Korea + Japan 08/18 – Gyeongju World

Another day, another intercity bus. The weather remained as unpredictable as ever, which didn’t bode particularly well for us. Quick change to a local bus on arrival in the city and then get off when you see the massive B&Ms.

Day 3 – Gyeongju World?

What’s the situation? The ticket windows were open, with most people going for the water park. Admissions staff whipped out one of those charts with all the rides on and umbrella symbols next to the things that will ‘run in the rain’ – not much.
“Any chance of the rollercoasters running?” In a far more endearing manner than the previous day: “mmmmmmmmmaybe, sorry sorry.”
K. We’ll stick around then.

There’s a Starbucks on the other side of the road opposite the entrance, with an upstairs seating area that provides a good view of both B&Ms.

We spent a total of 5 hours up there watching the rain come and go. It’s a much more significant park today, they have to at least try to open right?

Halfway through their scheduled operating hours, we were about to give up and leave, writing off this portion of the trip as a complete failure, which was a depressing prospect as our main draw for covering this part of the country was this park.

Hold it. There’s a man climbing the stairs on the Dive Coaster. That must be a good sign. Never has watching a lift hill walk been so gripping. They climbed up and down, checking bits on the holding brake and the block sections.
Hold it. The Invert just sent an empty train. We’re in.

Desperate to get the blood in our legs flowing again, we somewhat prematurely rushed back over to the ticket window, where the poor girl didn’t quite know what was going on in the park yet herself and we were excitedly gesturing that they’ve started running the rides. Let’s wait for a bit more confirmation.

Walked back out to the car park and stood watching for another half an hour or so. No further signs of the invert.
Hold it. The dive just sent an empty train. The dive just did a block test. The dive just sent two trains. The dive just sent a train with people on it. We’re in.

“Tickets please”.
“Rollercoaster OK!”
<3

Gyeongju World

The park was predictably ghost town-ish as there had been nothing to do all this time and we headed straight over to the new boy.

The area for Draken is rather impressive, you can walk under most of the layout and get a lot more intimate with the main drop than I’ve seen before with these rides.

There’s a new fancy castle and dragon for the queue and station, some back story taking place on TV screens. As far as I could tell, Peter Pan has the one true ring and a dragon wants to get it back from him. The ensuing chase is the ride.

Had another near spite while standing at the air gates as they were having teething troubles with their new ride. Guests got kicked out of the station again while they sent a couple more tests round.

Finally managed to actually achieve something for the day and Draken is good. Even if the ride type is getting rather dull to me in principle, it provided solid fun as always.

It contains a couple of good interactions like the bridge at the base of the first drop.

I like the way they took the second train off immediately after testing.

I (think) I like the way they’ve kept the old shoulder restraints on this, but haven’t personally confirmed the vest complaint yet.

I like the way the splashdown hits the track above itself, making the track wet.
Wait, they don’t run rides when the track is wet?
Huh.

Grabbed the powered dragon on the way back out of Draken’s area. About time someone bothered to run one for us.

Time to see if the B&M Invert is still alive. It was. It had just been so quiet since that test train we saw long ago that nothing had been sent since. Managed to slither into the last couple of seats of the first train they had been waiting so long to fill.

Another impressive queueline for this one. The famous entrance with the big horse statue is followed by lots of rockwork before heading indoors where there’s a couple of dark sections and some scenery. Think it’s themed to Chariots of Fire and Thor 2.

This was my second big boy invert in as many months. It’s large, fast, forceful and enjoyable. It just lacked the slightly wilder edge that Monster had. There’s no snap at all in the cobra roll, all the transitions seemed more well refined but not necessarily in a good way. Maybe this is what I’ve heard others talk about with old school B&Ms being better. Never quite understood it myself as I’ve found there’s outliers on both ends of the spectrum.

You can get quite up close and personal with this one as well, so both coaster areas have some good interaction and theming.

Went back round for another go but it started raining a bit more and they decided to cease operation again, telling guests to wait a while.

Did the rapids while waiting. Everyone else was ponchoed up but it was already wet, what’s the worst that can happen? Plus, rapids are more fun with a bit of threat involved, and this one was no exception.

Tried to get back into Phaethon, just as the queue was being evacuated. Ah.

Well Draken is still running at least. Back to that for another couple of laps.

They eventually gave up on that as well, as the rain got slightly worse again. Oh well, got the creds, good on you Gyeongju World for trying at least.

Did the Ferris Wheel on the way out for the sake of it/some views. Plenty more of this hardware on the horizon.

Quite liked the place in the end. Wouldn’t be a huge amount to do even on a good day, but what they do have for now is solid and well presented.

And that was ‘Golden Gyeongju’.

Up next – more rain, Japan style.

Day 4