Over in Weifang next I had some unfinished business. Well, not with Weifang specifically, I’d never been before, and why would I, there’s nothing remarkable going on.
What they do have is a sort of sister park to what I dubbed the worst theme park experience of all time – Oriental Neverland in Hangzhou. With its big spiting Chinese duelling dragons thing which I still really wanted to ride, for some reason.
First things first though, we were also within striking distance of the S&S launch at Sun Tzu Cultural Park that spited me. Obviously that would be the better option. A phone call was made. Oh that? That never opens. Of course it doesn’t.
Day 6 – Fuwah Amusement Park
And so here we are. Place annoyed me immediately out of the gate. Being shady about what was available and what was not at the ticket office before I shelled out for a piece of plastic to get us into the park anyway. The piece of plastic gave you one free ride!
Decided that free ride would be #1 Mountain Runaway Mine Cars, as it was the first thing we came across. The best rollercoaster in the park. We brandished our piece of plastic excitedly – free ride this – only to then have the piece of plastic taken away from us. Oh, ok. It’s gonna be a QR code based experience from now on apparently.
Anyway, Zamperla speedy coaster with the world’s most violent chain lift engagement and disengagement. Not one for bad backs, but also a 2 inch speed hill that offered the most airtime on park. This was the highlight of the day.
Just over the way was one of these horrible things. There’s a QR code on the ride sign which you can scan in order to pay for the attraction, convoluted of course. The staff woman from the Zamperla was friendly enough to jump a fence and offer to help though. Nothing doing, the QR code didn’t work. During this faff, they dispatched a single car with half a dozen guests on it. Hold that thought.
The alternative solution to paying for the ride was to retrace our steps back to a ticket window near the centre of the park and buy a piece of plastic to use on the rides… One for the death machine sky loop please. Again the staff themselves were friendly enough but asked questions like why don’t you pay for a few more rides while you’re here, to save you coming back again? Why don’t you confirm to me what’s actually running? . .. … I’ll come back.
Back to the sky loop I brandished my new piece of plastic and got in, being forced into a row I didn’t particularly want to experience the ride from. Some faff and a few minutes later they locked the restraints, except mine wouldn’t lock. They came over and led with the weird interaction I sometimes get out here in that they think I’m not sitting far enough back in my seat. Get some good lap bar clearance you know – extra airtime on the sky loop with OTSRs. I’m guessing it’s just a leg length thing, I don’t know, I physically cant sit further back anyway.
This wasn’t the issue however, the restraint just wouldn’t lock. They pushed some buttons several times, but not in a fun Steel Curtain kinda way. Then asked me to move to a different row. Score! I selected row 5, that’s my jam. Less upside down, non wheel – there’s a science to the horror.
This wasn’t the issue however, the restraint just wouldn’t lock. They decided to move a Chinese man into the broken seat, as if it was a body type related issue.
This wasn’t the issue however, the restraint just wouldn’t lock. Not really something you want to see on a ride of this calibre, but no one seemed overly phased about it. They called engineering or something but apparently it wouldn’t be a quick fix, so we were asked to leave the ride and come back later. But what about the money on my piece of plastic? Don’t worry, we’ll remember your face. I suppose that’s likely.
Silly really, I could have been on that last car had they not made it so difficult to pay for a ride. Not that time was an issue here.
Already rather dejected by this point, headed over to the other half of the park to figure out what else was actually open.
There was little in the way of signs of life over at the main event. I hadn’t seen or heard it operate.
On closer inspection they were actually doing ‘maintenance’ to the suspended train in blue. That ain’t opening then.
Just over the way was a Zamperla 80STD, a glorious sight if ever there was one. No one was there to run it though, and we hung around for a while to see what would happen. One of the maintenance men from the big ride eventually wandered past and we asked him if either of these things were open. The answer – yes.
Well now we had an answer, it was back over to the ticket window to top up the piece of plastic to cover what we’d just discovered.
On return to the Zamperla, #2 Mountain Roller Coaster, someone was there to run it, and ran it. +1.
So the man had said #3 Chase Wind Rollercoaster was open. I took a wander into the queue to discover that, at the entrance to the cattlepen, a sign says it runs on 15 minute time slots. Well, only the top half, because maintenance. So the train was just sitting there, 15 minutes a pop, before hitting that despatch button. Save those pennies. Or lives.
So I rode the damn thing anyway, I have no idea why I was so captivated or intrigued by it. It’s trash.
It’s an illusion of the track work I guess. We’re used to seeing Chinese built coasters riffing off of old, horrible track types like, well, Vekoma SLCs mainly. If the original is bad, and this looks bad, it probably is bad.
Here we have some Intamin mashup of tri-track leading into some modern spiney stuff. It doesn’t look so bad, but it is. Negotiated horribly the whole way round, in an unpleasant ‘brain-rattling’ kinda way. The main mercy is that it traverses most of the layout at a snails pace due to poor pacing. The drop and loop are fast, and dire, but then it meanders around up high for an age, saving that little bit of sanity before a car crash of a final inversion.
I won’t be seeking out the suspended side in a hurry.
In search of some respite, the park claimed that they had a dark ride.
This is it, and it’s looked like that since about 2019.
They were also building a flying theatre, every park needs one of those, since about 2019. Seeing this was the most interesting aspect of the entire visit.
Well…
Not to worry, to cure my headache they had a Chinese built Volare, looking exactly like the closed one two days prior. Can’t escape them that easily I suppose. A glimmer of hope came in that some guests walked up to the entrance before me, had a conversation with the staff, and then left. Closed? Advised against it? Sadly I tried the same and had it confirmed that it was open.
Time to top up the piece of plastic.
Padded jackets are available for #4 Happy Birds, though I wasn’t offered one, so it can’t be too bad can it.
Yes, yes it can. I know people hate these things but I’ve never been overly offended by the Zamperla ones. Janky as hell, but never any lasting damage. We spent the entirety of the one in Finland in hysterics.
I spent the entirety of this one willing it to slow down. Every block section was negotiated with no braking but really could have used it. A full on, battering assault on the body was taking place, one which I’ve never really experienced before. I’ve heard the originals described like being in a washing machine and that felt quite apt in this instance. The clearance behind me was too much. The clearance to my sides was too much. This thing bruised and grazed both my shoulders and hips against hard plastic and/or metal and I just wanted it to end so bad.
