Korea + Japan 04/17 – Himeji Central Park

Oh look. Another ferris wheel.

Day 5

Started the day with a ride on the beautiful Miss Nozomi (the bullet train) who dropped us off at Himeji Station. We used the lockers there to dump our bags for the duration while no less than a thousand school children walked past us in single file, every one of them smiling, waving and speaking various greetings.
Went to the bus station outside and jumped on the next one to the castle. They had some interesting looking old fashion buses operating, but unfortunately we ended up with one of the regular ones.

Ticked off the culture cred.

And the cat cred.

The castle comes with a vending machine that had melon Fanta. I had been promised ‘all the Fantas of the world’ on this trip, but we only found 2 that were new to us in the end.

Took another bus from there to our park for the day.

Himeji Central Theme Park/Zoo/Waterpark.

Got that all included one very expensive ticket, whether you want it or not.

#1 Camelback Jet Coaster

Highlight: Everything I wanted and more.
Lowlight: Disappointingly for a zoo, no camels included.


#2 Imorinth
Highlight: My first time having just a single lap on one of these Wacky Worms. A proud moment.
Lowlight: £10 a head

#3 Labyrinth
Highlight: Good odd fun in this unusual coaster that was sort of trying to be a wild mouse.
Lowlight: Lack of legroom (that keeps coming up)

I loved the rubber escalator in this park that takes you up the hill. What I love even more is the fact that it used to be an upcharge attraction.

These old Intamin drop towers have quite an unnerving aesthetic. Thankfully the whole end sequence when you end up on your back for the brakes was a bit of a blur and I didn’t really notice being tipped on my head to get back to the station.

#4 Diavlo

Highlight: This B&M invert clone has a great setting and is good to look at.
Lowlight: Felt a bit weak for a Batman layout, it doesn’t get enough ridership obviously.

#5 Hurricane – Screw & Loop Coaster

More worrying Togo encounters that proved to be entirely unjustified. Had a good laugh on this one and no troubles at all.
Highlight: The speed hump at the end.
Lowlight: Discount GoPro in your face in case you want to buy the video.

Another day another ferris wheel. Great views but some unnerving noises on this one.

The park was a bit of a disappointment overall, even once we had gotten over the extortionate cost. I remember looking at pictures of Diavlo in the mountains long ago and thinking “wow, that looks like a fantastic place to visit.” In reality, it feels rather run down and tired.
Once again none of the attractions were particularly outstanding and we didn’t feel like hanging around any longer. Bus times were awkward to get back out of the place in the middle of the day, so we asked guest services to find us a taxi.

A 90 year old man picked us up and took us back to the train station. He was greatly amused by our reading out of the ‘things to do in Himeji’ leaflet we had picked up.

Hopped on the regular train to Osaka from there and spent the rest of the day exploring the next city and its endless shops.

Day 6


Korea + Japan 04/17 – Space World

What the hotel lacked in food, it made up for in convenience. Just 15 minutes and £30 pounds of tolls up the road was our next park. This was to be the final season of operation for Space World, so we felt very fortunate to have made it in time.

Day 4 – Space World


It was a bit of an odd sensation being able to drive alongside Stealth’s launch track to get to the car park.
Bought a ticket from an actual alien and parked up.

Opted to head round to the Intamin launch clone first.

#1 Zaturn

Not much to report really, it was the same beast but cleaner.
Highlight: Not Thorpe Park.
Lowlight: Locker faff.

#2 Titan MAX

The Arrow hyper was up next, with a rather painfully slow queue. An audio announcement kept repeating the name of the ride in a cute accent, so that helped a little.

Grabbed the back row, picked a good on-board tune to listen to with the buttons on the restraint and crept up the lift hill in anticipation. I thought these replacement trains were meant to be an improvement, but something went wrong somewhere.
Instead of your standard first drop, back row ejector sensation, there was some sort of collision between the wheels and the rails and it only continued to jolt itself stupidly around the layout for the next couple of minutes.
There might have been some forces somewhere, but everything was drowned out by it riding so terribly. It’s a shame really, the layout is a lot more interesting than something like Big One and I imagine it could have been half decent if executed properly.
Highlight: Laughing at the catastrophe.
Lowlight: The catastrophe.

We had a look in some shops on the way past and they had some decent merch with statements in recognition of their final year. There were also a couple of walls outside which you could write your farewells to the park on with the pens provided. Kinda gives you the feels.

#3 Boogie-woogie Space Coaster

We opted to sit forwards rather than backwards on this relatively small jet coaster for throughput reasons.
Highlight: Staff were great at hyping the ride up and getting people excited.
Lowlight: It didn’t really deliver.

#4 Venus GP

This one of a kind Maurer looper was running quite a bit more efficiently than the other creds. It was as good fun as it looks. The loop itself and lots of very heavily banked corners give it the intense feel of an almost Olympia Looping (bad restraints included).
Highlight: Watching people trying to cope with taking bags on ride for the only ride in Asia for which that seems to be allowed.
Lowlight: Bit of a weird jolt in the first hill

Had some crepes while waiting for the final outdoor coaster to open. I learnt here that they’re apparently a Japanese cuisine…
Review of a man who hasn’t really eaten anything for 3 days: “I’ve had better.”

#5 Clipper

What appears to be Togo’s version of a Vekoma junior coaster was a good laugh for its size.
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Weird lunchtime closures

Jumped on another ferris wheel for the views and a sit down. A couple of nice touches on this one in that they give you a pair of viewing binoculars and there’s a notepad and pens in each pod, for inspired sketching?

There was one more cred to go, but no such luck. Required a bit of a hunt in the big indoor section to find it but staff outside said it was spiting.

We had achieved everything we felt necessary at a reasonably leisurely pace, so headed out to the car.

