The stupidiest tour ever conceived - Dubai, Australia, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo

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So, to share my experiences (and also get some points for this years LOG), I decided to try making a trip report for my crazy tour this October/November.

First, some backstory.
I originally planned to finally head over the pond to visit the US East-Coast. After postponing this trip since 2020 for variying reasons, I was dedicated to finally get it working this year. Until my company launched a new project, which had me in a pivotal role and a deadline right when my Giga-Trip was planned to end.
So, what should I do? I decided that the only worthy replacement for my dream vacation, would be a trip so stupid, that I wouldn't care about the States anymore. Australia was an obvious choice, with the weather towards the latter half of the year being comfortable and it also being quite literally on the other side of the world.
Over the course of planning, some additional stopovers came and went. Indonesia, Singapore and Taiwan where just a few of my considerations. I finally settled for an itenerary starting in Dubai (where I went last year, but my friend accompanying me has never been there), heading to Brisbane, followed by Sydney and then going for Shanghai Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland and Tokyo Disneyland + DisneySea. It actually escalated a bit more, but the other parks are not worth a compelete individual report.

So, let's start with the very first leg of the trip, Dubai. I would like to note that due to the sheer amount of parks, I may not recall everything correctly, or simply do some reviews instead.

After arriving the evening before and having another ride on Storm Coaster, the first day was planned to include Motiongate and Real Madrid World - a park that I missed last year due to its transition from Bollywood park.

Motiongate was signifantly more crowded then last year. We actually had up to 15 minutes worth of queue at maximum - but this was more of an outlier and most of the outdoor attractions were still walk-on.
After having to wait until 11 o'clock to get our tickets (we used the GoCity Unlimited pass for most park admissions), we decided to get the outdoor credits first.

Capitol Bullet Train is a launched Mack Megacoaster with a switchtrack and pendulum launch. And the ride is... there. It really doesn't do much at all. It isn't bad by any means, but it also has little going for it. It is there, and was a decent +1

Now You See Me: High Roller, a Maurer spinning coaster and remnant of Six Flags Dubai is actually a decent spinning coaster. Thanks to it unusual start, it is actually a fairly fun experience. Nothing special, but for sure one of the better Maurer spinning coasters.

John Wick: Open Contract was one of the creds that I missed out on last year. I was actually looking forward to it as it is was my first S&S free spin. Well, my conclusion: It is better than the Intamin Zac-Spins. That's all that I can really say about it. It wasn't really fun, it wasn't really pleasant, but it was better than a Zac-Spin, so at least a +1 that doesn't cause me to question all my descisions in live that brought me to this point.

Green Hornet is also one of those rides, that are just there and don't really stay in memory for long. I recall getting into the car, I recall getting out of it, but I have little to no recollection about the ride itself. I think this tells you quite a lot, and fits into the theme of this park.

Smurf Village Express is a Gerstlauer Family coaster. NEXT.

We then headed for the Smurfs Studio Tour. This dark ride is certainly not the best, but I still do enjoy it. This ride is one of 3 trackless darkrides in the park, all of the very same type. I guess they got a decent deal on them, so they decided to get the same ride 3 times. I like the idea of the smurfs making a movie, and the storytelling is actually fine.

Another ride I missed out on last year was their rafting, themed to Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. I got warned that this would be the dryest rafting out there, but it was actually alright. I did dislike that it often times went very slow in places, but the quicker parts were decent fun and I got a decent sprinkle over the course of the right. The thing that was really messing with me was the water temperature. I am used to the water being cold and kind of unpleasant, but with the temperatures in Dubai, it was actually really warm. Just an unsual sensation, but it certainly isn't a bad one.

Motiongate is also home to a Hotel Transilvania Darkride. I do like the idea of it, with it being centered arround a large room with some smaller rooms at the sides, but it just feels so bare in many places. It is ok, but certainly not a ride I would wait 30 minutes to go on.

Ghostbusters hits a similar note. I do like my shooters, and it does feel better executed than the one at Heide Park, but it is still not a darkride to write home about.

We then headed for the longest queue of the day: Madagascar Mad Pursuit, an indoor Gerstlauer Infinity coaster and the star of the park. But before that, we actually had to wait in a line for 15 minutes. Apparently, we got there at the worst timing, as all of our repeat rides were pretty much walk-ons, but this first ride did require some patience. The S-Bends after the launch can actually be a bit painful as you don't expect this kind of sudden movement, but the ride itself is actually pretty good. It has a few nice airtime moments and tells a nice story throughout its layout. It looses a bit of speed after the MCBR, but it is still easily the best coaster in the park. Having known nothing about it in 2023, I was suprised that this one is airtime and turn focussed and feautres no inversions.

Dragon Gliders is a nice use of the Mack inverted powered coaster and for me superior to the original at Europa-Park. It features a nice story and it's coaster part feels more natural than the one on Arthur.

We also did the KungFu Panda Simulator ride, which could actually be a fun experience. But with us sitting in the last row, several of the movements were just too jolty and we didn't get thee feel of riding a boat at any moment.

Overall Motiongate isn't a bad park, but you really see that they are struggling with low attendance. I guess they expected Dubai to grow a bit more towards their park, which would make them easily accessible from the city, but as of now it requires at least 30 minutes via car to get there. Luckily for us, the taxis in Dubai aren't that expensive, but I feel like the location is the biggest issue for all of the parks at the resort.

I will skip ofer Real Madrid World and Legoland; We basicly just got there for the creds, and left quickly for that reason. Legolands kiddy coaster a one notable issue, as it's seats are black and exposed to the sun, so the ride was actually closed until 4pm due to the seats being to hot for anyone to sit on - talking of design fails.
Real Madrid world is actually not included in the pass, and cost about 80$ with the cheapest offer I could find. And this park is nothing but a ripoff. You pay that much money just to be bombarded with cheap ads for Real Madrid, in a park that utilises half it's area and clearly shows that it used to be a different park. Hala Madrid, their GCI wooden coaster was my only beakon of hope, and it managed to beat Joris en de Draak as the weakest GCI for me. Yes, it has a great start, but after 2 elements it is just doing nothing. Well not quite, it *tries* to do something, but never really achieves it. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to build an airtime focussed coaster with trains that are not suited for negative Gs.
We got 2 creds, and that is the best I can tell about this park. If you're not a hardcore counter, just ignore this one. It is empty for a reason, even Motiongate felt like Magic Kingdom on Memorial day compared to this.

Next Part: Ferrari World, Warner Bros and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi on one day - running from ride to ride.

 

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Ferrari World, Warner Bros and SeaWorld Abu Dhabi on one day - running from ride to ride.

Day 2 was originally just intended to be for Ferrari World, However, I knew that there is an option to upgrade our Ferrari World Ticket from the GoCity pass to a multipark ticket and did hope that we'd be able to experience Sea World as well. Turned out that Ferrari World had me covered, with Mission Ferrari spontanously extrending it's planned maintenance (it was orginally scheduled to be open again 2 days before our arrival), and Formula Rossa out of order since January, the park really did not had that much to offer.
After getting rejected at Flying Aces because the ride had some technical issues, went for Fiorano GT challenge. Luckily for me, the other track was opened, so I could at least grab a +1 here. The ride is quite interesting, as it is focussed on laterals, but with just one track and little to no theming on the outside, there is little race feeling to come up.
After a brief car ride which was fine, Flying Aces did finally open, so we went into the pretty queue-line, just for it to having problems again after 2 trains. This took about 15 minutes to resolve, in which we had plenty of time to see the pre-show over and over again.
The ride itself is somewhat overhyped in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, it is a really good coaster, but it feels like it is trying to accomplish just a bit too much during the layout. The super-fast lift and the Non-Inverting loop are crazy, but afterwards it starts loosing speed and also looses intensity. It still has good airtime in places, but nothing too crazy. I also dislike some of the wonky transitions, but I guess that is a personal issue.

Turbo Track was up next, and it is still one of the most boring thrill coasters I've ever experienced. The launch isn't really intense, it's airtime isn't strong and the spike doesn't achieve too much either. It looks cool and appears to be of interested for the GP for looking cool, but as an enthusiast, there is little fun I have upon riding it.

With my guilty pleasure, Formula Rossa out of order, we figured we just grabbed a few dark rides, have a re-ride on Flying Aces (we got the last row) and then get our tickets upgraded. First the dark-rides: They all consist mostly of screens, and feel fairly bare in between. And none of them is really good, including the flying theatre. It isn't the worst I've done, but that's all I can say about it.

