Back here again first for some unfinished business.
Powered straight over to the SLC to get it over and done with. Escaped with only 1 trains wait and no one was going for the upcharge VR which is bought at a desk right at the entrance to the station.
#1 Arkham Asylum – Shock Therapy
It’s got those weird vest trains with missile firing handles. Rode like crap, but no lasting damage.
Called in for a quick re-ride on Superman on the way past as it hadn’t quite filled up yet.
Used the single rider trick again on DC. They had fixed one of the three broken seats since the previous day, but it still worked a treat. Also had one final backwards ride. So very worth the price.
Mission complete.
Dreamworld
Another scorcher of a day and another very busy car park. Hopefully they’re all in the water park next door.
First thing we came to was another Intamin family launch coaster, this time with motorbikes. Spent a good while in the queue watching the weird restraint system. Should be better than the Vekomas right?
#2 Mick Doohan’s Motocoaster
Nope. What a terrible ride. There’s some rubber padding where your knees sit that has worn away to a solid mess. Spent the entire ride which does absolutely nothing repeating the phrase ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’ ‘ow my knees’. It also reduced a local kid to tears.
Stumbled through some kids play area to Tower of Terror II.
#3 Tower of Terror II
The ride has become a bit of a joke. Whatever ambience it once had or fear it may have once instilled is long gone. The skull face and creepy industrial walkways are lined with TVs playing pop music videos while you stand in 40°C, moving 10 people every 10 minutes.
Almost ashamed to say this is the fastest ride I’ve been on, I’ll have to fix that very quickly. It certainly isn’t the tallest as it’s still barely making it halfway up the spike. Such a mediocre experience. Obnoxiously loud and felt nothing but a rattle. Then it failed to park itself. Then it overshot. Then you have to get in a grotty lift to exit which I was hoping to be some redeeming scare attraction. It isn’t.
Saw an exhibit of tigers and brave blokes upon walking the wrong way round to MadaPanda land.
#4 Escape From Madagascar
What sort of abomination is this? SFC with shoulder restraints. Rides like rubbish and even manages to bang heads at a top speed of 10Mph.
Well there’s only a Skyloop to follow this Arrow looper, let’s see if this park can go 5 for 5.
#5 Hot Wheels SideWinder
They’ve done it. Another miserable queue of heat, sweat and terrible music, finished off by a strong smell of sewage at the air gates. Trains have got a horrible clampy vest restraint ‘upgrade’. The track is terrible and not in the usual amusing fashion. Skip.
Affectionately named it the Drayton Manor of Australia at this stage, but really Troublesome Trucks is better than anything here.
#6 Buzzsaw
Better get that Skyloop then. I liked my first one. I like them less with each subsequent installation. At least it had no queue.
This 1-upped the throughput of Tower of Terror by being 8 people every 10 minutes.
Quite a good drop tower. Nice suspense at the top as it really takes its time to sort itself out. Doesn’t kick as much ass as a good small tower though. Height isn’t everything.
Walked past a couple of abandoned water rides to look at some animals.
Park was getting ready to close, so only saw a couple of critters.
Before jumping on the train to the entrance.
What a place. It’s quite nice to hang around in generally, but all the rides and queues are so grim. At least it’s done. Almost.
Bit of a teaser on the drive to the car park. Nearly caused a crash.
Day 2 – Warner Bros. Movie World
Rocked up at opening time to find it reasonably busy. Headed straight in to find an excited rabble of a queue to the entrance of the very reason we were here.
First impressions of the park is that it’s a bit squashed in places. 2 major coasters and the dark ride are all packed in just inside the entrance. Staff and managers were hanging around this area advising that morning checks were running a bit behind and the queue wasn’t open yet, but we persisted with the rest of the crowd. El loco ride hosts were leaning over the fence and asking people to ride. “Only 5 minute queues guys.” They were ignored. Maybe should have taken them up on the offer in hindsight, as it also got pretty busy later on, but like I said, no rush.
Eventually the main queue was opened and the crowd just about filled the length of it. Asked the man with the sign about backwards on the way past. $10 a pop, timeslotted fastrack. Cool.
Took about an hour from where we started to get on. I’d sort of zoned out what we were about to ride at this stage and it didn’t really hit me until the lift.
#1 DC Rivals Hypercoaster
It’s very good overall. Fantastic start with the crazy twisted drop, huge airtime hill and the non-inverting loop that would make Soaring with Dragon blush.
Middle section is decent but not amazing, the big banked corner doesn’t do much and is followed by a very long section of twisty turns and strong positives just on the right side of intense. I wouldn’t go as far as calling them deadspots, like my issues with Expedition GeForce and the like but if I’m looking for perfection, that’s where this ride falls short a smidge. Putting on my picky hat it doesn’t quite feel as well flowing or deliberate enough as a sequence of elements for this third of the ride.
The ending is back to fantastic again with the two very intense hills and another funky one halfway through a corner. I felt the airtime through my teeth here, which I’ll take as a good thing. It also joins the very exclusive club of rides where I instinctively use my hands to stop my head coming off.
Booked a slot for the backwards seats upon exiting and joined the queue for Justice League: Alien Invasion.
It has a nicely air-conned and themed building to queue inside. There’s talking going on from screens and an animatronic from the other side of the station, but you can’t really hear any of it in the queue. Don’t know much about this Batman stuff, but the gist of the story I got as the vehicle departed was ‘shoot Superman.’
Liked the ride quite a bit. One of those where you can shoot both the physical objects with lights on them as well as the interactive screens for your points. Shot Superman a lot, even when I wasn’t supposed to. Got the best score in Australasia. Good stuff.
Back to backwards. The time slot system got us on in about 10 minutes. Again I zoned out what we were doing until the very end of the lift hill. This was very clear on the on-ride video clip we watched at the end, which I rather regret not buying now. Calm conversation until the crest, followed by visible screams of terror and shouting down the drop and during the layout. Watching it back had us in hysterics. Whoever cooked this idea up is a mad man. Completely out of your seat falling vertically backwards and then sideways to kick it all off. Really intense throughout the whole layout and it enhances that middle section as without any sense of direction you feel things that didn’t even seem to be there in the forwards transitions. Hit the brakes just breaking down laughing and crying at the same time. A ridiculously good experience.
There’s still a park to complete. Jumped in the queue for the S&S El Loco.
Spent about 45 minutes watching Australia’s crazy wildlife. Birds fighting. Big lizards chilling. Good entertainment.
#2 Green Lantern Coaster
It was weird seeing the 4 across seating and riding another lap bar edition means I still like these rides just a little bit. They’ve definitely reprofiled that last turn since Mumbo as well, rides nowhere near as poorly.
Hit me again how compact this part of the park is, as you’re exiting this ride and running parallel to the main park entrance. Also hit us that half the day was gone and we still had quite a few rides to do. It was a little on the busy side so tactics might need to be deployed. Walked to Superman – 60 minutes. Hmmm. Walked to the SLC – 1 train and Virtual Reality. That ain’t happening. Walked to Scooby – 90 minutes. Nope.
#3 Road Runner Rollercoaster
Roadrunner it is. A bog standard Vekoma Junior. Tick.
Sucked up the wait for Superman after that. It passed quicker than stated. Lockers are back in action but they’re free here, unlike the meanies at Sea World.
#4 Superman Escape
Had a bit of a rollercoaster of expectations with this one. Came here with the phrase ‘Intamin launch full of air time hills’. Gonna be great. Saw it in person with the phrase ‘that’s just Rita with a top hat’. Gonna be crap.
Quite liked it though. Powering through all the indoor theming section on endless kicker wheels at the start is rather fun. “It’s SUPERMAN!” says the audio. “Lets go lets go!” says the Australian.
Offride is deceiving as it looked like the train was stalling on the top hat, but there’s a decent kick to all of the hills here and I apologise for the Rita comparison. Could have been really good but typically the shoulder restraints detract from most of the sensations.
Decided at this stage we weren’t going to achieve everything on that day and didn’t want to compromise on DC ridels. The main queue was staying full all day, so we jumped in the single rider queue which we had seen working well earlier in the day as at least 1 seat was broken/closed off on both trains. It worked. Saw from the top of the ride that the car park was now half empty. All the families seemed to have cleared off early. Booked another backwards slot and headed off to Scooby which was now a more manageable 30 minutes.
