbow bridge. It is located in The Decks, a shopping center with entertainment (Has a Legoland Discovery, Madam Tussauds etc) You can buy your own tickets at the vending machine quite quickly. Annoyingly even if you pick English, the actual ticketing product names are still in Japanese, but I was buying an evening ticket and already knew the price so was able to just deduce which one to pick. Everything is able to be done as a single rider, and at each attraction they’ll give you a card explaining the rules and instructions in English, albeit poorly translated (Eg you could tell the phrase “inside the museum” had been used instead of “inside the attraction”) The park is a 3 storey building with a big central atrium with the halfpipe, coaster and stage, with other attractions on each floor, wrapping around this. As for the attractions: Geikon Live Coaster Better than I expected. I guess in the pics all you see is the turn and barrel roll, in reality it’s a reasonable length. The ride has double sided wristband key lockers, which work quite well. The first part of the ride is a dark ride section with a few turns and a steep lift hill. There are screens over the track mounted on an overhead rail, and they move with the car so it doesn’t have to stop to play the game. It’s a rhythm game a bit like dance dance revolution, but it feels a bit weird tapping a button that is at navel level on the harness. Its based upon an anime, so in the background of the game its just people screaming and fighting incomprehensibly. So after about 3 or so rounds, you get launched out into a fast turn and through the barrel roll, and the car starts spinning. You then do a final section of track that is a few compact turns and drops with some disco lighting (imagine like the indoor section on Abyss at AW, just no inversion) Transformers Human Alliance Special A simulator that could spin around to any angle a bit like a human gyroscope / space rings. You didn’t get to control the steering, so basically you were in a fighter jet doing aerobatics in an aerial battle between Transformers and Decepticons. You could control the shooting, which was pretty easy because you just fired when the crosshairs lined up with a hit box. Storm G This one was a simulator where it was like going down a big futuristic tobbogan run. The only degree of movement this one had was rolling left and right, so you could control this and it would bank up on the turns. At special checkpoints you’d hit a button and that would make it do full 360s. At the start of the game riders vote on the downhill course they want (Eg one with lots of rolling, or one with heaps of rolling), everyone picked the moderate one, which was fine, because it still rolled heaps. Otherwise, it feels a bit weird and forcless because you don’t feel the acceleration or the downhill tilting, and there was a bit of lag with the input. Sonic Olympics Basically like those old style vintage treadmills with rollers underneath and no motors. The force of your strides would get the belt to move. There were 3 events. A sprint where you just ran. A triple jump, where you would sprint, then hit a button at the right time. Finally there was hurdles, which you guessed it, involved both running and hitting buttons at the correct time. They provide running shoes if you don’t have them. Wild River Very predictable. You sit in a raft, and go down a river with big waterfalls into a treasure cave. A baddie turns up in his big steampunk octopus machine, steals a treasure, and things start collapsing and turn to shit. He grabs you, so you end up out of the water and being tossed through the air. Attack on Titan A group walk through/tour attraction with okay scenes and a couple of projected backgrounds. Basically just working your way through rooms with giant man eating creatures wandering around outside and eyeing you off / trying to consume you. One scene was a faux elevator ride to the top of the city walls. At one point you had to search through a room with book cases and drawers with everyone to find a key to get out. The finale had a couple of full sized giants heads. One was successfully decapitated. The 2nd was consuming one of the tour guides, complete with faux blood effects. It's only a new attraction, but the projected parts were pretty low res and the scenery was all flat printed vinyl. Hozukis Coolheadedness One of those 3d sound attractions like the old Sounds Dangerous at Disney Hollywood Studios. Basically you sit on small stools in a tea room wearing special headphones, the room is blacked out, you hear people arguing, fighting, swinging weapons, stuff toppling over. At one point the seats drop a small distance. I couldn’t follow the story, but it was quite cool how it really felt like stuff was happening inches from your shoulder or as if someone was whispering right in your ear. I guess these days 3D sound is now consumer level with newer headphones though, so these attractions may die out. Sadako Psychic Curse Manor Again, virtually all in Japanese, but the host used a few basic words to let us know what was happening and what to do ( “Escape! Escape!”) and the preshow vid had subtitles. Basically it was about pyschics who invoke dead spirits. So the first room is just a bit of faux psychic reading. The next room had you getting into an upright coffin with the door closed (but a small window). Characters would roam around outside, bang on it, get in your face etc. At one point the coffins were tilted horizontally via a mechanical system. The final scene was at a TV, where that woman from the ring crawled out of the screen and chased you down the hallway to the exit. Halfpipe Tokyo The only real thing with a wait. It’s really just like being on a stand up version of Voodoo at funfields, with a smallish swing arc, and spinning. It doesn’t actually run on a track, it swings from overhead. Pairs or singles stand on a board. The board has a tilting section of plate that acts as a switch. (Imagine standing on a wooden board with a broom handle underneath if you want to imagine how it feels when you trigger the switch) The goal is to hit the switch at the bottom of each swing precisely, if you do it well, the board will spin several times, if you do it poorly you’ll get half a spin. Everyone gets a rank based on how many degrees of spinning you got, and there were some madmen getting 14,440 plus. Good fun, but dizzying. There were other simulators, but I didn’t need to do all of them. A couple of other attractions were quiz based or interactive so it would have been too difficult. They also had a 3D show, and a shooting theatre attraction that I wouldn’t have minded trying, but I ran out of time.Its a good place, i spent 4 hours there, could have done more with another hour, but I was satified nevertheless. Oh, they also had a pissing contest in the toilets:

I thought that, but then Bunnings sausage sizzles etc would be $5 to maximize the amount raised for the charities that run them each week.