I have to admit, that I was quite happy that we'd be going to leave Ferrari World. I did enjoy the park during my original visit, but mostly due to me loving that crazy sense of speed you're getting in the Front Row of Formula Rossa. Whilst Flying Aces is a very good coaster, it is not that great, that it's keeping me in that park. Most other attractions feel like an add for Ferrari, were the brand came first and the fun second. One might argue that that is exactly the point of the park.

After a brief discussusion, we concluded that we'd be trying to hit Movie World and Sea World on that day. The upgrade was pricy, but with 80€ per person still cheaper than any other option. Although there are free shuttle busses available, we opted for a Taxi, which was about 3€ (which is the minimum fare) for the 5 minute drive - not too bad. We started at Movie World, knowing that we'd had to hurry up. The park was significantly more crowded than Ferrari World, but that only meant 20 minutes of queue at most. The counts are nothing special, a Zamperla Spinning coaster and an Intamin inverter. The latter one had some nice Road-Runner "Mep mep" sounds in 2023, but they were not working this time. The Intamin is actuallly a fine coaster, and has a cool theme overall.

The theming at Warner is without a doubt its large strenght. They really took advantage of it being completely indoors, and created some great worlds on the inside. Especially the Gotham area has an amazing atmosphere, but the other areas aren't bad by any means.

We used the lower crowd levels to also get a ride on their Scooby-Dooh darkride - a fun one, that I'd love to have another go on, as well as the Flintstones log-flume. The log flume caused us some headache, as it went down 2 boats before we'd be getting in. Anyway, the problems were solved within 15 minutes, so we got a ride in. It was pleasantly wet, and thanks to everything being indoors the water was as cold as you'd expect.

That actually concluded WB Movie World for us. We both agreed, that we'd be going to spend more time here for a future trip, as we didn't really do much and mostly ran from attraction to attraction. On the other hand, this saved us some time for the main attraction of Yas Island:

Sea World. This park is nothing short of amazing. It is huge, multi level and feels like a labyrinth in places. The amount of exhibits is high, and the exhibits themselves vary between really large up until "OMG, did they bring a whole ocean in here?". We had 4 hours here, and that just wasn't enough. We focussed on the counts first, which weren't that easy to find as the place isn't really easy to navigate. I originally missed out on this park, as I visited 3 weeks before its opening. But looking at other counts I missed on this trip, I do have a habit of having a bad timing.
Anyway, lets get to the counts:
Electric Eel is a family coaster, and it is fun for the smaller ones. As a thoosie, it is a +1. It goes a bit around the other family rides, which improves it quite a lot. Worst thing here was the queue, with about 20 minutes due to it being popular and doing 2 laps at a time.
Manta on the other hand turned out to be my favourite ride in Dubai and one of my favourites on the whole trip. What an amazing coaster, wow. The launches aren't the most intense, it's speed isn't really fast, but with 3 launches on a 1.2km track, it manages to keep its speed. The theming during the ride works quite well, especially the S-Bends towards the second launch. It also has some amazing airtime moments, that I didn't expect. Overall a very pleasant suprise, surspassing Flying Aces as the best coaster in Abu Dhabi. Last row was in my opinion the best one, allthough the S-Bends worked amazing in the front. But the airtime in the last row was just better in my opinion to make up for it.

I won't go too much into details for the animal exhibits, most of them are so large that you really have to experience it yourself. I do have to shoutout the antarctic area. Picture this: You are in the middle of the desert, and go into a freezer to stand next to penguins. Yes, their arctic exhibit has you walking through it, with a temperature in the negatives. Crazy thing, and I was happy to have left the exhibit because I was so cold.

Overall, my ranking of the 3 parks looks like this:
- Sea World
- Warner Bros
- Ferrari World

With Formula Rossa hopefully reoping soon, this might chance to to it being my guilty pleasure. But objectively, Warner and Sea World just have the better experiences compared to Ferrari World. Of course, the most amount of creds are to be gathered at the Ferrari Park, but if you are into more than just advancing your count, I highly recommend the other 2 theme parks.

I did realise that I skipped over IMG Worlds of Adventure, that was done in the evening of the first day. But as we more or less just ran through it, grabbing the creds and leave again, there is really not much to tell you about this one.

Next: Heading Down Under - Dreamworld Australia

 

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Heading Down Under - Dreamworld Australia

After a very tedious immigration procedure in Brisbane, which caused us to leave the airport 90 minutes later than expected, we quickly grabbed our rental car and drove down towards our first Australian theme park: Dreamworld.

Dreamworld is currently in a transition progress, with lots of the park being under redevelopment for Jungle Rush, announced to open later this year. To stay in line with our perfect timing, Motocoaster, an Intamin straddle coaster, was also down for maintenance.

I can't really judge the crowd levels at the park, as I don't have any point of reference, but I'd consider them reasonable low. However, most rides still turned out to be a 20-30 minute wait, thanks to operations that rival even IMG Worlds of Adventures - the park that I had given that title during my visit last year.
To be fair, they do place a very, very, very high emphasis on safety. My sunglasses - which are always secured by an additional strap and were fine on any rollercoaster until then, were for example not fine, even on their kiddy coasters. Not the ideal combination with me being quite sensitive to light, combined with the Australian sun, but it is what it is and it doesn't make much sense to argue.

Anyway, maybe I should start at our arrival. Even though we discovered that Dreamworld was Australias biggest themepark and is so large, that it feels like visiting multiple parks at ones, we felt that everything we saw looked rather small. I've seen staff parking lots larger than their main parking lot. Their entrance also felt a bit on the smaller side, but that doesn't have to be a bad thing. At least we got a nice view of Steel Taipan


Steel Taipan was also going to be our first ride of the day, so we headed there, just to wait 10 more minutes for them to complete even more test runs. We then did the major mistake to ask for the last row (which is row 8, as row 9+10 are an upcharge spinning seat). This turned out to cost us about 20 minutes in total. Not only were we not allowed to just wait 1 train and get to the gate, we had to wait 3 more trains because someone with RAP rode in our row and apparently they are allowed to remain seated if they want to. With single train service, that was a bit annoying.

Well, complaining won't help, so we got in there and had a ride on the only Blue Fire clone with a switch track. That changed things up more than I expected, as the launch track was significantly shortened compared to the original. Not only did this made the launch more intense, but you didn't really know when it would kick in, which was a fun twist. The rest of the ride is of course as you expect. Not great, not terrible, just a solid coaster.


We then got in line for their flying theatre, but after 15 minutes with no movement in the queue, we decided to skip it for now and focus on the creds first.
We kept to the right and came by Kenny's Forest Flyer, a 2002 Vekoma SFC. That one was a suprise - I rode a few of those over my years and this one was easily the worst one. With its intense and constant rattle and OTSR restraints (with additional seatbelt), I thought it was a Zamperla, but no, it is apparently a genuine Vekoma. So I can no proclaim - not only their old thrill rides rode terrible.

Gold Coaster was up next, and this ride was a walk on. And walking we did, up a long spiral until we reached the station. Luckily for us, they just dispatched a train, causing us to be send for the front row. Is it just me or does this 1 look a bit... suspicous?

Living in Europe, I didn't experience many arrow coasters, so I was looking quite forward to this one - and I wasn't disappointed. It was reasonable smooth, and apart from some janky Arrow-transitions a really enjoyable old coaster. Unfortunately for us, a queue formed behind us so we decided to skip the reride.

We also did their Kiddy Coaster Big Red Boat which had a very enthusiastic ride attendant, but as it's a Kiddy Coaster I won't go too much into the details.

Giant Drop is their drop tower, which also doubled as the Spike of their Tower of Terror, a 1 lane Superman: Escape from Krypton style ride. There where a few remnats of this one scattered around, but the drop is of course the most obvious one. With a ~25 minute queue, it wasn't too bad. Luckily for me (my friend is afraid of heights and doesn't do drop towers), they were looking for a Single Rider 10 minutes into the queue, so I got to skip a significant part of the wait. The Tower itself feels high for sure, and was decently fun. Not my favourite, but definitely in the upper half as far as drop towers go.

Before heading for the Flying theatre yet again, we took the train - which just travels between 2 stations at the moment due to the construction going on, and explored their animal park a bit. I do like their small explanation sessions they do over the day, so you get to see a bit more than just signs and sleeping animals. Unfortunately for me, I didn't purchase a picture of me holding a Koala, because I could also do it later for less money - at least I was told. Well, turned out that this was my only opportunity to hold a Koala; yet another reason to retun, I guess.