A top 5 worst for sure, so bottom 0.3%, sadly a portion of the list which is entirely measured by the fact that the rides do lasting physical damage to the body. Why is such a factor allowed to exist in this hobby?
As if all that hadn’t been torture enough, I still had the Sky Loop to deal with.
Well they fixed #5 Angel Heart. And remembered my face. There’s been a shift in my estimation of these on this trip, and for the worse, if that was even possible. I don’t even care about the upsidedownness any more. I used to hate it, it was something that affected me too much in a really unpleasant way. Now it’s not even the issue. They just ride like total ass. Shaking itself to pieces at 60Mph in a straight line. Almost head banging the restraint levels of shake, but also just that same horrible brain rattling in your skull effect that really makes you question your life choices.
And thus concludes the park. The worst rollercoaster lineup in the world. I challenge you to find me something that beats it. If you do, I might even go. Because of course I don’t question my life choices.
Bonus cred
Why would I, when this happens? Took a taxi out to another cred in the city. Some jungle mouse in a green space. The entire park was closed off. Nothin doing. Went back to the hotel and then headed over to McDonalds.
The greatest McDonalds in the world because it had #6 outside. That’s twice now I’ve just happened across a Chinese travelling coaster on some concrete outside my hotel. It was magnificent, by far the best ride of the day, with cute touches like little plastic windmills blowing in the breeze. The guy operated it wirelessly somehow and then just left it running for 10, 11, 12 laps while staring at his phone and forgetting we existed. This became an issue as time was running on, we had a train to catch and it was a struggle to get his attention. I’d like to get off now, please. It reached the stage where I was psyching myself up to bail out of a moving, albiet slowly, ride. Didn’t have to.
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.
Laying down carpet around the footers.
Still got a train.
Down the stairs and past the parked car took things closer to the action.
RCDB knows all. It had an unknown one of these listed too.
That night we took the train over to Qingdao, another new city for me. Nothing overly exciting going on there in the coaster department but it was a surprisingly nice place, for China anyway.
The place is famous for two things it seems – beer and movie studios. Our closest experience to the latter was having Harry Potter flying above the bed.
And cursing us in the shower.
Day 4 – Qingdao Sunac Land
I use that term loosely because RCDB have combined three parks into one for ease of navigation. In reality this is another Sunac mall that has an indoor Sunac Land park, a Sunac Movie park like the (deceased) ones in malls next to outdoor Sunac parks AND a Sunac Water park. Each of the three are separately entranced, ticketed and contain a coaster of some description.
We had arrived too early for the main park anyway so headed over to the movie park which I was most interested in. I found this Jinma interactive dark ride coaster hybrid in research a few years back and the way in which it was described was like it was located in an actual movie studio tour/experience, so had been picturing more of an HB World type affair.
The reality is more pedestrian in that it’s just another a Sunac mall Movie park sadly. But is it even that? I was getting a vibe. No entrance sign actually straddling the entrance area, just a bunch of claw machines and, in the distance, darkness. Am I going to be accosted to ride some go-karts?
Taking a wander deeper inside was very familiar. It was dark, there were no signs of life, there were leaflets strewn about the place. It once again turned into a bit of an abandoned park exploration, all of these pictures being taken with flash.
Spooky dragon heads poking out of the darkness.
This was the beginnings of a horror walkthrough, which I imagine could have been quite the experience to walk through by nothing but torch light.
This was the entrance to the coaster I wanted (and track above). Not looking promising, but I did find some sort of maintenance/cleaners check sheet taped to a wall somewhere that had dates and signatures up til the current month. We’ll be back.
Back over at the ‘main’ park, which was ready to receive, it’s free to enter so picked up a cheap deal for 4 ‘major attractions’ – only really wanted the two creds.
They have a crappy 9D experience here, which was promptly skipped.
#1 Laoshan Flying Dragon or ‘Suspension Roller Coaster’ was the first to open. Apologies for the bad photos in this place, the extremes in lighting were playing havoc and I was on the wrong phone.
Had mild intrigue about this ride, it’s a Jinma suspended with the new style track, custom layout, inversion. Think Vekoma STC. I got the old Wanda classic of staff woman being very happy to have an actual customer, leading me down the queue and setting everything in motion. She got as far as pushing dispatch before being shouted at by some bloke and was then never seen again while he proceeding to run the ride. Hope she wasn’t fired.
Think Vekoma STC, but poor. It rode like ass, barely gaining any momentum throughout the layout against all the shaking and then clunked itself through the inline twist inversion in four countable and uncomfortable stages. I’ve seen signs that Jinma products have been improving in modern times. This was not one of them.
We then sat on a bench for an hour because there was nothing else to do and they wouldnt open the other cred yet.
And then they did. Told you they had a thing about beer here.
Custom spinner? Or at least a layout I haven’t come across before. #2 Free Tackle was different, it weren’t great.
Thus ends the park. Headed up to the water park, hoping they’d be lenient about outfit requirements should we want just ‘the cred’. All the ticket desks were lit up, but no one was home. The actual entrance was semi-permanently fenced off. I can only assume the place only opens in peak periods.
From the limited photos on rcdb, one of which, amusingly, is a duplicate that’s zoomed in and mirrored, along with a brief promotional video that was playing outside the main park, I have my doubts about whether ‘Air Sea Battle’ is a coaster at all. It’s powered, has water guns, I’m yet to see an elevation change, so in my head canon, this was no loss.
Headed over to the movie park again and they had actually turned a few lights on. A lone woman was running a desk and offering up some crappy 7D experience, two less Ds than the main park sadly, in what had already become a repurposed area.
The park is clearly in decline like several of the others, though it was claimed that the coaster would reopen soon for the school holidays, further backing up my theory about the water park.
No use to me, so RIP.
Time to get jiggy with some +1s
Beer City Neverland Theme Park
To use a Gavin Jones line, there were no pictures of these places online, so you’re welcome.
There’s a bunch of tents set up around the perimeter of the place, all about beer, it appears they host some form of festival here but clearly that wasnt going on at this moment in time. Nevertheless, after some corralling of staff, this pumpkin provided tickets for the lone cred and lone reason we set foot in the joint.
