Straight into the arms of a Boonie Bear. There was a time when I hated this, particularly Adventure parks, but now they’re like a premium experience, an old friend.
Smoke bubbles. Genius.
CrAzY knock off Disney with InSaNe rides.
Like old mate fruit worm, not open, but can’t ride it anyway.
#2 Puppy Coaster! It’s been a while, I’ll take it.
This has also been a while. While in a foul mood because of China being China, luggage spites, and wanting to bust through some horrible creds to get to the greatest Gravity Group woodie in the world, I once hated Dino Rampage and everything it stood for. What a horrible, violent, gory mess of a knock off Spiderman attraction that I had to put up with for 9 minutes when I could have been queueing 90 minutes for a horrible, violent, gory mess of a knock off Maurer Sky Loop. Ah, those were the days.
My renewed appreciation here is twofold. The very original Fantawild park in Chongqing, which is sadly no longer with us, because housing estate, had this ride. It’s grass roots. And I’ve witnessed first hand how far they’ve come.
Secondly Fantawild Dino Kingdom had the remake of this attraction, which was vastly superior in every way, but I also think that’s so sweet that they already look back on these old rides and, in tribute, think how can we make them better?
So, extensive queue for one of the originals. Dinosaur bones. Museum. Things about to go down.
A high quality preshow on a 5″ TV. Dinosaurs. Death. Things have gone down. Climb aboard these high tech, all terrain vehicles and help save the city/make your selfish escape.
A high tech, all terrain vehicle.
Well the parts I do remember, dinosaurs, blood and gore are definitely still there.
I remembered less of the fun physical stuff, like this, rawr, but there’s always subtle changes between installations so no guarantee it was a thing.
Blow up his head.
Rrrollercoaster.
When I mentioned at the other park that these types of attractions all play off of the same beats, this is one of them, they all have to turn into fantasy rollercoaster motion simulator at some point.
Amongst all the death and destruction against dinosaurs I don’t quite remember it going so extreme on the human aspect either. By the end of the ride there’s literal skyscrapers falling down across the road in front of you, with visible human bodies clinging on, hanging out of windows and dropping, screaming down to the tarmac below, where you proceed to run a few of them over in your desparate attempt to escape. It’s very grim, worse than I remember in that regard. But I’m at peace with it now. It’s mold breaking and we’ve all gotta start somewhere.
Somehow I’m yet to experience a Space Journey, probably because I’ve been avoiding Adventure parks to be honest.
And this remained the case. If you look close enough you can see that they’ve stuck a new ride sign over the old one.
And what this means is that they’ve overlayed their old simulators in front of a screen about space with the new Crazy Idioms guy we found at Fantawild Wonderland with his big new fancy facade.
The screens were faded as hell as well though, that’s not just my camera. A theme of the day.
On the way out of that mild disappointment we continued our trend of watching/avoiding parades from a higher vantage point. I like the massive boonie bear on tiny castors being pushed by blokes in colourful shirts aesthetic.
Fantawild dragon lives on through Space Warrior. Kinda.
It was his ride, see.
But he was never true Fantawild, and licensing happened.
The bears invaded and now introduce the interactive screen fest.
If you look close enough, but not even that close, you can see they’ve stuck a new poster over old Duludubi. But we like the Boonies too.
I have no idea why this is the exit to the ride.
If you look close enough, you can see that this used to be an Origin of Life 3D cinema. Now a restaurant.
This is exactly what I picture when I think of the West too.
Sadly they have another #3 Flare Meteor here. This one was either better, or worse, than the last. I can’t quite recall.
Mount Tanggula got its mountain back though! Or is it a #4 Vesuvio Volcano?
Taishan gives this park a rather nice backdrop I must say.
Music p… Skip!
Somehow I’m yet to experience X-Cops, probably because I’ve been rushing Adventure parks to be honest. It’s got a banging soundtrack.
You get in these massive things in front of a screen. They had seatbelts but they’ve since decided to ditch them. Story is something about a future where robots are a big part of daily life. What happens if they fight back? Will humanity survive?
Fun anecdote – there’s 9 of these vehicles in a 3×3 and everyone rushes to the front middle one for the best vantage point. I opted for the middle middle.
Plot twist, the screen in the first room is only a preshow, the vehicles all spin round 180 and power into a second room with more screens and this animatronic. The front has become the back. The middle has become the front, with the best view, because no one went to the back. Not planned.
Stuff goes down, robots get out, explosions and the like. Humans prevail? X to doubt.
He’s gone.
And that was the park, fun that one. Not a patch on a new Fantawild, but better than most other things in the country, when you’ve run out of good coasters to do at least.
Driver on the way out took us the ‘scenic route’ as we still had a bit of time before the train.
This was taken out of the window of a moving vehicle, while negotiating a mosquito net. Not bad.
The next night was spent in Jinan, a city I’ve frequented on numerous occasions. They’ve got some good parks to be fair, but as is the nature of the beast I had to head out and find something new.
A brief hop away by train is the city of Tai’an, most famous for being next to Taishan, one of the sacred mountains of China. Less famous for being home to this place.
Day 7 – Sun Tribe
This was another example of me being slightly obsessed with finding out about dark rides in what could be a very hit or miss park. All part of the adventure.
A slight crowd had gathered around the entrance for opening, perhaps concerningly – I had optimistic plans for how the day would pan out. Ticket office was nice, got the usual spiel about use this QR code and put me out of a job – it’s cheaper than I can sell it to you too! QR code didn’t work, but they offered to just do the discounted rate on their own phone and take the cash, so it was a win. Why can’t more places/people offer this.