Their Flying theatre was fine (and just a 10 minute wait), but the loading procedure at Europa Park's Voletarium remains superior. At least I got to know that Thongs are Flip Flops.

And that already concluded our day at Dreamworld. We could've spent more time there for some rerides, but even with a decent amount of sleep on our 14 hours flight from Dubai, we felt a bit tired and decided to call it a day. The exit is via a Lego store, and leads you back to the parking lot.

So how would I rate the park? Their operations are likely the worst I ever witnessed, most rides managed to have a 20-30 minutes queue, even though there weren't that many people at the park. On the other hand, they do invest a bit to keep everything nice, even Gold Coaster boasted a nice, vibrant paint job - not a standard in Australia. Jungle Rush certainly looks like a promising addition and with its large area open to the public, the park will likely feel more whole. But did it feel like visiting multiple parks at once? If those parks are a smaller themepark and a small animal park: yes.

Next: Warner Bros. Movie World - awakening childhood memories.

 

[TilenB]

To be fair, they do place a very, very, very high emphasis on safety. My sunglasses - which are always secured by an additional strap and were fine on any rollercoaster until then, were for example not fine, even on their kiddy coasters.

Interesting, I don't remember that being a thing in 2017. Both me and my dad wear glasses (we usually take them off for the big rides) and we didn't have any issues wearing them wherever we wanted.

Fun reports so far, keep them coming!

 

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Warner Bros. Movie World - awakening childhood memories

Disclaimer: Due to filming for CoasterStats, we were able to skip the queues for a significant time of the day. We also got free admission (even though I had purchased our tickets weeks earlier).

The next park was easily the one I was most interested in Warner Bros Movie World. Not only did this park appear to have the most interesting attractions, but I grew up visiting WB Movie World in Germany; a park that was copied in many places from the Australian one. They copied it so thourougly, that they din't include heating in the buildings. And once I turned right into the main street, I really felt like I was at Movie World again. I mean, I technically was, but you get my point.
Of course there were differences, but the main feeling was the same, and for a minute I felt like an 8 year old again.


We did have a short discussion of what ride would be our first one. Whilst DC Rivals is the obvious choice, there was still Flash (new for 2024) and Superman as an alternative. We went with Superman, where we had about 5 minutes before the ride open to have a talk with the lovely member of staff who is as crazy as I am about rollercoasters. Sorry mate, I forgot your name, but if you're reading this: It was great to meet you!
We put our bags in the free locker, and headed for the ride.

Superman Escape is one of those coasters that I watched a POV of as a kid and always wanted to go on it. Present-me is aware that this ride is nothing special, but talking of childhood memories, I have to admit that it felt strange to finally get to have a ride.
The coaster features a lenghty dark-ride section, giving you a tour through the subway of Metropolis, until an Earthquake hits, water floods in and even a policecar breaks through the roof. Really cool twist, the only complaint I have is the speed you go through it - its about twice as fast as it should be for my liking.
Once you reach the launchtrack, you hear the voice of Superman who is going to get you out fast - super fast. The layout is a figure 8 with a Top-Hat, so nothing special. However, it is suprisingly intense and features decent airtime with intense positives in the valleys. Force-POV is coming
I really enjoyed this one. Not a Top 10 candidate by any means, but still a very good more oldschool ride.
Special shoutout to Superman's restraints - they are a bit higher than on similar rides like Rita, Desert Race or iSpeed, allowing me with my 1.92m some freedom that I wasn't used to. I could even get my arms up during the ride.



We then headed towards the back of the park to have a go on Wild West Falls, their Log Flume. Also the only classic water ride that we saw in Australia, with neither Dreamworld nor SeaWorld having anything comparable. I don't know why, especially considering the average weather in Australia, but I really felt the Eastcoast was lacking in water rides.
Luckily for us, WB still had a log flume, and it was a great ride. We had 3 gos on there, Including one using their Single Rider line. Oh yeah, they have Single Rider for some attractions, which is also always a good thing.
The ride was on the shorter side, but certainly fun. I liked the part were you go through a ghost town, a tombstone pops up and the population number decreases at the same time. Enjoyed it, can recommend. Also not too wet.
Oh, did I mention that it simply looks amazing?

The WB kids area was... well, a kids area, including a Vekoma family coaster. I don't think I need to say more about it. I was allowed to wear my glasses, which was a great change.
I did also enjoy some nice details in the area; their driving school goes through a miniature theme park.


That actually concludes most of the park that was open. It has an overall area comparable to Phantasialand, and doesn't pack them even half as tight. Scooby-Doo was still closed for refurbishment (scheduled for 2025) and their new wizard of Oz area is scheduled to open sometime in 2024 - but unfortunately after our visit, so a total of 4 lost counts for both of us.
Luckily there was still an S&S El Loco to be counted - my first one with the wide cars. Green Lantern Coaster is alright, but I am simply not a fan of this layout. But this was one of the smoother ones, so it has something going in it's favour.

Oh, there is also the Flash: Speed Force. It is... there. Little theming, which is strange for this park, and really not a special experience. It was walk-on despite being the new ride for this year, that says a lot. Other rides had up to 45 minutes wait tacked onto them at that time.

I don't want to ignore their Batwing, an S&S Shot and Drop tower. But is there really much to say about them?
The Justice League Dark Ride was also closed for maintenance.

And then there is the main event. The 202 foot DC Rivals Hypercoaster. It might be the smallest Hypercoaster out there, but it is certainly a great one.
I had the opportunity to have multiple rides on it, including a few in the last row, which is an 20 AUD upcharge and also includes a skip-the line.
Whilst Superman was not close to my Top 10, this one definitely is. It is long, it's intense, twisty and has great airtime. We also both enjoyed the last row experience - which was suprigisng to both of us. Keep in mind that my friend is afraid of heights (perfect for the lifthill) and I get sick easily when going backwards. Still, it was amazing. The first drop is something you see coming, but everything else is a complete suprise and the ride just rips you out of the seat in many places. World Class ride, and I think it surpassed Helix in my personal ranking, making it a very strong number 3. Last row is a candidate for an even higher ranking, but with it being a significant upcharge, I feel it's unfair to put it there. But if you are at Movie World: Shell out the money for at least one ride in the last row.



After a few rerides, mainly on DC Rivals, we reached 5pm and the rides closed for the day. Really a pity, I would've loved to spend some more time here. This parks is great, and with the Wizard of Oz area opening soon, it will likely be even better.
Some areas look a bit random, especially the area around the entry to the wild west area, but their theming is really good. Some rides are unthemed (DC Rivals as well), but when they decide to theme something, they do it proper.
Let's conclude with a screenshot from the onride video that will be uploaded at some point.


Next: Sea World Australia

 

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Sea World Australia
Disclaimer: Due to filming for CoasterStats, we were able to skip the queues for a significant time of the day. We also got free admission (even though I had purchased our tickets weeks earlier).
Sea World has quite an odd location, located on a narrow strip of land a decent distance away from the other parks, it feels like driving complety the wrong way until suddenly Sea World appears. We were pretty early, so had enough time to stroll arround a bit.
Sea World offers way more than just the theme parks. Part of their offerings include a whale watching tour (which I'd love to have done, but our flight departed from Brisbane airport at 8 o'clock, so we didn't have the time to spare), as well as helicopter tours. The latter ones where suprisingly affordable, and offered tours of different lenghts. Also something that was sacrificed for our flight.

We were able to enter the park a few minutes earlier, which gave us a headstart at the back of the park. Storm Coaster would need a few more minutes, so we decided to head over to Jet Rescue to get a few rides in.

Jet Rescue is another of Intamins Straddle Coaster, this time with a Jet-Ski theming. It feaures 2 tire propelled launches, and is still a good fun. It is not comparable to Juvelen, but still a fun ride and something that people tend to underestimate. Get on it, you won't regret it!

Of course the main ride here is the 2022 wooden coaster built by the Canadion company Martin & Vleminckx, utilizing Gravitykraft trains - Leviathan.
Rides my M&V are fairly rare, with just 16 roller coasters under their belt, most of them being in China (and and 7 being named "Jungle Trailblazer). Next to Leviathan, Boardwalk Bullet is likely their best known coaster. So, how did it fair?
Well, it is a fun coaster, but already rides pretty rough, as typical for the Gravitykraft trains. Luckily, the rattle is fairly consistent and only changes it intensity over a comparable long period of time, with just a few jolts. Does it induce headaches? Unfortunately, yes. But not after one ride, so you should be fine.





