Here’s a bit of a fun weekend in pursuit of some previous spite:
Day 1 – Fantasy Island
#1 Odyssey (pictured in yellow) is a hard creature to catch, but we finally managed it this year. I had some mild form of excitement for the ride, as although it’s a Vekoma SLC, it’s reasonably unique and absolutely huge.
Well it rides terribly. I simply resorted back to my zoned out defensive mode and that was that. At least it’s done.
Millennium (pictured in yellow) remains an offensively smooth mince around the park and the nearby streets. Boarding the the train directly above the high street is still a novel experience.
Couldn’t resistriding Seaquarium, the fishy dark ride thing. Got the song stuck in my head again. A classic. I forget the rest.
Botton’s Pleasure Beach As nice as the staff were last time, this park was down to a 5 minute job, from the previous 15 minute job. Needed #2 Queen Bee. Got Queen Bee. Did the ghost train cos it worked out with a token deal. Wasn’t great.
Mack’s Amusements The wrong Mack unfortunately. Sketchy looking thing on a beach:
They closed down early for the day, in front of our face. Didn’t want to take our money. You win some, you lose some.
Time to take a short break from the fancy stuff and get down and dirty. Drove for 40 minutes through intermittent bursts of rain so heavy you couldn’t see the road. Sat in the car park for 30 minutes while it was chucking it down. The rain eased slightly.
#1 Big Apple
Walked up to the cred as a couple of staff members were starting to come out of hiding from the weather. No one else around at all. “Do you wanna go on that?” “Yes, yes we do.” “Sweet, I don’t know how the brakes work but I know a man who does.” Several more staff wander over and between them are able to meet the criteria to take our money and get the ride running. Got 3 laps.
At long last it was time to go to Disneyland. I had saved the supposed best ’til the end mainly because it was geographically closest to the airport and furthest from everything else.
The resort has a dedicated metro, decorated with Mickey windows and other artifacts within and though it departs from Sunny Bay, the weather couldn’t have been further from it.
It may have been affecting the performance of Big Grizzly Mountain, which wasn’t operating for several extended periods. Everything else was running well and, more importantly, mostly empty. Walk on queues are very unusual to see for a Disney park.
So we started with Mystic Manor and what a place to start. This gorgeous piece of architecture houses one of the greatest dark rides in the world.
After an endearing preshow that sets the scene, introduces you to the characters and contains some magical animatronic action, the most friendly people in Hong Kong, dressed in traditional maid outfits lead you to your trackless vehicles.
These vehicles are mesmerising to watch. Entirely automated, going about their business like robots, this is what we need for those driverless cars.
The advantage of trackless rides is the way they make the movement and interaction with the scenery feel a lot more fluid and less fixed to a single path. Cars dance around each other and head off in different directions to navigate around certain rooms so you can get a slightly different experience each time.
Each room in Mystic Manor is a work of art. The detail, the effects, the story and the music all add up to a magnificent attraction and by the time you reach the climax, with the room spinning and the walls being ripped away I had completely fallen for the ride. It demands many laps and it got them.
RC Racer
This demands 1 lap, for the cred, and it barely deserves it. It’s a poor excuse for a ride, especially in a Disney park and it’s even more annoying to see them cloned into multiple Toy Story lands in a lazy fashion.
The walkthrough attraction full of miniature sets was a quaint experience with not many people around. Having time to watch the smaller details was nice without having to jostle around with the crowds I imagine are usually filling these areas.
As my shoes slowly filled with water, I stopped taking pictures for a while. Space Mountain offered an opportuniy for shelter and it’s a stunningly good rollercoaster. The train climbs and climbs in the dark with the onboard soundtrack blaring, taking you up into the centre of the dome where it suddenly gets all lit up and spacey.
The layout is an intense sequence of drops and tight hairpin turns, winding it’s way down through the structure and scenery. The momentum builds and builds and it all becomes more of a blur as you struggle to see. I started second guessing the turns and it led to some fantastic moments when I thought left and it goes right, chucking me violently to one side. It’s the sensory overload that truly makes it special though.
Eventually we stumbled across the Vekoma mine train when it was back up and running. This ride shows a fantastic leap in innovation from the Big Thunder predecessors, using shuttle track sequences and a launch to break the layout up into three distinct sections.
Each section leads off with some mischievous grizzly bears, up to no good. They pull levers and you go the wrong way, they make your chain lift snap and they explode dynamite behind you, sending the train shooting out of a cave. They’re the stars of the show.
The entire land that houses the ride is a pure spectacle, with all manner of decoration turning it into a village in its own right. The geysers and hot springs bubble away and shoot jets of water all over the place, some directly interacting with the ride and others just dotted around for showing off.
My only let down with the ride was that it’s a tiny bit too much on the safe side. Throughout each part I found myself willing it to go just that little bit harder and faster, sitting like a complete rag doll and hoping to be chucked about in my seat a little bit more. It lacks any true out of control feeling like the Paris mine train.
It’s still exhilarating, particularly the launch sequence out over numerous small hills and through the aforementioned geyser jets, but selfish me wants it to be even more thrilling. Never mind the children. The way the area lights up at night is even more enticing and it’s just a masterpiece. I really don’t want to mark it down.
Somehow the day still managed to fly by and we soon found ourselves rushing to nab an attraction we had managed to miss before it closed. It was completely dark by the time we made it onto Jungle Cruise, but that was probably a good thing. For a boat exploring the jungle, it made for an eerie atmosphere and our staff skipper performed some great commentary and entertainment. The ride itself also has a few surprises up its sleeve, with water effects, fire and explosions creating yet another of the parks wondrous spectacles. Very glad we made it in time.
With all the rides now closed it was time for the closing show, projected onto the tiny castle. It was par for the course for a Disney castle end of night display – so that means emotional and amazing. All the tunes, all the characters, all the joy. I defy anyone to not enjoy this aspect of a Disneyland park.
This report seems to make the park seem really small and lacking in attractions. While it is relatively tiny, there was easily enough to keep me happy over the course of a very long operating day, even with almost no queueing. My only gripe with the park was having to stumble over a million pushchairs (where did these even come from?) to get to the fastrack machine for Space Mountain (I didn’t even need to, just feel obliged to abuse the system when it’s free). Other than that, a pure world class park, easily one of the best and a fantastic way to end Hong Kong on a high. Of course.
The first day back in Hong Kong was another dedicated to sightseeing – they really don’t have enough parks here to keep me busy, but we’ll get to them eventually.
The most significant part of the agenda was the famous peak tram. A huge funicular railway that takes you up the mountains on the southern Hong Kong island.
At night, there was supposed to be a grand light show across the harbour, synchronised with epic music. It turned out to be just awful and a waste of time. The event started by reading off a list of sponsors – basically the owners of the buildings that take part in the show. Some very timid and unenthusiastic tunes were played, while a few searchlights waved backwards and forwards from a couple of skyscrapers. A world class experience it was not.
Damn tourism, let’s go ride something instead.
Hong Kong was beginning to wear me down by the following morning. I had always heard great things about the place from whoever had been (bold claims like better than Singapore), but I really wasn’t feeling it myself. I’m a big fan of this part of the world and though it wasn’t bad to the point of never returning, if I had to choose three words to describe it in direct comparison to those claims, they would be dirty, inefficient and rude – way below my expectations. The main transport link to Ocean Park involved taking an inconspicuous bus from a side street somewhere. Wanting to be sure of what we were doing, we asked the first driver of said bus where he was going and the response was in essence to shout us back off of the bus. The second bus that pulled up behind it managed no more than a low grunt, which we took as good enough.
After much more of an ordeal than it should have been, crossing huge roads, avoiding shady characters and having to find some back entrance with grubby escalators, we were ready to enter.
Ocean Park
Luckily it’s a place filled with awe and wonder, so the troubles were soon far behind us.
We began by taking the fabled cable car from the bottom end of the park to the top, beyond another mountain.
It really is quite the journey, looking out below at where you’ve just come from, the ocean off to the side and the B&M coaster approaching you from behind.
And the B&M was where the day really started. This floorless coaster has a prime location with wonderful views that really add to the experience.
After some faff in the station, where the ‘on-ride photos’ are, for some reason, made by a man with a posh camera wasting time and intricately taking everyone’s picture in the seat before it despatches, the train climbs up towards the crest of a mountain. The first portion of the layout is dug rather unceremoniously into the side of the hill, but you don’t see it for long.
A curved drop takes it into a vertical loop where I immediately began to notice that this rides like no other B&M I’ve encountered – it’s rough, really shaking and rattling all over the place. Not to the point of ruining the experience, but certainly very jarring and unexpected. I later decided it gives it character, so consider it a good thing.
The pace and flow of the rest of the layout is excellent, bouncing from one side to the other through a great sequence of inversions and airtime hills. Hair Raiser has a completely unique style and I enjoyed it very much.
Due to the terrain, this area of the park is on multiple levels with lots of stair and escalator access, making it quite the adventure to explore.
On the same level is a Mack powered coaster which surrounds the entrance to the polar animal exhibits (this place is at least half zoo, too) and the ride itself is rather uninspired.
Further down the mountain is this brightly coloured Arrow looper. I didn’t get on very well with this one, with angry staff forcing me to remove my glasses but hold onto them (and the restraint at the same time) during the ride rather than put them anywhere safe – clearly more likely to lose them than if I had just worn them.
To make matters worse, it was rough. The sidewinder element – half loop, half corkscrew had a nasty jolt that caused the shoulder restraint to punch me in the head, just for good measure.
It ends with a dumb second lift hill with no other purpose than to take it back up to the station. I could have enjoyed it for the setting, but it wasn’t to be.
Further down still is a far superior ride. This Zamperla mine train has one of the most amazing views you could ever hope to find on a rollercoaster and it’s a pretty fun piece of hardware too.
The brake run at the end sways rather unnervingly at such a height, only adding to the exhilaration. Can’t think of a better use for this terrain.
Aside from the coasters, there wasn’t much else in the ride department that interested me. The rapids ride was down, so we jumped on the observation tower to appreciate it all from a greater height.
A considerable amount of time was spent with the vast quantities of animal exhibits at both the top and bottom of the park. As well as the cablecar, there is a train that runs completely underground, insanely, through the middle of the mountain. It has a bit of a theme, with lighting and projections on the ceiling of the cars to keep you entertained on the journey.
With such a packed schedule, darkness soon descended and I took a glorious night lap on Hair Raiser before taking one of the last cablecars back down in the dark – equally magical.
There was a light and fountain show to enjoy near the entrance before departing for the night and it was in these last couple of hours that I finally started to develop a real appreciation for Ocean Park. It has a few flaws, but it’s pretty damn special.
After a breakfast that tried to kill me, the plan for the morning was to head out to Knight Valley and score the amazing looking (and imaginatively named) Wood Coaster. Following some confusion, there was actually a bus literally outside the hotel that went all the way out to the resort, which is way beyond the city to the east. The bus took the most tedious of journeys imaginable, all while I wasn’t feeling too good and after a good couple of hours, it dumped us at the end of the road that heads into the resort.
Immediately we were swarmed by a crowd of old people trying to sell us plastic buckets and spades. Granted, there is a beach here at Dameisha, but we were clearly heading up towards the park which is in a beautifully mountainous location upon which those wouldn’t be the most useful of tools. They followed us all the way to the car park barrier, ignoring both a plea for ignorance and a direct no before eventually finding someone else to bother.
That turned out to be the highlight of the journey as upon arrival at the ticket desk, we were informed that the wooden rollercoaster was closed for maintenance. The one and only reason I came. Because of the nature of the location, I never even laid eyes on the ride that had spited me so badly, hiding somewhere a mile up in those trees. It was time to get back on the bus and endure the exact same journey all over again, this time without even excitement to carry it.
The other plan for the day was a park in the city, opposite Happy Valley and back where we started, that had an insignificant cred.
The first things we came across were dinosaurs. The majority of this massive park is based around recreations of landmarks and there is very little focus on amusements.
And it’s located inside this cave, decorated by a man in pain. I had absolutely no idea what to expect from this ride. There were some cool looking promo videos in the queue that showed intense volcanic activity being the scenery for a magnificent rollercoaster. This was slightly true, though the ride never picked up much speed or did a whole lot. It had a good atmosphere but ended up mostly forgettable.
The only other ride we tried was the Bobkart nearby, the first one I had encountered and one of the longest in the world. It was great fun, accelerating far quicker than I had imagined for something completely under guest control and with enough speed there was even a semblance of airtime over the bumps in the layout, which seemed to go on forever through the trees. They aren’t creds, but I’ll have to find more of these now.
The destination I had made specific plans for was Hong Kong, which we flew into soon after returning to Singapore.
The day of arrival was designated to a bit of sightseeing – temples and gardens, the former feeling like it could have been anywhere out in this region, but the latter was rather nice, other than being told off for eating a snack.
I had decided to be particularly adventurous while here and the next day we took the metro to the border with China. After some intense research including watching a man who filmed the whole crossing from start to finish in secret on his phone (naughty), I knew where to find the obscure little office that issued on the spot 72 hour visas. Some cash was exchanged and I soon had a huge sticker in my passport with the Great Wall on it. We’re in.
The city of Shenzhen lies directly on top of Hong Kong and we were soon back on another metro heading to the hotel to drop off the bags. I immediately noticed that the trains were significantly cleaner and more efficient here and the pricing is ridiculously cheap.
After negotiating some overly friendly hotel staff, it was another couple of stops down the road to my first Chinese park.
We began with some confusing messages about staggered openings of the rides here and spent a significant amount of time getting lost around a construction site.