#5 Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster
Knew nothing about this indoor coaster until I was being told in the queue. More than just your average Wild Mouse, with a few tricks up its sleeve and a lot of fun for it. Didn’t quite see it at its best as they were currently in the middle of retheming/refurbishing it. There was a sign outside saying some scenery may be gone. Pretty much all the scenery was gone and the whole dark ride section was just a warehouse. Made it a bit off, but rather hilarious.
I’m always in Singapore at this time of year, which serves as a great base to head for creds in the further reaches. A certain new ride made this year the perfect time to tick Australia off the list.
Flew out with Scoot who have a terrible reputation online, which is mostly false and from people expecting too much out of their dirt cheap economy ticket. Most of the arguments out there can be beaten down with a simple ‘you get what you pay for.’ If you don’t pay for meals, there’s supposedly a no food and drink policy and people get screamed abuse at for trying to eat on an 8 hour flight. In reality they don’t care. There was a man eating a footlong sandwich in plain sight before we had even taken off, but we had some good fun out of jokingly being very subtle and hiding our eating from the attendants.
Nice little lighting celebration upon landing.
Picked up the hire car and trundled towards the park. The roads were very congested along the built up bit of the coast with a million traffic lights and it took an age. In a very welcome change, we were in no rush at all for this leg of the trip. Research this time suggested all the parks were suffering after the Dreamworld incident, but I still allowed some extra days just in case. I had been putting off this trip for a few years now (thankfully), because it was always going to have to be at this time of year, in the height of their summer holidays. In my mind that would always mean busy as anything, hot as hell and generally not very fun. Research also suggested that it should have been a cool 20°C, but we still got the hot as hell part with every day being 30+ and most of the country making the news for mega heatwaves. This seems to plague me wherever I go at the moment.
Day 1 – Sea World
The Sea World car park was very busy and turning up half way through the day put us well into the overflow section. Being a park that isn’t primarily about the rides however, crowds weren’t an issue.
#1 Spongebob’s Boating School Blast
Started strong on a Zamperla 80STD. Not sure if their 1 adult per car policy makes you look more or less cool. Highlight: +1 Lowlight: Lack of shade
#2 Jet Rescue
Moved onto the Intamin famiyl launch coaster with some excitement. Queue was a bit of an arse as they were only running one train and there’s some nasty locker faff. Didn’t have any coinage yet for the lockers, so managed to harness the power of the easy-going ride staff and perform a bag swap at the batch point.
The ride is packed from start to finish with very fast and forceful turns. It doesn’t feel like it even needs the second launch for its size, but that keeps it going strong right until the end which I respect a lot. You also get to ‘save the sealion’ by riding. Bonus points for morality. Highlight: Pacing Lowlight: Locker faff
#3 Storm Coaster
Had to locker up for Storm Force 20. Another not particularly pleasant queue, very hot and sweaty inside black shipping containers to start with, eventually opening out into a rather well themed shipping area.
Quite enjoyed it for a Skatteøen clone. Coaster section is dull of course, but redeemed by the misty air time hill into an indoor splash with bonus theming and effects going off. Highlight: Indoor section Lowlight: Outdoor section
All the flumes and rapids in this part of the world are still down since a certain incident, so no other way to cool off for now.
Jet Rescue stopped itself on the second launch halfway through queueing for our next lap and people got evacuated out of the tunnel. This resulted in a hilarious uproar from the locals who all vocally decided “we don’t need theme parks, lets drink and have a barbeque instead.” Ditched it ourselves to see some animals for a while and returned later.
Good place to kill a few hours overall. Could probably make a full day out of it if you were into the shows and other animal based frivolity. An overnight flight with no sleep meant I was drifting in and out of consciousness by mid afternoon, so I may not have appreciated everything fully. Got a frozen Fanta in a souvenir cup and called it a day.
Bit of a teaser on the drive to the hotel. They should put a warning sign up. Nearly caused a crash.
This guy is great. Watches Tomahawk all day and either sings classic hits or shouts at people in angry Spanish.
Day 3 – PortAventura
Thought the final day (a Monday) would be a breeze, but the sun came out and it got busier than the weekend. With many stories of how bad the operations are lingering in the back of our minds, thought that would be game over. It wasn’t.
Must have been some new operators around for the season. Got stuck on Khan for a while until an engineer showed up, laughed and said you’re doing it wrong, pushed one button and off we went.
Similar story with Stampida. One train decided it didn’t want to leave the brakes while the other stopped itself on the lift. Same engineer rocked up, laughed and said you’re doing it wrong, harnessed up, pushed a button up the lift and off it went. Sadly the winning streak ended here. 4 out of 5 ain’t bad.
The rapids ride was decent. Had a continuous fast pace to it, but no deadly wet moments.
Tried 4D Dinosaur Thing: The Ride. Queue was better than the ride. They cheaped out and used that same film I see absolutely everywhere now, just with a preshow added that bigs it up too much.
Some beautiful B&M pics:
Technical question: announcement was playing claiming Shambhala was running at low capacity – they ran 2 trains for a little while, but reverted back to 1 “due to the weather” (a sunny 15°C). Lies? or does it run so slowly that a slight breeze will stall it.
And that was PortAventura. Good little park that, far greater than the sum of its parts. Shame it gets a bad rep.
Kept forgetting this ride has actually been built, even while it was staring us in the face throughout the previous day. Last I remember knowing about it was mocking some wonky track installation and the weirdness of the brake run. That and this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB2YPFOd5pM Amazing.
But here we are, the tallest and fastest coaster in Europe. It was alright.
#1 Red Force
Launch had a bit more kick than I expected, partly due to the ride not stopping at all before it hits. My 2nd experience with an intense face wobble at high speed, which is getting quite funny now. Ended up in the front row for the first lap and therefore had to wear the pigeon goggles. Eww.
Didn’t get the feel of the height for whatever reason, but I liked the ride a lot more than I expected to with the awfully uninspired layout. They added a train shortly after our first lap, so gave it another crack before the queue got too bad.
Wasn’t that fussed about the other rides here, but figured we may as well try some of it out while we were there.
The flying simulator was first up. Queue building was very flashy. The Mr Ferrari being up his own arse pre-show was not. A second preshow with a fair amount more faff followed with lots of safety instructions and a couple of failed jokes about how rich some people are. Then we got on. Movements were crap, visuals were poor and everyone clapped at the end. Terrible.
Tried the other simulator ride in the same building as it was down to a ‘0 minute’ queue. The park had been open a couple of hours now and it seems like everyone was finished for the day. Says something about the lack of attractions in this second gate of the resort so far.
Entered the same preshow room as the previous ride thinking no… this cant be… Yes. Same preshow. Then there was another one that kept banging on about how good this simulation was and how real racing drivers failed it and we were a cut above the rest. On and on, even into the next room. Sat on some Ferrari thing and jiggled about in front of some racetracks on a screen, overtaking generic unbranded cars. They should have had the balls to slap a Mercedes logo on the side or something. Better than the last ride but far from good.
Walked into the food place opposite. Pizzas for £28. Goodbye.
And that was Ferrari Land. Not impressed with the place. It doesn’t deserve to be a park in it’s own right with so little to do and the star attraction is as lazy as record breakers can be, it all just feels like a cash grab to pay for that big ugly logo.
PortAventura
Slithered through the special entrance between the 2 parks. Walked into the pizza restaurant. Pizzas for £10. Deal. With many stories of how bad the food is lingering in the back of our minds, tucked in with trepidation. It was lovely. Phoned Tibidabo while waiting to be served, just to check they were back in business. They were.
Had a little sit down on the train.
Rerode some stuff. Had a 4th straight win on Stampida.
Then jumped in the car and swept back up to Barcelona. There’s a different road that runs north of the city and takes you to the park from the top end of the mountains. This road has less tolls on it, so that was an added bonus.
Tibidampo
Parked up near the top of the hill again, ticket window was actually open now, got some wristbands and headed in.
#2 Muntanya Russa
This thing looks great and it is. Vekoma in their mental years.
Forceful turns and a good deal of twisty, you simply can’t beat a good ride built on the side of a hill. A fantastic view and well worth the trip alone.
The Virtual Reality plague strikes again on their powered mine train, #2 Tibidabo Express. Really can’t understand why you’d want a headset on a ride with this location. The visuals are done by Mack and from the queue video looked to be very similar to the Europa Park version, featuring the same characters and one of those pumpy mine carts.
RCDB says no VR is NOT an option, but it’s amazing how far a simple ‘nope’ can get you.
Did it without and had great fun racing along side some cars down on the road below and twisting round the better Mystery Castle.
Staggered up towards the top of the hill to see what else was on offer. Spent 5 minutes trying and failing to get a lift to work.
Spite.
Stumbled across L’embruixabruixes (go on, try and say it), which is a little suspended ride with outdoor and indoor sections. Very quirky and enjoyable, with an extra surprise at the end.
Braved the bucket on a stick ride as the sun was beginning to set. Not often I get scared these days, but trying to reposition myself to get some more photos at the very top while desperately trying not making this sway was rather terrifying. Great stuff.
Tibitabby.
The plane on a stick ride looked interesting, so gave it a spin. The cramped interior is intense and the mini toilet in the back behind a curtain was a nice touch.
Announcements were going off about the park closing at this stage, so rushed back down to the coaster for one final dusky lap.
Tabbydabo.
Glad it worked out this way in the end really. By coming back for an evening visit, we were treated to an enhanced atmosphere and able to take the park at a more relaxed pace. Covered more than we would have planned to do on the first day and had a much better time for it. Lesson (probably not) learnt.
This was at one point going to be my first park trip abroad, but for reasons I no longer remember it never happened (too basic?). So 5 years later…
Day 1 – Tibidabo?
Landed in Barcelona on a rather damp morning and picked up a car. Got a cheerily sarcastic “nice weather for the weekend” comment from the woman there, we laughed politely and thought nothing of it. This ain’t Nagashima.
Had a fun little drive in our fun little car up to the top of the mountain, not really paying attention to the weather. Got to the car park for the man to tell us: “The park is closed, but you can go up and have a look, there’s restaurants and stuff. Just make sure you pay for this parking ticket up there before you leave.” Humoured him and went up for a look and perhaps to enquire about later.
Well yes, it was closed, ticket windows included. Don’t know how to do this parking thing. Getting a bit wet. Better move on then. Came to leave the car park about 10 minutes later, a different man asked to see the parking ticket. He was confused by the fact it hadn’t been paid for, but wasn’t able to communicate as such so we got a shrug and were let out anyway. Can’t go anywhere any more.
Swept down the coast to check in at Hotel Caribe, part of the PortAventura resort. Not usually a fan of on-site hotels as I haven’t come across many that actually offer any worthwhile park incentives (or competitive prices) along with it. Couldn’t really say no to this one, with multiple park entries and fast tracks chucked in for dirt cheap. Bit of a queue in the lobby to get it all sorted, but I like how easy going the system is: Key card for the room also gets you into the parks. If you’re too early for a room, they give you the key anyway and text you the room number when it’s ready. No pointless faffy checkout. Just walk away.
PortAventura
Straight into this place then, aiming to remove any anxieties by getting everything at least once on the first day.
With many stories of how bad the queues are lingering in the back of our mind, didn’t expect to see this queue board.
With many stories of how bad Baco is lingering in the back of our mind, decided to save it for later.
#1 & #2 Stampida (Blue & Red)
With many stories of how bad Stampida is lingering in the back of our mind, boarded our first coaster with a little trepidation.
In the first of many ride mishaps on park, the red train was sent off without us, leaving us sitting in the station for their complete lap. Sad to say we lost that one.
I do like a good racing coaster and enjoyed this one a lot. It’s got character. Love the way the red lift hill is faster than the blue, adding an instant “NOOOOOOO!” moment to the race as they accelerate away from you. It rode with a perfectly acceptable amount of roughness. Haphazardly racing the other train in a huge mess of wooden track for it to disappear halfway and suddenly turn into Tomahawk was a particular highlight, great interaction within the confines of the layout. Won our first actual race. Went straight round for the other side and won again. Can we keep up the streak?
Left that ride buzzing and walked past a vulture singing Tom Jones. It was at this moment we decided that PortAventura is better than Phantasialand.