It still makes for a great view upon entering the park, though.
This also features a backwards last row, that is an upcharge. It tried a couple of times to get a g-force video from that seat, but to no avail. Some transitions come so sudden and violent, that it wasn't possible for me to remain in the same position during the ride. We did the last forward row.

Before I forget - I really enjoyed the last bit of the queue as well as the station itself. You are basicly going down in the lair of the Leviathan, who then appears in screens all around the station (which are neatly tucked in between rocks), telling you that you need to prove yourself as a guardian of Atlantis by going on a ride with him. Pretty neat, and with the amount of screens scattered around, it really gives a nice atmosphere.

We then did Vortex, their suspended Top Spin. It features some nice views, but I still prefer Talocan. We concluded our "offical" part of the visit with a ride on Storm Coaster, the shorter version of the Mack Water coaster. This also rides better than Poseidon, and with the drop going indoors, it creates a suprisingly long and sustained splash.



With all recording done, we finally had some time to enjoy the park by ourselves. After getting the Spongebob Kiddy Coaster and enjoying the world's smallest Pizza, we started visiting the animals exhibits.

I will summarize them here, as I don't know how much to say about animal exhibits... they were nice, but not comparable to Sea World Abu Dhabi. But this is a bit unfair, as the Abu Dhabi one probably cost more to build than the Australian park has costed up until now.

We also did the Sea Lion show, which was fun and a bit educational, so thumbs up for this one.



So, final words: Looking at it as a theme park, Sea World is the weakest of the 3 parks around Gold Coast. However, like Dreamworld, Sea World also offers animal exhibits, but here they are significantly larger. The park itself feels like the largest of the 3, and there are many quiet areas with just animals to look at. I also like that most animals are quite a distance away from the larger attractions, so they shouldn't be disturbed in their life by a rollercoaster or a similar loud attraction.
If you want to have a great zoo + some rides, Sea World is the way to go. As a pure theme park, I'd rank Movie World easily above. Dreamworld is hard to judge, as a significant portion of the park was closed or under construction, so I can only say that I wouldn't recommend this one above the others as long as Jungle Rush is not open.
You can have a good time in all of those parks and will not regret your descision to go there.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank not only the Sea World-team , but also the Village Roadshow Themeparks Marketing team as well es the Movie World team. You were all incredibly hospitable, and we had not only a great time, but did also acquire some amazing footage thanks to you!

Next: A bit of Sydney, and a Luna Park

 

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A bit of Sydney, and a Luna Park

To be fair, there is not that much to say about this leg, but I wanted to keep the consistency with the rest. Also, I still have 6 more days for 2 more reports, that should be doable.

We started our day in Sydney with a descision: Do we want to use public transport to get from our accomodation to Luna Park, or should we walk? As we got up a bit earlier than expected, we took the 45 minutes walk to have the chance to explore a bit of Sydney. Due to scheduling (and budget-) issues, we only had this single day in Sydney, so walking felt like a natural choice.

The best thing was of course walking over the harbour bridge, which features a nice observation platform about 1/3 across with great views of the Opera house.




Upon arriving at Luna Park, we had one very scary view, as well as an amizing one. I let you pick which is which.







We already got prepaid tickets, however, this really doesn't matter all to much here as you will have to queue at the cash desks anyway to receive your wristband. Scanning our tickets turned out to be quite a challenge, with about half a dozen scans per ticket needed until we got our wristbands - got to love modern technology.
Anyway, my friend needed a coffee and I was already eyeballing a certain Intamin coaster on the opposite side of the main street. So I did what every thoosie would do, leave my friend alone and get the cred.




My expectations were fairly high, the RMC Single Rails look like fast forwarded, so why wouldn't be this on a similar level of insanity? Well, turned out, that this was not an insane ride at all. It is a good coaster, but definitely family-thrill oriented. That is not an issue with the ride itself, just with my exaggerated expectations. The first launch does little more than giving you enough speed to clear the small height difference and roll into the second launch. This is where the real ride starts with a Non-Inverted Loop (I really start to fall in love with them). The rest of the layout features Flowjector pops and decent positives, with the last roll having a decent amount of hang time as well. It's a fine ride and for sure suited for a family audience. My highlight was something different, though:




I guess 2 train service wasn't possible during our visit. Luckily, this wasn't an issue with Big Dipper being a walk on for a while and I (and later my friend) made sure to take advantage of it. I definetely prefer the front row here. It does have a pronounced and constant rattle, which is stronger towards the back, so this is also an advantage of the front row. Nothing unbearable, but it takes a bit away from the rest of the experience. From what I heard, Mahuka is a smoother ride, so Intamin apparantly sorted this one out.

The other 2 creds are nothing remarkable. Boomerang, a Gerstlauer Boomerang coaster with a strange backwards lifhill that goes flat on the top, and Little Nipper, a Single Helix Preston&Barbieri Kiddy Coaster.

We could've done some flats, although the park started to fill up a bit, but decided against it to explore a bit more of Sydney. So we left (with the option to return later that day) early and grabbed a water taxi towards the Opera house. I spontanously decided to join my friend for the 3:30 rendition of Sunset Boulevard, so after looking for the only open entrance (which is downstairs after a pair of Metal Detectors. Gosh I miss the times, were you were just able to enter somewhere without being checked first.

After getting my ticket, we went out to a walk to pass the time until the Musical. I can recommend them, really nice area with great views!



About the musical: I disliked the first half, especially the opera style of Sarah Brightman (playing Norma Desmond), but as most musicals, the second half was significantly better. But I am also not the biggest musical fan, so keep that in mind. The musical has since continued it's tour, I am not sure if they are still playing in Melbourne.
Afterwards, we headed back towards our hotel. But as good Germans, we had to stop for "one" beer at the Munich Brauhaus.

With them having a Oktoberfest event that night, they also had the Oktoberfest beer. So even though the original has concluded it's 2024 stint, we were still able to get the Australian version in Sydney. Felt kind of strange to listen to German music with German beer while being in Sydney, but that was a strange experience that I am glad to have had.
Oh, and they dared to give us a Löwenbrau glass for Paulaner beer! Shame one them!
Well one turned into a few, and we walked back to the hotel to get some sleep before our flight to Shanghai.

Next: Shanghai Disneyland - where is the magic?

 

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Shanghai Disneyland - where is the magic?
I combine 2 days worth of experience here. Doesn't make much sense to review every attraction twice.
I've been to Disneyland Paris 3 times in my life. One was as a little child, so that doesn't count. The other ones were 2 and 3 day stays respectively, split between both parks. I didn't really like the park. It has some nice attractions (BTM, Phantom Manor, Tower of Terror), but a lot of mediocre or old rides. Not many of the famous Disney rides other parks have. And I didn't really feel the so called "Disney Magic" there. That was until I visited Shanghai.

We arrived late in Shanghai, and had a night at the Airport hotel, which was affordable and good. Hotels there are overall fairly cheap compared to the rest of the trip, even the Disney owned hotels are not insanely priced. As I got our Disney Tickets from Klook and only got the information "go to the counter", even upon requesting further instructions, I was a bit unsure how to get into the park. That was one reason why I switched the hotel from the Courtyard by Marriot in the vicinity of the park to the Toy Story hotel pretty much last minute.
Turned out, my worries were not needed. After a brief check-in, we hopped into the free (and empty) shuttle Bus and were led to the hotel entrance which is in Disney-Town their shopping/restaurant district. To receive our tickets, we just had to present our passports, and that's it.

With just 20 minutes of our early entry left, we headed towards what we deemend to be the main attraction: TRON Lightcycle Power Run. Many people complain about it being too short of an experience, but I didn't really feel like it. It was on the shorter side, but it didn't feel too short to me. With the amount of trimming on the MCBRs, there is little to no more layout to be added there. It is a fun experience, but not groundbreaking. I like the first turn outside, and the rest is a fun and not too intense ride. Pretty much like all Disney coasters are.




Standby passes are available for several attractions on crowded days, but our 2 days weren't considered crowded enough, so no worries about those.
Orbitron was on our way outside of Tommorowland, so we just grabbed a quick ride here. As this is one of the rides that always have 45 minutes+ queue in Paris, I never actually rode it. Not that it is any kind of special, but it was nice to finally have a ride on an Orbitron.

