China 09/23 – Happy Valley Nanjing + Wanda Nanjing
Still based in Suzhou for now, a lot of this was backtracking to the ‘highlights’ of what would have been picked up in the other direction. The final day out of here involved a train to Nanjing, followed by a Didi man, so nothing new there.
Day 12 – Happy Valley Nanjing
This is still as of writing the newest Happy Valley in the chain, though OCT have been branching out into other park concepts since 2017 to stay in line with the competition. I had just about completed the Happy Valley set before the opening here spited me, no doubt the next one in Xi’an will do that soon enough. On paper it looks competent, if a little unremarkable, with the two star coasters being clones found elsewhere, though both with a twist.
As with Beijing, they had a solid website full of all the information actually required – which rides were open (all the ones I cared about) and over what time period.
Staggered openings made it a little awkward to navigate, but it’s a common stall tactic for somewhere like this that lacks a bit of staying power. Hopefully you might buy some food in between. I didn’t.
So the first order of the day was the SFC, #1 Ocean Adventure. I had it in my head that it was another little B&M one, because that was becoming the done thing for Happy Valley.
It is in fact an Orkanen, by Vekoma, thereby much better, though still a one and done because I’m now up to a solid ten and done of them.
This mine train has had a name update on RCDB thanks to me, don’t say I never do anything for you.
#2 Wilderness Escape is a standard clone layout with the double lift, Jinma style with the new look Vekoma track.
I like that it shared the rockwork with the water ride. Rode well, looked good, is what it is.
Having powered through those two with barely another soul in the park, there was a bit of a lull while waiting for one of the big two to open up. It’s a pretty huge walk between major attractions from this point, unshaded and already a little too hot for my liking. Similar issue I remember from Chongqing in that it’s simply to exhausting to bounce about between your ‘favourites’ here, which no other visitor does of course, so it doesn’t matter.
Walked all the way past the wing and round, path annoyingly doubling back on itself. It was testing at the very least.
And into the space themed area where Cheetah Hunt 2.0 was. I guess most of the guests had gone round the park in the other direction as this had now formed a bit of a queue. A bit of a queue for a single 16 seater train, on a clone of a model that was designed to have dual despatch and run at least 4, meant a half hour wait on some unpleasant and unshaded stairs, not moving.
#3 Light of Revenge still has the separate offload and onload too, so you get that same genius quirk of extra waiting time simply watching it move between the two.
I ended up in the front of the Taron-style train, the one thing that was bound to make this version an improvement over the other. It’s mirrored, with a banked turn to the right following the first little launch, heading round and back under itself into the first big launch. The tunnel action and roar here was as satisfying as it should be, with quite a strong pop of air up and into the crow’s nest.
It meanders about for the views before plummeting back out in what felt like a significantly steep exit also with some good kick, extra appreciated in those roomy restraints. Soon after, I swear there was a bonus speed hill, though don’t hold me to it. It is supposed to be reprofiled from the original after all.
After this however I’m not sure the new work did it any favours. The remaining three quarters of the ride just didn’t have as much bite to it as I recall from the Cheetah. Comfort can be too much of a good thing on transitions that play things a little safe. The final launch did that short and silly ‘have a little boost, but not too much’ that’s simply less satisfying as a late game entry and then the two big return airtime hills that I specifically remember having decent airtime into bad restraints, had no airtime into good restraints.
Hmm, I’m probably a fan of the original more than most seem to be, but this was pretty meh overall. Looks good though.
I was actually more excited for #4 Forest Predator, though a clone of the wing coaster at Happy Valley Chongqing (which I very much enjoyed for it’s intensity), it has a backwards row at the back (which I very much enjoyed on the Swarm).
The time taken to get on the other thing meant that I was no longer ahead of the curve here either, though it was mercifully still a walk-on. I wanted to go straight to the backwards row but was spited in the most ridiculous of manners.
The Chinese get very confused by being split across two sides of the train on these things, it often happens mid-group and they’re not quick enough to catch on to what’s happening and head that issue off at the batch point. As I’ve also mentioned it’s quite common for them to not comprehend the purpose of air gates to line people up against specific rows (and who can blame them, when half their rides don’t even use them anyway). The air gates had already been opened by the time I reached the station, and as I headed towards the rear of the train, some guy just climbed over the bloody station track of a wing coaster from the other side and stole the seat. For all their other petty and petulant rules, the staff didn’t care one bit about this. Safe.