The park was virtually empty and nothing seemed to be running yet, so this wasn’t an issue. Within the construction site was one of the creds, a mine train, that was closed for the duration. My first Chinese spite.
After navigating past that, we found ourselves in a particularly attractive area. It becomes even more attractive when you find out what lives at the other end.
This S&S air launch coaster was the driving force behind my adventurous nature on this trip. There are only 4 of this type of ride in the world, 3 of which are in China and the last of which is the fastest accelerating coaster in the world, in Japan. Though the Chinese installations don’t have a record of their own to claim, their layouts looked extremely enticing.
I joined the queue in nervous anticipation of what I was about to experience and there were only 20-30 guests in front of me. It was here I learned how things are in China. Slow. Faffy. Frustrating.
It took around 20 minutes to get on the ride through a combination of factors. Within the station, it is a park chain policy to have guests undergo an exercise routine before boarding the ride. You line up in the usual manner within air gates inside the station and the attendant on the opposite platform performs a bit of a speech prior to overseeing the routine. Stretch, 2, 3, 4. Reach, 2, 3, 4. Twist, 2, 3, 4. It’s an interesting phenomenon and I’d love to know how it came about. In the same way as you would warm up before a sporting activity, the impression seems to be that if you don’t prepare your body for the forces of a rollercoaster, you might hurt yourself.
On top of this, there is absolutely no hustle in any of the ride staff. Everything is done with an air of, ‘oh, we’ll get there eventually, no rush’. This is absoultely fine as a mentality and on some levels I appreciate it. At the same time, the enthusiast in me can’t help but find it frustrating. I’ve seen how the Germans do it, it just doesn’t need to be like this, we could all get so much more done if you simply went a bit faster.
But the guests share the same mentality. They aren’t like me, thinking ‘I’ve come a long way and I want to ride this 100 times and 100 other things in the park and you’re all stopping me from doing this.’ It’s just a day out and very inconsequential. The way they board the train, sit down, don’t think about what’s in their pockets, get told by staff, fumble around, get up again, put items in the baggage holders, sit down, find there’s something else, get up again, laugh and chat about who sits where with friends, who will or won’t sit next to the foreigner, stop and take selfies in the train, stop and take selfies by the baggage holders, write a text to someone… I could go on. There’s no consideration to the fact the attraction has a line of people behind waiting to experience it. Their time will come, but no one, no one will help that along.
Except me, I’m in the seat, lap bar down, ready to go. The anticipation is killing me.
I was scared on the launch track as I didn’t have a clue what to expect from this ride. Weird hissing noises, a long pause. BAM. A launch like I’ve never experienced before. One second we weren’t moving, the very next second we’re doing 80Mph and being viciously ejected over a top hat. My head didn’t have time to keep up and it’s as intense as anything.
As quick as you crest that first hill, you’re down in a tunnel below the water and then up into the next massively forceful element. And the next. And the next. Each one hits the spot just right, with different combinations of very strong airtime.
The ride ends with some crushing positive forces into this tight cornering and a brutal snap into the brake run (bracing required) which seemingly has trouble slowing you down so fast. We still had a lot of energy left to give.
Even with the 20 minute dispatch times, I struggled to ride this coaster back to back. It was that intense. I had to sit down on a bench and recover each time. Oh, and I absolutely loved it.
To space it out a bit, there were some other things to do of course.
It is a big thing that goes upside down though and that works for some. I had ridden this alternate layout as Kumali in the UK first, but the installation here was actually the original. It wasn’t too bad… but nothing more than a one and done for the cred to me.
Outside the entrance to this ride was a haunted walkthrough, which we tried for a laugh. It contained some weird moments like a yeti on an operating theatre table and was mostly amusing rather than scary, which suits me fine.
The other cred in the park is a Wacky Worm on top of a building, for intimidation purposes I guess. I like the way the character on the front of the train has his fist out – clearly has places to be, unlike everyone else round here.
Indoors from there is the legendary Santa shooting dark ride North Pole Adventure. They may have missed the point with either the scenery or the hardware as, amongst other things, you are actually firing at Christmas elves in their workshop, hindering them from their tasks. Fun though.
We considered trying a rapids ride, but there was a huge fuss at the station (with no one else around). The staff outright refused to let us do anything with our bag other than take it on the boat with us and perch it precariously on a lap, on top of the seatbelt. As the boats were particularly evil and had water jets installed directly into them, jets which we saw another returning to the station were doing nothing short of waterboarding guests, this would not have ended well. Not being allowed to simply put it on the floor anywhere in the remote vicinity of the ride that wasn’t on it, we decided to bail out. It ain’t worth that.
Instead, we tried a weird haunted experience around the corner where you sit around a table in the dark and wear headphones while ghosts whisper directly in your inner ear and things go bang. Not understanding a word of what was going on and therefore unable to get caught up in the story, this bordered on unpleasantness and wouldn’t be something I’d choose to repeat, but it was worth a try.
The train around the park was nice. Can’t go wrong with a train.
Other than that, it was Bullet Coaster as much as I could handle before the all the rides shut for the day. The park and a couple of select flat rides near the entrance actually stayed open for several hours after the rest and, not having anywhere to be, we ended up in a 4D cinema with a lot of waiting around, wondering what it could be. It ended up being Ice Age, something I could have watched at Alton Towers. Nothing exciting or exotic then.
That marked the end of the visit. 4D cinema aside, this really was my most exotic park visit to date and, frustrations aside, it was totally addictive. I found there’s an extra element to be going so far out of my way, onto the road less travelled. Exploration becomes half the fun and I immediately knew I wanted to see and do a lot more in this part of the world, aside from the fact they have vast quantities of incredible looking rides – there has been a theme park boom in China like the world has never seen before and I want to be a part of it.
This leg of the trip was a rather last minute decision. I hadn’t put any plans in place until actually in Singapore, where I decided to throw caution to the wind and book some cheap flights to Kuala Lumpur for a couple of days.
We arrived in KL early afternoon and spent a good chunk of time in the longest queue I have ever experienced for immigration. They weren’t running things smoothly to say the least.
Our hotel was situated throughout the top floors of a ridiculously huge mall, in the very same building that housed the singular draw (for me) for this visit.
Wanting to get straight to it and make it all worthwhile, we dumped some bags upstairs and headed straight to this indoor park that spans several more floors of the building.
It contains a massive Intamin looping coaster, not every day you see one of those indoors. The park operates pay per ride and wristbands, I took the latter for the opportunity of many laps on the star attraction (and pretty much the only thing of any note here). The station for the ride is in a raised position and the first section begins straight out of here with a slow inversion and meander to the lift hill.
You can see from here how unusual the surroundings are for this attraction and riding things in unique places is often great for enhancing the experience. Once up in the hot and sweaty rafters, the train takes a high turn into the main drop and loop, which has a pathway running directly through it.
There are plenty of other moments of close interaction as the layout winds its way throughout the whole park. You can see it from anywhere.
While the hardware is a little on the clunky side, being an older Intamin model, it remains a highly enjoyable coaster for the sheer spectacle alone. I’m very glad to have made the journey to try it for myself.
The folowing morning we were already having to make plans to leave again, our stay in KL was relatively short due to time constraints and the last minute nature of the decision so we just did the usual things like food and shopping. I liked the place more than I had expected to and will likely return one day for a better look.
During my annual stay in Singapore for 2016, we began to use the geographical advantage to visit some extra parks. Most of the western hemisphere has a limited operating season – they all shut shop for the winter and it’s rare to be able to get a visit in for several months during the off-season. Out in Asia, most places operate full time, which is great for keeping the consistency up.
Before that though, it was time for my third consecutive visit to Singapore’s only theme park, particularly as there had been some exciting news!
The Battlestar Galactica rides have had a troubled past. Marking a significant shift in Vekoma’s use of ride technology, these duelling launch lift coasters were plagued with issues, mostly to do with the trains. Originally opening in 2010, the attraction actually operated for less than half of its first five years, finally reopening in 2015 with a total train replacement. The new trains halved the capacity of the rides by reducing the number of people per row from 4 to 2, but this has now supposedly fixed any underlying structural issues.
I had seen them standing but not operating for 2 years first hand, teasing me, but now they were finally ready to receive.
I began with the red, Human side which has a sit down train. I had selected this to be my 100th rollercoaster, expecting it to be the better of the two with a focus on airtime or, more importantly, being less like a Vekoma SLC. The experience was a little underwhelming however.
The heavily themed queueline contains many pep talks from what I assume are the ‘good guy’ characters of the franchise, implying that the guests are going to be fighter pilots in a major battle against the Cylon. You board the new sleek looking train with comfy seats and, unfortunately, vest restraints then, after a quick check for synchronicity, a train from each layout pulls forward out of the station and they launch side by side.
It makes for an exhilarating lift, but the momentum is somewhat stunted before the crest of the hill meaning the first drop, though still surprisingly steep, doesn’t quite deliver as well as it could have. The remainder of the layout feels relatively insignificant for the size. There’s a lot of meandering about, particularly to suit the duelling aspect of the two rides and create some good head on moments with the other train, but this side definitely suffers as a result of this endeavour.
Luckily this isn’t true for the blue, Cylon side which has suspended trains. A contrasting queueline full of Cylon vibe and a strong sense of impending doom leads you to the station. The statement ‘this has all happened before, this will all happen again’ is declared as the ride despatches, which amuses me, then the launch hits.
Again there’s a sense of holding back at the top, but it’s likely justified on this side. There’s still a very unusual moment of airtime for a suspended coaster as it takes the first drop and from there it flies through a disorientating sequence of inversions and intense turns, much more akin to a B&M invert than their own SLCs and therefore a significant step up for Vekoma. I noticed the interactions less here, but that’s because there’s so much more going on with the actual ride and moments like the dive into a mist filled pit and loop make up for any potential losses in what the opposite side suffers from.
As well as the re-opening of their headline coasters, this year saw the debut of the park’s latest attraction, something I had watch them build with curiosity. That’s doubled their count since my last visit!
This heavily customised Zamperla Volare uses it’s signature spiral lift hill system but much more family friendly seated trains. The layout has been tailored towards a dark ride experience with lots of stop-start moments alongside well decorated scenes depicting a story around the goose and the golden eggs. The result is fun and quirky, if a little disjointed.
This remains to me the best example in the world of combining the two best types of attractions – thrilling coasters and dark rides. It is the ride that’s solely responsible for getting me back into this hobby and other than buying the t-shirt, several souvenirs, a rare on-ride photo of myself on it utterly alone and experiencing it no less than 9 times on this visit, I simply can’t praise it enough.
Treasure Hunters is probably the most underwhelming ‘major’ attraction on park. A short tracked outdoor jaunt through some ancient Egyptian scenery that looks a bit low budget, particularly when considering what ride sits opposite, still manages to draw disproportionate crowds.
Back to another game changer, this time in the world of water rides, Jurassic Park Rapids Adventure. The Singapore version is the only one throughout the Universal parks to use river rapids style boats and these calmly take you through some majestic scenery before getting downright dangerous with fast flowing currents, intense spinning and much soaking. The indoor portion of the layout is terrifyingly atmospheric and well executed and contains some very special features, culminating in riding an elevator lift with a T-rex and viciously tipping down a drop that should be far too big and steep for this type of vehicle. Absolutely love it
In the same area is the only operating Setpoint rollercoaster in the world. The suspended cars have back to back seating and traverse a very simple figure of eight layout, high above the Jurassic Park land, offering a more observational experience as opposed to any thrill.
It’s often nice to have a sit down and enjoy the Waterworld show that runs a couple of times a day. It contains a lot of action, explosions and special effects and is overall a high quality production.
The Shrek 4D Adventure is also located inside this huge castle. After a preshow with the man in the mirror, you take your seats in a large cinema and watch a new adventure written specifically for the attraction. The seats themselves perform some quite vigorous movements including that of a galloping horse and, source material aside, it’s a decent attraction.
Another example of greatly enhancing source material is Madagascar: A Crate Adventure. This boat based dark ride is an incredible example of the attention to detail that can and should go into attractions of this nature. Every single moment has a reference, a sign, something to catch your eye beyond the overarching storyline of the ride and it always impresses me. It’s also a striking visual on the skyline of the park, blending well with the location of the resort.
The special effects show Lights, Camera, Action! Begins with a foreword by Steven Spielberg inviting you to his sound stage and a brief montage of the effects in many of his major films. Once standing in the sound stage, which is based around a hurricane in New York and is hugely atmospheric, a sequence of events unfolds, getting more and more ridiculous and spectacular each time. Fire, explosions, flying boats. Couldn’t ask for more.
For such a small park in terms of space, the solid attractions keep coming. Sesame Street Spaghetti Space Chase is an endearing little dark ride with suspended vehicles that, as the name suggests, takes you on a journey with the characters through space to save the spaghetti.
The final and most significant dark ride is Transformers. The queue area is huge and split into many different sections that managed to keep you engaged in the storyline even before the ride begins with many different videos, themed safety announcements that interact with the characters and lots of physical details. With the aid of 4D glasses, the ride vehicles manoeuvre around different screens and set pieces, pointing, tilting and spinning as they go. Often the car will stop in front of a screen for a period, with a consistent use of rushing imagery giving the illusion of further movement. While the fighting, flying and crashing into things happens there are violent jolts and judders to the riders and it can be rather intense at times. The story ends with victory (of course) and the cars pass directly under a huge defeated likeness of Megatron, lying in smashed tarmac and broken cables before returning to the station. A very polished attraction and highly enjoyable.
And that completes our lap of the park. It remains one of my favourites both for the standout rides and the sheer number of other easily re-rideable and entertaining attractions on offer. Even though there isn’t much space, I’ve never found it too busy or crowded and the operations are overall very efficient. Due to the climate, sudden rainstorms will stop the rides for often no more than 30 minutes before everything returns to normal, events that would sometimes completely shut down another park for the day. The size also helps to give the place a certain magical vibe, you’re always well immersed in your surroundings among each of the different areas and on top of this it manages to feel very relaxed.
That’s it from Singapore for now, let’s head further afield.
The B&M flyer is a ride type I’ve been familiar with for most of my coasting life. It started life as a prototype at Alton Towers, following fairly hot on the heels of Vekoma’s largely unpopular attempt at a flying coaster. Unlike the competitor, you board the trains in a standard upright manner and when ready for dispatch the seats hinge upwards from behind you, lowering your face towards the floor and hanging you into the vest restraint in a prone position. This remains a great moment for witnessing the terror in unsuspecting guests as it is a particularly unusual and scary way to begin a coaster. The lift hills are equally unnerving, often with nothing but open ground below you, slowly getting further away as you climb.
Prototype aside I have since come to learn that what these rides excel most at is intensity, something I especially admire in an attraction these days. For sheer physical duress on the body they are usually the most intense coasters that B&M create (along with perhaps one or two of their inverts).
One of the main contributors to this is the pretzel loop element, or any other element that involves the train diving you head first towards the ground and then having you pinned onto your back before returning to the flying position. While these inversions can be a little too much for some to enjoy, I am a huge fan of this unique and unrelenting force that literally takes your breath away, pushing the air from your lungs and making your head spin.
I am happy to declare that I have currently ridden every layout of B&M flyer in the world, with only a couple of cloned versions still to ride, so let’s see how they size up.
#7 Air/Galactica (Alton Towers, UK) – The aforementioned prototype is the exception to the rule when it comes to intensity. The only inversions Air has are a standard roll and the ‘fly to lie’ which, though it puts you on your back for a portion of the layout, does not subject you to much in the way of strong forces. It ends up being rather uncomfortable and the feature has yet to be repeated in another layout. Air’s strong points are the unique way it gains momentum through the starting double drop and the moments that best emulate flying, low down over some grass and rocks.
#6 Crystal Wings (Happy Valley Beijing, China), SupermanUltimate Flight (Six Flags Great Adventure, USA) & Superman Ultimate Flight (Six Flags Great America) – This ranking comes with a caveat. The layout itself is objectively better than the previous entry but if it’s a Superman clone I tend to enjoy it less than Air. Crystal Wings has very strong theming which greatly enhances the ride experience and particularly after riding that version first, I resent riding undecorated copies of it at Six Flags parks. The layout begins strong with a pretzel loop but then seemingly runs out of inspiration, taking corner after corner with little excitement before ending in an underwhelming roll.
#5 Tatsu (Six Flags Magic Mountain, USA) – I was a little disappointed to find this ride performing below par for what I had experienced with others. The setting and landscape had massive potential and I absolutely love the way it saves the pretzel loop until the end of the layout, diving off the side of a mountain to achieve it – I’m a sucker for a good use of terrain. My main issue is that it’s like the Supermen in reverse, the first section of the ride is just corner, roll, corner, roll, corner, roll, none of which really get things going. By no means is this a bad ride and I’m fairly sure it gave me DVT with its intensity, but the upcoming competition is just too strong.
#4 Acrobat (Nagashima Spa Land, Japan)& Manta (Sea World Orlando, USA) – Another layout, another pretzel. This beauty starts stupidly intense and then maintains it through the following corner, well beyond sensible limits. Other than the brief respite provided by the mid course brake run (the only one to have this), the remainder of the layout manages to keep things more interesting than the above, with lower to the ground swoops and a corkscrew that snaps a lot more than the average roll on these rides.
#3 Starry Sky Ripper (Joyland, China) – It seems the time had finally arrived to attempt some different elements on these rides and this Chinese anomaly took it to serious extremes. After an unusual straight drop and following large turn, the ride enters a 540° roll. Wait, you say, I’ve been ragging on rolls this whole time. Yes, but that extra 180° makes a world of difference. While thinking ‘oh, it’s another one of these’ it continues to rotate past expectation and then the track just falls from underneath you, head first into a drop with a complete wow moment. What better way to follow this than with a vertical loop, essentially tightening the experience of a pretzel and in the reverse direction. This sequence of elements is simply mind blowing, but then the ride loses steam a little like the others and ends on some corners and yes, you guessed it, rolls.
#2 Harpy (Xishuangbanna Sunac Land, China) – I almost didn’t go and ride this due to my strong disapproval of cloning ride layouts and some rather lazy research. On the surface, this looks like another Superman clone. In reality, it fixes everything about that ride. Once again, the start is the same but, like Acrobat, the intensity of the pretzel is held well after it ends. Suddenly the train lurches to the ground in a completely unexpected manner – I could have sworn there was some airtime on this flyer. The rest remains intense, essentially cutting the faff out of the Acrobat layout and only having the better of the two inversions. I adored this ride in the middle of nowhere and it made me beyond happy to discover that it was both unique and amazing.
#1 Flying Dinosaur (Universal Studios Japan) – The newest installation to date. Take a compilation of everything you’ve read above and then double the intensity. This is not just my favourite flyer, but my favourite overall B&M coaster and the ride should potentially be made illegal. For a manufacturer that is often declared too safe with their designs as of late, having built their success on crowd pleasers, Flying Dinosaur just exceeds every boundary. A huge drop takes you straight into the 540° element of Starry Sky Ripper, no holds barred, plunging out of that onto your head and into a half loop. Before you can recover, you’re diving head first into a pretzel loop. That’s the two most intense elements these rides have to offer, back to back. I don’t know what happens from here but all I can tell you is that it provides absolutely no time to regain any sense of composure from the previous experiences, the ride just continues to abuse you – head spinning, out of breath, until the brake run. And I bloody love it.
In doing my research for this list I have just noticed that the rankings follow the exact order of age for these rides so they’re clearly learning more each time and getting better and better. I do hope the world sees a few more layouts in future, as they’re clearly on a roll.
Our final visit of the trip took us deep into the countryside for what seemed like several hours. We still made good time and arrived at the park before opening. This may have been unnecessary.
Day 5 – Erlebnispark Tripsdrill
Upon entering the park we discovered that nothing was open yet and that all the rides were planned to open at staggered intervals.
While clearly a very attractive place to be, this made for a lot of hanging around in rather cold and slightly miserable weather, waiting for things to happen.
The first attraction that came available was this unusual drop tower set into a tree. It had a bit of a bonus surprise in the sequence that involved tilting forward but it left me more confused than thrilled. What just happened?
One by one, the rest of the coasters opened up, each with a good half an hour interval. We spent most of this time sitting on a bench and snacking on our food and drink rations to save fitting them on the plane that evening.
The smallest cred in the park is a Tivoli Large. The length of the trains on these Zierers always amuses me and their momentum makes for some strange moments in certain seats, seemingly defying physics by losing speed downhill or gaining speed uphill.
This was the first rollercoaster ever built by manufacturer Gerstlauer. Their bobsled coaster is like an upgraded wild mouse, taking certain manoeuvres like banked drops and helices that those would never attempt but also mimicking the high unbanked turns that provide strong laterals. Though beautifully blended into the environment, the ride itself was a little underwhelming. The highlight of the ride was a sharp turn through a building with a prompt sign appearing out of nowhere, reading something like ‘Du Wessen?’ I couldn’t help but shout the question upon seeing it and the resulting hilarity was the best entertainment on the ride.
The Gerstlauer Infinity coaster starts indoors and navigates around a quirky set piece before a slow inversion in the dark catches you off guard. Following this, it drops awkwardly into a fast launch to the outside world, pitching you forward and then slamming you back again rather uncomfortably.
The strangely shaped top hat wobbles unnervingly as cars traverse it and the remainder of the layout is a mix of turns, hills and inversions with varying impact. There were no particularly notable moments for me other than the speed with which it whipped into the dive loop underground. The best time we had with the ride was an unexpected lap in the hail, being blinded and pelted with ice is surprisingly beneficial.
Completing the park’s Gerstlauer trilogy we have the only wooden coaster they’ve ever built. Before taking the lift hill, the ride has a little preshow section in a shed with some effects which was a pleasant surprise – not often you see that level of detail on this type of attraction.
It’s a surprisingly smooth ride for a woodie and like the other rides in the park, lacks any real moments of significance. I liked it enough, but wanted a little more out of it to be honest.
Which is a good parallel for my thoughts on the park. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the place, it just failed to inspire any real sense of significance. Each ride that became available would satisfy us for a short while, but we’d soon end up back on a bench waiting for the next rather than continuing with many more laps. Sadly all of the water rides were shut due to poor weather as well so we were left with little to do other than kill time before returning to the airport. Most of this time was spent in a lovely little sandwich shop that we had all to ourselves. Finally a warm place to sit down, eat some hot food and watch the rain outside.
