Matt 236

I visited both Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea, as part of a recent trip to Japan. The resort has an interesting layout in how the main park is practically by the main train line and sea had to be accessed by a monorail loop. With the shopping village between the two, which looked more standardised then ones in the other parks. Leaving the resort is perhaps one of the main gripes, as the large amount of guests leaving by it feels a bit like leaving a large scale concert from somewhere like Wembley. Now onto the parks. Tokyo Disneyland: The park has a mixed design balance between Cali and Florida’s Magic Kingdom, which understandably makes sense as the third Disney resort in the world. The classics varied, with POTC better then floridas but not Cali & Paris, my favourite Small World but possibly weakest Mansion (variant), Peter Pan and Tomorrowland. However the latter may be unfair at the moment due to the extreme renovations especially with Space Mountain 2.0. However what makes up the park is the current old school classic Disney feel. The extremely friendly enthustic cast members, non scheduled meet and greets and other superfluous changes. There were lots of parades ( including an electric one) and the delight of riding Splash Mountain (albeit in Japanese). The new Beaty & The Beast dark ride was incredibly delightful in every way and Pooh’s Honey Hunt still stands its ground, ad the first trackless dark ride. It just had that classic Disney feel which MK Florida lacked so loved it here. Disneysea Visiting this park has always been a bucketlist for me and it didn’t fail to disappoint. Except being spited Journey & Indy. Darn. Despite this, it was a wonderful place to visit, bearing some of the most strong and immersive theming to be seen in any park in the world. From Venetian canals to the striking mount Prometheus in the centre. Tower might lack the thrill of the others, but the design and story is incredible in every way, 20,000 leagues is highly unique and Sinbad ride delightful with a catchy soundtrack. Fantasy Springs is just wonderful. Frozen is clearly the showstopper here with mind blowing effects (even for those not the biggest fans), Neverland Adventure an interesting and modern variation of Pan and Tangled a delight, if a bit on the short side. Other additional attractions were pleasant to experience both unique and copies, the alien motchi balls are a must when visiting (subject to dietary guidelines). For a variety of reasons I consider Tokyo Disney my favourite resort, even surpassing Californias and surpassing Orlando in a number of ways IMO. Would recommend.

Overdue Top 10 update. Top 10’s Steel/Hybrid Coasters: 1/ Steel Vengeance 2/ Veloci-coaster 3/ Zadra 4/ Eujaneika 5/ Mako 6/ Toutatis 7/ Hyperion 8/ Voltron 9/ Hyperia 10/ Nemesis Reborn Wooden; 1/ Wodan 2/ Ghost Rider 3/ Phoenix 4/ El Toro 5/ Twister 6/ The Beast 7/ Mystic Timbers 8/ Wickerman 9/ Coney Island Cyclone 10/ Joris Dark rides: 1/ Tower of Terror WDW/Tokyo Sea 2/ Rise Of The Resistance 3/ Beauty & The Beast Tokyo Disney 4/ Indiana Jones Disneyland 5/ Pirates In Batavia 6/ POTC Disneyland California 7/ Frozen Adventure- Tokyo Disney Sea 8/ Forbidden Journey (Orlando one) 9/ Danse Macabre 10/ Phantom Manor Parks 1/ Tokyo Disneyland 2/ Europa Park 3/ Universal Orlando 4/ Disneyland Anaheim 5/ Cedar Point 6/ Phantasialand 7/ Knoebels 8/ Energylandia 9/ Efteling 10/ Universal Japan Park Bucketlist: 1/ Epic Universe 2/ Dollywood 3/ Silver Dollar City 4/ Busch Gardens Williamsburg 5/ Shanghai Disney 6/ Universal Singapore 7/ Hong Kong Disneyland 8/ Canadas Wonderland 9/ Carowinds 10/ Linnanmaki N.B I like to have a variety of attractions on my favourites, just to keep it varied. Even if it is easy to dominate it with one ride type/manufacturer I.E RMCs. But this is just my opinion.

I feel the retheme in some ways worked, but in others less so. They’ve done an ok job integrating what’s there into an original storyline, but it feels less iconic/distinctive regardless of the many setbacks from the very beginning. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the ride mothballed in the near future, especially with the problems highlighted above.

Another retheme to the X/pyramid coaster/ ride system is perhaps the most likely choice, with investment likely stagnant yet again and Walking Dead feeling like a, well dead IP now.

It all feels a slippery slope to me, the companies profits are slipping and struggling due to at least a decade of unhealthy growth and numerous cut corners. A reduced credit rating is also a major concern. Merlin aren’t the only major operator with big issues (see Six Flags), but I think do have it worse personally.

Six Flags Great Adventure was the first major park I visited recently, as part of a larger north-east/mid-western park trip with a friend. At the time of planning this trip (late 2024), there were strange and concerning reports that Kingda Ka and other attractions would be closed at the park for the next season. These reports were unfortunately true. In-light of being spited at least two former major attractions, expectations for this place were noticeably diminished. However thankfully a mostly enjoyable visit was had. It’s an interesting park in how it’s not too far from New York, yet in the middle of nowhere, amongst a safari attraction too. Upkeep was mostly decent and operations mixed, though some of the clientele made for a more hairy queuing experience. El toro is certainly the show stopper here, incredible woodie with some rough and intense moments. The B&M collection is mostly excellent, Dare Devil thankfully opened and was better than Wonder Woman and the Flash was overall fun. The park also had a random DC show, Skull Mountain wasn’t anything special. Still worth visiting if you’re in that area.

