China 04/18 – Fantawild Resort Wuhu
Boonie Bear says go to Fantawild Wuhu! Ok then.
Day 6 – Oriental Hertiage Wuhu
After getting as far as the entrance and not being able to ride anything here last time, I had greater than normal anxiety for doing Jungle Trailblazer, so made the possibly wrong decision of trying that straight away.
Everyone else clearly had the same anxiety, or they just follow the ‘suggested route’ like sheep and do everything attraction once like they always do so the queue had about 200 people in it. Busy right?
At 1 train dispatching every 10 minutes, this might have topped my record in China set the previous day.
All a bit fruitless really, as the ride was empty for the rest of the day, but wasn’t gonna let it go all Steel Dragon on me again.
Again, finally got on the damn thing and it’s really good. Wasn’t a huge fan of the previous layout of these with an inversion as it didn’t quite click with me, but this iteration has a bit more going for it.
It’s got the same big hill start as Fireball. The double down into the inversion is amazing. The rest is again filled with the stuff they do best, little twisty hills and little straight hills that go on and on and just chuck you about in all directions.
Only got one minor nitpick – the high up turnaround that doesn’t really do much and ruins the pace a bit, so having now done all of the unique layouts of the world’s Jungle Trailblazers (achievement unlocked), it left me torn between putting it 2nd or 3rd.
The indoor mine train clone had a bit of a queue from the natural flow of guests, so headed over to the Vekoma Boomerang next.
Only 2 trains worth of people ahead of me, but they’ve reached new operational lows with this one.
For some reason, they’ve decided to not put the usual storage bins on the platform at the far side of the train, rather a storage bin area at the point of batching, below the station.
Guests still exit at the far side of the station, so the impact of this is that you have to wait for them all to slowly bumble along an exit path, return to the storage area in front of the waiting queue, faff around with their stuff, leave by the gate, forget their stuff, come back in, faff around with their stuff and leave again before the staff can start batching the next group. All while the train and station lies totally dormant for several minutes. Classic.
The indoor mine train was now empty, so got that done. It was rougher than the previous iteration (which I think was in Jinan) and was missing the big screen at the end. Still a tad more interesting than the outdoor ones.
Went back to Trailblazer and was told it was down for half an hour while they fixed the water spraying fans in the queueline (life savers).
Believe I’ve already done everything else this park has to offer, but thought might as well have a spin on one of the dark rides while waiting. Devil’s Peak was closed until later, Nuwa had an offensively huge queue, Dragon King’s Tale it is. (Exit pictured above, all their exit signs have another confusing name above them).
As in Xiamen, this cloned ride wasn’t running the preshow or the spinning water tunnel, assumedly because they can’t be bothered.
Love the ride though, great attention to detail in all the screen based antics of a boy fighting a dragon.
Went back to the woodie once it had reopened and racked up several laps on the bounce. Great stuff, this trip is finally starting to make sense.
That’s about all of interest to come out of today. Let’s have a bonus picture round of signs!
Some more beautiful than others.
Legend of Nuwa layout.
Dragon King’s Tale layout.
Over to the other park in the resort then. Can’t slow down, creds.
Fantawild Dreamland Wuhu
Space Warrior layout.
Fantawild Dragon!
Wizard’s Academy yu-gi-oh card.
Anyway, we had the 2 park 1 day ticket, but I had had too much fun on Jungle Trailblazer and turned up too late to be able to do much here (no regrets).
Lots and lots of show based attractions with timings that had all given up for the day.
Got the cred. Bit of a stain on Fantawild, particularly a Dreamland park. Bad ride and no theming.
Didn’t get the worm, no adults.
Caught a 4D cinema showing I hadn’t done before – Origin of Life.
From dinosaurs to bullet trains, it covered just about everything in the history of the world. Mildly interesting.
We also begrudgingly ended up waiting for another Space Warrior out of lack of things to do yet again. Actually got on it this time, my gun didn’t work at all and I was forced to wear kid sized 3D glasses. Didn’t care.
In summary:
Oriental Heritage – would be a very good park if you haven’t done any of their attractions before. Still very good for, you know, having a world class woodie with a unique layout.
Dreamland – wasn’t a great experience, but I was only in it for the +1. Probably needed the two big shows they have to step it up for me, but they’re difficult to fit into a tight schedule, particularly across 2 parks. If you’re new to the Fantawild game, Jinshan Temple Showdown, Wizards Academy and Qin Dynasty Adventure (all closed two and a half hours before park close) would make it worth the visit. You can find my reviews of these attractions at other parks in the chain.
Here’s a pic of that last one closed, a common sight.
Boonie Bear says come back for the food festival. I’m good.
Day 7