We already knew it was made by Qin Long, the biggest of theirs I’ve ridden so far! We still don’t have a name. #3.
Two laps and it vibrated hilariously throughout. Job done.
There’s a ‘beer culture museum’ across the road, but I had a date with destiny.
Qingdao Rio Car(no)val Theme Park
Elsewhere along the coast, lies a rather pleasant shopping district with a rather unpleasant rollercoaster.
Thankfully it was closed for refurbishment. That guy in shot was snooping around too, even peeking in one of the locked doors. Maybe he’ll have the revolutionary information out there before me.
So, done for the day, we took a pleasant stroll around the area.
And the perimeter of the park of course. There is/was an indoor/outdoor log flume thing.
And a Beijing Shibaolai built Volare. Yet to experience one of these, I was fairly confident that I didn’t want to. It had no station or cars, so it won’t be hurting anyone any time soon.
Jumped on the Qindao Eye (yes, spelt wrong) for some views.
Elsewhere in Huai’an, but also not really in Huai’an is the newest Glorious Orient park from Fantawild. Like several other of their resorts it’s a good hours drive out of the city centre in a bit of a no-mans land, but that also means they have plenty of room to grow I guess.
Case in point, one of their new Boonie Bear Harbour parks is going up over the road. One of these has opened so far and it was a smaller lineup of park aimed more at families – no big cred. Still had a unique dark ride though, so that’ll be enough for me one day.
Day 3 – Glorious Orient Huai’an
And so we’re here again, sort of. Glorious Orient Ningbo was an experience, a highly competent park that was a bit of a disappointment in terms of tone. Going in knowing this, I think the theme has grown on me.
*Flying Theatre music plays* Skip! This one isn’t hiding in military guise however, spaceships?
Started strong on the cold steel of #1 Sky Track. Other guests hadn’t made it into the park yet, which was a bonus.
And it’s best to take advantage of this fact to hit #2 Fighter Jet nice and early.
Case in point, I walked on to the first train solo.
Then walked on to the second train with 6 other guests. It ran noticeably quicker with the extra weight, an effect that must be exacerbated by the baby trains. It completely changed the dynamic of the ride, it was significantly more intense with the positive forces and absolutely hauling.
And then a larger group of guests arrived and the queue was ruined instantly, so I left. It soon posted a 90 minute wait.
I remain impressed, though not blown away by this Vekoma. The launch initiation is still beautifully smooth and the first element airtime inversion thing is glorious. Then it just gets a bit new-gen V in the wrong way for me. Lots of corners, positives, a couple pops of airtime but with nothing particularly characterful about it. It goes through the motions of being a high speed rollercoaster with gallops and vrilles and then you’re done. I can say that it’s technically great, but it doesn’t give me a buzz.
#3 Frontline Charge rounds out the creds. Standard Vekoma Junior here, not a Boomerang.
Next to Railway Guerilla, which went up a lot in my estimation this time.
Beginning with the fact that we got the pre-show this time. It’s acted out like a professional drama, but the key takeaway from me is that it entirely resisted having the actors turn to the camera, point and say ‘we need you! Jump aboard these high tech all terrain early 20th century war machines and help save the world.’ They do however more cleverly weave an animation of the ride vehicles into the ‘plot’ which involves blowing up a train to stop munitions and supplies. We’re just observers.
The ride itself was always spectacular, a real culmination of a lot of Fantawild creativity and technology. Big impressive sets, an array of clever special effects, immersive screens and the vehicle movements are absolutely on point.
Should have a POV for you in a couple years.
I was less buzzing from new Fantawild and more focused on what was actually going on in the shooting dark ride this time.
This led to noticing that you’re shooting the bombs and missiles in this one, so I guess the actual message of Sharp Shooter is stop the war! Which is nicer.
Here’s what it looks like when there’s nothing to shoot.
I had Amorous Northwest Feelings about one of my favourite Fantawilds over in Taizhou. This one only has Amarons Northwst Feelings.
This confused me, I was expecting the dark ride Hangar Breakout somewhere in this park and the building here looks rather like it. The clue was that it had timeslots, though that can be common for rides on quiet days.
It wasn’t, it was a China is so great 3D cinema that amused me somewhat. You’re seeing here a race for GDP between countries around the world, punctuated by technological achievements and advancements in China. They were claiming that by 2030 they would be beating the US (a low bar if ever there was one).
Later on there was a vision of a city from the future. It had rollercoasters running through it, which was a plus, but they also misspelled their own company name so… it’s just not up to par with the other attractions of this generation.
Construction, get excited.
This contained a show called Heroine.
It told the brave wartime stories of several women using their usual fancy projection and stage tech. It’s the first one I’ve seen that didn’t actually end up using any live actors, usually there’s a mix. Not enough paying customers. As for the story, not the most engaging but conveyed some good emotion.
This contained a show too, but it was too quiet to run, so that’s twice I’ve missed it now. Ganzhou, you’re up.
Apparently the ‘Old Summer Palace’ was given to the British but, being the bastards we are, we wrecked the joint and are the reason a number of historic artifacts are now missing.
The massive frontage of Zhiyuan Zhiyuan still impresses me, as does the ride.
Shanghai Pirates tech still impresses me too.
The ship sinks because the Emperor likes to party. Or because the British built it.
And from here I noticed a key difference to the Ningbo ride. Instead of passing underneath a big wreckage set of the ship, you drift by this haunting and eerie scene of people and debris sinking to the bottom of the ocean in the darkness. It’s very well done. Until they bang on about their technological advances again, which kinda ends it weird.
Some school trips had been arriving throughout the day, steadily making the queues less manageable. These would start to impact the trip for the foreseeable, must be the season for it I guess.
As such, there wasn’t a whole deal of opportunity for rerides, though I was thoroughly enjoying the park itself. Instead we turned sights to a couple of creds in the city before our train that evening and booked a Didi back a little earlier than originally planned in order to grab the +1s.
In the car, it rained, hard. And so that was that.
Imagine being in the 90 minute queue for Fighter Jet when that happens though.
Off to a new city the next morning, by the name of Huai’an. Why?
