It’s actually been over a week since I went, and didn’t stay long, but I thought I’d throw in a quick report.
Basically, I ended up caving in and buying an annual pass online, knowing that I had 4 definite visits lined up over the coming months and I’ll only need to go 5 times to break even.
If it wasn’t for having people visiting soon, I’d have probably gone for a cheaper pass. The cheapest costs less than two visits, but has all holidays and most weekends blocked out. Normally, this would be fine as I have a load of half days over the year which would’ve been a perfect time to go, but then I’d have to fork out on entrance tickets at other times when I’ve got plans to go with people. It gets you a load of discounts and other perks that the Peasant Pass doesn’t have as well.
I was going to put off going to the Halloween stuff until later, since it was the first day and was the back end of a mainland Chinese holiday week, but since I’d just ordered the pass, I figured I could just head over after work, pick it up, pop in to see what it was like and piss off again.
Since last time I was there, they’ve taken down the construction facades along the right-hand side of Main Street.
They’ve now moved over to the other side:
I can’t remember if I’ve ever caught the marching band before:
They’ve put a new centrepiece in front of the castle to go with the Paint the Night Parade. It was really cool since the whole thing moves and rotates.
The park was pretty busy, mostly as it was the final Friday of a Chinese (not Hong Kong) holiday and the first night of their Halloween stuff. Space Mountain had a 45 minute queue, but I got a Fast Pass for a couple of hours later and jumped into the 20 minute single-rider line. I say “a” fast pass, but the Platinum Annual Pass actually spits out three at a time.
No Ghost Galaxy this year which was disappointing. I’m guessing it’s down to the fact that the Chinese holiday fell at the same time as Halloween, and having a major ride down for a couple of days that week while they did the refit would be a pretty bad idea.
Construction site, but nothing to see really except for a pair of giant cranes. Apparently you can have a bit of a nose from on-ride Autopia, but it had a long line and I never bother with it. Later though.
The new sculpture looks a lot better as it gets dark:
There was some maintenance work going on on Tarzan’s Treehouse, but it was still open. Along with Autopia, I’ve never actually done it since my first visit to the park back in 2007/2008. I should give this other stuff a go really.
The Halloween signage indicated the same attractions as last year, plus “Horrors of the Amazon”.
Last year I loved Sideshow Carnival Extraordinaire. This year was the same as last year, so while it was still cool, there was a bit of a "been there, done that" kind of feel to it.
It’s not set to any schedule – just sporadic throughout the evening – but some of the performers were hanging around for pictures at the end which I don't remember from last time.
Here’s the video I took last year. As a performance, it’s not great, but it’s really atmospheric.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR6Eao84Mo[/youtube]
Big Grizzly Mountain also had an hour long queue, with a a twenty minute single rider which I joined and only ended up being 10 minutes.
Like last year, they had Halloween game stalls set up on the main path leading into the area.
I wanted to bag a good spot for Paint the Night, so headed away from the area to go back later. There weren’t many people waiting for the parade at that point, so I watched a few minutes of some other show in Tomorrowland and then used a couple of the fast passes I had to get two more rides in on Space Mountain.
Paint the Night is absolutely spectacular. It’s not easy taking pictures of moving stuff at night with the cheap camera I use, but I’ll throw some of the better pictures in here.
The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast floats were probably my favourites. King Triton’s head has that weird internal projection thing, making it really realistic.
Attempts to photograph the street performers didn’t quite work, but gave a cool effect I guess.
I was near Small World, which was pretty much a walk on.
I walked through Toy Story Land without riding anything. I still haven’t done the parachute tower or spinning dog thing.
I clearly made time for a couple of goes on Mystic Manor though, which only had a 5 minute queue.
Revenge of the Headless Horseman was the same as last year. It a horror walkthrough with a Victorian carnival theme where you walk through various stages and backstage areas/trailers etc. It’s very atmospheric and creepy without being over-the-top scary.
The new attraction, Horrors of the Amazon, used the Lion King theatre after the Lion King shows were done for the day.
It was disappointing really. The premise is ok. They’ve introduced another character – Jonas something - from the Explorers’ Club, which links in with the “owners” of Mystic Manor and Tower of Terror in Tokyo. It was all in Chinese though, with far too much talking and not a lot happening until right at the end when a huge mask “comes to life” and fannies about the stage for a bit. The main actor is apparently a local celebrity and got a huge reaction, but f**ked if I know.
It started pissing down, so I gave the other walkthrough, Grave’s Academy, a miss as I didn’t want to stand in the rain for half an hour and I was getting a bit pissy with the crowds at this point. I’m going to head back either this Friday or the following week, so I’ll grab it then.
It was great how having the annual pass made for a much more relaxing time, even though it was the busiest I’ve seen it in ages, without feeling the need to have to get stuff done and happily skipping stuff that I’d normally make an effort to do.
I'm hoping that next year they change up more of the Halloween stuff though. The new show for this year was pretty poor really (may take a video next week), so take that off the table and there's nothing really different. The two walkthroughs are excellent though - assuming that Graves' Academy hasn't changed from last year - and there's a great atmosphere about the place. I guess the fact that they got anything new in at all though, given the new parade opening at the same time, is to be commended though
I’ll just throw in another picture of the fab sculpture thing to finish off:
Basically, I ended up caving in and buying an annual pass online, knowing that I had 4 definite visits lined up over the coming months and I’ll only need to go 5 times to break even.