There is one thing I realised walking through Tomorrowland - it just felt bare and empty. Concrete floors, a bit mof Metal here and there, a large building to the left and Tron to the front right. You could see a power plant outside the park with ease, plus the surrounding landscape. This isn't an immersive area, this what I expect from a Six Flags park. And this wasn't the only culprit, albeit the worst one. The lack of a railroad causes many sightlines to open up, breaking immersion in many areas. There are still plenty of immersive areas in the park.

We then got the honour of meeting Mickey Mouse in person - with just a 5 minute wait. As comparison: Lina Bell, a side character of the (in Europe nearly unknown) side character Duffy also has a Meet and greet there - that was consistantly between 200 and 280 minutes. Nearly 5 hours for a meet and greet! Talking about japanese not minding long queues...
It's a bit hard for me to recount the order now, so I will just explain all the attractions we did, regardless in which order we rode them.
Rex's Racer was something we did during our early entry - this turned out to be a very valuable time, as the 2 hotels are barely enough to get any ride above a walk-on queue, even the most notorious ones. They do also sell early-entry tickets, but only if you got your tickets beforehand (which we technically didn't). Keep that in mind.
Rex's Racer is a +1, that's all I can say about it. But with 90 minutes standby queue during the day, I do not want to wait here in the normal line. The capacity is abysmal for Disney-standards, and still people want to do it - is this the Disney magic they talk about?

Walking further back, some new sightlines form and the park starts to feel destintively Disney.



And then there was the other attraction I was hyped for. Pirates of the Caribbean. Advertised as 45 minutes wait, it features 2 queues in parallel. This is something I don't really like, but I see why they did it. With a capacity of at least 3,500pph (I just estimated the timing between 2 boats), this thing doesn't just eat people. It devours them. Both queues moved nearly constantly, with just very short breaks in between.
This is where I noticed that many larger queues had a member of security stationed to keep an eye on everything - I actually liked this a lot.
After about 20 minutes, we reached the Fast pass merch point, were the 2 queues split up into 3. If I recall correctly, every single queue feeds 4 rows (so Rows 1-4, 5-6+1-2 and 3-6 on the 2 boats loaded simultanously). And even those 3 rows moved fast. The only problem I had, was one guest that enjoyed coconut flawourded popcorn close to me. That must have been the single worst smell I ever had to endure. And it would haunt me for 1.5 more days.

25 minutes wait in total, and we took a seat in one of the most anticipated dark ride. This was it, the pirates that I called world class in 2016 after watching a POV. It was really happening. My expecations were high.

And it delivered. Not just that, it overdelivered. I don't know how often I called it unbelievable after the first ride. 10 times? Absolutely crazy. Is this the perfect dark ride? No. There are still sections that could use more theming, and the part after the drop is simply just black walls. But 90% of it might actually be as close to perfection as it was possible in 2016.
Why did it overdeliver? Well, the sheer scale of the screens and setpieces isn't really transported on videos. Those screens are huge. 15m, 20m maybe. They go top to bottom. The field of view is comparable, if not larger to a Flying theatre. And that sheer size manages to convey movement. When Davy Jones lifted the boats from the bottom of the ocean, it felt as if our boat was rising as well. The fight szene afterwards had 2 ships with a realistic scale fighting against each other, with a huge screen in the background showing more of the fight going on. This is how screens can be utilised. A higher resolution would be nice, but the technology is 8 years old by now, so this is really nitpicky here.
Holy smokes, that was is, the very first dark ride I'd call world class. This ride single handedly ruined all other Pirates of the Carribean attractions for me, and all the "rip-off" versions as well. Sorry Pirates in Batavia, but there is no way I can enjoy you after witnessing this.

In the area of Pirates is also a show called Eye of the storm. As most things in the park, it is mostly in chinese, making the first 10 minutes really boring. It felt like a cheap try of a pirate comedy show. That was until they fired the big cannon.
The room was flooded with fog, to the point that we, sitting near the back of theatre, could barely make out the people in front of us.
Once the fog lifted, the theatre was visible damaged, things around the stage broken or in shambles and the real area of the show presented itself. A decently coreagraphed sword fight broke out, that culminated in 2 guys doing indoor skydiving during the performance.
Yes, there is a huge fan in the stage, and people flew there. No safety net, no glass pane to protect them. Just some foam around it and self control. Wow. As bad as the show started, as great was this finale. The second time I called something unbelievable.

We left the show just in time to have a look at the parade. It was alright, but the one in Paris is better.

With the rafting being down and Soaring nextdoors having 100 minutes queue, we decided to head to the new Zootopia area, featuring a brand new darkride. This was also advertised with 80 minutes, but most major rides were at this point. Since we had 2 days anyway, we joined the queue. The 80 minutes turned out to be 45 minutes of nearly constant movement, which proved me again that I don't mind long queues as long as they keep moving. We even used a part of the overflow extention, and still we got there in barely over half the advertised time. The clawhouser animatronic at the beginning of the indoor queue caused many people to make photos - including me. There was a cast member stationed there just to send people further onwards and not waste too much time taking photos. Talking of photos - I would like to mention that Chinese love to film everything. It is totally normal to see 6 out of 10 people enjoying a dark ride on their 5" phone display.


The indoor queue features several offices of the police animals, including a pair of huge Air Pods. You then enter the prison, with the high security area behind it. Turned out that Bellweather has escaped once again, using the airducts as her method of escape. I guess the didn't read the sign.


The airduct is above the last part of the queue and has speakers hidden within, so you do actually hear Bellweather making her escape whilst you wait. The queue concluded with a briefing room and a great chief Bogo animatronic preparing you for your mission.


The ride itself is very screen focussed, and caused a bit of nausea for me. It is a bit like a simulator that also moves around through some set pieces in between. It is a good dark ride, and better than everything I experienced in Europe, but after doing Pirates, this was "just" very good.
I liked the we not only got the chance to see Gazelle, but also her lookalike Gurlzelle, which unfortunately sang a bit to quiet to be well heard.

The Zootopia area itself features some great parts. as e.g. the Hamster Slide and a small puppet show that varies plays multiple times each day and tells different stories. Some animatronics are also used, but most of it are actual puppeteers doing a great job to add life to the area.
However, Chinese love Zootopia. Whilst in Paris you see an average of 50,000 woman/girls with Minney Ears, we saw about the same amount of Officer's Judy Hopps during our visits. And they love to take pictures of everything. And then there are the photo people.
Combine this with the area being narrow for Shanghai standards, it easily feels overcrowded, taking away from the pretty area.
It is mostly themed towards the ride itself, with a narrow (2 lane) street as your main street and benches on the other side, with either a large fence or just shrubbery behind it. You feel that it is a newer Disney attraction, with immersion being focussed upon just a single sightline instead of the whole area.





One of the last rides of the firt day was Soaring. I knew how many people love it, so my expectations where high. It was advertised as 90 minutes, but after just 15 minutes we joined the indoor queue, causing me to expect a maximum of 40 minutes. How wrong I were. After 15 more minutes, we joined an open and barely themed indoor cattle pen, where we were tortured with a constant explanation of, I guess the safety rules, and the word Haikuku at the beginning and end of it. Haikuku!
The queue shows you a distance upon you board your flight, but that is actually just the end of the first queue. You are then dispatched in another queue, to then be send into another one to then be send into the queues for the seats.
After a very cringeworthy preshow, we joined the room, that was large, bare and had a direct view of the screen. No immersion whatsover, they really wanted you to see that you board a cinema here.
The whole boarding procedure takes quite long compared to Voletarium, and feels very ineffective. Even though they have a pouch under each seat for your loose items (which would be a great addition to Voletarium), it easily takes 4-5 minutes until the ride is ready to go again.
The ride portion itself is better than Voletarium. The screen is sharper, the seams less obvious and there are more smells utilised. I also feel like every Flying Theatre has to end with a (virtual) firework.

The theming is for sure worse than Voletarium, the boarding procedure as well. The film however, beats Voletarium, so it is a bit hard for me to compare both. And both have a similar cringeworthy preshow.


random picture of the castle


7 dwarves mine train is as far as I know also a the same as in Magic Kindom. Also a ride that is called way to short, and also one that I didn't feel too short. Shorter side yes, but not too short. It isn't a very thrilling experience, but pretty to look at.

Winnie the Pooh is not forbidden in China, so I could do my first one of this. It is more of an oldschool Disney ride, with no high end props, but a very nice Pepper's ghost effect. It was nice, but didn't blew me away.

Peter Pan's flight is a newer and more modern version of the classic Disney attraction. It is the best version of the ride, but it is just a more modern version, not a completely new experience.

The rafting is very pretty, and we managed to get on it early when it was just advertised with a (realistic) 15 minute wait


It is pretty, but also on the shorter side. The first drop suprised me.
It wasn't too wet, but also not dry. Luckily we did it earlier in the morning.

There is also Camp Discovery next to it. I thought this was just the climbing trail, which I couldn't to together with my friend (remember, he is afraid of heights), but it is actually the climbing trail + a long path through and around caves. Really pretty, and glad to have done it. The mounain looks smaller the closer you get to it, but that just shows how good forced perspective actually works.

I think that should conclude the attractions that we did. We had some rerides, mainly on the second day and did feel like 2 days were the ideal time to spend here. One day is doable, but exhausting and 2 is just fine.

The night-time show is not bad, but also nothing to write home about. I liked how they timed the firework to e.g. continue the path of an arrow shot to add another layer onto it. However, with the size of the castle, they could've accomplished significantly larger projections. Most of the time, they only utilize a small area of the castle for the projection, with the rest being either static or background. The show itself might only utilise a quarter of the available area.

Oh yes, the castle. It is large, and it has a huge footprint. But it also doesn't feel magical at all. It is a huge castle, nothing more, nothing less. It features a nice small walkthrough attraction, retelling the story of Snow White. Just make sure you like stairs, it is fairly high up in the castle.

The park is also flooded with what we started to call "photo people". They dressed up either very nicely or in Disney customs and take photos everywhere. Everything that might be remotely Instagrammable will be photographed. Yes, I know that there is no Instagram in China. The traffic lights in Zootopia have a consistent queue of people, even the benches. And don't get me talking about the labyrinth. The brigde is completely blocked with those photo people. Even though most paths are very wide, it is common to have troubles getting somewhere because of those photo people. We also saw them in Hong Kong and Tokyo, but nearly as much as in Shanghai. They are not rude or anything, but they are just everywhere, spend tens of minutes each blocking photo spots and make it hard to navigate.

The park is open from 08:30 to 21:30, with early entry starting 1 hour earlier, so the days were very long, with over 35,000 steps each day. The park is large, and you walk long distances. You also have to navigate around large areas that get blocked of for the parade and the night-time show. It feels like half the park is blocked of on those occasions. Getting a decent spot for the nighttime show is also very different, as their Main-street called Mickey Avenue is very short.

I also made use of the lower prices there and got my then girlfriend her own Duffy to take care of her when just one of us is travelling.
Talking of prices: Payment with Alipay is very common. This is also not possible without a Chinese bank account, so it's either cash or your physical card. But with 99% of all people using it, you actually have no queues if you still have to go to the cash register of a restaurant, whilst the rest does mobile order. I think we were actually faster than the Mobile Order guys.

English level is low. I thought the french had troubles with english, but they are actually very good at it compared to the chinese. We got around, and it worked, but often times is was difficult. Luckily there is Google Translate.

We also had a bad show during one of our Pirates ride. We got stopped in the underwater scene, and whilst the boat in front of us got all the effects, ours just didn't trigger them, so we often times at the default screens or sometimes no screens at all. That was especially said, as this was our front row ride.
However, after presenting video proof to a cast member at the entrance, she lead us through the disability entrance, apologised and got us a new front row ride. The whole ordeal took maybe 10 minutes upon exiting our Bad show. That is what I call customer service!

Fun fact: If you want to make use of the Money exchange at the hotel - which offer the real rates without any additional fees, you have to sign about 5 documents before they can do it. But it works.
Their Restaurant district closes quite early, shutting down at 10pm. In other words, if you plan to have a late ride on an attraction, you will have troubles getting dinner there. Luckily for us, the Cheesecake factory agreed to give us service, as long as we did order by 10pm, which we did.

Overall, the park feel like new Disney in many places. You see that budget was a factor here, and there is not that much perfection in here compared to other parks. It has very pretty areas, and some great attractions, but it does feel a bit comporate in other places.

I never understood the Disney Magic, but now I do. Shanghai doesn't have it, Paris does.

Next: Hong Kong Disneyland - will there be magic?

 

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Hong Kong Disneyland - will there be magic?
As mentioned in the earlier report, I really realised what the Disney Magic is supposed to be after not having it in Shanghai. Would Hong Kong be different?
The short answer: Yes.

It all started with our arrival.
We stayed at the Sheraton Tung Chung, which is about a 15 minute ride from the airport. 2 months after booking their non-refundable rate, Hong Kong Disney had a great Hotel discount, that would've gotten us a room on-site for the same money. Well, this is how things sometimes go.
Using our hotels free shuttle to the Metro station, we then headed towards Sunny Bay (which is the next station). There you transfer onto another track, which looks just a bit nicer than the rest, and has lots of Disney ads.
The train is of course Disney themed, including Mickey-shaped windows, the Mickey handles and some cases with figures of Disney characters.




Upon exiting at the Disney Resort station, which is of course in line, you're greeted with the "Welcome to Hong Kong Disneyland" sign - the path for other means of transportation is now the same. This promenade leads towards a really nice fontain.


It's then when you finally get to turn to the right and get the first glimpse of the park.

Do you get what I mean? You are just not dropped of at the front gate, but you travel more and more into the Disney bubble before seing anything of the park. That actually does something to build anticipation. I never believed it, but since Shanghai, I do.

After the not very magical security check and waiting at the turnstyles, we were let into the park.
After passing the railway, you finally get the big reveal of the castle.



This actually looks more impressive than the one in Shanghai, simply because it looks way taller. It's way more than just a huge castle-like building, it feels unrealistic and magical. But I am glad hat they upgraded it, looking at the old one it really looks tiny. I also like the mountains in the background, they just add something unusual to it. On the other hand, I am not a fan of the Frozen castle in the background, even though it doesn't look bad by itself.

I also did realise that the main street buildings were quite slow, mostly 2 storey buildings. That might be, because it was copied from the original Disneyland, but it still feels just a bit too small for me - a common topic for this park.

We wanted to head for Mystic Manor first, not knowing that it would only open half an hour later. Luckily for us, we jumped into the queue for the Jungle Cruise. This was my very first Jungle Cruise, so there certainly was exitement on my part. Unfortunately, they scrapped the language queues, so now the cruise will always take place in a mix of Mandarin, Kantonese and English. The cast members do their best to convey the story, but with them having to explain it technically 3 times, something is lost inevitably.
Even though, the ride is beautiful and features a great finale.





After debarkation, we headed towards Toy Story land which would also lead us towards Mystic Point and Grizzly Gulch. And that was the point were Hong Kong Disneyland proofed itself to be the empty Disneyland. Anywhere else, we'd likely encounter a mass of hundrets if not thousands of people. And here? Maybe 20 people, including ourselves.

As I didn't take a picture during daylight, here is a nightly image.

Mystic Point is a small area that is home to Mystic Manor and nothing more. To be fair, allthough a nice area, I really feel like it should've just been part of another area of the park. It is just too small to feel like a full themed area.
Mystic Manor was, in-line with the crowd-levels as close to a walk-on as a ride with a fixed pre-show can be.
Actually, it started out so empty, that they just put 1 group per car and even then, there were often times empty cars going around.

How good is Mystic Manor? It doesn't feel as crazy and insane as Pirates in Shanghai, but it is still an amazing attraction. The story is cute and something new and different. Although most animatronics are simpler, there are plenty of animatronics and small details hidden all throughout the ride. I would also consider it to be a world class darkride, allthough I have one major complaint about it: Some scenes can easily be seen multiple times from a car, especially the Pompeii scene. I feel like there would have been options to show the second car something different, even if it would just be another projection. But this is as well, critique on a very high level.

Big Grizzly Mountain was up next. This Vekoma Coaster is a new take on the BTM topic. Although it looks on POVs as if it is spread over a very large area, it actually is quite a compact ride. The theming is top notch, as you expect from Disney with nice details like Geysirs, a water playground and a very stable construction office.



Grizzly Mountain is a fun ride, as it feels very much different from a BTM. Not a trace of airtime, but it focusses on laterals and of course suprise effects. I like how they tell the story that all happens because a Bear had to scratch it's rear. Great ride for a Disney park, and a beautiful area to explore.


Before we head over to Arrandale, here is an impression of the crowd levels we had to deal with on a Thursday (Saturday wasn't) that much more.



So, Arrandale. The area itself ist beutiful, and features 2 mountains, one with a Rollercoaster, 2 castles, a fountain and a harbour. So quite a lot, especially considering that the area itself isn't that huge. Theming here is top level, however you easily realise that both castles are fairly small, because they are just a bit too close to the public spaces. With the cred having the only queue we saw spilling to the outside, we headed to Frozen Ever After, which had just a 10 minute wait.



This was my first Ever After, and I did enjoy it. The animatronics were nice, the theming was great. But this was for sure a ride that felt 2 short. Thinking about it, it basicly had 4 scenes before it concluded. Apart from this, this is a great attraction for the park.
The other attraction is Wandering Oaken's Sliding Sleighs, which was a 35 minute wait. With many people complaining about Tron and 7 dwarves being short, I wonder how those people feel about this one. This is a Disney Coaster with 2 trains. TWO. And they can't run more.
It consists of a lift, 2 helices and a brakerun. That's it. Is it fun? For the target audience for sure. This coaster is a great way for smaller kids to get their first coaster credit, the minimum height of just 95cm is certainly a help as well.

Somewhere in between, we went to Tomorrowland to ride Iron Man experience, a motion simulator ride. This is.... fine. Yes, that's all I can say about it. I am not the biggest fan of motion simulators anyway, but I've done worse.
Ant-Man & the Wasp Nano Battle is a omni-mover shooting darkride similar to Buzz Lightyear. Thanks to the Ant-Man theme, this feels quite fresh and unique. I enjoyed it for sure, but I would love to have an explanation if achieving any medals yields bonus points or not.

(Hyper)Space Mountain is the only "classic" iteration I have experienced. The one in Tokyo was already closed, and the Paris one is of course a very different layout. But like Paris, this one has a dreadful Star Wars overlay, because nobody would visit a Disney Park if no IP is slapped onto everything. *Sigh*.

The ride was a 15 minute wait, and at least it felt like a more thoughtful overlay. Whilst they only added 3 screens in Paris, this one as multiple screens, laser effects and a star projection on the ceiling. I actually prefer it over the Paris one. Adding onto that, the ride is significantly smoother. It still features suprisingly sharp transitions and some laterals, but is my actual favourite Space Mountain. That is, until Paris finaly removes the "temporary" Star Wars overlay.

Our second day was... interesting. We originally intended to go there Thursday and Friday, but decided - while waiting in front of the turnstyles, that we'd head to Ocean Park instead. We had done everything in one day, and didn't feel like we'd need a full second day. Looking at the Crowd Levels at OceanPark, a very wise descision. So day 2 was on a Saturday. To give us a headstart, we purchased an early entry, which would give us 1 hour access to some attractions which include Arrandale. This was also where we spent most of our time, until we had a go on Dumbo before starting the rerides in different areas. Even the Saturday wasn't crowded, it would still be considered a quiet day in Paris.

Oh, we also did a Halloween Villainshow. This was basicly singers doing rendition of some of the villains song. Unfortunately, most villains don't really have that great songs in my opinion, so I didn't really enjoy it that much. But, I am not a Musical fan either, so this might be expected.

As mentioned in the beginning, this park does feature the Disney Magic. However, it has some other flaws, that I felt were not present in Paris.
Due to Hong Kong Disneyland being on the smaller side, many transitions between themed areas are short and sudden. There isn't much of a transition, there is just a cut. If I can look from Adventureland into Tomorrowland, than there is just something off.

I did skip over some attractions we did. I had many experiences on the whole of the trip, and getting them sorted turns out to be a difficult task. And I rather skip something in my report than saying "we also did this, I don't recall much at all". But I think I checked of all the major ones.

I did enjoy this park way more than Shanghai. The park just feels more magical, more Disney than Shanghai. It is not without it's flaws, but my overall experience was a very positive one.

Next: One Train Service and a 60 minute wait - Oceanpark Hong Kong

 

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One Train Service and a 60 minute wait - Oceanpark Hong Kong

As mentioned before, we made the spontanous descision to not head to Disneyland for a second (full) day, but to Ocean Park Hong Kong instead. With the great public transport in Hong Kong it was convinient and not to pricy.
The park itself felt already more crowded upon entering (we entered about 1 hour after opening), but it was still bearable. The park is located on 2 sides of a mountain range, connected by a cablecar and a train, and the rides were on the other side. So before heading to them, we went into the aquarium first. This one was nice, but having experienced Sea World just a few days before, it of course felt lack luster. One thing we noticed upon entering: They expect some serious crowds here. Most animal exhibits have a dedicated queue and fast-pass lane and with us vising on a weekday, we could already tell that they are likely to need it.

After the Aquarium, we headed for the train to the other side. The cablecar was 45 minutes wait at this point, in the train was close to walk-on.
When I call it train, I mean that it is a car themed as a sub. It shows you a video including a kraken attack while travelling, but the screens are suffering from severe burn in, destroying the immersion.

Arriving on the other side, we headed straight for the B&M, Hair Raiser. This one features a stunning location and a very creepy entrance gate.



The queue was 60 minutes, and as the title of this post implies, they really wanted you to wait this long as the coaster ran just one train. With their operations being slow anyway, this resulted in a theoretical capacity of about 400pph.
At least we got lucky and were assigned to the front row. The ride itself is ok, fairly intense in some places, but mostly not special. The location helps it a lot, but the pronounced rattle works against it. It was a +1 after all, and this is also one of the rides that I saw on Youtube before ever thinking of going there.

The other credit wasn't running yet, so it was time for us to have a look at the other animal exhibitions on this side. As always, I will skip over them. What we did realise during that was the scale of this place. With it being mountainside, it meant not only lots of walking but many, many metres of height difference.
At least our luck would proof to be reliant. Not only did we manage to get on the observation tower with close to no wait, but also the rafting.

View of a lost count comes free if you ride the tower.



The rafting was also really strange. It is one of the driest raftings I have ever done. I think that the park has realised it at some point and added lots of water hoses during the ride that keep spraying you to get you to a certain degree of wetness.

Finally, we saw people preparing a test run for Arctic blast, their other operational credit (the mine train as well as the arrow coaster have been SBNO for quite a while now). We went to it and after being blasted with "Arctic Blast is closed for routine maintenance procedure" on non-stop repeat for 10 minutes, we were able to get on the first ride and saw the staff immediately changing the queue time to 50 minutes. This Mack powered coaster is also one of the category "it exists".



Having done that, we joined the 35 minute queue for the cablecar back to the front part of the park. Needless to say, the views are great!




The front part featured a small scare zone for their halloween event and some more exhibitions, including the sloth experience. This exhibition features a short queue-line but makes up for it with a pre-show that you have to endure before finally seeing the Sloths. Don't ask me why they trat this animal like a special thing, but obviously, they do

I wonder if this guy knows what a three humped camel is called.



That already concluded this visit. Ocean Park is significantly busier than Disneyland and I wouldn't recommend going here on a weekend at all. Even during the week, the queues were fairly long in places and the overall vibe just didn't cut it for me. This one features a large amount of animals as well as a fairly large amount of rides, so you can easily spend a whole day here. Just don't expect anything here to be exceptional apart from the views. It's certainly decent, but not amazing. Still, if you fancy doing something in Hong Kong apart from Disney, it is certainly worth a visit. The views from this place are something else.
With my aversion to crowds, I would still prefer Disney

Next: The same rides, but better - Tokyo Disneyland

 

[TilenB]

Nice report! I'm surprised that it was this much more crowded for you than what I experienced 5 years ago, especially as all of the reports of rides going SBNO made me believe they were not doing well. Granted, I visited during the widely publicized protests that likely kept most tourists away, but still.

 

[Matt N]

I have to say, I'm surprised that Ocean Park is busier than Disney in Hong Kong... your report is perhaps the first I've ever read where the crowd levels of Disney are compared favourably to those of another park!

Great reports so far; I'm really enjoying reading your takes on some of Asia's parks!

 

[Trax]

Maybe this was because of the Halloween event. But the crowd levels were quite a bit more than expected, considering that we went there on a weekday. The exhibitions were still open without a Queue, so you may argue that it was still empty.

 

[Trax]

The same rides, but better - Tokyo Disneyland

It felt strange to arrive at Tokyo Disney in the evening, when it was already dark. Overall, I did expect the experience to mirror the one in Hong Kong, at least a bit. But actually, you don’t see much Disney around the train station at all. Sure, there are posters, but with it being dark, there are surprisingly few hints that you just arrived at the biggest Disney Resort in Asia.

This is likely due to the limited space. Although Tokyo Disney is located on a reclaimed land mass, it is still located in the worlds largest metropolitan area, where every square centimeter is at a premium. Considering this, the whole area is surprisingly spacious.