Day 2 – Xiyou World of Adventure
More of a dark ride park for me this one, I remember looking online and exclaiming ‘damn this stupid hobby’ because, by visiting, I’d be obliged to ride Chinese Goudurix. We definitely peaked with coasters on the first day of this trip, so feel free to check out any time you like.
There’s a big tourist centre and what could loosely be described as a citywalk with restaurants a significant walk away from the main gate, where tickets were purchased.
I didn’t do much further research beyond the above, so headed in with relative excitement to see what we could discover.
First stumbled across #1 Monkey King Patrol Mine Train, their cookie cutter mine train save for the monkey face on the front. The park is predominantly themed to Journey to the West, so Sun Wukong and his gang. Nothing new there on the Chinese park scene anyway.
It had a few trains wait and was operated slow as hell, but had above average rockwork I guess. Even a few peaches to decorate the final brakes.
Round the corner in some more rocks was the first dark ride of the day, The Monkey King is Born. Loosely billed as the origin story of old mate Sun Wukong, it seemed we were going around the park in chronological order at least.
The ride was a Peter Pan-style suspended boat type thing, which I must admit I hadn’t expected as I can’t think of another one like this in the whole of China.
It was built by Jiuhua Rides (who?). Wonder if they have more. Anyway it had some good stuff and some not so good stuff.
Physical sets weren’t bad in places, a few need some TLC.
The media based bits were poor, with a company logo or DEMO plastered all over them (made it easier to identify them for the database at least), sometimes not working, sometimes not synced up etc. Story was confusing too and not usually how it goes down. Eh, different.
From there, stumbled blindly into this flying theatre. This one told the story of when Monkey got mad one day and kicked off, started some fights in heaven and then got stomped on by a big Buddha. Fantawild have a revolving theatre about it.
Another weird one, it just didn’t flow that well, although it was a different vibe for a flying theatre at least. Ended hilariously by just fading to black on said stomping though. Where do we go from here?
Next building had a show in it, said to come back later. Wish we hadn’t.
Next building looked rather impressive and unique. Story was a new one too, something about spiders in a Pansi Cave Adventure.
Monkey’s mate Piggy likes the ladies and some spider ladies had lured him into some cave and webbed him up good. The result was a motion-based trackless dark ride from a company I hadn’t come across before now – Playfun.
It lacked the motion part somewhat and it’s interesting to see the ‘inspirations’ being passed down throughout these ride systems now. From Transformers, to the Fantawild ones, now onto these more obscure Chinese brands, they all like to riff off of these same specific moments. Same framework, different story. Fun though. We got out of the cave.
Chinese Goudurix was closed. I didn’t know how to feel. Mostly relief of course, but the cred hunter in me obviously wanted the +1 and to a lesser extent the morbidly curious coaster enthusiast in me wanted to at least try the largest coaster ever created by Hebei Zhongye Metallurgical Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. I’ve pretty much hated everythingelse they’ve ever done with a passion.
The cobra roll in particular looks disgusting from off ride.
But, credit to them, for all those places that claim something is closed for ‘maintenance’, there was actually genuine maintenance going on in the station. I fear it’s not enough.
What a pity, never mind.
From there you reach the centrepiece of the park, the massive rock structure with palace bits sticking out of it. I had no idea what it was, but surely it must contain a ride, right?
First attempt to clamber up some stairs led to a huge, but closed, door. And this sign at least. Know your audience.
Then, after a parade had passed through the plaza below, another tunnel further round led to the next dark ride. Not signposted at all from that particular end. Exploration at its finest.
One Belt One Road is trippy. Billed on the sign (if you enter from another angle) as Monkey goes to India to find a book, there’s very little Monkey going on and you visit several different locations. The vehicles are big motion based things again, shaped like a flower or shell, but rather than your usual jerky motions they have a rythmic sway to them. They slowly pitch you around and dance in front of each scene, for much longer than you would expect from most dark rides, it’s kinda funky.
Enter Thailand, pass by some stuff, pause, turn round, sway and dance for a while looking at the same scenery, turn, move on.
Enter Fata Morgana, the same.
Enter some projection room with fancy lights on a palace and fireworks, the same.
Enter some British blokes on steam trains, the same.
Then you end up in a Chinese High Speed Railway Station in your big conch and exit on the left. And we haven’t got to the ride where you walk through a woman’s body yet.
Well, that’s the next one, The Taking of Plantain Fan. The guy on the door could only really describe this one as ‘a film’, so we headed into the massive queueline which is more of a ‘walkthrough’ experience I guess. We’re looking for that plantain fan to help us cross the flaming mountains.
You enter the mouth anyway, Monkey’s head is sticking out of the wall of the lungs somehow.
Some long, winding pink ramps fill this huge chamber with a big glowing heart in the centre of it. I admire the commitment to theme here, as there’s a couple of service/backstage staff doors that also have their own winding pink ramps that are unnecessarily shaped.
I thought this was cool, the statue rotates to form two distinct shadows.
Then mountains. Then disappointment at a tiny room with seats that clearly can’t move. Is this not a dark ride? Then excitement at the fact that there’s no screen or projections, we’re just staring at a wall. Something must move.
And move it did, it’s like Carousel of Progress but facing outwards, a revolving theatre that stops in several scenes. Monkey pretends to be the Bull King and goes to his wife to ask for the fan we wanted. She gives it, then finds out and gets annoyed, Bull King shows up, bit of a fight. Then the backdrop changes and random light show because we’ve got to show off our projection mapping technology I guess. Need I say, bit of a weird one.
And we’re not done yet, around the next corner was yet another dark ride. A robot arm one to be specific, called Three Fights with Baigujing.
This guy really didn’t wanna ride.
Back to some more action based misadventures this one had a very similar vibe to the Suzhou Amusement park one with the big worm, cos it had a big floppy monster head instead, in a similar location, which wasnt very good. Here’s a diagram, woo:
It entered the same revolving projection screens in an obvious fashion too. The system was rather fun though, had some hilariously overstated tip you up on your back moments for seemingly little reason, quite intense in that regard. This one we now know was made by [someone], there’s a plaque to prove it, I haven’t deciphered it yet.
Behold! Actual maintenance.
And we can’t have a trip without a cat photo can we.
