China 09/17 – Happy Valley Shanghai

The worst was over and it was back to being stupidly hot for the last leg of the journey in Shanghai. I don’t envy the person in the knock off Mickey Mouse suit who camps out the bridge to the shuttle buses. Not sure if the begging for a drink was meant to be a joke or not.

Day 10 – Happy Valley Shanghai

After a couple of days of cred drought, powered straight to the woodie with a fair amount of desperation. Closed for maintenance.

Alright, I’ll settle for the dive. Closed for maintenance.

Now sweating profusely, how about some Megalite action? Sign said open. Queue was open. 10 people in the queue. 10 minutes of hanging around.
“Nah, the ride’s broken, go try the mine train.”
Some locals began an argument with the staff about how useless the park was being at this point, which was very compelling and completely threw me. I thought they were unable to comprehend incompetence in parks out here. Stayed to watch until they all stormed out.

3 small creds were all lined up in the one section. All running. At last, some measure of success.

Operator here reckoned we shouldn’t bother with this as it was a kids ride.
a) Don’t care, got the cred
b) Only thing open mate.

#2 Crazy Elves was yet another spinner for the trip. No change there.

I was disappointed to find out this was basically asking B&M to build the standard Vekoma layout, so not particularly unique.
Took about half an hour to get a lap, with 1 train going ahead of us. Staff were visibly just sitting around on their arses killing time with the train already full, locked and ready to dispatch.
It rode as good as the normal ones do in prime condition. Interesting to see the official nameplate gives the ride a ‘lifespan’ of 15 years.

Went to ride the mine train, as recommended by the staff earlier. Closed for maintenance.

Jumped on the Flying Island for some views of rides not running.

No spiting… if only it were true.

Spiting.

Spiting.

The dive coaster started testing while up here. There’s still hope.

Seem to be coming across a lot of these spinners that don’t spin recently.

I’d rather that sky was punctuated by an S&S right now.

But oh, they fixed it.

Either this trip has broken me or they’ve broken their Megalite. Not sure what was going on, but strangely it left me a bit dry.
Gave it a couple of goes to make sure. Should have been viciously intense, just wasn’t up to the usual standard.

The testing came to fruition.
Sat in the comfy seat for ages with a blissful breeze waiting for customers to show up.

It is what it is. Good solid fun. Huge floaty drop and some other trundlings to go with it.
Trimmed a little too hard on the block brake for my liking so there was no whip into the second drop. Enjoyed it more than the Megalite on this particular day though.

Soaring Dragon was a poor flying simulator, particularly after Wuhan. No nice staff or seating area, just baking outside a warehouse with no indication of whether it was running or not. It was running, but only the back left pod instead of the middle, giving a crap view. Fire exit signs are also clearly visible through the screen. Eh.

Did the Storm Tour tracked dark ride. The excessive amount of spinning away from each scene was fun, but it was very short and underwhelming in general.
A bit like my time in this park.

I had never really had issues with Happy Valley until now. This was easily the worst in terms of staff and how it was run and even the locals know it. I didn’t get to ride the main reason I came here (Gravity woodie) and the remainder of the lineup, while impressive on paper, is all just clones and a bit par for the course to me.

The weather had spited me one more time as after some interrogation at guest services, the woodie was closed because the “rain had damaged the track.” You can’t be serious.
Apparently they were working on it (they weren’t) and there was a chance it would reopen the next day (it wouldn’t).

Headed off in to the city to make up for this loss.

People’s Park

Oh yes, slap the money on the counter and see the local crowds gather for a spectacle. 3 laps of poorly tracked comedy.

I feel much better now.

Day 11