China 04/24 – Fantawild Dreamland Qingdao

Qingdao is a weird layout, set around a big bay but they use some massive bridges to just cut right through it. And I mean massive, if you get driven from one section to another along these and the air is slightly murky, so, in China, always, you can see nothing but road and sea on all sides, quite eerie.

Not my picture.

I wanted to get to the Fantawild here obviously, so we did just that.

Day 5 – Fantawild Dreamland Qingdao

‘Bit’ of an extended entrance to this one and a slightly different to usual Dreamland vibe.

Until you get to the usual. They were painting the floor here – upkeep!

Doing something inside too.

Had a snoop round the stores as it’s a more vintage park than I’ve been visiting recently. Even took a look in the back here – no fantawild dragon to be found, even in the fantawild dragon boxes.

Sadly #1 Flare Meteor was up first.

There’s an obvious problem with most of these Kumali layout ones, all seeming to have two real nasty pumps at the bottom of the curved drop which will take any opportunity to punch you in the head. Many parks have padded the hell out of the restraints in response to complaints I can only assume, but a few are still rock solid and ready to bite. I’ve managed to develop a technique to counteract it over the years, why do we riiide coasters that cause us pain.

A more pleasant surprise here was this.

Usually called Qin Dynasty Adventure, I hadn’t clocked what ‘Warrior’s Tomb‘ was going to be from the sign outside the park.

It’s been a while since I’ve been acquainted with their original motion jeep vehicle things. Does it hold up against their latest and greatest attempt?

Well not much can compete with Deep Down right now, but it’s still really good. It’s a great atmosphere setter, in the dark and brooding mausoleum, though I don’t quite remember previous iterations going literal ghost train style with heads on wires type scares. I’m still never sure whether these are all the same or not. Fundamentally, yes, but always with little unique touches. I like that.

The other cred wasn’t ready to receive, so back to another old classic. Earlier this year I did Wizard Academy 2.0 so was fun to compare it to the original once more. Should have a POV of both for you to do the same, in about 3 years.

It’s amazing the things you forget even when doing these a bunch of times. The big squid thing on the facade of the new one is in the old one too, one of the closest of the actually ‘remade’ scenes in fact, just without beating the wizard up. And he’s just more of a dick here, as I do remember, literally pulling faces and sticking his tongue out at you in between trying to kill you.
But you’re all mates at the end, you can visit the Wizard Academy any time. Odd.

Not a cred, or a dark ride, just how we like it. Skip.

The dark ride to end all dark rides. I’ll never say no to a Jinshan Temple Showdown.

I love how they describe it here, sets the scene perfectly.

Again these are all subtley different, not least in the fact that you get a variation in live actors. This one heavily featured little sister lady greensnake.

But it never ends well for anyone.

This was a show I’ve never managed to catch before – Ghost Romance.

I thought this was it, and was ready to get uncomfortable.

Thankfully just a preshow and you move into a proper auditorium. It’s a very early version of their standard projection magic stage shows but still a pretty powerful one. An old guy recounts the tale from his youth, of meeting a magic woman in the cherry blossoms here. She’s meant to be luring him to get eaten by some demon but the power of love gets in the way.
Eventually the demon shows up and fights ensue, she sacrifices herself to save the guy and the demon just gives the most hilarious sigh like ‘ugh, oh well’, and off he pops.
Old guy is sad now and has been waiting here ever since. Maybe now is the time to give up. He leaves a walking stick upright in the spotlight, which pauses before falling over on its own. Fade to black.
Damn, Fantawild.

#2 Mount Tanggula was finally ready to receive.

Or was it? The mountain itself was gone. Still the usual shaky mine train clone though, with a different view.

Sadly this was closed, I’ve somehow still never managed to do a ‘Space Expo’ (yet).

Music pla.. skip!

Must admit I never knew that Chicken Stew would be a dark ride.

Of the shooting variety, with different cars to anything I’ve seen them use before. It was based on another of their older animated series – the one with the chickens.

This is/was an on-site hotel. And that was that, good little park that.

What else is in the city?

Power Long Mall XMXQ Panda Planet Dreams and Childhood Super Paradise Something

This was supposed to contain a mall cred or two.

Well damn, that ain’t running any time soon. Poor pandas.

This turned into quite the interesting exploration though. They were in the middle of renovation and didn’t seem to care if you just walked around.