Space World was an odd place really. It still had a good sense of fun about it but felt perhaps not quite as ‘nice’ as Greenland the previous day. Again, nothing amazing to go back for. Aww…

Sort of on the cards, if we had been quick, was a trip to a park called Kijima Kogen. I found it on the sat nav and made the following statement: “We’ll get there at 16:55 and it’ll cost us £70 pounds in tolls.”
That’s a no then.

Side note:
I’m always hearing stories from people about places that are expensive (Scandinavia, Singapore etc.) and then starting arguments with such people. I had always put it down to tourist traps and a foolish necessity for coffee, beer or whatever people are into these days. If you played it smart, they were never any worse than back home.
Japan is expensive.
Just to exist in.
There is no avoiding it.
All major roads are tolled very heavily. Parks, trains, food, entertainment and shopping are all comparatively expensive no matter how you go about it.
At regular points from this moment onwards, we would jokingly say how much something just cost us in pounds and all you could do was laugh out loud.
Not a complaint at all because it’s just the most lovely place. I call it Awesome Tax.


Had a couple of +1 alternatives written down and plumped for the following as it was the most convenient/decent looking thing on the way back to Fukuoka.


Kashiikaen Yuenchi

Plenty of fun faff here with car parks and getting into the place. With the tactic of driving physically as close as possible to the coaster, ended up in a car dealership. From there we were pointed to the car park for Sylvanian Family Land.

Having not made a connection between the two, we took a long walk around the perimeter of all that to the back of the coaster and wandered into another park entrance that end. It turns out it is all one park, seeming to be going through a UK-style massive kid’s brand overhaul. But we went in the ‘cool’ entrance at least.

#6 Pegasus

The main attraction was another glorious Jet Coaster.
Highlight: “Think of the rare points on coaster count!”
Lowlight: More ridership than T-Express

#7 Boom-Boom Coaster

The only other cred was yet another Powered Dragon thing.
Highlight: Name
Lowlight: Shame

Job done. Exited through Sylvanian Family Land into our actual car park and headed off into the city to drop off our vehicle and have a night in Fabulous Fukuoka.
Car hire staff were extra nice. They usually only shuttle customers to and from the airport, but after explaining we wanted to take a train the next day, they dropped us off downtown instead.

Day 5


Korea + Japan 04/17 – Greenland

I thought I’d died and gone to hell, waking up to the intense heat in the room sometime late the next morning, but soon remembered it was actually heaven. The suitcases lying on the now searingly hot floor had some rather damaged goods inside, namely melted food and a raincoat that I would later find out had had its waterproofing destroyed.
In stark contrast, the ‘fridge’ in the room had frozen a couple of our carbonated drinks. Everything was working in extremes.

Day 2

So Japan was never originally on the cards for this trip. The eventual motivation behind the rushed first half of the Korea leg was twofold.
1) Upcoming Space World spite.
2) If you transit through Seoul within 72 hours you are entitled to some free tickets to go and watch the live recording of a Kpop chart TV show.
Well that just had to happen.

And that happened on this day.

Passed some time with some sightseeing and a leisurely lunch nearby.

Didn’t feel like getting dressed up in traditional garb for the free entry inside the temple, but it’s a big thing for the young locals. See if you can spot them.

After overestimating the speed of the metro, we got to the TV studio with just minutes to spare and ended up accidentally joining the line of jealous fans that weren’t actually able to go inside and watch. Awkward.
Eventually found our way inside and sat just a few metres from the stage and cameras to watch all the magnificence unfold.
More life changing stuff, but I won’t go into detail.

Tried and failed to get an early night (seems to be impossible in Asia) and then at stupid o’clock we were off to Japan.


Landed in Fukuoka the next morning and took a little while to discover that the ‘airport car hire’ wasn’t actually at the airport. With a bit of faff and a phone call, a bloke in a minivan came to pick us up, all good.
Got the car and within a couple of minutes of driving things got interesting.
There are 2 types of toll road in Japan – some are robots and some are people. The first one we came across didn’t have a machine, but there was definitely no sign of a person either. There was no barrier. What do we do? “Go for it”, I hear, and do.
“STOOOOOOP!”
A man appears out of nowhere, slightly bemused and asks us for the cash. As if we weren’t misbehaving enough already, we passed him some Korean coins by mistake.
All in good humour, he sorted us out in the end.
Sorry Japan.

It was a pleasant drive down, taken at a very humble pace (Japan never lets you do more than 60Mph in a car).
We were soon greeted by the sight of the first of a million ferris wheels in this part of the world.
Lesson not learnt from earlier, we gave the parking attendant some Korean coins by mistake. It took him a little longer to notice as we had already parked the car before seeing the poor chap come running towards us.
All in good humour, he sorted us out in the end.
Sorry Japan.

Day 3 – Greenland

Got some entrance tickets and ride wristbands and headed in for what was to be a fairly hefty +1 marathon. The admissions girl came running over as we passed through the turnstiles and was deeply apologetic for having not given us the correct change.
See.
We’re not the only ones.

#1 Gao

The longest coaster in the park came first and I fell in love with Japanese Jet Coasters as a concept.

They’re such a relaxing little sit down, breeze in your hair, trundling along at unknown speeds, unknown height, having a good laugh. Nothing like those boring, thrilling western coasters.
Highlight: Getting front row and being able to watch the dinosaur on the front of the train as we went round.
Lowlight: Honestly can’t think of one.

#2 & #3 Milky Way (Blue & Pink)

On to my first Togo ride. Stand-up version first.
This was great fun. It had forces I didn’t expect to take direct to the legs and the design of the trains puts you in a very exposed position compared to anything I had done previously.
Highlight: Restored faith in stand-up coasters
Lowlight: Restored faith in stand-up coasters

The sit-down side of the ride was fairly inoffensive and forgettable in comparison. The on-board music was a little odd, playing what reminded me of Wild West chase music. It was good for a race, but not very befitting of the Milky Way name.
Highlight: More pink rides for the count
Lowlight: Unnecessary shoulder restraints

#4 Grampus Jet

This Vekoma suspended coaster has a great name and great looking cars.
Highlight: Much better than the last one of these I did at Bobbejaanlend. All I needed.
Lowlight: Still a bit dull.

