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Ocean Park - 23/04/2023 https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/ocean-park I didn’t just head to Malysia back in April, I headed to Ocean Park in Hong Kong as well. It’s a huge park split into two parts that are 1.6km apart, connected via cablecars or a funicular. Ocean Park is located on Hong Kong Island, and very easy to reach via the MTR, a single stop away from Admiralty (literally minutes from downtown). Once you are there you literally walk 50m to the front gate. First impressions as you come in are quite impressive, with whimsical ocean themed buildings around a lagoon used for fountain shows. I was advised to head to Giant Panda Adventure first thing since you get to see them feeding, and I wasn’t disappointed, with one of them right up close and munching away. The red pandas were pretty cute too. Down this end they also had Little Meerkat and Giant Tortoise Adventure, a pretty small exhibit but again offered a good up close view. Down here they had a few other smaller exhibits. And a kids area, which to be honest looked a bit underwhelming on the rides front for a park this major. Guess Disney reigns supreme for families with kids here. To their credit they did build a big indoor thing with giant interactive walls and so forth recently. The cablecars can get quite busy in the morning so I opted to head up to the summit on the Ocean Express. Probably the best themed transport ride I’ve seen. There was also a video playing in the roof of the cars, but it was nothing to write home about, just a mash of ocean related stock footage. Arriving at the top of course I headed to Hair Raiser, the parks B&M floorless coaster, which looks rather awesome perched on the edge of a cliff. The ride experience is a bit of a jackammer though, it was kind of like when you lean your head on a bus window and your head is vibrating so much your vision is blurred. Starts off with a climb up the side of a naked cliff, before a large loop and a dive loop. Next comes a high speed camel hump, a Zero g roll, and an immellmann right over the ride entrance. The ride finishes off with a twisting hill and another turn into the brakes. I still did about 7 laps given the lack of a queue, but it was with my head firmly planted against the backrest. Arctic Blast is the other coaster, a mack powered coaster which was decent, with a dive into the trench under the entrance and a few helices for good measure. Only steadily paced though, so firmly for the families. Theres also The Rapids, pretty decent with an animal exhibit in the middle full of rainforest creatures. Note: dont do artificial rock like this! Most of the wetness seemed to come from a multitude of fountains on the way. Spotted the Ocean Park Tower nearby, spectacular views. Sea Jelly Spectacular was supposedly the inspiration for Sea Jellies Illuminated at SW, and got multi hour queues once upon a time. Was expecting something huge, but in reality the one here in the GC is better imo. Ferris Wheel offered views of the SBNO Dragon coaster. Pretty bad to have so many rides in plain view but not operational. The funny thing is off by itself amongst the closed stuff they have Wild Twister, a very modern looking Top Scan. Haven't done one of these in years, and certainly not in the outside seat and they are great fun, with you tumbling about in all directions. Feels like it achieves much more randomness than say a tourbillon. I think that sums up all the proper rides I did. (not one for spin and spews) I opted to catch the Cable Car downhill to get some pics and then promptly caught it back uphill again. Really makes you appreciate how HK just clings to every flat bit of available land. Around the bottom area is a nicley themed "Old Hong Kong" themed zone. Grabbed a drink before pressing on. There are quite a significant number of other animal exhibits Pacific Point contains all the seals, I got there right on feeding time but the underwater area was under rennovation. Didn't stick around for the dolphin show. Perhaps the most significant exhibit is Polar Adventure, which is divided into both north pole and south pole themed zones. Amazing seeing a walrus up close, and they seemed to love the crowds, blowing bubbles. The smelly, but cute arctic foxes. And of course they have penguins, but the whole room was kept cold rather than an enclosed box like the ones at SW. Shark Mystique is an all indoor version of shark bay, starting above ground at the rock pools and then leading down a spiral to a huge under ground tank. The sawtooth sharks were probably the highlight. Catching the ocean express back downhill I saw the last two major exhibits. Sichuan Treasures contains some long haired monkeys. But perhaps one of the best was saved for last, the Grand