If it wasn’t for having people visiting soon, I’d have probably gone for a cheaper pass. The cheapest costs less than two visits, but has all holidays and most weekends blocked out. Normally, this would be fine as I have a load of half days over the year which would’ve been a perfect time to go, but then I’d have to fork out on entrance tickets at other times when I’ve got plans to go with people. It gets you a load of discounts and other perks that the Peasant Pass doesn’t have as well.
I was going to put off going to the Halloween stuff until later, since it was the first day and was the back end of a mainland Chinese holiday week, but since I’d just ordered the pass, I figured I could just head over after work, pick it up, pop in to see what it was like and piss off again.
Since last time I was there, they’ve taken down the construction facades along the right-hand side of Main Street.
They’ve now moved over to the other side:
I can’t remember if I’ve ever caught the marching band before:
They’ve put a new centrepiece in front of the castle to go with the Paint the Night Parade. It was really cool since the whole thing moves and rotates.
The park was pretty busy, mostly as it was the final Friday of a Chinese (not Hong Kong) holiday and the first night of their Halloween stuff. Space Mountain had a 45 minute queue, but I got a Fast Pass for a couple of hours later and jumped into the 20 minute single-rider line. I say “a” fast pass, but the Platinum Annual Pass actually spits out three at a time.
No Ghost Galaxy this year which was disappointing. I’m guessing it’s down to the fact that the Chinese holiday fell at the same time as Halloween, and having a major ride down for a couple of days that week while they did the refit would be a pretty bad idea.
Construction site, but nothing to see really except for a pair of giant cranes. Apparently you can have a bit of a nose from on-ride Autopia, but it had a long line and I never bother with it. Later though.
The new sculpture looks a lot better as it gets dark:
There was some maintenance work going on on Tarzan’s Treehouse, but it was still open. Along with Autopia, I’ve never actually done it since my first visit to the park back in 2007/2008. I should give this other stuff a go really.
The Halloween signage indicated the same attractions as last year, plus “Horrors of the Amazon”.
Last year I loved Sideshow Carnival Extraordinaire. This year was the same as last year, so while it was still cool, there was a bit of a "been there, done that" kind of feel to it.
It’s not set to any schedule – just sporadic throughout the evening – but some of the performers were hanging around for pictures at the end which I don't remember from last time.
Here’s the video I took last year. As a performance, it’s not great, but it’s really atmospheric.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVR6Eao84Mo[/youtube]
Big Grizzly Mountain also had an hour long queue, with a a twenty minute single rider which I joined and only ended up being 10 minutes.
Like last year, they had Halloween game stalls set up on the main path leading into the area.
I wanted to bag a good spot for Paint the Night, so headed away from the area to go back later. There weren’t many people waiting for the parade at that point, so I watched a few minutes of some other show in Tomorrowland and then used a couple of the fast passes I had to get two more rides in on Space Mountain.
Paint the Night is absolutely spectacular. It’s not easy taking pictures of moving stuff at night with the cheap camera I use, but I’ll throw some of the better pictures in here.
The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast floats were probably my favourites. King Triton’s head has that weird internal projection thing, making it really realistic.
Attempts to photograph the street performers didn’t quite work, but gave a cool effect I guess.
I was near Small World, which was pretty much a walk on.
I walked through Toy Story Land without riding anything. I still haven’t done the parachute tower or spinning dog thing.
I clearly made time for a couple of goes on Mystic Manor though, which only had a 5 minute queue.
Revenge of the Headless Horseman was the same as last year. It a horror walkthrough with a Victorian carnival theme where you walk through various stages and backstage areas/trailers etc. It’s very atmospheric and creepy without being over-the-top scary.
The new attraction, Horrors of the Amazon, used the Lion King theatre after the Lion King shows were done for the day.
It was disappointing really. The premise is ok. They’ve introduced another character – Jonas something - from the Explorers’ Club, which links in with the “owners” of Mystic Manor and Tower of Terror in Tokyo. It was all in Chinese though, with far too much talking and not a lot happening until right at the end when a huge mask “comes to life” and fannies about the stage for a bit. The main actor is apparently a local celebrity and got a huge reaction, but f**ked if I know.
It started pissing down, so I gave the other walkthrough, Grave’s Academy, a miss as I didn’t want to stand in the rain for half an hour and I was getting a bit pissy with the crowds at this point. I’m going to head back either this Friday or the following week, so I’ll grab it then.
It was great how having the annual pass made for a much more relaxing time, even though it was the busiest I’ve seen it in ages, without feeling the need to have to get stuff done and happily skipping stuff that I’d normally make an effort to do.
I'm hoping that next year they change up more of the Halloween stuff though. The new show for this year was pretty poor really (may take a video next week), so take that off the table and there's nothing really different. The two walkthroughs are excellent though - assuming that Graves' Academy hasn't changed from last year - and there's a great atmosphere about the place. I guess the fact that they got anything new in at all though, given the new parade opening at the same time, is to be commended though
I’ll just throw in another picture of the fab sculpture thing to finish off:
