China 01/24 – Chengdu Sunac Land
Next up was a day trip out to Dujiangyan, because it turns out Sunac Land Chengdu isn’t in Chengdu, but a good 40 miles out.
The city in question is somewhat of a tourist gateway. Panda themed taxis line the streets, you can take various tours to see them out here, along with trips up the nearby mountains that border the Tibetanous region.
Or you can ride Taron.
Day 10 – Sunac Land Chengdu
Once again Sunac were doing us a solid, confirming that everything would be up and running. Not hard really, is it.
Shortly after, we laid eyes on this. Seem familiar?
It wasn’t due to open for another hour or so however, so moved swiftly onwards to see what else was around.
Not the brightest of days, but a nice enough looking place.
Next coaster along, #1 Family Thriller, was ready to receive. A dual lift mine train clone, yay.
Much more exciting was this thing opposite it. In the back of my mind the name Nirvana Pilgramage rang a bell, from some deep dive research. It’s dark ride time.
Sure enough, a long and empty queue led to a fully indoor immersive tunnel job.
I know there’s stiff competition out there, what with Fast ‘n Furious ‘n all, but I think this might well be the best in the world. It actually does things other than drive you to a tunnel, and there’s also a coherent story and ending.
You begin in a pretty woodland area, physical theming on one side of the room and a screen on the other showing a tranquil setting, deer and the like. Some mountain lion thing appears and scares them off and as you move away, a bear animatronic scares you off in amusing fashion.
Next you drive onto a rickety bridge over a ravine and pause. Again, there’s stormy weather and river on a screen one side, washing towards you, with a scene on the other side. The bridge swings and shakes the vehicle around a bit and a big tree is supposed to fall down alongside as you set off again. Sadly this was broken.
More, different, movement based antics happen in the next room. A big scary face in the rock comes to life and gets projected on. He ain’t happy about something and summons up some magic which causes the whole tram to rotate on a turntable, pivoting at one end. On another screen, another vehicle encourages you to head out a tunnel exit but it becomes blocked in the commotion. Guess we’ll have to find another way out.
The angry face shouts at you some more while you head into the actual tunnel scene, which manages to fit into the narrative a bit more smoothly. Some scary looking stone cat statues in some jungley temple ruins come to life and make chase, before you get attacked by some bigger cats. The yeti from the sign outside appears. Thought he was the scary one, but turns out he’s a good guy. Looking like a white-haired Caesar he fights off the cats for you and then saves you from falling off a cliff into some vines. Seem familiar?
As the film ends we progress further into the cave to find some spookily-lit artifacts and an animatronic of one of the scary cats from earlier. And then, for all our struggles, we have found Nirvana. A picturesque screen of an ancient city hidden up in the mountains is cue for a victorious return to the offload platform.
Quality wasn’t the greatest admittedly, but I loved some of the ideas in there and had a blast with it.
Chinese Taron was almost ready to receive, so I started a trend by waiting just outside the queueline, attracting about 3 other guests to follow suit. Here I clocked a plaque on the wall stating it was a stock model. Whatever lads, chuck an Intamin Double Launch Coaster in there.
One uncilivized queue later, it was time for a back row inauguration.
And thankfully it didn’t have these restraints. Imagining the creative process in which these design/marketing people come up with these images always amuses me.
So, #2 All Speeds. Eh.
It’s not poorly themed by any means, though parts like that evac platform look a little goofier than we’re otherwise used to, but the experience just highlighted how it’s hard for me to see Taron as a world beater any more. Remove just a sprinkle of what makes that attraction so special and the hardware simply doesn’t hold up.
Corners, a few positive forces, a singular moment of alright airtime and a smattering of slightly snappy direction changes over a very lengthy ride time which, to be fair to the Chinese had them screaming the entire way round, unrelentingly. To them it works, and more power to ’em. It’s what, 70 seconds of ‘I’m on a rollercoaster and the very sensation of translational movement is terrifying to me’. To the jaded enthusiast it’s ‘I’m on a rollercoaster and I want it to kick my ass, but it isn’t’.
The theming has its own charm, it’s all built within a walled city that’s under attack and you can follow the entire perimeter for the views.
Ranging from fight scenes carved out of rock
to monkeys caught in nets.
Hey look, that one airtime hill looks great from this angle. I swear we were up to a count of two, on my last laps with the original, but it seems the other has gone again.
Hey look, a train in motion, in China.
A side-on view makes a hell of a difference to that profiling, but I think we’ve spotted the other hill. It’s after the trim brake isn’t it, so it’s silly.
Just over the way, the Flying Theatre was ready to commence.
I said this before
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sunac ones are good. There’s always a custom pre-show and narrative reason for the exploration – this one being some futuristic pods in the city of Chongqing taking you on a journey around local scenery, past and present.
And that’s the other nice thing about them. It isn’t just ‘here’s some things you could go see yourself now, if you can put up with the hassle of tourism’. You get dinosaurs, ancient armies, other timelines sprinkled within the sights you could go see yourself now, to give it a unique edge.this is that, but Chengdu, with magic golden birds.
And ends with a very philosophical question.
Just over the way, a show was ready to commence.
This one I can just about get my head around.
What a weird show. It must have been the low budget version as it was such a quiet day (again). The big dragon over there was never a part of it, and there was a big bird on wires rigged up at the opposite end ready to do something but never did.
What we did get was some horsey action in a generic two clans battling it out story. The fight sequences were hilariously underperformed, couldn’t tell whether this was intentional or not but it was comedy gold.
Someone won anyway.
Didn’t know what else was on offer at this point so went on an exploratory wander.
Hoped to stumble upon a bonus cred in this indoor section but alas, mini coster this is not.
Hoped to stroke a cat, but alas, there weren’t any.
Eww.
This content looking fellow housed a 3D cinema. Magic Tree Theater was showing a dubbed and crudely cut together highlight reel of what I’ve just found out to be the 2018 Canadian animated film Racetime. A new one to me at least.
More importantly though, this area contained the final cred, #3 Worm Coaster.
And Charizard Y.
An attraction of the highest caliber.
Saw one of those weird water slide contraptions again and managed to make a bit more sense of how this one worked.
Not that I wanted to try or anything.
Think that’s about it for this park. Had another lap on Taron just as it began to rain. It was a tense and nervous station wait as they were visibly on the fence about just packing it in for the day, with many animated discussions between staff members. Credit to them, they sent it out one last time as the heavens opened, and my face was sufficiently stung.
S’alright.
Maybe there was a cat to stroke after all.