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Temporary fences are gone! Not the Boxing Day opening we were hoping for but at least all construction is completed. The curb entrance is just blocked off by a few retractable belt stanchions now.

That'll do

Word on the street is that both Buzzsaw and Escape from Madagascar are both open now, leaving Hot Wheels and half of Wipeout as the two last closed attractions.

https://outline.com/Nn9hP8 It will be a Rockin tug, a power surge and a wave swinger.

It's fine I guess - it doesn't at all hold a candle to the old facade - I dunno who thought white panels was going to trump a Disneyland facsimile facade - the facades they demolished still appear in many of their photos and it's as iconic as the entrance plaza - but there you go, not my business I guess. The shade design is the best bit - it should be the icing on the cake but right now with the white panelling I think it looks like it's missing something. As a theme park, white walls is just not good enough, as a building design, it's just not good enough, as something that's going to remembered as a potentially iconic turning point for a company, it's not good enough. Recently I visited New Plymouth in NZ to checkout Mt Taranaki and the Len Lye Centre. In regards to the Len Lye Centre, my thought there is that if a regional town over the ditch can create an iconic aesthetic to their museum's facade then a multi-million dollar company like Ardent should be striving to do better. Especially if the benchmark's already "it used to look like a Disney facade" who are basically the defacto global standard in theme park quality, and especially if every shopping centre's dining precinct (like the one across the road at Westfield) does it better. My advice if someone from Ardent is reading? I'd actually take inspiration from the Len Lye Museum and replace or treat the white panelling with a very thin sheet of coated aluminium mirror sheeting. Instead of bland white facades, they'd have a mirror finish which would reflect the sky and thus tying the "soaring over the sky" subtext of the ride experience much more closely to the real world design. It'd be a relatively minor design change that wouldn't be too expensive to implement and would bring up the look of the ride to something very, very premium and iconic. It'd also make the design look more like the original concept artwork. Len Lye Centre above. Other mirror-finish facades. As I said - you can get the aluminium cladding down to a fraction of a millimetre thick and delivered on a spool.

Because if people wanted click bait shit with little researched facts or information they would go to fine places like The Bulletin or one of the "big two" Gold Coast TV news. This kind of post reminds me of the scaremongering certain storm chasers do when it remotely looks like there are going to be storms in a few days time just without the "subscribe for detailed reports" part.

Merry Christmas to all.

