China 04/24 – Silk Road Dreamland
I’ve been eyeing up a couple of Fantawilds now for what feels like a very long time. The trouble is they’re rather remote. To put it into the perspective of a coaster trip planner, they’re 8 hours away by high speed train from the nearest ‘destination’ coaster, which would be Flash in Xi’an. And there’s nothing in any other direction, they form the final moments of civilisation as you head up the long and narrow path known as the old Silk Road into the North-Western deserts of China, Kazakhstan and beyond.
If I ever need a reminder of how huge this country is, for all that coaster density in the East, half of the land mass doesn’t contain anything at all.
Or it’s an hour by plane.
Stupidly early the next morning we headed over to Xi’an airport and boarded a reasonably pleasant flight with Sichuan Airlines. Landing in Jiayuguan was great, it has a very limited schedule and a single baggage carousel, so the least faff you could possibly imagine. While heading to that area, they had a corridor displaying exactly what you could do in this region.
Some rocks, or Fantawild.
I wonder where we’re headed.
Day 9 – Silk Road Dreamland
Here of course. Of the two parks in the city, this one was the big pull, another uniquely named and branded one in the chain, bringing me up to 10 out of 11 of those at the time of visiting. And the 11th is a kids park that only opened this year.
I knew a little more about this one before heading in, not least that it has a unique dark ride specific to the region. Again the park shares a number of characteristics with that of a middle-aged (2019) Oriental Heritage, along with a good chunk of the lineup, but the twists are far more significant. Are they good?
There’s a number of different ways in which these park handle their quiet days and low crowding (most days) and rather than the hotfooting around an entire park for specific timeslots that was experienced in say, Jingzhou, here they have more structured windows of ‘this half of the park runs for a few hours, then the other half runs for a few hours’, with a bit of overlap in between.
I didn’t know this at first as we headed off into, of course, the closed half of the park. Everything was clearly stated upon arrival at any attraction entrance though so expectations could be managed accordingly.
As such, the first ride of the day couldn’t be what I’d come for. It was a #1 Puppy Coaster instead. Classic.
From there I clocked the old Chinese Opera Express, an attraction I hadn’t experienced since my very first Fantawild over 7 years ago. The one I despised. This ride did no favours to those feelings, but it was a funny story.
With a fresh perspective on just about everything Chinese theme park related I was intrigued to give it another shot, heading through the queue of scattered opera memorabilia to lay eyes upon what is potentially the largest dark ride vehicle known to man. They seat a good hundred people and are dual loading so, naturally, this thing could haul. But it was only due to run three times in the whole day and they only needed one car.
Took a seat front and centre and waited a couple minutes until after the scheduled start time so that they could let a few other guests bumble through the queue and join. Hold that thought.
The ride is, as proclaimed, all about opera. On the surface it looks great, some of the sets and theming are quite striking and the visuals can be interesting in their own way. The main problem is that it’s a 25 minute experience and, without being a Chinese opera expert perhaps, has very little dynamic range in scenes.
Corner after corner is turned and most things look very very similar, while a lot of the things going on sound very very similar. It simply doesn’t need to be this extensive for the casual guest.
After passing all the good looking stuff anyway you end up on a platform in a circular room with a 360 screen. To add insult to injury basically at this point you get several minutes of video either recapping a lot of the performers and things you’ve just seen or something very very similar, while slowly rotating one way or another.
This is the precise moment when all 100 of the unsavoury characters in Ningbo, who had been shouting at each other loudly during the entire ride, decided to pile out of the still moving vehicle and head towards a fire exit, where staff were unable to stop them. Now I’ve got the true measure of the experience I can kinda see why, but it’s still dumb.
Though we were now in ‘the desert region’ the temperature had dropped a fair amount from what we had been used to the past few days and there was a chilling wing running through the air. This apparently meant that the nearby SLC was down, for now. Shame.
So what better opportunity to try another attraction I hadn’t done for 7 years, in my second ever Fantawild, the one that showed me their true potential.
