China 09/23 – Sun Tzu Cultural Park + Jinan Sunac Land
The train took us down to Jinan, which was to be our base for the next few days.
The following morning involved another day trip train out to the east of the city to some obscure new station that had opened up since I was last researching this place. From there it was easy enough to acquire a Didi driver to the park.
Looking back I’m not even sure it would have been possible when I was in the area (and the ride I wanted was closed anyway) before.
The place in question took about 30 years to build an S&S launch coaster, there’s a few of those, and reportedly it had opened up at some point during covid era. Let’s go check it out.
Day 4 – Sun Tzu Cultural Park
I had hoped that visiting on a summer weekend would give me the best chance of finding the major attractions open here but alas, no, China being China, less than half of their ride lineup was available. No S&S.
Well, whatever, it was cheap to get in and we’d come this far, let’s salvage the rest.
Being a Cultural Park rather than a theme park meant that they advertise a lot of educational and historical exhibits along the route, most of which were closed too. So instead it meant huge stretches of unsheltered pathways with absolutely nothing going on.
After too much walking we stumbled on this sorry looking #1 Mine Train Roller Coaster.
Well the flowers in the station were a nice touch, but the ride itself was totally cooked.
It was shaking itself to pieces so badly throughout the layout that it so very nearly stalled on several occasions. All momentum was being lost through the lack of maintenance. I think we can tell they don’t know how to look after a ride here, is that why they don’t run the big one?
From there, a supposed dark ride was all boarded up beyond recognition, but don’t worry, you can shoot arrows or guns at a stall nearby.
Pretty much every other building in this area was deserted or unused too.
So we backtracked to the observation pagoda thing on an arm that was running.
Views of a bad mine train,
not much
and a closed cred.
After much more walking through what on the surface appears to be pleasantly decorated desolation, an XD theater exists on the far side. Cheap to run I guess.
It was a Triotech job playing a stock film called Canyon Coaster. A quality product, though nothing to do with culture or old mate Sun Tzu.
And from there we moved into the ‘amusement section’, so nothing to do with culture or old mate Sun Tzu.
Water ride, closed.
Another quality attraction, closed.
A magnificent looking waste of steel, closed.
I don’t usually take photos of spites, but what else is one to do for entertainment in this situation?
The eerily deserted route to the ride entrance.
Feel the scale of my disappointment.
The best joy to be had, sadly, was some classic signage, so we’ll have to stoop to that.
Civilisation begins by opening your rollercoaster.
Couldn’t even manage to ‘operate’ Magical Joumey the mirror maze in this kids area.
Or questionable military bumper cars. Or VR.
And that was the park, what a place. Really drives the point home about how some of these parks are nothing without their star attractions, and when no one comes, they don’t open them, and when they don’t open them, no one comes, so it’s doomed to fail.
Booked another driver to put all that behind us. As he arrived he ditched the car and started walking towards us with a sly grin on his face, this doesn’t bode well.
He wanted us to cancel the Didi order and pay him directly, an arrangement I had become very accustomed to and even supported in Vietnam – better value for the driver, cut out the corporates.
The catch here was that he was being a dick about it, and wanted to charge more than Didi were going to. I wasn’t in the mood for such nonsense and agreed only to match it, so he’d still get his extra 20%. Nope, nothing doing. He played stubborn and just stood at the side of the road mouthing off about the fact that no one else would come out here, he didn’t want to go to the train station because ‘he wouldnt get any business there’, the price of fuel etc. Cancel the booking yourselves was all he would offer.
Catch here is the Didi system is a bit fickle about such things. They can see that the driver has arrived and this if you cancel at this point, you’re charged a small fee. Until you cancel, you’re also unable to book anything else. Some drivers have no doubt cottoned onto this and attempt to use it as leverage.
I wasn’t in the mood for such nonsense and so went onto live support, while he’s now staring at my phone. An operator was put on almost immediately, the situation was explained and they cancelled the booking for free, no further questions asked. I then ordered another driver, with him still grinning stupidly over my shoulder, and two minutes later, we were on our way.
Let us take a moment to appreciate Chinese trains, about the only things to operate properly in this country.
Let us not take a moment to appreciate this chicken breast in a bag, which was part of the free food for first class passengers.
Back in Jinan I had sights set on another park that could yet salvage the day.
Jinan Sunac Land
On top of the usual faff these days around buying a ticket for a theme park, at the ticket desk for a theme park, Sunac introduce an additional complication in that they can be free entry and pay per ride, so the staff always lead with that, even when you specifically lead with I want to buy an all-inclusive ticket.
After far too long, we headed in, tickets in hand.