We planned a total of 4 days here (+ a buffer day in case we didn’t feel satisfied), split between both parks. Tokyo Disney doesn’t offer multiday tickets, nor do they offer park hopping. This is a small bummer, but to be fair, there is enough to do in the parks, that we didn’t miss it. Thanks to the relatively weak Yen, the prices are fairly low, with a day worth of admission ranging between ~50 and 65€, depending on the season. Our first day was by far the most expensive one, not only for the admission, but also for the Hotel.

I of course did some research prior to the trip. It turned out, that Tokyo Disney has a few rules you should stick to, way closer than for any other park I’ve been to.

• Never, ever go there on a weekend or public holiday
• Arrive early at the parks, 45 minutes before opening (which might be up to an hour earlier than advertised) is the least!
• Stay in a Disney owned hotel, to take advantage of the 15 minutes early entry.

It turned out, that 3rd November is actually a public holiday in Japan. With this being a Sunday, I didn’t really think much of it, although I knew that Japanese tend to take a day of on the day after a public holiday, causing Mondays to be more crowded than usual.

The thing I did not consider, and this might be forgiven as I had to plan a tour spanning over 42,000km in total, is a very simple fact. If a public holiday falls on a weekend in Japan, the following weekday is usually a day off for everyone. Long story short, our Monday was actually a weekend for the Japanese, so I managed to break rule number 1. Great start.

Luckily for us, I did stick to rules number 2 and 3. We went for the Disney Ambassador Hotel, for 2 reasons. It is close to both parks, just a bit more pricey than the “moderate” Toy Story hotel and usually allows for Early Entry into both parks. Why usually? Well, since Fantasy Springs opened, the Early Entry for DisneySea was actually suspended for a while. I even did consider staying at the MiraCosta for that reason, but luckily, I was stopped in my tracks.

I gambled that the Early Entry might come back until our trip, and it turned out that I was right. I got an E-Mail a few weeks before the trip started that Early Entry would be available for the Ambassador Hotel again – perfect. Funnily enough, the more expensive Tokyo Disneyland Hotel did not get this perk back.

Still, the first day was intended for Tokyo Disneyland anyway. The Early Entry slips you get upon Check-In state the gate opening times for both parks. During our stay, Disneyland would open at 08:30 and DisneySea at 08:15.

We went to Disneyland at around 7:45, which worked well for us. There was a large crowd of people in front of us, but the cast members were very efficient, in within 5 minutes after opening, we went through the gates and headed straight towards Beauty and the Beast.

Once in line, I got a fast pass for Winny the Pooh and purchased one for Splash Mountain.

This ride shows yet again what Disney is capable of. The sound design in the pre-show is amazing, the animatronics Top notch, and the whole ride is just… wow.

I mentioned it a lot, I am not a fan of Musicals and this ride is basically one Musical. But damn, it is yet another World Class ride. Absolutely great. Unfortunately, the other guests also think so, and this ride usually sits at 120+ minutes every single day. Its capacity doesn’t help, with it being “just” 1,800pph. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very high number, but considering that most Darkrides are able to eat through 2,500 and more people per hour, this number feels a bit low.

I would also like to acknowledge how amazing this castle looks, and still it keeps Sleeping Beauty Castle as the main draw.



As for some of the other rides, it really felt unreal to be able to ride this, to see the animatronics I sent to some friends and mentioned how great they were. I don’t know if Disney is allowed to clone this one, but if yes, please give us more Beauty and the Beast rides. Maybe Disneyland Paris could use a new attraction after *doing some research*, nearly 19 years without any new ride? (Buzz Lightyear Astro Blast was the last new attraction for Disneyland Paris, opening in 2005)




The Tokyo Disneyland castle might look familiar to some people here:





With all the time that has passed since my visit, I will skip the order of the rides and go into review mode.



Pirates of the Caribbean couldn’t even get close to the one in Shanghai, but this was to be expected. I found it to be a bit lackluster, even boring in some places; the version in Paris was more enjoyable in my opinion. They do still have the old auction scene, so if someone wants to purchase a new… wife, Tokyo is the place to go.

Monsters Inc was open on Monday but closed on from Tuesday for planned refurbishment. So of course, we did get at least one ride on it. I liked it, but felt like I needed more rides to really appreciate it.

It’s a Small World was closed for refurbishment, so add this one to the Spite list. Space mountain is currently being rebuilt, so yet another spite for the list.

Splash Mountain was my first Disney Water ride. It gave a light sprinkle, but nothing to bad. They do offer a wetter version during the summer months, so it is actually a good thing. With it being in Japanese only, it was hard to really get a feel for the story, even though I knew it beforehand. But the final song is catchy, even in Japanese. It’s a shame that it’s the last of its kind.

Roger Rabbits Car Toon Spin is a strange hybrid between an oldschool Disney Darkride and a new one. The hole in the end totally got me the first time, and it took a second go for me to figure out how simple it actually is.

One thing I underestimated is the patience of Japanese guests. The first people started to line up the parade route just Minutes after park opening. 1 hour before the parade, the pathways were already as blocked as during the parade in other parks. Contrary to Shanghai and Hong Kong, the parade was actually really good and also long. Luckily, being over 1.9m guarantees close to perfect parade view, even though we just caught it after leaving Roger Rabbit.

Anyway, let me continue with the park.

Jungle Cruise was nice, but with it being 99% in Japanese, it was hard to follow. At least our guide gave us a few English bits here and there – thank you!

Pooh’s Hunny Hunt is basically a similar concept to the one in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but this one is easily the best version. I guess most of you know the differences, so I’ll cut it short. It’s a trackless system and also able to move, which is very prominent in the Tigger room.

However, this one skips the river scene and ends after the dream, which makes me miss something. It is just a bit too short to feel like a complete experience.

Luckily, we got on there with a fast pass and another time after it reopened after technical problems, so our time spent waiting was fairly short.

I love the idea of the people being “in” the book.


Small break from the rapid fire for some Disney Magic:




Big Thunder Mountain is surely a Disney classic, however, this was the first one we encountered on the tour and the second one I ever experienced. I enjoyed it for what it was, but being used to the one in Paris, it was clear that this just couldn’t live up to my expectations. Still, a cred is a cred and I’d take this any day over more than half of the other coasters I've done.


The Haunted Mansion at Tokyo Disneyland is actually located within Fantasyland. Same as BTM, this was also a first on our trip, and as for BTM, I prefer the version in Paris.

Due to the time of the year, this had a Nightmare before Christmas overlay on it. I don’t know if this was the reason, but the mansion pushed 120-180 minutes of Queue time over the whole day – same as BTM as well.

Luckily for us, the Hunny Hunt fast pass couldn’t be redeemed because of the downtime I mentioned earlier. As we stuck around when they first opened it for fast-passes only, we were very close to the front of the line when it reopened, so we didn’t waste much time. But the fast-pass was automatically converted to a multi-attraction one, that could be redeemed at any time on nearly any attraction (Beauty and the Beast was the main exclusion). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, saving us lots of time.

I am not sure what to think about the overlay; it surely is something different and is 100 times better than the awful Hyperspace Mountain overlay in Paris. But to really compare it, I would have to know the original version, which I of course don’t. There was one thing I disliked about it, and that was the lighting. With the sheer amount of pumpkins scattered around the ride, most scenes where simply to bright, ruining the immersion throughout the ride. We didn’t opt for a reride on the second day because of this.

The Railroad was… different. Due to a Japanese law, they have to charge for a train with multiple stops. Therefore, Disney went with a single station for the railroad. Additionally, it just goes around the rivers of America instead of the whole park. However, you often feel (and see) that you are at the edge of the park. The views are mostly ok, but really nothing special.

We also paid for a reservation for the nighttime show. Having already heard of the insane patience of Japanese people, these ~15€ where a good investment. We got seated (on the ground) in the second block, relatively central in front of the castle. Those places also had a path in front of them, so we had plenty of room to stretch our legs.



The night-time show itself was a combination of what I liked about the one in Shanghai and Hong Kong – overall a great experience with good projection mapping and nice fireworks to accompany it.

There is a larger firework display later, however that got cancelled due to wind. If it takes place, it is being launched in between DisneySea and Disneyland, so it doubles as a fireworks display for both parks.

I think this concluded our first stay at a very busy Tokyo Disneyland. Crowd levels here can really be something else, but thanks to the Japanese it is very orderly and not half as stressful as an average day at e.g. Phantasialand.

Next: Tokyo DisneySea – Let there be Hype.