I had the opportunity to visit Efteling earlier this year. https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/NL/Kaatsheuvel/Efteling/ (If the gallery is giving you grief, you can just work through sequentially from here https://www.parkz.com.au/photo/17882-Efteling/gallery/sort/newest/location/park-147-Efteling/offset/0 using the left and right arrows ) It's located about 80km south of Amsterdam, though I stayed at a B&B in Tilburg, 10km south, and got a bus there from Tilburg station (Which run quite frequently) I also elected to get a ‘Ticket Extra’, for 10 EUR extra, which gets you in 30 min earlier, plus a meal in the park, which seemed like good value, and quick way to sneak in a couple of attractions. The park is impressive, immaculately landscaped, and very spread out, with a lot of pathways to cover. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. The first ride I did was Spookslot, which is essentially an animatronic show, where you stand looking at an old castle, and various peppers ghost/ lighting / animatronic effects are triggered as the dead come to life. My favourite part was when the ground starts rumbling and moving under the tombstones. The other early opening ride worth doing is Vogel Rok, which is probably the most family friendly coaster in the park (Actually, the lack of a “kiddy coaster” at Efteling is quite suprising, but in general shies away from mini kiddy flats) The coaster was mostly in the dark, and “fun”, if not that memorable (since it spent a lot of time just doing endless helixes one way then the other, but there were a few cool laser effects and onboard music. At the start of the ride you see a giant egg, then as the ride progresses you see large mythical birds suspended around the track, culminating in passing through the mouth of one. With the walking time, that was the 30 min headstart consumed, so I just beat the masses to Baron 1898 , the parks dive machine coaster. This was great, with an amazing level of theming, and entertaining pre-shows (thankfully captioned). The whole ride has this perfect Victorian era vibe about it, and doesn’t try to go down the typical grimy/rusty mine theme. When you leave the station you stop in a sort of pre lift room, where some female ghosts sing a beautiful song telling you that you are all doomed, then it’s up the lift, pause for a second, then down the vertical drop. From there is a couple of inversions, a helix, hump and brakes. It’s not the strongest coaster out there, fun and re-rideable, but really it’s the theming that holds this experience up. No queue meant I was able to get a front and a back row ride in, via single rider. Check out the parks 360 pov, really captures the feel of the ride well I spent the next half hour getting a lap on each side of Joris en de Draak. Best coaster in the park! This one is mostly a racing coaster, with tracks running in the same direction most of the time, save for a couple of turns where they go for a “head on” near miss. GCIs racers are their strong suit, and this is no exception, it just belts along, has heaps of little moments of airtime, and really good interaction between the tracks. In particular, there is a section where the tracks intertwine (like the Kraken Racer at Funfields) so you are constantly going over and under each other, culminating in passing a big dragon animatronic. When you reach the end, there is a banner hanging from a pole that spins to point at the winning train, and then when you arrive at the station, banners drop from the roof to “congratulate” the winners. I got a front row one on one side, and a back row go on the other before moving on. Also worth mentioning is the super catchy soundtrack: Next up I headed to the nearby Vliegende Hollander , a water coaster from the same guys that brought us the Sea Viper and Arkham trains. Like Baron, this one has amazing queue and dark ride theming, but a bit of a meh coaster experience. This one works well, you go into a building, and inside slip through a rip in a painting on the wall to find a hidden passage, this leads to a dock, where you board your boat. As you leave the dock you pass through the harbour gates, into foggy darkness, with howling winds, squawking sea birds, with only a lantern on your boat lighting the way. It’s atmospheric AF, and one of the best examples of setting the scene that ive seen on a ride. Suddnely, hell breaks loose, and explosions go off around the boat, rain pours around you, and then the ghost of the flying Dutchman is coming towards you. Then There’s a small drop into the broken hull of the ship, and you start heading up the lift hill. As you reach the top, a booming voice shouts something, then the doors open and you go down the main curving drop. From there is a couple of turns and hills, and finally the splashdown. The boat slowly drifts back towards the building and you disembark. Going by the time stamps of my photos, I think the next thing I did was Bob, which still took a little while, despite using single rider. It’s an Intamin bobsled, so compared to the Mack ones, they feel a bit more out of control, but they do bash around a bit more, so I’m ambivalent towards them. This one is due to close next year, to be replaced by a racing family coaster. No need to ride Pirana, you could see the whole layout and nothing really took me… Moving across the park, I took the scenic route through the Sprookjesbros which is a huge fairly tale village full of dioramas, and the original part of the park, but with a bit of modern magic, so none of this going on. I would have liked to have had a proper look through this bit, but given time constraints, I moved through fairly quickly. Kicking myself that I missed the Indian Water Lilies display. At this point, I grabbed a fastpass thingy for a seat at Raveleijn, before joining the 30 minute, but constantly moving queue for Droomvlutch. This is a suspended dark ride, with cars that can rotates, so I guess similar to ET, sans bikes. This one was a series of fantasy themed scenes (hence the name dream flight), like ET, there was a scene where you fly over a diorama, there were lots of scenes with trolls and faries in the forest, many of which you pass over at high level. I thought the coolest one was this long spiralling helix