China 01/24 – Oriental Heritage Jingzhou
Left Wuhan 90% unsatisfied with how things panned out, guess I’ll be going there again at some point, and took a train over to Jingzhou.
I’ve had my eye on this one for many a year now, through investigating dark rides and such. At a time when Fantawild was much more incestuous with its rides, spotting a single unique attraction here and there was a big deal and a simple promo image of one, with fire, was enough to get me going.
This was the first and last leg of the trip for which we didn’t have a hotel to dump stuff at, which often ends up being a right pain, but Fantawild have got your back, except Zhengzhou. The tourist centre here took em for free, no questions asked.
Where they had this little model set up. How nice.
Day 6 – Oriental Heritage Jingzhou
It was still damn cold. Detailed signs outside listing attractions delivered news to the effect of biggest rollercoasters were down, all dark rides open. The star coaster here is an SLC, in what appears to be a weird lull between ditching Gravity Group woodies and striking up a deal for a million big Vekomas, I guess Jingzhou wasn’t deemed deserving of any better investment in that department. So I didn’t care. I’m here for the dark ride.
These parks definitely still have the best aesthetic.
What I don’t quite get is moving from that to generic ass flying theatre building. Skipped it this time, but the song remains in my head to this day.
Also never found the time to reride this due to awkward time slots, it’s been a while.
It’s a rotating, telescopic cinema thing that tells an old love story.
Spitey bastard. Had a generous weight limit that I could have got away with, but a max age and height.
See we were breaking the Fantawild rules. It was another dead day of course and they kinda expect you to hit up attractions in the order in which you arrive at them. Things don’t often just operate as you rock up. I was headed straight to the back of the park to guarantee the singular ride I came for, only to find it closed, with a sign saying it was closed. Then I got mad.
So we walked all the way back to the entrance past another bunch of closed stuff to find guest services. The staff member was confused.
The ride in question will open at 12.
Put a sign up then.
They did, eventually, they’re just slow and dont anticipate anyone to walk past so many other things without experiencing them first.
Let’s try again.
This did all lead to a suboptimal Fantawild experience however. Everything was time slotted, and really, really awkwardly. It was no quieter than the last visit really, but this park is getting on for five years old now and maybe they’re already in the wind down process. It’s scary.
The next thing I wanted to ride, Magic Gallery, because it’s my fave, was only scheduled to operate 5 ‘times’ in the day. With all that faff said and done, we arrived a couple of minutes late and were denied entry. This was dumb, and we would later find out that it was even dumber.
So, old mate Legend of Nuwa then. I swear the entrances to these get more impressive every time. This one’s had decent coverage before because it’s a main staple of all these parks. 4D motion based dark ride, protect the magic stone so that she can fix the sky, while big blokes punch each other.
It’s great.
I did the Plummet indoor drop tower thing to see if they could be any better in other locations. It wasn’t, but they change up a few skeletons and book cases here and there.
The closed SLC. What a pity, never mind.
Helicopter?
The time was soon upon us. The new to me dark ride I was here to experience operated just twice throughout the entire day and marked the beginning of a complicated sequence where we had to constantly sprint to opposite ends of the park after each and every attraction to be able to get everything done that we wanted.
Anyway, Battle of Red Cliffs. Wasn’t quite what I expected. This is the ride system they use on a rather boring Chinese Opera ride, the one in Ningbo where half the guests just got out of a moving ride system and walked off, a classic.
The huge trackless vehicle takes you through a story of, a battle obviously. There’s that evil dude in purple with his massive army, against a few ‘heroes’. It’s all done with a combination of physical sets and screens, and all in this rather cool paper art style.
It goes on for an age like the opera one, but that’s not such a bad thing here, though it didn’t quite have the level of spectacle I was gunning for. In particular, no fire. It’s possible they’ve toned it down over the years, or just specifically for quieter days, which happens with their other extravagent attractions around the country.