Thorpe top this for me for reasons similar to the above. Rides are often operated well, especially the likes of Stealth & Hyperia and reliability has been better than from previous years. Towers contrary though has seen a noticeable decline in operations and reliability lately. Some rides like Thirteen still smash it but it’s not like how it was. Chessington is hit and miss, but I’ve seen some poor operations lately, with rides like Rattlesnake operating so badly now and too many rides on low or reduced capacity now. LEGOLAND is ok, but I still find it exaggerated where staff have to say “you’re secure” after checking a simple door or restraint once or even twice. It’s the most safety exaggerated park out there I’ve done!

I’d say Rumba’s days of operating are likely numbered. It’s an expensive atttaction to run ( in resources & staffing now), gets lower ridership most of the time and strict regulations and badly behaving guests adding up also. Rumba wasn’t a bad one as a former host, however after what happened at Drayton, it wasn’t the same and staffing and operating is much higher and stricter now. At nearly 40 years, maybe it has run its course now (no pun intended).

Depends on the park for me, especially if such place has x amount of rides that requires a minimum number of people to ride in order for it to operate. some parks when quiet feel pleasant to visit, enabling numerous re-rides and getting lots done, assuming they don’t have silly operating hours (glares at Towers). But then again, with empty paths, areas, fewer or no entertainment (depending on the park), it can definitely impact atmosphere and environment. Making it feel more flat and empty as a result. Not sure where everyone else is on this, but I find parks on average the most enjoyable when they are between the busier end of quiet and the busier event of lively. But that might just be me.

This weekend I went to Paulton’s fan day, the park certainly put on a lovely event. Several tours/BTS were carried out throughout the day, from seeing Cobra’s ride workshop, Storm Chaser’s OP cabin/train workshop process, the new construction area and much more. We had over an hour of ERS in Tornado Springs and Ghostly Manor (more on that soon) as well as a lovely buffet in Mel’s Diner and a Reveal/Q&A with park management. The biggest news/reveal of course was the new Vikings area (Valgard), which will include a new coaster, flat ride, restaurant and also re-themed Cobra (soon to be Raven). Surprisingly, the new coaster will be a Gerstlauer eurofighter, but hopefully the park will carry it off well, I find the smaller ones the better rides usually. Vague hints of a new water ride the following year were revealed, but not much else. Very exciting still. Magma will be a goner later this year. At least for Paultons. The lodges are several years away still. They also did a Q&A and showed how they build Ghostly Manor, which given the areas footprint/show building is impressive they got that all in. They also did a silent disco, but I left at that point. So, Ghostly Manor? My thoughts? It’s a lovely compact dark ride mixing screens and scenes nicely (they have 10 of them), plus the queue line is nicely done too. Whilst it doesn’t hit the same way as Alty Mans or Danse Macabre (which I did days earlier), it’s a decent addition to the park and great to see them finally obtaining a dark ride. Should suit the park nicely. Interesting times ahead perhaps.

Studios/Adventure world still has some way to go on the park front, but this actually looks great. Must admit I had a strange liking towards studio one, but excellent work on this section. Hopefully we will see similar with the rest of the park in due course.

Convince me I’m wrong.

Last weekend (April 12th), I finally got to meet industry legend John Wardley. It’s pretty clear 2025 is not the year to be visiting Chessington. With Project Play under construction and Wild Asia mothballed, under the guise of early construction for the Minecraft area. Operations were mixed, with mandrills being decent, despite a breakdown and Vampire doing a decent 2 train op, with just two platformers (one of which was batching). Rattlesnake’s operations were atrocious. The less said about the hideous Tiger Rock tunnel changes, the better. It looks more like an industrial estate than a theme park now. Now onto the event. At first there was a Vampire themed buffet in the temple restaurant. Buffets are known for either quality and quantity, unfortunately this one was neither. Burgers were the main event and as expected tasted vile. Salt, pepper and ketchup couldn’t polish this monstrosity. The curry was at least was just about edible. The desserts were comparatively bette. Black died soft serve, sundaes, sweets and jellies comprised the selection. Thankfully the event improved from here, the VIP team were generally attentive and chatted to everyone and we got a Vampire themed welcome drink. After making our way to the event suite, the main event kicked off. In the first segment John Talked about the different projects he’d worked on. Things mentioned included how the park almost became a housing estate, due to it being a failing attraction, his work with the McNamaras at the (sadly now closed) Oakwood and early ideas for the Vampire. Wardley reckons the ride still has much life left and the trains have less impact on the track than say Nemesis. On the second segment, John answered attendees questions. He said Universal GB wouldn’t impact the U.K. parks as much as people think and it’s not a David and Goliath battle. He also mentioned as far as developments go at the park. We would be in for a treat. At the end, one of the park’s long serving ride engineers Martin went through a lot of the ride’s mechanical statistics and gave away a few random ride bits to some who answered the most correct/accurate answers. There was then an opportunity to meet John, have things signed and have pictures with him. And now the 12 million pound question, was it worth it? At £125, even after discount it was perhaps an eye watering amount to spend, regardless of circumstances. On hindsight the food was mostly disappointing and other features were interesting, but I guess the important thing was this. I finally got to meet John Wardley. The man and legend who brought many of the countries most exciting attractions to life and such an inspiration to many. Without Wardley, Chessington may have well become a large housing estate.

Went to Vibes last week, without a doubt one of the best meals I’ve had in a UK park for years. The wrap was tasty, flavoursome and decent value for money amongst the chilled yet vibrant atmosphere of the restaurant. Even the service was to a decent standard. As long as this standard continues, will definitely go here again. A contrast to the awful meal I had at Chessington recently.

Thought I would celebrate the arrival of the 2025 season, by recording and arranging the ride’s theme.