China 05/24 – Zaohe Longyun City
The next convenient stop on the way back to Shanghai was Xuzhou. Was here earlier in the year for the new Fantawild / Super Boomerang, with no time (or weather) for anything else. There’s a mid-sized unspecified brand of park also in the city by the name of Xuzhou Paradise, which was my original intention to visit on this trip. The lineup however consists of a Blue Fire clone(!), a modern Jinma SLC, another of those inverting spinners I keep missing and probably a mine train or some rubbish. Maybe an unlisted dark ride or two.
Given the public holiday situation and experiences so far, none of these seemed like something I’d have the energy to be queuing multiple hours for, nor would I want to end up in the same unsatisfied position of having half completed a park.
As such, my attention turned somewhat further out from the city to a place with only dark rides that I had discovered a while back.
It’s near the city of Suqian, but not really, so one stop on a train took us to Sui’ning (saw the Fantawild out the window <3), from which we took a Didi through some rather rural spots for about 40 mins.
Driver was another weirdo sadly. Aside from having an accent that was near impossible to understand, initially the conversation started out as enterprising on his part, with the offer to come get us at the end of the day, cut out Didi and get his extra 20% etc. After exchanging numbers however he got greedy and played the same old card about ‘I’ve already accepted this fare, but how dare you inconvenience me by going from a railway station to a tourist destination? – I won’t be able to get any business.’
He then wanted us to pay for the return empty journey both ways and said there would be nothing for him at the tourist destination.
Upon arrival at the tourist destination on a public holiday it was heaving of course, so he looked like an idiot, but kept going on and on about it while we slowly slid ourselves out of the car, maintaining eye contact. Got things to do man, see you later.
We ghosted him later.
Day 13 – Zaohe Longyun City
Anyway, the place in question is this. A scenic spot about dragons and such. Maybe boats. I really didn’t know much about it and nor does our corner of the internet because it doesn’t contain a rollercoaster. Dark rides though.
A sign outside confirmed that everything I wanted should be operational and getting in was offensively cheap. Some wristband for roughly £7.
There was a priority list as we headed through the bustling park. Main dark ride>shooter probably>flying theatre>5d cinema. It all seemed doable but when public holiday queues could literally have been anything, it would have to be a case of making the best of it.
Landed outside the building for the main dark ride first (hold that thought) and clocked the newly dreaded sandwich board outside. That’s a 2 hour queue lads. Eh, easy these days.
There was a bit of a congregation outside of the entrance again, forming the tail end of the queue, which slowly headed inside and wrapped round a foyer first. In here there was a staff member peddling fast track options. A single shot at this ride cost more than the entrance fee of the park, at around £9, but given the entrance fee of the park that seemed more than acceptable. We could suffer this for two hours, or money.
With some assistance from her we scanned a QR code on the wall that actually worked, a miracle, paid up and got the most VIP of fastracks you could ever hope for. A ‘follow me’, followed by literally powering you past everyone else in the building, stewing and confused, straight to this batched waiting area.
It was in this waiting area I realised I had made a terrible mistake. This ain’t the dark ride. This is the flying theatre.
See?
While I was partially disgusted at having to pay for one of these, and it not being what it actually wanted, it needed to be done anyway so no biggy. Was funny.
A Millenium of Ancient Fortune flew over some local stuff as per usual, including a version of the park that looked better than it really was, not that the park looked bad by any means. Also had some particularly nice scents going on, I remember that much.
One down, moving on.
You may be able to forgive me for confusing the ride buildings, as this is the one for the actual dark ride I wanted.
Chasing Water had the same sandwich board outside also claiming a two hour queue. We knew the routine. QR code. Money. VIP treatment.
Which landed us straight in this little preshow batching area. The synopsis – things are afoot and this magic monk is gonna kick some monster asses.
Our little splurge had messed up the batching for this particular ride though and, to much confusion, more people arrived at the air gates than the car could fit.
Gracefully bowed out of that one and then got the added bonus of the next car to ourselves. No guests shouting on their phones throughout the experience today.
Onboard I got a little giddy. It’s another 4D motion based car ride thing, but it runs through water, which I think is rather awesome.
This room was really well done. It’s a full 360° screen that you enter and exit in two different doors built into the screen, combined with rotating and media shenanigans that make it confusing and or magical. As for what was going on, some creatures were attacking us, but it’s clear there’s also a bit of Shanghai Pirates inspiration here too.
It had a smattering of physical moments too, rawr. Eventually we beat up the big bad blue water god and fall out of a pagoda.
Your bravery saved the water town, you can meditate with me any time.
It was very good, in parts, there’s always bonus points for just being unique and it was that in many ways both for China and globally.
One obvious thing they really need to work on is the fact that you could prominently see the massive projector setup and gantry above every scene.
I don’t know who made it, there seem to be quite a few locals in this game now what with Playfun, OCT, Jinma and of course Fantawild, but the other main sticking point for me was that the motions didn’t hit hard enough for what was going on, which is also quite common out here. We know Fantawild ones can be violent enough to injure, we know Jinma have the potential to but have only delivered it once that I’ve seen. Shame I couldn’t find the plaque.
Two down, moving on.
As previously stated, it was a nice looking place, when you couldn’t see all the people anyway.
This was some museum about boats.
And magic gallery.
Moving on.
In the flying theatre, this was an authentic old-timey boat.
This was the interactive shooting ride, Dragon Palace Adventure, posted at a mere 90 mins, so slightly less popular. Given that we’d been killing it timewise, for obvious reasons, and that the two fast tracks had brought the day up to about the price of a regular Chinese theme park visit, opted to suck this one up and it only took an hour in the end. It was fiiine.
Premise here was that the oceans are polluted. We were to help the sad mermaid and some fiery kid clean up the fish. With fire. Literally burning the purple sludge off of them. Underwater.
So that was cool, something different again. Ride system is an old classic, but my gun didn’t work so just observed what was going on.
Glad I didn’t pay for not being able to take part I guess, though that may have been grounds to go again. Not that I would have been particularly bothered to do so.
Cute story, not much going on.
Holiday decorations of some description, lots of this stuff around.
They sent this boat round the park occasionally with some costumed characters on it, quite quaint.
With time in hand, may as well try the 5D cinema as well. It’s got a bear in it.
Dayu Flood Control didn’t even have a queue time so the wait was anyones guess.
Pretty huge capacity though, I think we were in to this non-pre-show by the second cycle. It just showed clips of what we were about to see on small TVs. The equivalent of my pet peeve with coasters showing their own POV in the queue. Spoilers.
It weren’t good, but it had comedy. Classic three characters on some epic journey adventure that involved snakes, some logs in a raging river, jungle etc. Then they just do the ol’ Lord of the Rings hop on some eagles and make all of that walking effort completely pointless.
Once again the quest led to confronting the big bad blue water god guy who was flooding the world. Boss fight happens, they don’t do so well but then one of them turns into a bear and cracks the guys skull while the other two shout his name triumphantly a million times. That again.
World fixed, moving on.
Or rather, moving out. Mission complete, got everything I wanted. Was worth the effort just for the dark ride and likely a more pleasant day out than most other park visits could have been given the public holiday circumstances.