Thus concludes the rides at this park. Stuck around for the two shows because I thought they might be impressive. They really weren’t.
First one we had come across in the morning was trash, a Stitch Encounter style theatre thing that had the audience interacting with Nezha – the cool kid who usually beats up the dragons in Dragon King’s Tale. Many guests just upped and left halfway through, but as is the English way, I put up with it for fear of a slight on my character amongst total strangers.
There was a better, more genuine theatre performance for the other show. It just wasn’t that engaging and by this point we were just so done with the damn Monkey King.
He’s on every damn ride (except when he didn’t show up in India) and here he’s just being an ass. Ruins some woman’s tree. Gets his ass kicked by a guy. Restores the tree. Why are we supposed to like this guy at this point?
And then we left.
I had fun here, mainly because I enjoy all this discovery and new experience business. There’s nothing great going on in the park, I probably rated the dancing ride the most for the technology and effort in the early scenes. The place itself looks pretty good, but it feels way more than two or three years old already and there’s a marked step down in attraction quality when we compare it to the inevitable baseline that is Fantawild. Ah, my beloved Fantawild…
Ah, China. The bane of my life, but I can’t get enough. It’s been two-and-a-half long months since I could visit and they’ve built and closed a hundred more things I want to try in that time.
The plan was to go to Europe around this time, but as no one can open anything in a timely fashion, might as well have another crack.
Nothing exciting in terms of travel. Landed in Shanghai. Picked up a SIM card. Phoned Suzhou Amusement Land. Is Beyond the Cloud running? Yes.
Unintelligible noises.
Jumped straight on the world’s fastest Maglev for maximum efficiency, but was once again treated to the ‘slow cycle’ capped at a mere 300km/h. Regular high speed trains would regularly outstrip this for the rest of the trip again but it beats the metro equivalent of that particular journey a hundredfold at least. From the end of that it was metro anyway to Shanghai Railway Station. High speed train to Suzhou. Dump bags at the hotel. Didi to the park. Breathe.
Day 1 – Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World again
Even when you do get positive confirmation it’s never a guarantee in this game. The nerves were high as I powered over to the ticket office, gazing distractedly at the magnificent blue top hat all the while. A train crested it. A scream.
And thus, #1 Beyond the Cloud only manages to tie with Wood Coaster for the honour of my worst spite. Third time’s the charm. The queue was just about trailing to the bottom of the station stairs and took around 30 minutes, so, 4 trains.
I’d never actually seen the trains, but here they are. Non-headlight editions. Noticed some fun details while waiting like the fact the LSMs have little cooling fans and tubes mounted underneath them, which fire up just for the launch sequence. Must get pretty hot those things.
Talking of pretty hot, god damn, this ride. After so much more anticipation than I usually allow myself, mainly circumstantial of course, it was everything I wanted, and more.
The launch is nothing overly special, beyond being the fastest Mack and all that. A smooth acceleration into an interestingly rough transition – there’s quite an intense judder as it heads up into the top hat, but a characterful one that added to the experience on this occasion. A reminder that this thing is gonna kick my ass.
Top hat happens in no time at all, with a bit more kick at the top than your average accelerator one of these and then a full on, wild, first drop type experience on the way down with some legitimately scary airtime, especially for a Mack I must say. And herein lies the strengths of this ride, something I perhaps didn’t expect. Violent ejector punctuates proceedings on multiple occasions.
As such, the super fast inversion almost manages to be the most pedestrian part of the layout. Sadly this didn’t ride like a Blue Fire roll, which would have amped the whole intensity even more, but you’re soon up into the big twisty turnaround.
Which reminded me a bit of Zadra, with another fantastic lurch downwards. Then it goes straight into another ejector hill, which was pretty obscene.
Before what, on paper, seemed like a questionable choice of inversion sequence. Cobra roll? They’re never good. Vertical loopings? Yawn. Not so, the cobra is profiled in a rather uninterrupted way when it comes to forces, which, leading directly into the loop at such high speed and being, unusually, the last inversion of the layout, gave a ridiculously strong amount of sustained positives. After a few laps I was getting pins and needles in my feet from this, badly. A feeling I haven’t felt since… 2017 Batman La Fuga. And I loved it.
Then just to wake you up again, bam, brutal ejection into the brakes.
I’m still in the processing stage for this ride, it certainly took my breath away in multiple ways. It’s a tad short, it’s not perfect, but a Mack launch having more and better airtime than Helix and Ride to Happiness, as the world’s biggest fan of those rides, scares me. Multi-launch this and you’re looking at a list breaker. The year of the Mack just got even more exciting.
For now, it’s the best steel coaster in China by quite a margin and, given the way their woodies are deteriorating, probably not far off the best they have to offer full stop. For me, at least top 25.
Something that somewhat shocked me in the planning stages of this trip is that the park has added another coaster since I was last in the country. They couldn’t even open the ones they already had, but they could build more in no time at all.
Anyway this goose had stopped itself on the lift hill and, to their credit, they were actually doing something about it. Am I going to remain forever spited by this park though?
Meanwhile I did their flying theatre because I hadn’t done it yet, I guess. It was, ok, I guess. Done soooooo many that they’re like the Vekoma juniors of the dark ride world now. There’s like 10 more this trip alone, so stay tuned for that fun. Most memorable thing about it was that it flew over the old Suzhou Amusement Land, which used to be elsewhere in the city. That was a nice touch, especially for any locals who got the reference, I guess.
Back over at the goose things were looking slow. Endless test laps and an ambiguous response from the staff. Oh well, Beyond the Cloud had reduced itself to being basically walk on, so rode that a bunch more while keeping one eye on the potential +1.
The ride was injuring me in multiple ways before I finally stopped, would have stayed longer but had been up for well over 24 hours at this point. And the #2 Goose Coaster had reopened.
A magnificent specimen and close out to the day. Redemption.
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%)
Next up was a day trip out to Dujiangyan, because it turns out Sunac Land Chengdu isn’t in Chengdu, but a good 40 miles out.
The city in question is somewhat of a tourist gateway. Panda themed taxis line the streets, you can take various tours to see them out here, along with trips up the nearby mountains that border the Tibetanous region.