Bridge to Love was also time slotted and, though we passed by the staff member outside the entrance, who then radioed ahead to say you’ve got a couple more coming through, perhaps a minute before the allotted time (which was kinda dumb because we had walked straight from the finish of the last timeslotted attraction), by the time we had bumbled through the queue and reached the preshow doors… they had closed on us.
Walked back through the queue and asked what the hell that was about. Oops. Wait for the preshow to end and you can get straight on the ride.
Good thing I know the setup.
This attraction weaves the tale of the cowherd and the weaver girl, through the medium of a telescopic revolving theatre. There’s screens and a few physical touches around the walls and then also a dome in the ceiling. It turns back and forth periodically, while the seats can also tilt you back for a better upwards persective depending on where you need to look. And the whole platform rises up and down towards the dome when necessary.
To summarise in the usual fashion, a talking cow likes his owner but thinks he needs a girlfriend,
so goes to a nearby pool where some magic ladies are bathing and steals the clothes of one of them from some rocks by the side.
Without their clothes, they cant fly back to heaven/space, so she gets stranded in the pool and the cow is like nudge nudge, wink wink to the guy, go give her her clothes back. This heroic deed is grounds enough for the beginning of a beautiful relationship, for some reason even with her clothes back she’s missed the bus to heaven/space so they spend a lot of time together and hit it off.
Several years later, big mama magic lady up in heaven/space finally realises whats going on and magics the girl back up there. The guy panics and, with the assistance of the cow embarks on the actual heroic deed of going up there himself to get her back.
An extended sequence of upwards travel follows, with various encounters along the way like a big tree who offers money and he says no, a scary dog thing chasing him and, um, jetpacks maybe. They’re reunited for the briefest of moments but big mama puts her foot down again and they get separated across space and time.
But there’s a bridge, to love, in the stars, with birds, so they can see each other once a year or something. Not the happiest of endings, but Fantawild are good at those.
S’alright.
Tune Tour, boat ride, ethnic groups, subtly different
See?
One of the areas had no sound and one had no movement. We told the guy at the end. He didn’t know what to do about it.
I didn’t know what Silk Road Saga was. I was in for a treat.
The guy at the entrance was confusing, saying something like bit of a queue, Dudley Do, but brand new (to me) attraction so I didn’t care. We headed in and reached a chained off batch point and so sat down in front of it, with the expectation that we would be waiting for a bit. Some family came from behind and, this again, immediately just removed the chain themselves and headed further into the depths of the queue. Fine.
A room of screens about stuff on the silk road.
Our first glimpse at the main character. Don’t know her name, but this annoying kid is about to shout Jiejie (‘elder sister’, doesn’t have to be related) a hundred times at her, so henceforth she shall be known.
She’s a magic princess, rides a broom, takes a kid (and us) from a library on a magical tour of the sights of the silk road. Good set up.
We were then presented with the first and only time I’ve encoutered a high tech locker system for a ride at Fantawild. We were given F.L.Y. wristbands, but before F.L.Y., to activate our door and stow stuff away. What the hell is this ride?
Heading down a spiral staircase soon answered that question as we arrived on a small circular platform with 5-seater robocoaster vehicles travelling around it.
a) I didn’t know they had one that wasn’t Devil’s Peak. A scream.
b) I didn’t know they made them different to Devil’s Peak, and any other version of the ride system I’ve seen. Unintelligible noises.
It all led to a rather interesting and different use of the system. It didn’t bounce around physical sets or play with any trickery or illusions as to the linear path you were taking, rather moved somewhat serenely through big open corridors and spaces, from big screen to big screen and spent significant time in front of each one mimicking more of a flying theatre type experience. As such it was less intense than usual, perhaps a little less atmospheric, but still rather gorgeous.
Here’s some promo art.
The aforementioned kid gets to ride on a goose as you go from place to place. Things start off plain sailing but then you meet a nice looking dragon who, probably because the kid is annoying, thwacks him off the goose with his tail after being shouted (*point* dragon) at.