If it's a fundraiser, why are they still doing it at "theme park food prices" ?

First time I've heard the lightning strike story.

I dunno if there is some reference I am missing, but Lightning Rod does not use Kumbak trains, nor does it have anything to do with the Gold Coast.

"overflow carpark"

So if we could care less, does that mean we care a bit?

There's like 4 ish in Victoria, the mouse at Luna Park Sydney, the ones at adventure World, plus whatever Aussie world has open. Did sw open?

With the rail pass, its good if you want to do a lot of adhoc slightly inefficient travel....random daytrips and the like. But for me, i only had to do one long and one short Shinkansen trip, plus a lot of travel on private railways (Eg to Parque Espana) so the economics weren't there. My itinerary was more of a loop i guess. Also, the rail pass doesnt let you use the fastest class Ｎｏｚｏｍｉ Shinkansens....And for me, doing the Osaka Tokyo run at full speed was a big thing I wanted to do.

Has Australia ever had three coasters open in one year?

For Fuji Q, it's much cheaper and simpler and quicker to do it as a day trip with the highway bus from Shinjuku. You can get an all inclusive Q pack ticket, and departures are available that get you to the park nice and early.

Japan is a very easy country to travel in, and really quite cheap, just make sure you have a roaming bundle or a sim card so you can use maps and translate. You can relax a bit because things aren't a hassle, and its very safe. Oh and the food is exceptional, doesn't matter if its local or western food. Everything is geared well to access without a car, so public transport to parks is easy, and every station and park has ample coin lockers to leave your luggage in. Parks open year round, winter is mostly like a Melbourne winter, though sunset was quite early, just before 5pm. Operations are slow, but medium and smaller parks never tend to get busy. The bigger ones get rammed with people, but you can always pay to skip lines or use faspass. Your mindset changes and you get into "Japanese park mode", if you are at Disney etc, you will get to ride everything becase the operating hours are long, but you have to accept that for a couple of rides you'll just have to wait 2h. And yes definitely arrive an hour before opening so you can nab a fast pass and get in line for a major early.

I went to Japan for this years Christmas Break, from the 20th of December to the 5th. Many trip reports and photos to come, but I’ll start off with Fuji Q. pics here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/park-130-Fuji-Q_High_Land Basically, I had a tight-ish schedule, and began to fret a bit when I saw snow forecast the night before I visited. Still, I went through with it, and arrived to about 20cm of powdery snow. It was very pretty, but kept the crowds away, but a double edged sword as it meant only indoor rides were open for the first half of the day. The Japanese are very industrious, and right from the early morning, staff were all hands on deck clearing snow and opening attractions. In the end, I managed to ride basically everything I wanted to (Ok I wouldn’t have minded trying Panic Clock, but it ended up that Tondemina was the only major flat to open) But the one notable exception was Eejanaika. I guess it would have been cool riding X2s bigger brother, but I would have been far more shattered if I missed Do-Dodonpa In the end I rode the following: Thomas Treasure Hunt – A surprisingly good kiddie dark ride where you shine a torch on treasures. Fuji Airways – Brogent flying theatre with a hilariously good preshow. The film was okay, focusing on repeated “big reveals” of Mt Fuji. One point had you passing through a storm, and another point had a faux air force fly by, but instead of jets, it was CGI people flying in the winged seats of their Gerstlauer sky roller. Scientific Ninja Dojo Hall – A Naruto themed toy story mania type ride where you shoot ninja stars, fire etc etc, rather well done. Shining Flower – Giant ferris wheel great for photos. There was an option to ride in fully Perspex pods, but they seemed much more faded / grimy than the usual ones, which wouldn’t be good for photos. Nagashimuska – A rapids ride with some scarily steep drops and a cool whirlpool element. A poncho is a must considering it was 8c outside. Rock n Roll Duncan – A kiddie coaster more gentle than a wacky worm. Super Scary Labyrinth of Fear – An upcharge, pre booked horror walkthrough set in a Hospital. You go in groups of 4, but if you are alone, you end up shelling out for a full slot, costing a whopping 4000 JPY. Was very long though, and could be a stand alone attraction outside a park imo. The childrens ward scene is particularly creepy, and you do get chased a couple of times. Evangelion World – I have no idea about this series, it was walk through with several giant robot heads and vehicles from the Anime. Im sure if you were a fan you’d get more out of it. Fujiyama – A very long, not too rough hypercoaster that was quite intense and fast. Felt way ahead of its time. In particular, the wave turns at the end are nuts. I did 2 laps on single rider. Takabisha – A great launched / lift hill Eurofighter. Great pacing, a good pop of airtime on one of the hills. I thought the section after the beyond vertical drop was a bit brief though. I did 3 laps, including one with a fast pass from the vending machine out front of the ride. Do-Dodonpa – A launch so fast your brain doesn’t process it for a second, and one of the few rides I’ve had an oh gawd moment on (prior to the launch) The train does bounce around a bit, so its an experience, but probably wouldn’t want to be much longer. I did 2 laps, including one with a fast pass from the vending machine out front of the ride. The park has Pizza La, so I had some japanse pizza (Including a Teriyaki one with seaweed flakes) Overall, despite the hiccups, the low crowds ensured a great day, and it was quite magical being in a snow filled park. Anywhere else and they’d say “Stuff it, we’re closed today”

No that's just Sky Flyer

"Raydn Lebron" lmfao

Devils advocate, but this happens all the time at the parks. Remember when Village Bean at MW used to be a Shrek shop?

They are wrong, Blue Fire is superb.

No it wasn't.

Like 20 people, so maybe an extra meter or two?