I hadn’t seen any obvious signs of anything running or not running, so it was a stressful walk through an admittedly pleasant entrance area into the heart of the park to eventually discover what was available. Things run so slowly that you barely see a train on track at the best of times to alleviate that cred anxiety.
Oh, this wheel will be photobombing several shots here, but it’s not part of the park. It appeared to be on the far side of a football pitch.
Sure enough, the reason I was there, the Gravity woodie of course, hit the chain lift just as we passed by the far corner of its layout. Success.
The catchily named #2 Wooden Dragons Roller Coaster had a bit of a queue. It doesnt seem in their best interest to have such a low turnover when some guests are paying per ride, but when has any of this ever made sense. Some kid queue jumped at some point, to join his friends in front, and then when a single rider was called for, skipped past a couple train loads to sneak in his lap early. He then proceeded to queue jump again to get back to his friends. Not ideal.
The ride though, had a bit of a heavy soundtrack rocking out in the station, which was a fun touch. Eventually I was strapped in and ready to feel the Gs. Didn’t know much about this one. It’s the newest. It’s a little on the smaller side. It goes through a big skeleton.
It kicks ass.
A sharp right into the first drop gives all the usual terrors I associate with this hardware, an unrefined wrench down the hill which hits way harder than the size should be able to manage. The first hill is also performed over a right turn and gives a great combo of ejection and being pinned to the side of the train. From that moment until the brakes the thing is just relentless.
Perfectly paced, chock full of airtime and with a satisfying level of agression, the overbanked turns had a noticeable sustain of positives in them and there’s a few of those surprisingly steep bonus drops later in the layout chucked in there to boot. It rides with all of the magic of something like Wood Express, just amped up proportionally to the size. Very, very good and saved the day for sure.
They’ve got some othe stuff milling around, though I wasn’t sure where all of it was. Headed into an indoor section to stumble upon the inappropriately named #3 Jungle Trailblazer of the park. Is this them having a dig at their rivals? I hope so, but doubt it.
Jinma family coaster, it happened.
They’ve also got one of these, but with a weight limit of 40kg it ain’t happening any time soon. I’m sure it won’t stop other people from claiming it though.
Back outside is this weird looking thing. The shaping is so uninspired in places and I couldn’t even tell what type of ride it was trying to be. One of those lift hill Motocoasters? The name #4 Roller Coaster gave away no clues either.
Turns out it’s a spinner, a train full of spinners, by Nanfang this time, not seen one of these before. Believe it or not, in their infinite wisdom, the Chinese have concocted yet another method by which to slow down throughput.
This coaster has a separate onload and offload platform, something no doubt observed on some of the more high capacity attractions around the world. The ride also only has one train, and can only ever have one train. Thus, the additional time taken for the train to be transferred safely from offload to onload platforms can be included in the total througput calculation, from a design that was originally intended to reduce said time. Isn’t it wonderful?
The ride though, smooooooooth. I have no other words for it. It does absolutely nothing else of note at all, with its strange layout of straight lines, flat curves and spinning cars that don’t really spin. But smooth.
#5 Treasure Minecar across the way didn’t quite have the same attributes, so maybe it’s pot luck. Custom layout for a change, but not a good one.
Lighting package though. Tick.
That was creds complete, and so time for another tasty lap on the woodie.
Leading into dark ride time. Well, show rides, they have a flying theatre in this big fancy building. The queue took forever, on one of those rare occasions where the Chinese themselves were actually complaining about how long they were having to wait, in a theme park. Their fault for being so obsessed with the things.
Was half tempted to sack it off, but persisted for the research purposes and then was eventually rewarded with an above average flying theatre experience. Still sightseeing and stuff, centred around the sights of the Silk Road, but all with a high level of quality.
They also had some form of simulator, couldn’t tell what, under the guise of this vague Fantasy Adventure entrance. Again it took far too long, like 8 people every 5-10 mins.
Was half tempted to sack it off, but persisted for the research purposes and then was eventually punished with a clone of the ones they have at Joypolises and such.
The Jinma ‘Wild Tour’ simulators, so they actually owned two of the three standard models, a jeep one and a boat one, but were of course only operating one of them.
Enough of that nonsense, the day was pressing on and I treated myself to a couple of night time laps on Wooden Dragons. I can’t recall the last time I had some proper night rides in China, if ever, so these felt pretty magical along with it being such an awesome attraction. Loved it.
On the whole they seem to have embraced being a city park here, with the long hours and flexible riding options, and as such it seemed pretty popular. A model more suited to the culture perhaps?
Unfortunately the trip was cut short here as we received the sad news of a close relative passing away and immediately flew back to Singapore for 5 days of funeral proceedings.
As such, a good chunk of the original itinerary here was sacked off. We eventually returned further down the route and picked up the last portion, so…