What the park lacks in coaster lineup is made up for by impressive visuals at the very least. You cross some water leading up to this entrance before heading into a tunnel straddled by some scary dudes, then down an escalator into the centre of the earth or back in time or something.
Bringing you out into the land of the tribe.
Some cultural ceremony was going on here, but as is the modern culture, everyone was looking at their phones instead.
The main reason I had come here was this swinging ship, or snail, or perhaps something else.
Walked past some more cultural stuff on the way to the more significant rides.
It was quite the walk. Gotta beat those crowds though.
There was no beating the crowds however, arrival at the first attraction, the wrong Legend of Nuwa, demonstrated that the entire park was timeslotted to some degree. This meant queuing with the masses, being inconvenienced at every turn because times overlapped with other times and darting around to get everything done blah etc. Plus it wasn’t until like an hour after park opening that this first thing on the to do list was going to open anyway. So I took a wander to get the lay of the land at least.
Big boy.
Water ride, closed, what a pity, never mind.
After all that we still parked ourselves at the very front of the queue that gradually built up in front of the wrong Legend of Nuwa. With a couple of minutes to go we were let into the actual queue. Then a couple more minutes out of the queue, through an archway and into the ride building.
Where we were greeted with this. What is this?
No one was at the door with the height checker and it was closed and so I assumed another batch point, taking the train station seat closest to it. The masses were pouring in behind us however and, completely obliviously, barged past, opened the door and started walking up towards the ride. Fine…
Joined the masses up the obligatory ramps that indicate this was going to be another flying theatre, yay. It was, and not a very good one. The sound was poor, the visuals were blurry enough to make most people dizzy. The tale of Nuwa was sort of told, heavily featuring old mate blue bloke punching old mate red bloke as we all know and love. Except they were flying and shooting magic at each other rather than punching and it went on far too long. It ended as weirdly as it started, I don’t quite have the words for the experience other than ‘different’.
Talking of different, The Fright was the clear standout of the park, for all the wrong reasons. No idea what was going on, headed through some scary tunnels with rocks and skeletons before being greeted with 3D cinema seating. Oh.
Oh! It wasn’t a cinema though, we’ve found another revolving theatre experience and it was, an experience.
Several scenes had this physical set up, someone would come out and waffle on about something, or the narrator would do it for them. If i recall we went digging and found a thing and were now cursed. Each scene was meant to be scary.
The DEMO media was back in full force for a screen based scene, which was faded and barely visible without the desecrated 3D glasses we had been given, let alone with them on. Scary voices and storms and I don’t know what, before an animatronic dragon head above the scene lit up and jiggled in hilarious fashion.
Another scene had wolves shaking the bars like the one that was too scary on tomb blaster so they turned it off. All comedy gold, it ended in confusion and despair, with no one seemingly phased in the slightest.
House lights on and everyone leaves to Gangnam Style.
Apologies for the structure of the review, but the attractions here didn’t have much of one either.
Lizards! Tigers. Excitement?
Ancient Wars is an immersive tunnel I guess. Not usually the strongest of dark rides, but has potential.
This was the extent of the theming, a darkened corridor with two illuminated creature things. Both of which you could see from the station anyway, if you wanted to.
Then tunnel happened. The usual blurry rubbish of animals fighting each other on either side of you. This time komodo dragons but also the usual helpful King Kong kinda guy.
Then it goes outside. Daylight!
And then it ends.
This was closed, and considered one of their highlight attractions.
Cred though. Wait…
Cred though. Ah, the old Zamperla motocoaster thing that’s nothing like riding a motorbike, but built by the Chinese. With bulls on the front. #1 Bull Fight in the Sky. It’s not much like one of those either.
I scoffed at the usual heads down hold on tight spiel and then received a surprising amount of whiplash from the launch for having my head too high. It’s got some punch. And then it rattles its way uneventfully back down to the brake run. +1
Teacups? A 2 hour queue? Both were possibilities for Light of Civilisation.
He’s gone.
No, in the teacups was a big boat ship dark ride. It had about half an hour of queue, not sure why, just slow I guess. And one of the most significant attractions, for those who might actually know what was what.
Dated, long, but fun. It covered the history of civilisation in great detail. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.
These days we have women and robots.
This may be the greatest attraction of all time.
Haunted walkthrough, skip!
The more I look at this, the more I laugh.
Drop towers! Dark rides. Excitement?
Well we got weighed on the way in to Geocentric Adventure and then were greeted with this glorious hardware. Double decker though!
In terms of tower ride it went up one level, to where the 360 screen was, faded of course. Rotated around a while, while covering the history of civilisation again, or was it journey to the centre of the earth? A dragon fighting a hydra? That’s it. Then it ended and went down one level.
A shame, the building looked so tall.
One thing I didn’t mention about the park is that it’s all kinda one way, you have to go to a separate exit at the end of a big loop and can’t get back to the entrance without backtracking the entire circumference, adding further to the awkward time slot shenanigans. As such, we had reached the end of the loop, with these parade things chilling under a shelter, a ton of shops to walk through, a staff car park to walk through and then a tunnel through some rocks to walk through to wind up back next to the big impressive entrance again.
Rather ambivalent about the whole park experience. It happened. It was cheap. We now know what’s what, sort of. Onwards!
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.