towards the end of the ride, where you face inwards and circulated around a giant tree and waterfall, picking up speed, with various creatures at different levels. There was also a cool fibre optic tunnel with lots of stars too. Next up was Villa Volta. I love these so much It’s a mad house in a somewhat unassuming building. No translation available for this one, the preshow was an animatronic of leathery old man rabbiting on. Eventually you proceed to the main ride, a room that revolves around you, with various other props on the wall (vases, mirrors etc) that tilt with the room to really make the effect convincing. Add the rousing sound track, and it’s a close tie between this and Hex at Alton for the best mad house ride. I had a bit of time to spare before Raveleijn, so I checked out the Efteling Museum and the Diorama, and enjoyed the ambience of Anton Pieck Plein. Raveleijn is a large arena show. The story is that some kids are out hiking, and discover a hidden city, when they enter, they are magically transformed into horseback heroes, and are called upon to fight an evil guy who has taken over the city. There were some pretty cool effects, such as characters appearing/disappearing underwater from a pond in the middle of the arena. There were trained ravens (?), plenty of horse stunt riding, and a final battle with this mechanised fire breathing 5 headed dragon. Fortunately, headsets are available with English dubbing, or else I would have been quite lost. Perhaps my only criticisim is that the set is set up weirdly, with a narrow bit of space at the front, and big bulky pieces right in the middle, so it felt cramped. I CBF typing all the characters names, so have a look here if you want to know more https://www.efteling.com/en/kids/profiles/raveleijn After the show, I went on Pagode, the observation tower, or rather the flying island. This is a platform on a huge arm that gets lifted up, for a view over the park. It’s open air too, so no filthy glass blocking your shots. The park is quite spread out though with a lot of trees, and it was still April, so a bit of moisture in the atmosphere, so net result is the aerial pics seem like they don’t show much. Right, time to finally get on the newest ride, Symbolica, which conveniently has a single rider queue, reducing the impetus to get here early. The only downside to this is that the ride has three story options to choose from, and as a single rider, you don’t get to pick. Not to worry, on my two rides, I got 2 different ones, which was good enough for me. The preshow is fun, with the kings assistant reading a long list of rules, and then the jester magically revealing the passage to the ride. Im not sure what to make of this one, like Droomvlutch, its an exercise in just looking at pretty stuff basically. You pass through various rooms in the palace, with whimsical things coming to life. The coolest scene IMO was the garden greenhouse, when all of a sudden a whale is swimming around outside, and the glass cracks and water pours in. The final scene of the ride puts the trackless system to good use, with three cars dancing around each other in the banquet hall. So overall, it’s superbly themed, but perhaps was anti climatic compared to your Disney dark rides. Next was the last remaining coaster, Python. This one operates with a time booking system, which I had missed earlier in the day, so I had to wait till later in the afternoon till they open it for general riders. It has a single rider line too. It was a fun coaster, it has recently had its track replaced, and has the new gen Vekoma trains, so nothing to complain about. It’s still pretty basic in terms of layout…two loops, two corkscrews and a helix. There were still a couple of dark rides to go, so I did Fata Morgana, this one is like Pirates of the Carribean, if it were Arabian, so lots of wax animatronics and basic movement, through different stereotypical scenes. The other dark ride was Carnaval (sic) Festival, which a knock off of it’s a small world, but with haunted mansion style 3 seater buggies that move continuously and can rotate. Aimed at kids! It contained hillarous stereotypes, but despite going around the world, they missed Australia. I’d wanted to go another re-ride on Joris en de Draak, but the ride had closed early compared to the rest due to a private party, which annoyed me a bit to be honest, especially since the ride only opened with one train first thing. So with my last bit of time in the park, I did a re-ride on Symbolica and Baron 1898, then intentionally took the scenic route back to the entrance through Volk von Laaf and Sprookjesbros. Everything was off, but there was ample opportunity to take photos. So that’s Efteling! I think it’s one of the best parks I have visited, combining great theming, great rides, and a really pleasant setting . The food was nice, the ambience and music were nice too, and it was great to see how they have preserved classic attractions. Originally I was going to give myself 2 days, and if you did things at a slightly slower pace, you could definitely fill out two days. As it was, I didn’t see any indoor shows at the theatre, or have a sit down meal, and I could have spent longer seeing sprookjesbros. The World of Color style fountain show was closed for maintenance too. But, as circumstances ended up, I’d done everything I wanted to, and there is no discounted two day pass, and I wasn’t sure about paying another days ticket for essentially re-rides, so I elected leave it at that, and go to the Hague the next day instead, and schedule extra time to explore there / see a couple of smaller parks down that way. ************* After Efteling, I noticed that it wasn’t going to be too far (25km0 to jump on a train and bus that evening to check out Baarle Hertog. https://www.google.com/maps/@51.4413687,4.9335558,13.58z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baarle-Hertog This is basically a holdover from medieval times, where there is a complex patchwork of Dutch and Belgian territory within the town, including a part where there is an island of Belgian territory, and then a pocket of dutch territory within that. Houses and shops have international borders running through them. Does this truly count as visiting another country?

