Malaysia 02/23 – Berjaya Times Square
Our final departure from Vietnam the following morning was once again uneventful and yet another short plane hop took us over to Kuala Lumpur. My experience with flying into Malaysia 7 years prior was a hideously slow immigration queue which itself wasted half a day of the two day visit, not ideal.
On this occasion the airport itself was a breeze, but the general logistics of getting from the airport to the hotel in the city, then to a destination just a couple of miles from there somehow still took a good 4 hours, due to multiple minor maladies that baffle me to this day.
As such we didn’t arrive at the first intended stop until mid afternoon, the mall that lies at the foot of the Petronas twin towers. Within these walls is a discovery centre that houses a dark ride of some description, one that I recall being particularly interested to discover back when I was researching such things – they do turn up in some unexpected places. It has since been rethemed in some way and instead of being an integral part of the overall experience, is now an optional upcharge attraction.
Unfortunately it shall remain ‘of some description’ as the entire centre was already fenced off for the day having ‘sold out’. Frustratingly under the new system, you can only get tickets for the ride on the day, in person, which are limited to around 200 people and apparently people they can be gone by as early as 8am. My dedication to dark rides knows some bounds.
I had a revisit to a certain rollercoaster only penciled in as a maybe, but at this point it seemed fitting to cut losses and at least make something significant of the day besides travel and food. We headed over to the better of the big malls in the city for some actual action.
Day 8 – Berjaya Times Square Theme Park
This still took a silly amount of time given the distance and upon arrival they were under an hour out from closing. This lead to the question ‘are you suuure you want a wristband?’ Yes.
There’s basically nothing else of note in the park anyway, even when you want to fill your time, so I just lapped the main event until they kicked me out. Never seen a queue for this indoor beast, but at least it’s still operational! (too soon?)
As an aside I love how cheap and crude that sign on the left is. I just wanna ride the roller coaster.
Supersonic Odyssey turned out to be a lot better than I remembered/had given it credit for in the past. 2016 is a long time ago in my career, four figures long, a time when the Ultimate was ‘bad because it hurt me’ rather than a national treasure, and this ride simply became relegated to ‘big old Intamin looper, not very good because this style of ride can be a little rough, cool location though!’
Many years later I’m still impressed by the mere presence of this ride and how it all fits in, but it’s a solid piece of hardware to boot and in some ways was ahead of it’s time. After you trundle out of the elevated station, you’re hit with that early wtf moment of slow, hangtime filled inversion that’s only recently been popularised by a certain manufacturer. It’s not the most comfortable of experiences in these clunky old trains, but I’ve become endeared.
The extended pre-lift section also contains some weird and wacky shaping to spice up the journey, some manoeuvres of which are surprisingly tight given the length of the train, so there’s a bit of kick to it. Where have we seen this before?
Maybe it’s better at night, or they’ve cleaned up their act a little. The ascent into the roof not being glaring sunlight and dust from two adjacent abandoned floors of the mall was a welcome advantage and those tyres make it a smooth transition.
The slight drop and high up turnaround give it some more pause for thought and a bit of spectacle, with time to appreciate how ridiculously high up you are, in a mall. There’s also that city view to be seen out the big window.
It then heads back on itself and into the more substantial main drop, which has a fun, banked curve shape to it and hits you with the vertical loop combo. Somehow this loop was riding better than the Vekoma, more force, more flop (oh and a walkway through the middle of it, sadly this is ‘ride area’ so you can’t get on it).
I always loved this near miss through the cartoon flower, but time with Maverick has helped me to appreciate the snap of a Stengel, which this also channeled and is executed rather brilliantly to be fair.
The closer interaction with surroundings in this back half of the layout is a nice contrast from the open space feel of the pre-drop.
Inversion number 3 hits quickly after, with some vigour. None of them overstay their welcome here, unlike the ones in the record breaking designs from the same era. It does just end a little too quickly after this bit for my liking, like they ran out of space. One violent lurch into the brakes and you’re done.
But you can almost forgive them for that when you look at how it’s fitted in. Wherever you go in the park you’re just in, up and around it.
Loved it, very glad I went back with fresh eyes, a grower for sure.