#3 Tomahawk
On to Tomahawk. Mini GCI trains were good to see, but a little short on leg room. Wasn’t too fussed about this ride. It was alright.
#4 Diablo
Feels like forever since I’ve done a mine train that isn’t a clone, so this Arrow installation was refreshing. I approve of the Helix style drop out of the station and the hilarity of the remaining layout. Lift 2, drop 2 is a true classic. What happened to the bit over the log flume? Feels like that should have a mountain over it or something.
#4 Dragon Khan
Dragon Khan was probably a bit of a standout back in its day, but I wasn’t too fussed about this one either. It was alright. For a B&M it doesn’t ride fantastically and layouts that are inversions for the sake of inversions don’t tend to impress me. The zero G not being zero G and being rather violent was good and the best part of the ride was the sharp upwards snap into the mid course. Worryingly I feel like Smiler pulls off this concept better.
Slithered into Sesame land to find #5 Tami-Tami up and running (we had been waved away earlier, rain or something). +1
Which brings us to Shambhala. Been a long time coming this one, and excitement levels were rather high. Perhaps a little too high.
#6 Shambhala
It was alright. Maybe it’s just not my thing, but can’t see why this ride is generally held in such high regard. The lift slows to a crawl at the top making for an underwhelming first drop. The big hills are all rather underwhelming, providing a feeling of ‘just a little more, just a little more… nope’. The speed hill was probably the highlight, but it’s contains a jarring trim brake, so that’s also the lowlight. Ugh. Very noticeable towards the back.
It’s good solid fun, that B&M slogan, but I didn’t find it to be anything special at all. Shamebhala.
#7 Furius Baco
Only Intamin’s notorious first attempt at a wing coaster was left, which decided to break down on us. Had barely settled in the queue before seeing it reverse itself off of the launch track and back into the station. They then emptied it and tried to reset something by reversing it onto the previous block and bringing it back in again. Tested it empty. Same issue. I’ll take my leave then.
Did another lap of the park for some rerides (including a 3rd straight win on Stampida) and came back to Baco again. Back seat lads, let’s see what the fuss is about. Bracing through the quaint little preshow about monkeys and wine, preparing for the worst. It was alright.
Found it quite a hilarious experience actually. As soon as it lands after that 1 hill, I just burst out laughing through a very comedic juddering around some corners, a concrete tunnel and weirdly one of the better inline twists out there – taken at a non-stupid pace. Daft layout overall though.
So thanks to the pleasant opening hours, got all the important stuff knocked out in the first day. Time to relax.
Apparently it had finally stopped raining back in Chongqing, so I guess there’s time for one more excessive day trip to get the major attraction schedule back under control.
Is this the right place?
Oh there it is.
Day 13 – Happy Valley Chongqing
The final park in the chain (achievement unlocked). Didn’t know what to expect from this one, other than it was very new.
For somewhere very new, it had a shocking amount of things closed according to a sign outside. Didn’t bother translating, too late now.
Got told the ferris wheel was closed while entering the turnstyles. That was a lie, it wasn’t.
The park entrance is on a big hill, so spent the first few minutes going down escalators watching the creds intently for any signs of life with the usual anxiety. I’d like to make the hill comparison to Liseberg, but it’ll probably end up with a more unfortunate one like Legoland Windsor. It is different for Happy Valley at least.
Ooh, that looks tasty.
#1 Jungle Dragon
The whole ride sits on top of another hill, with the queue area being at the bottom. At the final batch point, a trains worth of people gets let into a lift which takes you up to the station. That was all rather fun and from what I could see at the top, this could be a mini Python and the GCI excitement that had faded the previous day was temporarily restored.
It’s really good, but to be honest it should have been fantastic, so I can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed again. They seem to have developed an obsession for large swooping drops which do absolutely nothing. I’m sure the terrain had a lot more to offer than just that.
There’s plenty of good sensations in there, some of the straight hill sections in particular, but again less of their surprise moments than I’ve become accustomed to.
That thing next then, doesn’t look far.
It’s actually miles away. The park layout is 2 huge s-bends around the water, another central hill and the entire length of this beast.
#2 Flying Wing Coaster
The one with the airtime(?) hill and the loop. Still not entirely sure how I feel about this one. Was it really good? Or was I just wrecked by this stage of the trip.