He falls through the sky and some vines while the goose is stunned, shouting for Jiejie far too many times (sometimes I wake up screaming her name myself these days), before she portals us to safety somewhere else.
That somewhere else is a pirate ship in a storm. The goose is still recovering and the kid has lost his glasses or something, so Jiejie, Jiejie! before she portals us to safety somewhere else.
That somewhere else is Rome, did you know the silk road ended in Rome? Specifically the Colosseum. The now flying pirate ship crashes into it and then, of course, the kid ends up surrounded by some lions from the Colosseum that get on board. Jiejie, Jiejie!
Am I the only person that finds this annoying? The overuse of names, to the persons face, like we both know who you’re talking to, don’t wear it out. Chinese media is certainly guilty of it, but it’s probably just cultural politeness.
Anyway, saved again, shut up kid, back to the library for you. You can portal with me any time.
Loved it, big surprise, four and a half thumbs up. Made the extended trip out here worthwhile and we haven’t got to the main event yet.
It was time for the other half of the park to open.
Legendary Dunhuang was the main event and yet I knew nothing but unique dark ride. Usually enough for me anyway.
Dunhuang is a city further up the silk road, famous for being home to the Mogao caves – some ancient grottoes full of buddha statues.
As such, this ride is an exploration of those, with a twist.
A vault sealed for two centuries.
Preshow has this guy talking about what we might find.
My inner fan screamed. 3 months ago it had done the same, when finding Deep Down was a nu-Qin Dynasty Adventure. Well this one is as well, and I believe the original version of that particular layout.
And it’s amazing. Huge. Has such an atmosphere in places, heading through these dark grottoes with creepy statues looking out at you while monks are throat singing. I’m getting the chills now.
The archaeologist guy interferes with some artifact in front of a statue of a mythical deer, known as a Fuzhu. It comes to life and everything is magical for a while as we follow it round some wondrous sights, galloping away happily.
Eventually you end up in this big ancient pretty foyer and then the guy interferes again. Fuzhu is mad now and dark, fire breathing deer starts to chase us through the backwards portion of the ride layout for a while, all sorts of scary effects going off. We come to a halt in what was the most intense dark ride scene of all time over at the dinosaur park, here the walls come in at you from the sides and a big ancient siege type battering ram comes at you from in front.
Time to make the quick escape. Pillars collapsing, fire, cogs, it all happens and we make it out in one piece.
Don’t disturb the peace basically (like a Chinese tourist), get out, Fuzhu can go back to being a statue.
Loved it, big surprise, five and half thumbs up. The trip out here had already been made worthwhile, but this was everything I wanted and more. I was back in the zone with my peak Fantawild experiences.
Should have a POV for you in about 5 years.
Sadly the opening of this side of the park meant it was also Boomerang time.
They asked me if I was sure I wanted to ride this, as a show was about to start. Well not really, but I’ve seen the show before.
#2 Stress Express may be the most aptly named coaster out there. It was ok.
Sadly the SLC had also opened itself by now, so time to complete the creds.
Coaster game in Jiayuguan is poor. Both Fantawilds have one of these as their star attraction, which is kinda dumb. #3 Silk Road Speed is the newer, non-Kumali layout at least, with the janky attempt at airtime. It was ok.
Legend of Nuwa
She’s still got it.
It’s taken me a hundred laps to notice something fun. There’s a glowing light in the front of the ride vehicles that I thought was always there just to look cool, but it only lights up to signify the moments when you, the riders, are in posession of the magic stone or ‘all-spark’ of the story.
And here’s the dragon that was on the front of that coaster the other day.
Here’s a dragon in the park.
God damn, this place was perfect. Well, not perfect, there were operational embuggerances of course, but it wasn’t an issue.
It had its own identity and we got 2 for 1 on unique, high end, Fantawild dark rides and I’ll happily move the earth for that at this point. Sadly I think this marks the point where I’ve run out now though, as you do when you obsess. But we know how quickly these places can fade, so no use in slowing down.