Aquarium. If this existed outside the park, they'd probably charge $40 for a ticket, but here its a standalone attraction. Several quite large displays, culminating in a massive picture window (since eclipsed by SeaWorld Abu Dhabi) Could have done without the baby shark stickers getting in the way however. Overall, its a good park, though disappointing to see so many closed rides in full view. These are not even ones they have boarded up etc, you have to walk right past several to get to some of the newer stuff. You can tell they are trying to fill a niche not covered by Disney, with a renewed focus on thrill rides and animals, neither of which Disney have. The rub with the place I feel is that it seems to have way too much in terms of facilities, attractions etc for the attendance that it gets, and they have built a lot of new stuff without getting rid of the old stuff, so the result is a place that is very spread out and empty feeling in parts and needs a lot of staff to actually run it. These comments more apply to the summit area. The bit down near the entrance is absolutely fine. I do hope the parks financial woes are able to be solved because no other place in the world has a setting like Ocean Park, and their animal exhibits are excellent. More photos are here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/ocean-park

Hong Kong Disneyland https://www.parkz.com.au/attraction/hong-kong-disneyland The last park from my trip in April was Hong Kong Disneyland. Im on mobile so it's a bit harder to do my usual formatting and add many pics, but of course all 300 are already uploaded here: https://www.parkz.com.au/search/photos/location/hong-kong-disneyland Again I won't do a blow by blow of the day. Rather ill do each ride. Space Mountain Im still not big on the whole star wars overlay. The original music is much easier to follow and the theming doesn't make sense. You have classic space mountain with planets etc in the station, which is completely different to how a space ship interior looks in Star Wars. And then on the ride yeah they have a few lights that represent laser fire which looks great, but there's no hiding that a lot of it is just backdrops with a small 2d projection of a star destroyer. Just all feels forced on the wrong type of ride. That said the coaster is still great. The station is much smaller than the other ones so you lose a bit of that buzz of looking down over the station and seeing trains pump through. Iron Man Experience Pleasant surprise! I was expecting a reskinned star tours, but it felt so much more. The queue is like a tech expo with lots of cool stuff to look at. The ride film is incredibly detailed, and your usual "on a tour but stuff goes wrong" sort of storyline. My tip, have a walk around Hong Kong island and ride the tram east on a day before you visit the park. You'll get a lot more out of the ride film if you can spot real details. Ant Man Vs the Wasp - Nano Battle This was also better than expected. It was previously themed as buzz lightyear, but of course the MCU rules at Disney now. The ride was panned a bit in POVs for looking "boring" but it's fine and better than Buzz imo. Really bold visual design with you making your way through a high tech facility, before being shrunk down to fight the bad guys inside a computer. A nice touch was that the targets aren't just flat things with LEDs, instead they are actual screens built into the sets, with animations when hit. "its a small world" Yeah its fine, but probably the longest ive waited for it. It's hard to separate any of the versions of these in my mind. This was the first to integrate Disney characters into it but to be honest it was fine. It wasn't in your face at all. Winne the Pooh The scenes seemed similar to the Tokyo version, just without the trackless cars. You start in hundred acre woods in some gorgeous scenes that are all flats but have a real picture book feel. Eventually you see pooh in bed, he falls asleep, and there is a great peppers ghost effect of his soul seemingly leaving his body. You I've been transported into poohs dream, with a circus of "heffalumps" Instead these ones were tracked, but could still bounce up and down at certain points. Mickey and the Wondrous Book I made an effort do some shows since I normally don't do many at parks. Was great! There's a huge projection mapped book on stage, and as Goofy and Mickey turn through they release characters from various stories. Elaborate song and dance numbers with quite a large cast, tied together with your usual cool Disney FX. Worth a look. RC Racer So imagine Surfrider with the TOT2 car on it. Greater than the sum of its parts! It wierds you out for a moment since you keep mentally expecting to a bit of spin. But what makes it great is the multiple moments of floating