Once again Sunac were doing us a solid, confirming that everything would be up and running. Not hard really, is it.
Shortly after, we laid eyes on this. Seem familiar?
It wasn’t due to open for another hour or so however, so moved swiftly onwards to see what else was around.
Not the brightest of days, but a nice enough looking place.
Next coaster along, #1 Family Thriller, was ready to receive. A dual lift mine train clone, yay.
Much more exciting was this thing opposite it. In the back of my mind the name Nirvana Pilgramage rang a bell, from some deep dive research. It’s dark ride time.
Sure enough, a long and empty queue led to a fully indoor immersive tunnel job.
I know there’s stiff competition out there, what with Fast ‘n Furious ‘n all, but I think this might well be the best in the world. It actually does things other than drive you to a tunnel, and there’s also a coherent story and ending.
You begin in a pretty woodland area, physical theming on one side of the room and a screen on the other showing a tranquil setting, deer and the like. Some mountain lion thing appears and scares them off and as you move away, a bear animatronic scares you off in amusing fashion.
Next you drive onto a rickety bridge over a ravine and pause. Again, there’s stormy weather and river on a screen one side, washing towards you, with a scene on the other side. The bridge swings and shakes the vehicle around a bit and a big tree is supposed to fall down alongside as you set off again. Sadly this was broken.
More, different, movement based antics happen in the next room. A big scary face in the rock comes to life and gets projected on. He ain’t happy about something and summons up some magic which causes the whole tram to rotate on a turntable, pivoting at one end. On another screen, another vehicle encourages you to head out a tunnel exit but it becomes blocked in the commotion. Guess we’ll have to find another way out.
The angry face shouts at you some more while you head into the actual tunnel scene, which manages to fit into the narrative a bit more smoothly. Some scary looking stone cat statues in some jungley temple ruins come to life and make chase, before you get attacked by some bigger cats. The yeti from the sign outside appears. Thought he was the scary one, but turns out he’s a good guy. Looking like a white-haired Caesar he fights off the cats for you and then saves you from falling off a cliff into some vines. Seem familiar?
As the film ends we progress further into the cave to find some spookily-lit artifacts and an animatronic of one of the scary cats from earlier. And then, for all our struggles, we have found Nirvana. A picturesque screen of an ancient city hidden up in the mountains is cue for a victorious return to the offload platform.
Quality wasn’t the greatest admittedly, but I loved some of the ideas in there and had a blast with it.
Chinese Taron was almost ready to receive, so I started a trend by waiting just outside the queueline, attracting about 3 other guests to follow suit. Here I clocked a plaque on the wall stating it was a stock model. Whatever lads, chuck an Intamin Double Launch Coaster in there.
One uncilivized queue later, it was time for a back row inauguration.
And thankfully it didn’t have these restraints. Imagining the creative process in which these design/marketing people come up with these images always amuses me.
So, #2 All Speeds. Eh. It’s not poorly themed by any means, though parts like that evac platform look a little goofier than we’re otherwise used to, but the experience just highlighted how it’s hard for me to see Taron as a world beater any more. Remove just a sprinkle of what makes that attraction so special and the hardware simply doesn’t hold up.
Corners, a few positive forces, a singular moment of alright airtime and a smattering of slightly snappy direction changes over a very lengthy ride time which, to be fair to the Chinese had them screaming the entire way round, unrelentingly. To them it works, and more power to ’em. It’s what, 70 seconds of ‘I’m on a rollercoaster and the very sensation of translational movement is terrifying to me’. To the jaded enthusiast it’s ‘I’m on a rollercoaster and I want it to kick my ass, but it isn’t’.
The theming has its own charm, it’s all built within a walled city that’s under attack and you can follow the entire perimeter for the views.
Ranging from fight scenes carved out of rock
to monkeys caught in nets.
Hey look, that one airtime hill looks great from this angle. I swear we were up to a count of two, on my last laps with the original, but it seems the other has gone again.
Hey look, a train in motion, in China.
A side-on view makes a hell of a difference to that profiling, but I think we’ve spotted the other hill. It’s after the trim brake isn’t it, so it’s silly.
Just over the way, the Flying Theatre was ready to commence.
I said this before
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Sunac ones are good. There’s always a custom pre-show and narrative reason for the exploration – this one being some futuristic pods in the city of Chongqing taking you on a journey around local scenery, past and present.
And that’s the other nice thing about them. It isn’t just ‘here’s some things you could go see yourself now, if you can put up with the hassle of tourism’. You get dinosaurs, ancient armies, other timelines sprinkled within the sights you could go see yourself now, to give it a unique edge.
this is that, but Chengdu, with magic golden birds.
And ends with a very philosophical question.
Just over the way, a show was ready to commence.
This one I can just about get my head around.
What a weird show. It must have been the low budget version as it was such a quiet day (again). The big dragon over there was never a part of it, and there was a big bird on wires rigged up at the opposite end ready to do something but never did.
What we did get was some horsey action in a generic two clans battling it out story. The fight sequences were hilariously underperformed, couldn’t tell whether this was intentional or not but it was comedy gold. Someone won anyway.
Didn’t know what else was on offer at this point so went on an exploratory wander.
Hoped to stumble upon a bonus cred in this indoor section but alas, mini coster this is not.
Hoped to stroke a cat, but alas, there weren’t any.
Eww.
This content looking fellow housed a 3D cinema. Magic Tree Theater was showing a dubbed and crudely cut together highlight reel of what I’ve just found out to be the 2018 Canadian animated film Racetime. A new one to me at least.
More importantly though, this area contained the final cred, #3 Worm Coaster.
And Charizard Y.
An attraction of the highest caliber.
Saw one of those weird water slide contraptions again and managed to make a bit more sense of how this one worked.
Not that I wanted to try or anything.
Think that’s about it for this park. Had another lap on Taron just as it began to rain. It was a tense and nervous station wait as they were visibly on the fence about just packing it in for the day, with many animated discussions between staff members. Credit to them, they sent it out one last time as the heavens opened, and my face was sufficiently stung.
Next up was another day trip out of Chengdu to the city of Zigong. What’s there I wonder.
More Fantawild? Don’t mind if I do.
Day 9 – Fantawild Dino Kingdom
This one has excited me ever since opening of course.