Does this make it the most attractions the park have had open since October 2016

The we know more than the bureau with their millions of dollars of equipment and decades of training, cause we subscribe to a few webpages. HSC go very quiet when they get it wrong. I only follow for the photos. The OP was a bit general with their post tho, seemed to be questioning it themselves and seeking further information.

Recently I made a trip to Disneyland Paris, and wow what an awesome time we had. Unfortunately it was freezing cold, with temperatures reaching down to -6 degrees, plus strong winds as well. This was my first Disney park and I loved it all. My girlfriend had a busted knee, so on arrival we went in to hire a wheel chair. They were very accommodating, and with this, got fast track for all rides, and only had to wait the queue time, rather than booking in advance. And on a number of occasions, the staff were very accommodating to us because of the wheelchair. We started the day by visiting Walt Disney Studios. Unfortunately we didn’t get early access due to a ticketing issue we had at the hotel (To he explained later). We went and created our Fast Pass for Crush’s Coaster, and then went to ride Tower of Terror. I was well aware of the rides story and experience, but it was still quite a shock for how fast it dropped and went back up. My girlfriend had no idea what the ride was about, so she absolutely loved the surprise she got from it. Crush’s Coaster was also very cool and unique. I’ve never been on a spinning coaster before, and the way the track was laid out, it had some awesome air time and corners, along with a pretty good storyline. We then went and created a fast pass for Ratatouille. With the longest wait so far, we went and explored the park a bit more and checked out its other areas. The Toy Story Playland had some decent rides and theming. The park overall did seem a bit thrown together, with rides just in places because that’s where they fit best rather than immersive zones. The shopping and dining was also minimal, but reasonable. It was then our time to ride Ratatouille, which was great. The theming, story and immersion of the ride within the sets. If people aren’t familiar with the rude, it uses a magnetic track, with 3 cars moving throughout the ride alongside each other. It was very smooth, quick and you felt like you were within the scenes. Can’t wait to see how they improve on it with the version coming to Epcot. The only other ride I would’ve liked to go on was Rock n Rollercoaster, but unfortunately it was having technical issues at the time. After this we made our way over Disneyland. We started by going to get lunch in Fantasyland. The food was great, and they were very accommodating with the wheelchair, by taking us to the front of the line, and moving tables around for it to fit in. We then made our way through the park checking everything out. This lead us to Thunder Mountain to create a fast pass. Once created we made our way down Main Street, checking out all the shops. After making quite a few purchases it was time for our fast pass. As we got to the ride, everyone was exiting as the ride had just broken down (And unfortunately remained closed for the rest of the day). So we went on Pirates of the Caribbean. Definitely a great ride, and thankfully we didn’t get wet. Continuing through the park we went to make a fast pass for Peter Pan, but unfortunately this has also just broken down. So we made our way to Tomorrowland, where we got to ride Space Mountain. While not the smoothest coaster was definitely really enjoyable. This area of the park definitely did see quite empty/uneventful, despite Buzz Lightyear having of the parks longest queues (so we have that ride a miss). The weather did suddenly change, so we went back to Main Street and explored even more of the stores, until it cleared. Peter Pan did finally reopen so we created a Fast Pass for that. The ride wasn’t overly smooth, but was really immersive and enjoyable. It was then time for the parade and fireworks, which were both really great. And that was it, my day at my first Disney park came to an end. It was a shame we couldn’t get on a couple more rides, but unfortunately the weather, ride closures (especially Thunder Mountain) and timing wasn’t always in our favour. But overall it was a great day, and can’t wait to go to another Disney park. For two nights we stayed in the Disney Village Nature Resort, about 15 minutes drive from the parks. The resort was beautiful, and in the warmer months would be amazing, especially for families. You could spend an entire week just at the resort without even visiting the parks because there were so many activities to see and do (so I would highly recommend). The check in process was quite strange as it closed at 7pm, a bit rushed, so we couldn’t get out park tickets that night to get into the parks early (which would’ve helped a lot) and because the resort is so big, it took about 10 minutes to walk too (no issue), and the resort had very nice lighting, but not enough, so was difficult to navigate at first. The room was however very nice and had everything anyone would need. Overall the resort was very nice, and the parks were awesome (more Disneyland because it was more immersive), so I highly recommend if anyone was in the area, but would suggest two days for both the parks to make sure you can do everything.

