China 04/18 – Lewa Adventure
Back to the important stuff then. Jumped on a free shuttle bus with a handful of guests, one of whom was bringing a cat to the park.
This particular bus dumps you the other side of a big food court that you have to walk through to get to the park. I believe they’re commercially linked, but you can never be too sure.
And here we are.
Day 9 – Lewa Adventure
Ticket lady said all of the rollercoasters ‘should’ be open. Hmmm.
Had a bit of faff upon entering the park, where the bag scan found a couple of snacks of ours and they didn’t like that. They did however let us store food at guest services for free.
Powered over to the back of the park to find out for myself if I was instantly going to hate this place. One of the biggest draws of this trip was the opportunity to ride Flash, the very first Mack hyper coaster, but with my luck so far it could easily all have ended in another let down.
Where other rides had opening times, this had nothing. It’s a humourous read though.
Staff guy in front of some tensa barriers says “they’re just doing some cleaning before opening for the day. Wait 10 minutes.” Well that’s a relief.
Camped out the entrance with a few others. This never usually happens, so the locals obviously have a rare sense of appreciation for quality rides here. 20 minutes later he got the call and everyone excitedly rushed up to him again, only to stand and watch him slowly take down 5 of the barriers, one at a time, walk them over to another area of queue and set them up again.
From there, he lead us to the cattlepen holding section where we waited yet another 20 minutes, watching the staff wander backwards and forwards in the station, occasionally looking over at him and saying nothing. Gets another call. Safety announcement spiel. We’re in.
First impressions were really good. Going up the lift with the loop track directly above you is quite a surreal sensation, making you think it’s not going to make it up there, but then the train just keeps on climbing. The power-dives alluded to on the sign are great fun, as are the gallops and vrilles.
It’s very well paced and rather graceful about the whole execution, with a great mix of forces all round. I couldn’t feel the trims on the hills, all of which had a very decent kick to them. The zero-G is spot on (great to see hyper coasters breaking the mould by having inversions now) and the fast twisty section at the end adds a bit more flavour.
Operations note: The station has an exit ramp, but they weren’t using it for the first half of the day, resulting in that same old problem where the already ridiculously low throughput is further destroyed by having to wait for everyone to slowly bumble out of the station and back down the entrance ramp. It didn’t matter at all on this day, as they were struggling to fill the train, but I hope they don’t pull that nonsense with any sort of queue present. False hope.
If one of the ideas out of this great Chinese park mystery is true, that they purposefully run these rides slower to keep costs down, it gets cancelled out by them missing out on potential revenue from not diverting you through the exit shop here.
Interesting note from the ride plaque: My favourite Mack trains have a predicted life span of 10 years. The structure has a life of 50 years!
What other things do I have to suffer before I can come back for more laps then?
SLC?
Another great sign, ‘tortuous way’ sounds about right.
But the demon of spite says it’s closed all day.
Not to worry. Been a whole 3 days without a mine train clone.
Sabertooth tiger, eyes filling with blood, says come on in.
It was a thing. The operator was having a good time singing.
Another Chinese youngstar?
Demon of spite says no.
There’s also another worm ride here but with specific signage saying no adults. Fair enough.
(Not) a Vekoma Boomerang? This had no signs at all, but apparently it’s broken. Bit disappointed, rather wanted to try a different manufacturer’s attempt at awfulness.
You guessed it. Closed.
Another hideous loopscrew coaster? This one has a very peculiar maximum height restriction of 1.73m which, being a top end thrill attraction, rules out almost anyone from riding it. Got the briefest of eye ups from a staff member who very scientifically said nope, you’re too tall. Laughed in his face. Next.
Which only leaves the Motocoaster. I believe I’ve only done a Zamperla original of this and this Golden Horse edition was somehow better. Slightly.
It’s still moving for the sake of motion.
And that’s the park. I’ll leave you with some Flash porn then.
Racked up a fair few laps and it seemed to get even better over those hills, both front and back. Great stuff.
I would criticise the park for having less than 50% of its major attractions available during the day, but I don’t care now. I got what I came for and I absolutely loved it. It takes a ride like this to see the priorities sometimes.
Headed out mid afternoon, got a train to catch.
Farewell demon of spite.
Day 10