Another unique theme, some new dark rides I knew very little about. A Vekoma Junior. Everything you could ask for.
The unique vibes continue through the main street, just hoping not to turn a corner and see Let’s Fly with a plane outside.
Heading towards some exciting looking show buldings from the map, first thing we came across was a cred.
#1 Dino Dash. What’s not to love?
Excitement continued to build, wondering what wonders lay inside here.
Deep Down. Dinosaurs. Got it.
Just before heading in I spun round and clocked this. My inner fan screamed. They haven’t done an ‘Indiana Jones’ vehicle ride since 2016 as far as I know. Been waiting on a 2nd generation one because the first already kicks ass.
After some cavey stuff is a preshow. We’re going on a journey to the centre of the earth with this miner bloke. Might be trouble on the way.
And trouble there was. Really, really loved this thing. It’s very much Dinosaur, but also very much their own thing and it does stuff I’ve never experienced on a dark ride before.
You start out in some pretty crystals and end up getting lost in the jungle where regular Mr. scary dino pops out at you a few times. Eventually you find a big old fossil/skeleton which then magically comes to live and unleashes something much more scary than your average T-rex.
You stop in the dark trees again for a bit and get jump scared again, before heading backwards in the pitch black for ages, with feely things hanging down and hitting the back of your head. Eek.
The next sequence is my favourite. You just stop, can’t see anything at all. Relying purely on audio and the motion base in the vehicle you get sniffed up and roared at by the dinosaur as he moves around the car. The tension it manages to create is insane, pure horror stuff that then doesn’t end in a jump scare for a change. You’ve lost him for now.
Things are kicking off though, it’s time to get out of here now, the ride starts gunning it through some lava and some rocks, eventually culminating in the ‘drop below something scary’ bit of the sequence which is the only full glimpse of animatronic big scary more than a dino thing.
Like an American on an average rollercoaster, I gave a round of applause as we returned.
That was something special.
It’s a shame their star coaster #2 Fire Mountain isn’t something special. Just another Orkanen – they’ve become the SLCs of the world, but pleasant.
We’d already had re-imagined Wizard Academy on the trip. Dino Rampage is their absolute OG 4D dark ride. It’s been kicking around at Fantawilds since 2006, in their very first park which is now long gone. I never much cared for the crudeness of it – the graphics were quite gory, lots of gratuitous violence with and against regular dinosaurs basically. As a child who never wanted to watch Jurassic Park because they hurt a dinosaur in it, not my cup of tea.
It’s got a new pre-show which is very by the book of course. Trouble is afoot, but don’t worry civilian, I’m a military man and I’ve got a high-tech all-terrain vehicle in which you can make your escape. Oh and it’s equipped with guns and missiles. Not this again.
There’s two sizes of these newest generation vehicles now, both of which are in use at the ‘World War Japan‘ themed parks. This is the smaller one that can kick more ass in its range of movement.
They’ve basically fixed everything I didn’t like about the ride and it’s now a ton of fun. It opens with its most gruesome moment as you get the simple silhouette of a T-rex eating a cat. Sad face.
From there you get soldiers zapping, not machine-gunning, some velociraptors that attack you. Then a chase sequence through a city from a T-rex which ends with you both falling into a subway tunnel and at the last second he gets hit by a train. Which is quite funny to be fair.
Worth mentioning there’s a great deal of physical scenery complimenting the transitions between screens, and that all the city based media is full of both real world details and Fantawild easter eggs. There’s known high street brands as well as Boonie Bear shops or the lumberjack guys face on a pizza store.
Things get scary as you move into this room. The temperature is slowly ticking up as soldiers try to keep whatever’s frozen in here dormant. They fail of course but all you get before you leave the room is a massive claw smashing through a gantry in another good horror-based beat – don’t reveal all just yet.
Well he’s on the entrance sign, but basically it’s Godzilla. You round things out with some wider and wilder scenes of city based destruction as he stomps around, fire blasts you through a building etc. Again the movements give you a lot to think about and it all ends when we shoot a missile down his throat and he comes flopping down.
Cue the obligatory: Your bravery saved the planet. You can ride with me any time.
Exit through the gift shop.
It’s great.
Official announcement – Fantawild Dinosaur is back and he’s selling burgers. The character hasn’t featured in parks for ages but I guess they figured he’s related to this place. Not selling him in the shops though!
Only speculation at this point and I should have learnt from this trip to never assume things are the same any more. But I have to assume that this is the same 3D cinema about, well, the origin of life.
Not speculation, we had this one confirmed that though it’s not called a Boonie Bear Theatre, this is a Boonie Bear Theatre with the traumatising story about the bird. Massive show building though, weirdly, I almost didn’t believe them.
Mystic River. I haven’t said this before
Big boat ride with lots of dinosaurs.
This is that.
See?
Was really good in general, lots of pretty sights in impressive physical sets, very much of the quality of their newest boat rides. Most unfortunate of the whole thing is a stonkingly massive Langnek animatronic that was too ambitious and needed a visibly thick black cable holding it up.
Shout out to Fantawild’s painted service gate game again.
As well as some other things going on in this park, like this guy shaking a tree.
And these ones you can ride and then they’ll respond to you with movement. Plus crash mats.
Another show ride that originated here, their Let’s Fly flying theatre looks and is great. I speculated that the one we did in Taizhou would have roots in this park and was correct. It’s the one where you ride pterodactyls through some fantasy dinosaur landscapes and it’s all very pleasant.
No listing for this and I wasn’t going to put myself through the ordeal again to find out myself. Hope it’s not a cred, or a dark ride.
Bug Zapper is though, interactive train ride, shooting bugs.
Another solid and different entry with the mix of targets and screens to shoot.
Last cred is just another junior boomerang, #3 Turbo Dino.
Feat. triceratops.
Trees.
This show was also at the Taizhou park, but didn’t run for the six people in attendance.
They were making a killing flogging these eggs for kids to smash and get prizes while everyone faffed their way into the building. Rides were never busy but managed a full house here, it’s quite magic when guests come out of the woodwork.
