Roller Coasters, Rides and Theme Parks!

[QualityChimp]

Looks ace. I've cooled a bit on visiting parks in the US for the moment, though.

[wakka]

Honestly that park is going to be absolutely brilliant. I've been watching the occasional video from YouTube where they fly drones over the site and give updates on how the construction is going. It's going to be a huge addition to Orlando. It's been a really, really long time since there was a full brand new park, not just a new area of an existing one, and the delivery of it all looks absolutely top notch.

I'd love to visit but I don't really have anyone to go with it would also be extremely costly of course. Perhaps in a few years. I reckon the queues will absolutely bonkers daily for a very long time after opening date anyway.

[Neon Ignition]

The ride that defies Trumps America

https://variety.com/2025/biz/news/disney-its-a-small-world-ride-new-lyrics-update-1236305853/

[Neon Ignition]

[wakka]

On a similar note - Falcon's Flight, the flagship ride at Six Flags Qiddiya, the park currently under construction in Saudi, is absolutely insane looking.

Here's a render:


And here's the real thing, well under way:


You can see on the far right of the render that it drops vertically over the edge of a natural cliff before swooping to the top of that massive hill and then freefalling back down again.

That hill is 535ft tall, easy eclipsing the 456ft of the previous record holder, Kingda Ka at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey (which was closed this year sadly).

An absolutely bonkers looking ride.

[QualityChimp]

That Meryal waterpark video was fascinating, thanks.
Just seems like a bonkers idea where nobody said "no".
Love a waterpark, but I've no real desire to visit that part of the world.

Likewise with the Falcon's flight ride, it's cool that it's happening, but I don't think I'll ever go there.

So glad I got to ride Kingda Ka when it was still operating and the highest at the time.
Gutted it's being dismantled as it was top-tier.
The whole park is great and a real break from the claustrophobia of New York's skyscrapers.
It's worth a visit, but the theming is similar to UK parks, as opposed to the world-leading ones in Disney/Universal.

I like that channel, Neon Ignition, cheers.

[wakka]

Yeah it's probably hard to imagine a juncture where I'd bother to visit Qiddiya, but if I was in the UAE for work or something, maybe I'd go for a night just to try out Falcon's Flight. It's a truly incredible looking roller coaster. It would be interesting to visit Saudi as well, just to see what it's like. But, yeah, I'd kinda need to be in the region for other reasons to bother. It's not top of the list, that's for sure.

The Meryal water park looks very well done but eerie with so few guests. You really need a bit of an atmosphere at a water park. I think I'd feel kinda awkward squelching around with all the bored staff staring at me. I do think the oil refinery theme is a strange choice, too. Like if that was the theme of just the peninsula with the tower of slides, that would make sense. But to give the whole thing a kind of multi-coloured factory theme is a bit odd.

EDIT: That's awesome that you rode Kingda Ka, QualityChimp! I'm jel! The only time I have ever been on a record-holding rollercoaster was when I rode Dodonpa at Fuji Q Highland in 2008, when it was the world's fastest. Imagine you did that one too?

[QualityChimp]

Actually, we did a load of coasters in Japan, wakka, but never went to Fuji Q!

fave ones were Thunder Dolphin where the coaster goes through the ferris wheel, Thunder Dolphin (now the 10th tallest with Kingda K out the picture!)



Then Space World in Fukuoka, which closed in 2018 which had a looping coaster by a rocket and an ace Resident Evil ride.



Back to Meryal, I find the industrial theming a bit weird.
"Come ride our waterslide that tastefully reflects our oil-based history - "Oil Slip""

Of course I'd go to these parks if I was there, but even if I won the lottery, these destinations would be right down the list.

[wakka]

Thunder Dolphin looks like a good un. Love the look of that huge drop followed by soaring back upwards and banking round the corner.

Dodonpa was a crazy ride. I'm not surprised it eventually started breaking people's bones when it got bumpy towards the end of its life, because it was an insanely forceful launch. I think it still had the highest acceleration of any roller coaster at the time of its closing in the late 2010s, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a record that it hangs onto posthumously. More recent very fast launch rides, like Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi (which is now the world's fastest), use a much more gradual launch to reach their top speed. Dodonpa fired you like a bullet out of a gun

You could proper feel the skin on your face being stretched back as it blasted you out of the tunnel where the ride began.

I still really want to ride the new Thorpe Park coaster, Hyperia. It looks absolutely brilliant. Need to get someone to go with me next summer hoping my mate's son will be tall enough to start riding the big guns with us.

[Anpanman]

Daughter went to Fuji Q last year, luckily for me if I went I wouldn't be allowed as at least one of the rides is age limited to 55 year olds.

We did take her to Nagashima Spa Land years ago which is a water park and normal park all in one and have to say it was brilliant.











Plus, if you are ever in Matsuyama there is always the ferris wheel on top of the department store. We had been there sightseeing and just made it back in time before it closed so our daughter could go on it, she was the only one on it!

[Yakumo]

Then Space World in Fukuoka, which closed in 2018 which had a looping coaster by a rocket and an ace Resident Evil ride.

Ah, poor old Space World. Went there many times, often when nobody else was there.
Sad to see the park gone but hey, at least it went out with a bang being featured on Have I Got News For You, due to the fish under the ice rink.
The area is now a shopping area with a planetarium. The train station is still called Space World though.

[Neon Ignition]

Sky Scream at Holiday Park in Hassloch, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.

[QualityChimp]

All the different launch mechanisms are interesting. Modern ones like Rita are launched using pulsed electromagnetic plates, but something like The Hulk just has a bunch of tyres!



Yakumo, Space World is quite far south in Japan, did you used to live that way and are now nearer Tokyo?

Japan loves a ferris wheel.
Totally perplexed me how many you'd see.
I was atop some viewing platform on a skyscraper and spotted a ferris wheel and a slightly smaller ferris wheel next to it.
I can't understand why you'd ride the smaller one?

[Yakumo]

QualityChimp nah mate. I live in Shimonoseki, which is the last city at the bottom of Honshu. I work in Kitakyushu and also hangout there when drinking (i go home on the first train in the morning 😅), so I was very often up near Space World. I haven't been in that direction in about a year now but it is easily accessible from where I work. Only 15 minutes away by train 👍
They had two other coasters before they closed down. One was a pretty large coaster and the other was a top hat launch coaster called Zaturn. I had rode that one twice. Often though the launch system would fail and the trains would not clear the top hat and role back down to the launch station 😂. To be fair, Space World was a bit Janky 😅

[QualityChimp]

I remember being incensed when we were about to get on a coaster and they closed it because of a light drizzle.
I've ridden The Big One at Blackpool in a hurricane, I swear!

In sad news, the largest theme park in Wales, Oakwood, is closing permanently.

They had a couple of great rides, including Hydro, which was like Oblivion - a vertical drop but into water and Megafobia, one of the best wooden coasters I've been on.

I went with a roller coaster club for an overnighter one year and camped right next to Hydro, which was a shock as you opened your tent in the morning!
We had Exclusive Ride Time on Hydro and on Megafobia in the evening. I lost count of how many times we went round on it!

A combination of it being quite remotely located, no investment and a few incidents, including a death means the park never recovered enough to make enough money to survive. There are only a handful of non-Merlin parks left now: Drayton Manor, Paulton's Park, Pleasurewood Hills, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Lightwater Valley etc.
Make sure you visit one this year!

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/mar/04/largest-oakwood-theme-park-in-wales-closes