China 01/24 – Shanghai
Things were going wrong in this trip before it even began. On the day of departure, the airline broke the news that our return flight had been ‘delayed’ by 24 hours, by which they meant that our booked flight had been cancelled (I suspect because they weren’t making enough money, they never gave a reason). An inconvenience for sure, but at least generally in our favour. An extra day to find a hotel and make some plans at the cost of no recovery time when returning home.
The most unfortunate thing about all this was how specifically I’d arranged the internal flight back to Shanghai. There’s two airports at opposite ends of the massive city, and you couldn’t get to the one we wanted from Chengdu. So that night we took a train all the way back to Chongqing, then got up again at something stupid like 2am in order to fly to the right end of Shanghai, only to be stuck there for another 36 hours anyway.
Day 11 – Not much
The original plan on arrival was to hit up Steel Dolphin in its geographically convenient location, and then fly home. Instead we had to head to a hotel and dump stuff one final time before phoning Steel Dolphin.
Steel Dolphin was closed of course.
Never mind, maybe all the additional faff could lead to a fairytale ending as there was nothing to stop me daytripping back over to Beyond the Cloud yet again. Phoned Beyond the Cloud.
Beyond the Cloud was closed of course.
There is no happy ending to this story.
Fine, powered dragons it is.
Yangpu Park
I’ve already done a decent amount of cred whoring in Shanghai, so options were still thin on the ground. First up was one of these pleasant green spaces in Chinese cities with tacky amusements at one end. A real staple.
#1 Gliding Dragon of course was a real gem, as well as open. Imagine that.
Huangxing Park
Next up was one of these pleasant green spaces in Chinese cities with tacky amusements at one end. A real staple.
#2 Dragons of course was a real gem, as well as open. Imagine that.
We were on a roll, but then it rained.
The end.
Day 12 – Not much
Another day, another chance. Would it be squandered? Yes.
Phoned Steel Dolphin. Steel Dolphin was closed of course.
Phoned Beyond the Cloud. Beyond the Cloud was closed of course.
Then it rained.
Fine, dark rides it is.
There were a few options. Legoland Discovery centre, but they won’t let you in. Some Smurfs park but it was expensive and already documented.
An unknown dark ride in one of these pleasant green spaces in Chinese cities with tacky amusements at one end? Deal.
Heping Park
It’s gone. The tacky amusements are no more, instead they’ve put in a posh looking children’s play park and some exercise equipment for the elders. Lots of signs up measuring the ambient noise level, so I guess there’s no room for tacky amusements in a pleasant green space any more. The future?
Shanghai Dungeon
Not what I expected, but I got the opportunity to get annoyed at Merlin. The next moderately interesting idea was the Shanghai Dungeon, but the website was plastered with warnings about having to prebook a time slot and how it was cheaper to do so online. The link to do so? Went to some front page of a technology company. Broken.
Rocked up at the door anyway to find that it was far cheaper in person, and that the very next time slot was available. Deal.
They also wanted to flog us Madame Tussauds tickets, which goes some way towards explaining why Jackie Chan is here. No deal.
Before long that time was upon us and the experience began as many do with an elevator. Trickery afoot though, this one is in a mall and you go up, not down, somehow. No photos allowed, so bad luck.
We were then parked at the entrance to a themed street of old Shanghai. Some scare effect was going off and riling up the crowd a little, biggest point of note however for the Chinese crowd was that it contained far younger children than you’re likely to get at a UK one. This worked against the experience somewhat as they’re all rather bold and keen to heckle/harrass the actors who don’t really have a good way to shut them up.
Eventually we were instructed to head through the town, which looked decent while not much happened. We then got an introductory chat with some ringmaster guy who talked about history and lay the groundwork for a ‘shadow killer’ that was on the loose as a plot point. Then we got into yet another lift with him, which had lightning effects and screens that gave our first glimpse of the shadow killer.
Next up was something about pirates. It had the dumb looking projected face on a mannequin on a stick effect and a bell. If you see a pirate, ring the bell. Chaos ensued as the kids just wanted to ring the bell, the guy couldn’t complete his lines properly, someone bumped the mannequin so that the projection didn’t line up and thankfully it was all over rather quickly.
It got better from here. Either the stories were more engaging in presentation or the actors could hold a crowd a bit more. Or there was less interactivity. As with all dungeons, it’s all variations on the same beats.
The assistant to a British doctor did a spiel next to the silhouette of a doctor behind a curtain scene, performing various gruesome procedures and then handing through the bits being removed. The seats did a bit of violating when some rats escaped.
The daughter of an actress who was beaten to death outside a theatre for being ‘posessed’ gave us a talking to in a room, before the lights went out and we got ghosted.
A woman in a tavern shouted at us and eventually sold us off to be slaves. Feat. a mechanical rat race through the rafters.
A fortune teller shouted at us in a room full of chairs. Then the shadow killer came in the room and Sweeney Todded us.
Then the plot was lost on us as we prepared for the ‘standing drop tower’. We’d already been killed, but now it was time for the final illusion.
Hardware of this one was very interesting to be fair, though the statistic they claim sounds rather underwhelming (2.4m in 0.97s). This is for a reason as there’s no restraint at all, you just get locked inside a door, free standing. It does the sequence twice – up to some writing on a wall and then drop. As a fan of anything drop related I liked it, different and definitely gave you a good lurch to think about as your feet gently caressed the air millimetres above the floor.
And then we were in a mall. Home time.
Summary
New creds – 24
New dark rides – 31
New parks – 10
New Fantawilds – 4
Best new coaster – Cloud Shuttle
Best new dark ride – Deep Down
Best new park – Fantawild Wonderland
Planes – 3
Trains – 17
Automobiles – 26
Spites – 11/35 (31.4%)