#5 Ladybird is a powered dragon nearby that isn’t a dragon. Didn’t expect to ride another one so soon…

#6 Ultra Twister Megaton (#300)

The namesake of this website and what was to be my 300th coaster was now, unbelievably, standing right in front of me.
These are weird contraptions, in a very good way. Life feels a little less natural when you’re surrounded by cages and grease, which is basically what the cars are made of.
The vertical lift hill is unnerving, particularly as I didn’t know rides of this era could even do that (these were potentially the first, though they seemingly never found fame for it – justice for the Heartline Coaster!) and the resultant pitching you over the edge into the first drop and following hill is great fun.
Highlight: The backwards inversions catching me off guard.
Lowlight: Bit of a car crash on the transfer section.

#7 Nio

Highlight: Middle of the road SLC on this particular day.
Lowlight: Having done enough SLCs to make statements like that.

#8 Blackhole Coaster

Another, larger powered coaster, mostly in the dark. It was alright I guess, mostly forgettable.

#9 Spin Mouse

Scraping the barrel for creds a bit now.
Highlight: Being handed a personal pouchie for my glasses was a nice touch.
Lowlight: Done far too many of these and they never beat Brighton Pier. What’s up with that?

#10 Sphinx

This smaller jet coaster is as fun as it looks.
Highlight: Killer layout.
Lowlight: Lack of leg room.

Having polished off all the creds in good time, we took a spin on the ferris wheel for some views.

Again, as a park, Greenland was a very nice place to be, with many interesting and quirky coasters on offer. Sadly it didn’t quite have anything amazing enough to rush back for, though I didn’t really expect it to. A good day out, that’s all you really need.

Our hotel that evening was very nice, though in a somewhat rural location It had absolutely no food options nearby, so finding something to eat was particularly troublesome.

Day 4


Korea + Japan 04/17 – Everland

Korea, Japan & creds. My dream holiday.
At many times this trip did feel like a dream as it was very full on, in the best way, and sleep was at an all time low.
Off we go then…

We had an overnight flight without sleep, landed at dawn and then jumped straight in at the deep end.
Original plan was to hit Lotte World on the day of landing, but the website said Atlantis was spiting at the time, so that park was put on the back burner. Dumped our bags at the hotel and grabbed the metro to a relevant bus stop for the park. The resulting journey was about an hour of drifting in and out of consciousness while staring out the window for any sign of T Express.
“It’ll be just round this corner.”
“It’ll be just over this hill.”
“It’ll be just past those trees.”
“That hill must be where Eagle Fortress was” (with 15 minutes of driving to go as you pass under an entrance sign for the resort).
The bus dumps you out at some sort of transport hub/lower car park where you have to catch another bus up another hill into the park.

Day 1 – Everland

A tourist card we had picked up earlier gave us at least 30% off our entrance tickets during Visit Korea ‘Year’ (2016-2018). That’s nice, into the park we go.

“It’ll be just round this corner.”
“It’ll be just over this hill.”
“It’ll be just behind that building.”
“That hill must be where Eagle Fortress was” (it wasn’t).
Foolishly winging our way around without the map and expecting to see 200ft of wooden magnificence somewhere, we walked round the wrong end of the park which ended up being extremely hard on the legs.

#1 T Express

There she is.
Armed with many strange stories of complicated queuing systems and mandatory time slot tickets for this beast, turns out it was just in vanilla mode with a 45 minute wait for us. Sweet.
The only odd part about the park system as a whole was the need to show your entrance ticket at every attraction, which made for many wasted hours scrabbling about in pockets upon forgetting every single time.

First impressions of this huge Intamin woodie were generally great. Crazy fun in the first drop and hill, which provided some of the strongest airtime imaginable for what felt like several seconds.
Some ducking, diving and a premature midcourse leads you into the second half, which uses the same layout as Balder, so it unfortunately then suffers from the same underwhelming corners and moments of waiting for something to happen.
Be back later.

We hit a couple of dark rides while down the bottom of the hill:

I remember absolutely nothing about Shooting Ghost, so that must have been great.

Rotating House the mad house was themed to spells and wizards (aren’t they all?) and was reasonable fun as always. The preshow and dialogue was nothing but confusing of course.

We then mistakenly wandered into some kids’ walkthrough attraction a bit further up the hill. Put that down to a research failure.

#2 Dragon Coaser

Did the powered dragon as it might be the only one on this trip (far from it). The staff lady sings as the ride goes round, which is perfection.

#3 Herky & Timmy’s Racing Coaster

Further up still is a nicely themed area with a fun family coaster. Solid stuff.

Still climbing, nearly dying, we made it back to the entrance area to buy some tickets for the Kpop hologram show. Oh yes.

#4 Rolling X-Train

Got the Arrow looper ticked off during the wait. For some reason this ride was almost dangerously funny to me. The subtle offness to the shaping of the track, the quality of the trains and the way they juddered about and then nearly folded into your face during the loops caused a bit of laughter related internal damage to me. Arrow at their finest.

As an unhealthily obsessed fan, the Kpop hologram show was life changing of course. I won’t go into detail.

Pandas next, love the variety on offer at this place. There was meant to be some crappy looking interactive preshow presented by Samsung before getting to the animal enclosures, but thankfully this was skipped. I imagine something caught fire.

That’s the life for me.

From there we moved swiftly on down to the safari jeep tour as time was pressing on.
I guess I’ll compare it to Zufari (bad luck).
This attraction doesn’t try to be something it isn’t. It’s just a truck, with live commentary and animals. Obviously a lot better off for this, as you get right up close and personal with some very impressive creatures and ploughing through the water is deeply satisfying.

On the theme of ploughing through water, we jumped aboard the rapids next. Once again I was deeply amused by this ride. Sitting in a little pouchie of a seat with a tarpaulin over me, feeling both cosy and terrified at the same time.
My favourite Hafema boys are back in action and this time there’s nothing you can do for damage limitation. It got me wet in places that weren’t physically possible from the seating arrangement.
As an extra point of awesomeness, there’s a free bunch of many different styles of heat lamps at your disposal, once you manage to crawl out of the boat.

Having done a crafty loop of the park, the rapids kicked us back out at T Express, just in time to finish the evening with a couple of night rides.

Ascending the lift in the dark and looking out at the park was one of those magical moments. Moments that remind me why I’m in this hobby.
I wouldn’t say the ride had physically improved in any way by this stage, but the atmosphere was amazing and made it a very standout experience. I just couldn’t believe I was in Korea.

Overall I found Everland to be one of those parks that I could just spend the day at doing pretty much nothing, because it’s just a guaranteed great time regardless. The locals definitely seemed to share that attitude as well.

That was an excessively long day though. Fell asleep a few times on the bus back and could have quite easily missed the stop, not that it felt like it mattered at that stage.
Somehow made it to the hotel in one piece and then skipped over the fact that our room had under floor heating that was set to somewhere in the region of 35°C…

Day 2


China 01/17 – Shanghai Disneyland

This may be the most brief Disney trip report around. At the time of visiting, it had only relatively recently opened and was already big news everywhere, to the point that I had personally got fed up of reading about it. Figured others might think the same.

Day 8 – Shanghai Disneyland

After turning down a few hundred imitation Mickey Mouse ears on the excessively long metro line to the park, arrived in the outside shopping street and bought some tasty cakes for breakfast before heading inside.

The park as a whole wasn’t busy, but Soarin’ was already on 120 minutes and had run out of fastracks. First ride on your right as you enter is a great place to put it, gobbles people up for the day.
Nothing else broke 30 mins all day and we only bothered with fastrack on the 2 coasters, out of principle rather than necessity. The rapids ride and Crystal Grotto were closed all day and I was somewhat disappointed about those. Pirates was also closed, for now.

Peter Pan’s Flight felt like a nicely freshened up version of the older ones and a good kickstart to the magic.

Didn’t bother with the Winnie the Pooh ride this time. Been there, done that.

The walkthrough attraction inside the castle centrepiece was quite interesting with various scenes from Snow White sung in Mandarin and a bit of projection trickery. It didn’t contain anything from other films like I had expected though, with all the apparent clues to every other Disney film in history in the queue line.

Buzz Lightyear Planet Rescue was good fun, as the classic Disney shooting dark ride should be. Just a shame the spinny lever that usually rotates the car didn’t do anything.

There was also a Star Wars exhibition in this area plugging the release of Rogue One.

#1 TRON Lightcycle Power Run

This ride is so visually impressive, inside and out. I have already made my feelings on Motocoasters quite clear and this is obviously the best of the bunch by a significant margin, with a surprisingly strong launch and plenty of pretty things to look at – the indoor section with the projections that follow the train is nothing short of mesmerising.
I just still can’t get on with assuming that position, it simply detracts from the experience for me. A re-ride further proved my point, as we happened to get batched into a disabled car that’s located on the back of one of the trains. Tron was much, much better as a normal sit down rollercoaster.

With some perfect timing, we happened to be walking past Pirates of the Caribbean Battle for the Sunken Treasure just as it opened and got on the first boat of the day, following a 6 mile casual stroll through the huge queue while everyone behind us was desparately trying to overtake.
Wow.
My previous belief that ‘Disney’s best rides are non-IP’ went straight out the window. This attraction is quite the masterpiece of immersion and words cannot really do it justice. Straight up there amongst the very best of dark rides for the sheer combination of everything it does better than I have ever seen before – animatronics, projections, screens, the vehicle movement. It has it all.
Soon after we left, it broke down again (still ironing out some teething problems obviously). Later still, we happened to be passing the very moment it reopened for a second time. A clear indication of skill on our part.

The pirate related show in the same area was rather entertaining. It was quite dialogue heavy, but had some good stunts towards the end.

The canoe ride was a waste of time. Tried to scouted it out quite a bit beforehand and couldn’t see much going on, but thinking of Jungle Cruise and Disney, I presumed there must have been something special about this attraction. There wasn’t. Just some half-arsed rowing around some open water.

#2 Seven Dwarves Mine Train

The other coaster in the park is very well themed and ridiculously smooth with those magic cars, but unfortunately it’s weak as a mine train – I know Disney revolves around family experiences but at least the other iterations give you something to think about. This was purely visual entertainment. Didn’t feel the need for more than one go.

Got hand stamped and went back out to the village via the smaller exit for some food that nearly killed me. I expected better from Disney endorsements.

Gave up on the merchandise shops because they were stupidly laid out and far too packed. It seemed that most of the guests’ day out consisted of Soarin, Shop, Show.
So to get ahead of the curve, we settled in for an early wait at the castle for the closing show.

Everyone was surprisingly civil during the whole build up and throughout the actual event. Being constantly on edge for losing a good spot seemed like a wasted effort.
The show was very good of course, I couldn’t really place it above or below any of the other standard film and song snippet based closing shows that I’ve seen at the other parks, I imagine it just depends on your personal preference on what films and songs you get at the time. This was the first time I saw Star Wars make an appearance in it, which was cool, if a little odd.

It’s a very nice park, but for now it lacks a couple of extra killer rides for a Disney, just to keep you there for a truly satisfying full day experience. As good as Pirates and Tron were, they wouldn’t keep me here for another 12 hours.
I’m not so sure the upcoming copy and paste Toy Story land will fix anything about that issue… so it could be a good many years before I think about returning.


Days 9 – 11

The following morning we were due to head to Happy Valley Shanghai, but minutes before we left the hotel for the day I was suddenly very, very ill and ended up bed ridden for the next 2 days of the trip. I can only assume it was from the food outside Disney the night before and fear through that guesswork has completely rewritten how I will experience China in future – be a lot more selective about meal consumption, it just isn’t worth potentially ruining the trip for a bit of sustenance.

This unfortunate episode meant that there was only a Saturday morning left with which to attempt the Happy Valley visit before our early evening flight back to Singapore. Having spent 2 days in bed pretty much doing nothing but obsessively running through in my head how I could still achieve what I wanted at the park, what to ride in what order, what I would skip if it was busy, we took the stupidly long metro out to the place armed with the most meticulous gameplan you can imagine.

It all went wrong very quickly. The ride closure sign indicated that the Gravity woodie was to be closed for the day (priority ride #1). Though there are several other significant coasters in the park, they are all clones and it wouldn’t have been the end of the world to miss them for now. I was still thinking that the more I got done today, the less there would be to do next time (clearly now that I have messed up and will HAVE to come back in future for the star attraction).

Got as far as the queues for the ticket window, where it was a complete scrum. There were tons of people around, making it look worryingly busy and they were all faffing here over no more than a couple of open windows. A good half an hour passed in the queue with very little progress, all while I’m getting rather anxious about the mountainous task that lies ahead. As I finally near the front, I get blatantly queue jumped by a large group of teenagers who are all brandishing money, both on their phones and shouting out to various people dispersed throughout the mess of crowd behind me and simply taking forever to do what they need to do.
At this point, still not feeling 100%, I decide no, I’m not putting up with this today, it will just be horrible.

So we went to see one of the local water towns for a bit of culture instead.

Bonus China highlight: Particularly enjoyed the excessive lengths to which they went to indicate that this cable floor cover was a trip hazard. Yes, that bloke in the brown suit has a megaphone and it is his responsibility to announce “mind your step” every few seconds.

Click here to see a summary of all China trips made on this travel visa.


China 01/17 – World Joyland + China Dinosaurs Park

After increasing levels of mishaps in the last few days, this day ran like a dream. A morning train took us to Changzhou, from which we found the tourist office and another minibus driver to the first planned park. We were told to wait around for other guests to show up, but none did. There was only one other girl on the bus ride and she didn’t even come to the park.

Day 7 – World Joyland

This meant that Joyland seemed like ghost town number 3, with 0 cars in the car park, the shuttle bus running just for us and then abandoning us for the duration. There was no sign of any guests throughout most of the park until the back half, where a tour group of young adults had formed a queue outside a certain ride entrance.

#1 Starry Sky Ripper

The B&M flyer opened a few minutes later and even though I was the latecomer in this scene, I managed to nab the back row of the first train because the locals have no interest in such seats.

The whole starting inversion sequence was surprisingly intense and very enjoyable. The 540° roll is particularly unnerving as you dont expect it to keep going after the first twist, before it disappears from under you, dropping straight into the lung crushing loop.
After that though I felt that the rest of the layout didn’t do enough for me with a series of slow turns and the other repetetive inversions that most of these have.

An overall fun ride at least and definitely worth doing. I grabbed a couple more goes in empty trains both front and back about half an hour later as the locals have no interest in re-rides either.
Highlight: Those extra 180° came out of nowhere.
Lowlight: Intensity fizzles out very quickly.

#2 Dragon Roaring Heaven

This mine train clone was the next of the staggered openings. Wouldn’t say it was particularly worse than the originals, except perhaps for the relative young age of it.
Highlight: That dragon on the front of the train.
Lowlight: A lift hill too many.

#3 Clouds of Fairyland

What an ordeal. Incoming novel:
This was the last of the staggered openings and I was first in line, ready and raring to get this thing out of the way. The queue opened on time, but stood at the station gate for nearing half an hour. Once we were let in, I sat down and habitually pulled down the restraint. This act earned me a death glare from one of the 2 female attendants for the ride, who immediately went to the control box to reset the restraints. Lesson learnt.
The staff were on the warpath now, let battle commence. Everyone else had sat down by this stage but of course hadn’t considered any of the standard loose item rulings on rides. They were now told verbally and 11 people slowly mumbled away and stood up, fumbling in their pockets and removing an item or two, leaving the train to put them in the designated area. Most of them sat down again, only moments later realising they had other stuff in there, several times.
Next it was the physical inspection. The attendants climbed onto the trains and gave everyone’s legs a good squeeze and then all 12 of us were on our feet again. I’d been had for sneaking a tissue on board, others had been had for phones and other items they’d somehow missed. We were violated and shamed, but we were ready. Almost.
The restraints were applied, one by one, but the last bloke in the train became the first person in Asia to do the walk of shame for size reasons. He wasn’t particularly big, he just had a thick padded coat on (it was barely 5°C today, but all the coasters opened, take that Oriental Heritage Ningbo). I considered pointing out that he could probably manage it but had given up on life by this point.
The restraints were unlocked, an empty seat has now become available. We must fill that seat. Guest number 13 is let into the station, sits down, gets up twice more for various items in his pockets. The restraints are sorted for the second time.
We are now forcibly told to raise our arms and hold on to some thin ribbon hoops on the sides of the head rests. I was glad for these, having died on many rides previously due to not holding properly on in awkward positions. I didn’t dare disobey the rule because they probably would have E-stopped me upside down for it.

The ride was rougher than I had experienced on these and only did a single circuit. Worth it.
Highlight: A legendary tale
Lowlight: A large percentage of life gone

The main dark ride in the park has been closed for an upgrade for quite a while now it seems, which was a little disappointing.

There was a lack of water in the water ride, aside from the fact it was a tad chilly for that sort of attraction.

Most indoor things seemed to be closed actually, but at least it wasn’t the B&M. Had it all knocked out in very little time. A visually impressive park that lacks a bit of substance. Would have liked to try a bit more.

Having no desire to hang around all day, spoke to the most friendly and helpful guest services on earth who found us some sort of Chinese Uber straight to their rival park, using their personal phones. Fabulous people.


Day 7 – China Dinosaur Park

Had a minor meltdown at the entrance to the second park after being told, as I stepped through a turnstile and handed my ticket over, that the ‘4D coaster’ wasn’t running.

A brisk walk proved this wrong within a couple of minutes, so just make it up as you go along.

#4 Dinoconda

This monstrosity of an S&S 4D coaster created anticipation like little else on the very casually paced 200ft backwards lift hill. While being intimidating, mental and almost entirely unique as an experience with the rotating seats, it didn’t leave me absolutely gagging for more, though it sure was a lot of fun.

The first drop in the position it puts you in (facing the floor) is ridiculously good, but it then feels like the whole ride was planned around that one moment and the rest is just a case of let’s see what happens – seats bouncing around somewhat awkwardly with little sense of purpose.
I feel they’ve only scratched the surface on what can be done with this type of ride, but I also see why people would love the uncalculated wrath of it chucking you around.
Highlight: First drop.
Lowlight: Cred anxiety.

#5 Whirling Dinosaur

Spinning coaster clone, you know the score.
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Such a low quality package compared to the rest of the park.

#6 Dinosaur Mountain

This caught me off guard. I expected a themed version of the same rubbish from the previous day, but it turns out Zamperla Motocoasters can have lift hills and interesting layouts. Dinosaur theming is also a plus. The riding position still sucks though.
Highlight: A pleasant surprise.
Lowlight: Locals following baggage instructions in the dark is a recipe for disaster.

Did the King Kong ride just because it looked far superior to Bobbejaanland’s.

There was also a haunted walkthrough with dinosaurs of course. Didn’t disappoint.

A ‘Desperados’ style static screen shooting attraction, this time riding dinosaurs, was a refreshing experience after coming across so many standard cowboy (and upcharge) versions worldwide. Instead of shooting bandits, we were calming down rabid dinosaurs with injections.
It was just a shame that they turned the house lights on almost immediately when the final scores came up, so no one knew the outcome of the game.

Had enough time for admiring the plentiful theming and a couple of re-rides on the beast just before they started closing things down for the evening.

I still can’t believe how well it all came together on this particular day, recent experiences had lead me to expect either one or both of the major creds to be down and to be forced to spend a whole day in each park just through impracticalities. Can the luck hold?

Day 8


China 01/17 – Shanghai

The final city of the journey was Shanghai, where we set up shop for many days hoping to hit a few ‘local’ parks as well as shuttle out to a couple of others. I underestimated how huge the city would be, thinking that a nice central hotel location would cover everything comfortably. It still did to an extent, but the metro journies alone could take hours.

Day 6 – Jin Jiang Action Park

Not the most glamorous of city parks. Took a little while to spot it from the nearest metro station – it’s amazing how well a huge flyover road network can block the view of a massive ferris wheel and rollercoaster.
Took a stab in the dark with ride ticket quantities, as the staff at the entrance couldn’t possibly tell me what was actually open, even though they insisted on knowing the exact number of rides I wanted to buy up front before going in. Let’s find out.

Turns out the star attraction was closed when we got inside so I burned through all the tickets in a huff of a hurry.

#1 Moto Coaster

Not a good start as the operator of the first attraction clearly didn’t have the time of day for me.
“Sit on the ride and read the instruction sign for 10 minutes while I have a smoke.”
“Ok.”
“Feet flat on the floor. FEET FLAT ON THE FLOOR.”
“Anatomically impossible mate.”
Dispatch.
What a weird representation of motorbike riding. The transition out of the launch is really awkward and then it meanders slowly downwards and gets stuck on the brakes for a further 10 minutes.
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Junk

#2 Spinning Coaster

Highlight: +1
Lowlight: More junk.

#3 Karst Cave Coaster

An indoor powered coaster with over the top lateral forces and a dinosaur to look at. Cool.

Shuttle loop cred – Spite! Would have quite liked to have given this a whirl.
The ferris wheel was also closed. Ready to leave already?

#4 Giant Inverted Boomerang

Plot twist! The ride started testing at some point and then managed to get stuck partially up the lift. I sat and watched for a while to see how this would play out. After much nothingness, it lowered itself back into the station where parts in the vicinity of the wheels were treated to a bottle of lube.
Asked the staff how it was going and was told they’d be ready in a few minutes. More than a few minutes later, after paying Winter Wonderland prices for a single extra ticket because of course I had got the quantities wrong earlier, I was sitting in the front row.
Killed some time by demonstrating to other guests on how the restraints were supposed to be used while the staff went to buy more lube and then off it went.

The famously temperamental Vekoma creation was a lot better than it could have been. The layout is still a boring Boomerang, though scaled up and with vertical spikes. Hanging horizontally into the restraint, facing the floor on the lift hill was a little more unnerving than usual and overall it rode surprisingly smoothly.
Highlight: Made the park worthwhile.
Lowlight: What a tease.

Oriental Pearl Tower

It may not be the tallest, but Oriental Pearl Tower is the observation deck of choice in Shanghai, because it has a cred in it.
The free museum underneath was mildly interesting as well.

Those ones look a bit taller, but they’re short of something else.

#5 Space Switchback

They’ve stuck Virtual Reality headsets on this indoor coaster and probably jacked the price up for it. 2 creds at London prices in one day? You used to be cool, China.
The VR was bizarre, pretending you were on a coaster outside the tower rather than inside it. The imaginary coaster layout was that of a child’s scribble, which didn’t match much of the physical sensation from the ride and the default direction of facing didn’t line up with the direction of travel, or your head, at any time. Clever.
Highlight: Instructions on the car.
Lowlight: Rather have just ridden in the dark.

Joypolis

This was supposed to be the last cred stop of the day, but spite! Once again they couldn’t confirm or deny the simple question of is the rollercoaster running from outside the entrance, so we had to go in to find out that it had been closed for months (it has since gone for good).
Burned a few hours ticking off all the simulator attractions mainly to justify the price of entry, but also to save doing them elsewhere in another of these branded arcades.
The transformer ball one was somewhat fun, in an evil way, in that it could flip you onto your head while you were supposed to be shooting robots.
The other highlight was a Sonic the Hedgehog themed dodgems ride, on which driving over projected images on the floor gave you points and a sense of competition in addition to senseless bumping.

Day 7


China 01/17 – Oriental Heritage Ningbo

I already had a reasonable plan for getting to the next park, but decided to get some local opinions for a laugh. Not a single person knew of its existence and the best answer we got was “I believe that’s an art gallery.”

Day 5 – Oriental Heritage Ningbo

So stuck to the original plan. A couple of faffy hours on a coach and a bus later, we landed at the entrance plaza.

The staff in their infinite impracticalness were unable to confirm or deny ride openings (a common theme for the next few days), but wove a tale about the weather and the fact that outdoor attractions will open if it gets to 15°C. The bus earlier that morning had said 14°C so there was a chance, I guess. I haven’t come all this way for nothing.

The park was having a spruce up for Chinese new year, including painting the floor and making it a pain to get around the first area.

The only other guests on this day comprised of a massive, massive tour group of old people from a more ‘rural area’, let’s say. I’m pretty tolerant in foreign lands when it comes to less than ideal attitudes from others, but these were some of the most offputting you could ever come across. While walking around the park in general, with tons of open space, I had more than one occasion of them just making a beeline for me and barging shoulders for the fun of it.
In queues they would be smoking, shouting, pushing and shoving each other like an angry mob, not understanding the situation and then failing to achieve anything through this in terms of gaining time. On the rides they would just talk loudly amongst themselves, really just not caring at all about where they were and what they were doing, seemingly incapable of appreciating the day out. Pretty much all the rides that were open were running on time slots, so we couldn’t really avoid any of these encounters either.

Jungle Trailblazer – the Gravity Group woodie and main reason I came to the park, the Boomerang cred, the water rides and the flat rides never opened. With a bit of further quizzing, the ride staff impression seemed to be that the 15°C rule mentioned earlier is for park opening time and after that point they just give up for the day.
Right…

#1 Night Rescue

One thing that was open was the indoor cred, a Golden Horse mine train clone in the dark with the screams of the damned as ambient noise throughout. Wasn’t overly impressed.

Jinshan Temple Showdown was amazing, but I’m not sure I was fully able to appreciate it with what was going on around us.
The showdown in question is between ‘Lady Whitesnake (a lady that is cursed with the ability to turn into a white snake) and a demon hunter bloke who feels it’s his duty to hunt her down, without any willingness to learn her intentions or whether she is a threat to anyone. “A demon is a demon.” The story has a bit of a cliff hanger ending, which is rather refreshing for an attraction of this nature.
The ride consists of a huge boat that drifts around intensely mesmerising scenery of a traditional Chinese water town, interspersed with endless projections and the occasional real life actor telling the story as you go along. At the end of the boat portion, everyone alights and enters a show room with standing areas amongst railings. The show is one big impressive set piece amongst which the actors return, water projections occur and many other water (and fire) effects go off, ending in a jaw dropping spectacle of flooding and fountains.

The indoor drop tower, The Plummet, was disappointingly weak. I didn’t think much of the use of the indoor aspect, and the hardware itself has that lame controlled feeling you get when a tower does both up and down motions, but doesn’t commit to either with any real force.

Tale of Nuwa is a Spiderman technology dark ride telling another Chinese tale through 4D screens and significant vehicle motion.
There’s a hole in the sky and as the riders in the vehicle you’re helping out the creation god (Nuwa) retrieve and transport the key to fix the hole, but a big red bloke, a big blue bloke and a couple of dragons are out to stop you. Much fighting ensues.
The car itself got a bit confused between scenes and became stuck a couple of times throughout, making the whole experience a little jarring on the whole.

Did their localised version of Disney’s Small World ride, which was empty, just for a quiet sit down. It wasn’t great.

Tried the History of Chinese Opera dark ride as well and regretted it deeply, as did some of the old people who literally got out of the moving vehicle and hobbled off before it had finished, with little to no reaction from the staff. Though it contained some more impressive scenery of ‘Oriental Heritage’, everything was taken at a snail’s pace and, coupled with the opera aspect becoming rather grating, it just wasn’t very dynamic or interesting.

And that was about it.
I had high expectations for this place and ended up having little positive to say about the whole experience. The effort of getting here far outweighed the quality of the time spent at the park.
The star attraction being down didn’t help of course, but in my mind it was meant to have some killer dark rides and shows that could have easily made up for that fact. Jinshan Temple Showdown was the obvious highlight, but otherwise, eh, just didn’t feel anything for the park at all.

Day 6


China 01/17 – Romon-U Park

The train from Nanchang to Ningbo was our first encounter with just how loud and tiresome local conversations can be, particularly between the older generations of the population. Another ~4 hour journey aross the vast expanse of the country felt incessantly plagued by everyone else shouting into their phones that were (unnecessarily) in speaker mode and generally yelling and faffing across several rows of seating throughout larger groups. I have since become rather immune to all of this and, like with the driving, can now see the entertainment value but it was particularly jarring in the early stages.

Day 4 – Romon-U Park

It might just be an unfortunate snapshot, but the quality of people and service definitely took a dive in this part of the country. Faced with another almost empty park, the staff here treated my presence as somewhat of an inconvenience to the point that it was just plain uncomfortable to take more than a couple of rides on a coaster.
They had decided to abolish the cheaper late entry tickets that I had my eye on as of 1 week before my visit. That coupled with the entire outdoor section of the park being closed due to rain and/or maintenance made it a rather overpriced affair (most expensive park so far, fewest attractions).

#1 Euro Express

The presence of the star attraction stopped me from hating the place too much though. What a difference both a lap bar restraint and theming (and a lift hill instead of a weak launch) can make (take note everyone, everywhere) to the almost identical Kanonen layout that was rather uninteresting to me.

The interaction with the surrounding scenery is very intense with the near miss sensations and awe-inspiring aesthetic – it adds so much. I got lost for a good hour just taking bad pictures.
The layout offers several moments of good airtime, through the first drop, top hat and some smaller pops between the corners and inversions. The loop is also taken at decent pace that provides a little weightlessness, rather than just feeling like filler.
Highlight: Finally being able to appreciate the little hill before the loop, with a lap bar.
Lowlight: Trim brakes on the other little hill.

Took a wander outside in the rain and got it confirmed by some bloke that the other cred, Dragon Legend, was closed for ‘maintenance’ rather than rain, which is better. I guess.

Another day, another haunted walkthrough. The one here was mostly amusing again, but one scene was very claustrophobic with body bags hanging from the ceiling and actually created some genuine fear. Can’t have that.

Really didn’t think there was much else worth riding except the tram for a few pictures. In fact, most of the time was spent just exploring every corner of every floor of the impressive looking indoor section and seeing what was and wasn’t on offer.

The park closing show was quite spectacular with water projections on this stage and millions of lasers filling the entire indoor area. It left me leaving the place reasonably happy, though still disappointed with the spite, the staff attitude and the overall lack of worthwhile attractions.

Day 5


China 01/17 – Nanchang Wanda Theme Park

Our next destination was the city of Nanchang. I spoke of getting the lay of the land on the previous day and ended up going through a particulaly interesting bout of research to organise our stop here. The park itself is very new and several western brand ‘resort hotels’ had just begun springing up around it. As with the Guangzhou hotel, their pinpointing on the maps was somewhat misguided, though this time much less in their favour.
The one I was most interested in, though it was named after the Wanda resort, had itself positioned right in the heart of the city and nowhere near the park, which I could tell from sattelite images of mud and rollercoaster track was situated well out to the south. After several email exchanges they eventually confirmed that they were on park, which is exactly where I wanted to be of course and the maps were updated accordingly. Consider that my contribution to the world for that year.

Day 3 – Nanchang Wanda Theme Park

So it felt like I moved the earth to get to this place and it was quite the experience for it. Encountered 2 people on the way up to the entrance. 1 trying to sell us ponchos, the other trying to sell cheap tickets. That was more people than there were inside the park.
I’m no stranger to dead parks but this was in another league. Staff at each ride entrance were overly happy to see another human being and would regularly entice you to have a go on theirs.

Well, if you insist.

#1 Python In Bamboo Forest

What an animal. I’ve always enjoyed my GCIs but have never been blown away by them. Generally I preferred the smaller ones for their pacing and layout. Well no more.
The signature relentlessness of this style of wooden coaster is cranked up to the max and the layout works ridiculously well. Other than the tall turnaround which from the size looks like it shouldn’t even work, the train feels like it just keeps finding speed out of nowhere and chucking you down another 50ft every few seconds.
Some rides try to kill you and you love them for it. Some rides try to remove your clothes and you have no choice but to oblige. Some rides have you laughing uncontrollably out of sheer joy. This snake did all of that, morning and evening, in rain and in more rain.
According to the staff, as they were getting all nervous, Mr Wanda himself (or just a park manager) rocked up at some point and rode this too while I was mid-marathon. Sadly he seemed unphased by my presence.
Highlight: Standout ride of the trip.
Lowlight: Can’t get a good picture of it.

#2 Coaster Through The Clouds

The Intamin hyper with the very strange lift and turnaround shaping was begging for some attention next. It was another very good ride and I enjoyed it a lot, but it wasn’t quite the game changer I was hoping for. You’d think they’d be able to nail a ride like this by now, 15 years after various legendary names came into play, but the layout still has its flaws.

The air time on the first and last hill, both of which pass through the supports and try to cut your hands off, was unearthly. I found the rest of the hills were somewhat underwhelming in comparison and there was a little too much meandering about, burning speed for my liking.

I don’t wish to do this creation a disservice though, it’s still amazing. The python across the park had set my sights on perfection, so I was being particularly fussy. I only ever experienced the ride in the front row with an empty train, in cold weather. From what I’ve learnt about many Intamins, given the right conditions and sitting in the back row, that monster of a first drop has the potential to be something really special to add to the whole sequence. I still currently consider this the strongest pair of coasters in any single park on the planet.

Highlight: Who doesn’t want an Intamin hyper all to themselves?
Lowlight: First time I’ve felt my face wobble from speed and that ain’t a good sign.

#3 Soaring Dragon & Dancing Phoenix

The Beijing Shibaolai Amusement Equipment attempt at an SLC was a bit crap. It’s nice to try a new layout for once, but it doesn’t solve much over the originals in terms of how poorly they ride and the mediocrity of the coaster experience.
Highlights: The station audio system was playing Kpop.
Lowlights: Not being able to take comfort in the fact that someone else on the train would be suffering more than myself.

#4 Spinning Porcelain

A standard layout spinner, I believe Chinese manufactured. These things are unpleasant at best, but it is my duty to put up with them.
Highlight: Love the porcelan look of the exterior of the cars.
Lowlight: Loathe the interior of the cars with their unnecessary seatbelts.

The final Caterpillar cred – Spite! Legend tells us that it needs a full train of guests to operate. I’m so surprised I got everything else here. I really am.

The staff girl at the Roto-drop tower was particularly adorable, skipping along the queue with me and chatting away, purely from the excitement of having a customer for the day. It’s good to know that my presence brings such joy to others.
The ride itself didn’t pack as much punch as I would have expected from its type. Maybe it was 40 people short.

Haunted Kiln walkthrough attraction didn’t disappoint. Does what it says on the tin and made me laugh many times. Success.

There is something quite magical about having all these big expensive toys to play with, but as the day wears on it does start to feel like something in the atmosphere is lacking.
I’m extremely glad that (nearly) everything was all open, despite terrible weather and zero attendance and with the world class quality of the headline attractions here I look forward to experiencing what else Mr Wanda brings to the table.

Day 4