airtime. Would have ridden twice but it's somewhat low capacity (was a one and done early in the day) Oh and the theming is great. I liked the plastic car model parts on a frame in the station, and the queue paths themed like a scaletrix track (complete with the metal slots and the joiner pieces between track segments) Toy Soldier Parachute Drop Eh was ok. Good if you want a view of back of house areas and very mild drops in a short ride cycle. Again has a great themed queue, with lots of props looking like green plastic parts from an army playset. Was able to bypass a 45 min wait with single rider. Mystic Manor Did not disappoint. You ride in a trackless ride vehicle through the antiques collection owned by an eccentric old man and his pet monkey (in fact 4 go at once and they dance around each other in each room) The antiques come to life as you go through each scene, and this is a ride where a few laps can help you spot all the great gags. I quite liked the room with all the Mediterranean antiques. There's a Greek vase with the print on the outside coming to life and physically popping out the neck. And the final room has a great effect of literally falling apart around you! My only critique is that the ride looks like a cool old mansion from the outside, but you don't walk in the front door. Instead you go into the "loading dock" down in the basement, which feels like a cop out. Dunno I reckon it would have been more dramatic if you went through the foyer of the house and a few rooms and THEN go downstairs to the basement with the treasures. Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars Great fun! A mine train coaster that wraps around a whole themed area. What i loved is the number of times goes under pathways and itself, so you can't just glance at the whole layout and map it out in your head. So it makes it feel like more of an Adventure since you don't know whats coming. Starts with a regular lift hill. At the top a grizzly bear pleasuring itself on a railway points lever causes your train go down "the wrong track" and a few turns follow. Then theres a dead end lifthill like a boomerang where you go up, then roll back down backwards The reverse section is mostly straight with Gentle turns, so no risk of feeling sick for anyone. Eventually you run backwards into a mine tunnel with a switch track. Some bears playing with dynamite cause an explosion, launching you forwards again. The remainder of the ride is several quick turns back to the station. It feels well orchestrated, with all these highlights on the way, a pace that gets faster as the ride goes on, and of course some good humour. Festival of the Lion King The other big show. Its a circular theatre and they bring in floats of African animals to the middle. There's acrobatics, fire twirling, bits of stage that rise up etc. It's done in a format where its a tribal retelling of the Lion King story, so Simba, Scar etc are guys in tribal dress, not actors in fursuits. Jungle Cruise I know its a classic but I just don't get it. Cruising past static sculpts of jungle animals just doesn't do it. Yeah there is some fire and water at the end, but not enough to warrant a repeat imo. Momentous. Really good and a genuine highlight. Recently the park renovated the castle from something that was once the size of the one in California, to one that rivals the Magic Kingdom. And after dark it becomes a giant projection mapping surface. Add some lasers, fountains and fireworks (Which HK is really good at for some reason) and of course a rousing soundtrack and the results are spectacular. The content is often a bit touchy feely, with memorable moments from Disney movies put up on the film. It was a particularly good sequence where they had all the villains and a song which I wish knew the name of. If I ever get back I'll definitely try and get there for a front row seat... I ended up sbout halfway up main Street which was decent enough view but you couldn't really see the fountains that well. Overall impressions... If nobody compared it to the other parks, it would be a fantastic place in its own right. There's always going to be certain Disney rides they could add, but as it stands now the lineup feels quite complete. I stayed from open till close and there is still stuff I could have tried (Slinky Dog, Astro Orbiter, the Teacups) Did repeat rides on Grizzly, Mystic, Iron Man, Ant Man, Space Mountain. Lines weren't that bad, maybe 30 mins at worst. Some of the rides are scaled back from the originals but it doesn't meaningfully impact the experience. Place is spotless, I loved the shady feel of Adventureland, the creative theming in Toy Story Land and the little thematic touches. There's a chance ill be back in HK next year, so I'd definitely go back again, and check out the new Frozen stuff too.