Oh well, forwards at the back it is. Oh dear, this ain’t riding well. It was nothing like I remembered the dinosaur edition to be, sluggish and rattly from start to finish, with none of the grace of the past couple of days. The huge terrainy game leading into a continous sequence of acceleration and intense inversions just wasn’t playing out the way it should. Why so hit and miss?
Still, backwards, I had been slightly obsessing over this for years now. Never meet your heroes.
The second round in the station was more amusing still, as something else they can’t comprehend is the appearance of this train. Seeing a ‘front’ on both ends and not knowing the difference between a brake run and a lift hill led to audible confusion and literal slapstick triple takes from several guests while I just slithered behind and ended up exactly where I needed to be.
The result was the same, but backwards. Lack of anticipation is usually such an enhancement in these situations. I can’t remember if Swarm backwards was my first in a long time, but it kicked my ass for not knowing what was coming and I loved it. Maybe having just done it already here didn’t help, but bounce, rattle and roll with the way it was riding, it all happened with little to no effect on me. Pretty meh overall.
Never mind, it’s dark ride time. I was sure there was a dark ride here. Big space building with a turret outside. Shooter right? The website said something about interactive.
Well it didn’t appear to exist, I searched high and low on maps and buildings and the closest thing it came to was some dumb bumper cars with lasers on them. Did they oversell that? I’m still not sure.
With neither of the headliners appealing to me much and no dark ride to be seen, the lineup of Nanjing was swiftly falling apart. There was one more cred to be had, in the form of #5 Family Boomerang Roller Coaster, the joy.
They’ve taken a leaf out of Ferrari World’s book here and offer big ugly plastic goggles to go over your glasses if you so wish, but I didn’t feel the need to be able to see here. So begins a little game of how many days in a row can we ride one of these?
Some 5D extravaganza maybe had the chance to still put them on the map, but it was just a 3D/4D/5D cinema with no motion in the seats, so no.
It was playing a special theme park cut of Journey to the Centre of the Earth, many moments from throughout the entire feature length film all poorly stitched together in an attempt to give off action, excitement, dimensions.
Highlight for me was the introductory frames in which the camera zooms in on a book which tells you the title of what you’re about to watch.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – 3D
The Chinese subtitles translated ‘3D’ to ‘4D’ literally pixels below on the same screen.
Outside it says 5D.
It’s just the perfect summation of all the D nonsense that goes on in this world.
The rest of it was dubbed, pretty poorly. Meh.
Ferris Wheel time, windows were a little foggy for my liking. It’s a decent enough looking park with that backdrop of river, bridge and hills. Shame I didn’t gel with it.
I’m thinking it’s the least remarkable of all Happy Valleys in terms of lineup at this point, they usually have at least something killer.
As such I was already looking to the horizon. It was time to jump in another car.
Wanda Theme Park (Nanjing)
These indoor only Wanda parks aren’t usually all that, situated within one of their big malls, and this one was no exception.
The place was absolutely dead, deader than normal dead, and the person selling tickets could barely comprehend that they had attractions on offer, let alone how or why we could exchange money for them. There were two creds to be had, but even with a lot of pointing at maps and explanations they kept thinking the second was a mirror maze and said to just go and find out for ourselves.
We paid for the first one though, which was #6 Drydock Express. One of those Zamperla motocoaster clones that’s very un-motocoaster in layout.
Except it was on horseback. One of our tickets didn’t work immediately and the operator got very confused, clearly they don’t get much interaction in this job. People actually want to ride this thing? Had I somehow managed to forge an obscure and detailed ticket with QR code for this attraction?
After much thought I was let on anyway. The launch is clunky and then it meanders around until the brakes, where it almost stalled.
This.
Here’s the rest of the park, they usually have a similar vibe.
This was the other cred, but it was completely dark and abandoned. We went back to the desk to confirm anyway so that the ticket seller could put a name to an attraction. The operator from the other cred had come over for a chat and said it was under maintenance, of course.
Here’s how to use a toilet.