But what is window dressing, and what is real make-a-difference infrastructure? You talk about the redevelopment of the ice cream shop a few years ago. A few weeks back I talked about looking at buildings that were falling apart and I wondered how much was held together by paint. The building I was specifically referring to was THE ICE CREAM SHOP. As the saying goes, you can't polish a turd, but you can add glitter - and it would seem that that is precisely the kind of redevelopment they did with the ice cream shop if a few short years later the building looks as it does (go and view it from the train station and you'll see what i mean). They removed thunder river - It killed people. They removed Eureka Mountain - it sat rotting for more than a decade They removed the rest of gold rush - without TRRR and EMMR, what exactly was left? - Oh wait - the disused Skylink chairlift station that also sat rotting for a decade. You suggest they might have plans to remove rides - but history suggests that they need to shutter the ride and let it sit for 8 or more years before they do. How many years did the gravitron ride sit in the boneyard? So they renovated a store to capitalise on a new hot craze (lego). They rebuilt their old food outlet into something modern - which was only about 15 years overdue. They redeveloped tiger island, yes - but they botched it with the giant green prison. Coroborree was only done because of generous government grants for indigenous cultural projects. This wasn't done with their own money or because they felt strongly about the subject matter. The expansion of White Water World? A lazy river that WNW has had for more than a decade is hardly an inspiring investment - and its still just one attraction. The plans for that park had staged developments including numerous attractions, none of which we've seen - instead we've seen the kneejerk reaction to Aqualoop that is the Wedgie, Triple Vortex, and finally the lazy river... 3 new attractions in TWELVE YEARS. Shall we talk about the cock up that was Trolls Village that was supposed to open last Christmas, and didn't open until more than 8 months later? Plonked smack down in the middle of an ocean themed area? Shall we talk about those big screens or the revolving globe? Dreamworld have had screens all over the park for years, showing music videos and crappy advertisements for related products. I'm not getting excited over a few outdoor LED screens when their marquee attractions can't even stay open, or carry a full load of passengers. And the globe. Yeah - what a photo opportunity. Its pretty, but its just window dressing. It is a take it or leave it thing that wasn't really necessary. Things they could have spent their money on instead: Upgrading the control system on their flagship 21 year old coaster to newer technology (and actually running it at its capability Properly rebuilding Wipeout so that it can run as designed Running rides at capacity - both sides of Giant Drop, for example Maintaining a working steam railway, instead of wasting money on a glorified yard tractor that tears up the rails and constantly breaks down Maintaining the park's people soaking paddlewheeler attraction The article points it out better than I ever could - but there are just so many things WRONG right now, its hard to be positive in the face of such blatant mismanagement. You choose to focus on the positive, and let the negative slide, and thats your choice - but don't decry others who speak the truth - you can't live in a dreamworld and pretend that the issues don't exist, just because it doesn't fit your mould of 'fun'. If you're going to ignore the negative, then you shouldn't be complaining about bored train conductors. You can't have it both ways.

They've just finished removing Thunder River Rapids, which was a huge ride. The disused Eureka Mountain Mine Ride has also gone, as has the Gold Rush area. They might well have plans to remove some other rides but it shouldn't be done all at once, otherwise the place would feel like a ghost town! With the Lego store and restaurant at the entrance, SkyVoyager, complete resurfacing of Main Street, new large screens on Main Street, new revolving globe near the entrance, recently redeveloped Tiger Island and Coroberree, and the current expansion of Whitewater World including new Adventure River, the redevelopment of the ice cream shop and coffee shop at the front of the park a few years ago, new Trolls Village including Trolls Funhouse, it's very hard NOT to see the investment that's happening, but of course it does take time! 😀

It's possible to love theme parks and still hold them to account push. Entering peak period with so many rides out of action is ridiculous and Parkz is not being unsupportive of the GC tourism industry for calling them out in my opinion.

Thanks so much for that. I can certainly see some dirt at the bottom of the pool there, and it does appear to form a rather interesting pattern. However, I have to say that the dirt in Jdude95s photo looks a lot more pure, and (if dirt can be) I almost want to say it looks cleaner too. These are two qualities I think are extremely important in any theme park dirt. Still. Beggars can't be choosers, as the saying goes. Although I must add they could have asked if they could have a bit from the Wet & Wild buggy track, now it's no longer needed there.