It all ends when the vehicle moves onto a rotating platform surrounded by a 360° screen. The music swells and you get the big final battle. It’s a tale told in the historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms and basically the underdogs find a way to outsmart the big guys. Something to do with straw men, stealing arrows, and then fire ships. Lots and lots of fire ships. Bad guy explodes. We win.
It’s got this great vibe to it though, it’s not ‘we win’. We’re being told a story. As you pull back into the station it all comes back full circle with the same little tune I can only describe as being like a Chinese Western, and the narrator who introduced the ride in the station before we moved off, dips back in to close out.
As you exit the ride there’s a ton of posters and details giving you further info and back story and profiles on a hundred different characters.
It’s great.
Now things get speedy.
#1 Puppy Coaster had just opened. Tick.
Boonie Bears Theater was receiving guests. The sign said it was a different film, made doubly sure by asking and subsequently confusing the staff member. There are more of these? They confirmed the story on the sign. Good, I wasn’t going to sit through the other one again for multiple reasons.
This was one of the more OG stories from what little I know about discovering they were a thing. One of the main characters of the franchise, the lumberjack bloke, is more of a villain still, he sorta becomes a good guy/friends with the bears later on but it’s a weird dynamic that changes to suit the narrative it seems.
He’s out to be a lumberjack anyway, and comes up with this crazy robot he can ride in, with saws for arms and goes out into the forest to break up animals partying and bully them. There’s an animatronic of it somewhere in the rotation of the theatre, along with tons of little physical moving creatures hidden in the undergrowth of the scenery.
They plead with him and try to stop him, eventually getting him out of the robot. Then his lumberjack boss remote desktops in to the robot and begins to carry on the evil deeds himself. Now united, the animals and the bloke stop the robot for good and then restart the party. Cue music and lots of dancing creatures around the room.
It’s great.
I dunno what they’ve done to this Magic Gallery. This used to be the main entrance, but they’ve put leaves over the name and you now enter through a side cave. We had turned up in time for the next time slot anyway, to discover inside that the timings created a 15-minute queue.
So what was the issue with letting us in 2 minutes late before?
Gorgeous queue anyway, leading up to the quaint little trackless vehicles. The station layout was slightly different here to the version I remember. Didn’t get to cross a bridge. I loved this thing.
But it wasn’t quite all there, here. The vehicle movements were a little off and had a bit of a squeak to them, almost like it was limping along. The timing of the scenes was off, moreso than before because that was its only flaw before. You’re dispatched in twos but the sequences have to be timed in between the two of you. A couple videos didn’t play at all.
Still beautiful though, it’s such a journey as the boy with magic brush takes you places and brings things to life. Sights, smells, huge water effects.
It’s great.
What wasn’t great was the fact that that 15 minute queue meant we missed the single opportunity to see this… show? One timeslot has to be a show.
I dunno, cogs and floods, this looked pretty epic.
Bah, maybe one day I’ll have to return for this (the SLC).
Tune Tour then.
I said this before.
Chengyu – a name for four-word Chinese phrases that teach life lessons. They’ve come up on other Fantawild rides in the past, namely the evolution of the small world boat rides in many parks.
This is that, but an evolution prior. It’s not Chengyu. It’s ethnic groups.
See?
Oh yeah, in the midst of all this, they said the other +1 was closed at the entrance.
As we passed it there was ACTUAL MAINTENANCE going on. I thought it was just a myth.
And then they opened #2 Pine Tree Rocket. Bonus cred! I like the basket of fruits on the front.
The other show we did manage to catch was Palace of Chu.
Fantawild are famous for their shows that create spectacles with objects on wires and this one had bells, which seem to be a thing in this region.
They also had these wooden doors that get wheeled around into various visuals. And an Emperor character who was a bit of a fat shamer.
It was alright.
I think that’s just about everything. Though lacking a good headline coaster, it’s quite the lineup on the dark ride front. Rerode the single other timeslot on Battle of Red Cliffs, along with Magic Gallery and Nuwa because they kick ass.
Then hopped on just another 5 hour train for the night.