China 04/24 – Fantawild Adventure Tai’an
Day 7 (still) – Fantawild Adventure Tai’an
Straight into the arms of a Boonie Bear. There was a time when I hated this, particularly Adventure parks, but now they’re like a premium experience, an old friend.
Smoke bubbles. Genius.
CrAzY knock off Disney with InSaNe rides.
Like old mate fruit worm, not open, but can’t ride it anyway.
#2 Puppy Coaster! It’s been a while, I’ll take it.
This has also been a while. While in a foul mood because of China being China, luggage spites, and wanting to bust through some horrible creds to get to the greatest Gravity Group woodie in the world, I once hated Dino Rampage and everything it stood for. What a horrible, violent, gory mess of a knock off Spiderman attraction that I had to put up with for 9 minutes when I could have been queueing 90 minutes for a horrible, violent, gory mess of a knock off Maurer Sky Loop. Ah, those were the days.
My renewed appreciation here is twofold. The very original Fantawild park in Chongqing, which is sadly no longer with us, because housing estate, had this ride. It’s grass roots. And I’ve witnessed first hand how far they’ve come.
Secondly Fantawild Dino Kingdom had the remake of this attraction, which was vastly superior in every way, but I also think that’s so sweet that they already look back on these old rides and, in tribute, think how can we make them better?
So, extensive queue for one of the originals. Dinosaur bones. Museum. Things about to go down.
A high quality preshow on a 5″ TV. Dinosaurs. Death. Things have gone down. Climb aboard these high tech, all terrain vehicles and help save the city/make your selfish escape.
A high tech, all terrain vehicle.
Well the parts I do remember, dinosaurs, blood and gore are definitely still there.
I remembered less of the fun physical stuff, like this, rawr, but there’s always subtle changes between installations so no guarantee it was a thing.
Blow up his head.
Rrrollercoaster.
When I mentioned at the other park that these types of attractions all play off of the same beats, this is one of them, they all have to turn into fantasy rollercoaster motion simulator at some point.
Amongst all the death and destruction against dinosaurs I don’t quite remember it going so extreme on the human aspect either. By the end of the ride there’s literal skyscrapers falling down across the road in front of you, with visible human bodies clinging on, hanging out of windows and dropping, screaming down to the tarmac below, where you proceed to run a few of them over in your desparate attempt to escape. It’s very grim, worse than I remember in that regard.
But I’m at peace with it now. It’s mold breaking and we’ve all gotta start somewhere.
Somehow I’m yet to experience a Space Journey, probably because I’ve been avoiding Adventure parks to be honest.
And this remained the case. If you look close enough you can see that they’ve stuck a new ride sign over the old one.
And what this means is that they’ve overlayed their old simulators in front of a screen about space with the new Crazy Idioms guy we found at Fantawild Wonderland with his big new fancy facade.
The screens were faded as hell as well though, that’s not just my camera. A theme of the day.
On the way out of that mild disappointment we continued our trend of watching/avoiding parades from a higher vantage point. I like the massive boonie bear on tiny castors being pushed by blokes in colourful shirts aesthetic.
Fantawild dragon lives on through Space Warrior. Kinda.
It was his ride, see.
But he was never true Fantawild, and licensing happened.
The bears invaded and now introduce the interactive screen fest.
If you look close enough, but not even that close, you can see they’ve stuck a new poster over old Duludubi. But we like the Boonies too.
I have no idea why this is the exit to the ride.
If you look close enough, you can see that this used to be an Origin of Life 3D cinema. Now a restaurant.
This is exactly what I picture when I think of the West too.
Sadly they have another #3 Flare Meteor here. This one was either better, or worse, than the last. I can’t quite recall.
Mount Tanggula got its mountain back though! Or is it a #4 Vesuvio Volcano?
Taishan gives this park a rather nice backdrop I must say.
Music p… Skip!
Somehow I’m yet to experience X-Cops, probably because I’ve been rushing Adventure parks to be honest. It’s got a banging soundtrack.
You get in these massive things in front of a screen. They had seatbelts but they’ve since decided to ditch them.
Story is something about a future where robots are a big part of daily life. What happens if they fight back? Will humanity survive?
Fun anecdote – there’s 9 of these vehicles in a 3×3 and everyone rushes to the front middle one for the best vantage point. I opted for the middle middle.
Plot twist, the screen in the first room is only a preshow, the vehicles all spin round 180 and power into a second room with more screens and this animatronic. The front has become the back. The middle has become the front, with the best view, because no one went to the back. Not planned.
Stuff goes down, robots get out, explosions and the like. Humans prevail? X to doubt.
He’s gone.
And that was the park, fun that one. Not a patch on a new Fantawild, but better than most other things in the country, when you’ve run out of good coasters to do at least.
Driver on the way out took us the ‘scenic route’ as we still had a bit of time before the train.
This was taken out of the window of a moving vehicle, while negotiating a mosquito net. Not bad.