Another variation of the things on strings shows, but it’s even more impressive and effective in ‘3D’ with these circular theatres I think. Last one I saw kept singing about Indoneeeeesia, but this started out a bit like Origin of Life, with performers in dinosaur suits. Then some ancient men-folk stole this bird-man’s eggs (that’s a costumed character centre frame) and it goes all sad and lament-atious while the ‘eggs’ dance around him.
Eventually he gets the eggs back and everyone’s happy. I guess the moral of the story is don’t eat animals. And now you feel like a dick for paying to smash those eggs, don’t you?
Think that’s just about it for this park. Spent some time reriding the good stuff.
After a night in Chengdu it was time to start hitting up some parks not in Chengdu. First up was a train out to Jiangyou. Where?
Day 8 – Oriental Heritage Mianyang
Though named after the larger city Mianyang, the station there isn’t actually the closest to this park. A piece of information I’m sure you’ll all need at some point.
Gotta catch ’em all.
It’s that vibe again.
First up was River of Tales. I said this before
Chengyu – a name for four-word Chinese phrases that teach life lessons. They’ve come up on other Fantawild rides in the past, namely the evolution of the small world boat rides in many parks.
This is that, but an evolution prior. It’s not Chengyu. It’s ethnic groups.
This is that.
See?
Another #1 Puppy Coaster? Don’t mind if I do.
Hang on though, this Puppy has an identity crisis. It’s got the newer purple discount Bugatti trains instead.
Ok this time that definitely is Nezha, riding a dragon. A fairly old ride by Fantawild standards by now, Dragon King’s Tale/Rumble under the Sea (the latter here) has received quite the entrance package at this park. Lots of TLC going on with it too, they had a ton of workers hosing it down and keeping it squeaky clean.
To the point that we were directed through the exit and got to board the vehicles at the offload station, then ride the short corner round to onload. Excluse.
No notable upgrades to the inside of the attraction, but it was always a bit of a banger anyway. Mean old Mr. Dragon has flooded the city and we follow the kid with the rings and the stick and the sometimes three heads in their successful attempt to kick his ass.
Rawr.
Quite the dark ride game here it turns out. Jinshan Temple Showdown/White Snake’s Fury (the latter here) is pretty peak Fantawild.
It’s had decent coverage before, but here it is again. Lady white snake turns into, well, a white snake. Monk bloke thinks she’s bad. Steals her husband.
Here he is, whether you get live actors or not seems to vary from park to park, but we got the monk bloke on ride for this one, smashing this bell a few times, bald cap and all.
After leaving the boat ride you get to watch the main event. The showdown. More actors, water projections, geysers, fire.
It doesn’t end well for anyone.
I told you these Boonie Bear Theaters were everywhere. Got confirmation again that the story was different and headed in.
This time the lumberjack bloke had invented a shrink ray, bear based shenanigans ensued and they got shrunk, spending the majority of the film miniaturied, in danger, running away from a chicken. There’s a shot where they get drowned in noodles and soup, with a slow mo of one them sucking up a giant strand amongst the chaos – definitely the most laugh out loud funny of the versions so far. They’ve got all the emotions.
Creds! This was just mud and the wrong name on RCDB. Guess what though, it’s another #2 Pine Tree Rockets.
With clown cars.
I swear the entrance for Legend of Nuwa gets more impressive every time. This one’s had coverage already this trip.
It’s great.
Hmm, seems familiar.
And yet somehow different. Magic Gallery here has also had an entrance facelift.
But there was more to discover.
It ain’t the Magic Gallery I know and love. Instead of brush boy, we’re introduced to belly buddha.
And everything from that moment on was quite the surprise. Different ride system with these cool canopies and built in speakers.
Different ride itself, it starts off a lot more focused on the ‘gallery’ aspect. Similar concept in that the guy can bring things to life, which plays out in a very different set of scenes and effects, many of which are clever and effective.
Later on he introduces the same old painting that is the ‘destination’ of both versions and you slowly back onto a full-blown motion platform before spinning round to face the projection, turning the exploration of said painting into full on flying theatre sequence.
This is exactly the stuff I love. Going in expecting your favourite ride and then getting something completely different and equally mind-blowing.
But what I’d love more is to ride one of these. Look at the intense layout on this one.
‘Star coaster’ here is an SLC again. It was closed for the morning, but maybe opening later.
It did.
The overwhelming elation of yes, +1, outweighed the trepidation that it’s a Chinese SLC and I caught myself having a moment here, starting to skip down the queue with joy for #3 The Grand Showman. Wait, stop, what are you doing? This is what Fantawild does to me.
After coming back down to earth and preparing for the fact that it was probably going to be awful, it was fine. Manageable. Car crash of an airtime hill, but that’s just funny.
*Tune plays* Skip.
Worse than an SLC was my sudden realisation of what this was. An undocumented ‘water coaster’ had caught my eye on RCDB for this place at some point.
Well here it is. #4 King’s Gate. It sucks so bad, why must we count these. I got the awkward station encounter you often get here, while every other guest spends a good 20 minutes psyching themselves up, purchasing a million ponchos and making a meal out of intricately preparing for what should just be a bit of fun.
You should buy a poncho. Nah I’m good. You’ll get wet. Probably. We’ve got ponchos over there. Nah I’m good. What about your clothes? I’m already wearing a raincoat, not much different to your poncho.
A nervous laugh, then a radio call to pen the air gates. Operator radios back. You should buy a poncho. Nah I’m good.
I wasn’t good, but there’s literally nothing you can do about it. Some rides are just so stupidly wet that your day is over regardless of what piece of plastic you put on. Probably a top 5 soaking for me. Tidal Wave levels of splashdown, the two tiered body, then legs. Then a million geysers go off as you slowly drift around in misery waiting for the awful experience to end, each one like 30 seconds in the shower.
In freezing cold weather.
But hey, they opened it.
Think that’s just about it for this park. Spent the rest of the day drying off and reriding the good stuff. Bad creds, everything else is amazing.
Bonus Cred
Earlier that morning we awoke to find this, right outside the hotel door. I swear it wasn’t planned.
Later that night I got my first ever Chinese travelling coaster as we hopped aboard #5 Chicken Coop.
Themed and everything, it even had a soundtrack. Just look at the terror on their faces.
You can buy one for yourself on Taobao for just £10k. That’s the dream right there.