It felt pretty damn intense for a B&M wing coaster. Is that what I want out of one? Probably.
All hope of any relief from the vest restraint goes out the window from the bottom of the first dip so the following hill ain’t great. I’ve concluded that airtime only works on these out of a straight first drop, so you can’t have any positive force on your shoulders preceding it.
It’s then a very fluid sequence of inversions as it winds its way downhill, passing over the pathways as it goes. Beautifully integrated into the area.
The ride ends with the classic slow inline twist, but instead of just mild discomfort and not being able to breathe for a second, I was seeing stars on the brake run. What just happened?
Operations were pretty dire, with one half of the train being loaded at a time and then the standard practice of having to let previous riders sort their belongings and clear the station before even considering batching any new ones. The park was also filled with a ridiculous amount of school groups of varying ages on this day, and very little else, so I didn’t arrive at the ride at a very good time and though it may have quietened later on, it was such a ridiculous journey to go back again more than once or twice in a day.
Can’t be good for their necks.
#3 Family Coaster
There’s a Vekoma junior boomerang overlooking a quarry. Themed to planes and/or rainbows.
These rides are smooth, reasonably forceful and decent enough for a family cred. Good to see HV still trying some different product types for themselves at both ends of the scale.
Game Ride (what a name) was very enjoyable. Mouse of Chocolate style shooter but without getting a sore arm, as you can just press and hold the buttons with your thumbs for maximum firepower.
Also reminded me of Lotte World’s shooting ride, as you have to aim at dragons, just slightly less evil in this case. They’re making meals or interfering with the preparation of said meals by standing around and pelvic thrusting.
The sections between screens were of decent quality as well. I do hope they look after this attraction more than the Santa ones.
#4 Mine Train Coaster
One more cred. It’s built into the hill, but it’s the same damn layout as always, so that was a disappointment. Oh yes, they’re still making mine train clones. This Golden Horse exists alongside Vekoma in the park and they’ve adopted the same look of new style track from somewhere. The queue was awful, filled with a million schoolkids, half of which were too small to actually ride but were getting as far as the station to find that out and then traipsing back past everyone in groups of at least 100. The ones that were big enough spent an entire half an hour trying to slowly nudge past us. +1.
Back to the impressive looking woodie for a bit then. Rode it with some Koreans. That improved it slightly.
Jumped on the closed Ferris wheel on the way out for some views.
Decent park then overall, one of the stronger Happy Valleys. No major issues and finally a park where everything was running. It has a good enough lineup, but it’s an arse to get around for rerides, a much more prominent issue due to Chinese operations.
And with that, we’re gone from China. Not sure about the love any more.
Summary of a Chinese Visa
I’d like to think I made the most out of one visa by getting 3 major trips and 1 side trip knocked out over the 2 year period. Looks a little something like this:
01/17 | 09/17 | 01/18 | 04/18
Fun facts and scary statistics:
Total parks: 37 Total creds: 104 Total mine train clones: 11 Total woodies: 10 Total Fantawilds: 9
Total train distance: 11615 km/7259 Miles Total train time: 64 hours 21 minutes
Spites: January 2017 – 5/32 (15.6%) September 2017 – 15/52 (28.8%) January 2018 – 3/11 (27.3%) April 2018 – 29/61 (47.5%)
So what have we learnt? January is the best time to go apparently… and the more you do it, the worse it gets. That April figure is truly abysmal, but there were still some cracking rides on this trip. No regrets.
The second journey here was somewhat easier, now knowing what awaits at the other end. No chickens for our entertainment this time unfortunately.
Ticket window sign had changed a little, Desert Rally had become Desert Storm (some guy with his feet on the table behind the ticket girl still maintained that this was “the wooden one”), and the B&M had been replaced with the mine train. Well, nothing to lose now.
Discount China Dinosaur Park.
Circled round to the new area to begin with, to settle some anxiety and hopefully prove the bloke was an idiot.
Thankfully he was, Desert Storm being the closed flat ride and a posted opening time of 10:30 on the woodie.
To be fair to him, they can never make up their mind on names. The Dive coaster on this sign is called Flying Asparas in Western Region, so here’s a cultural lesson while we wait for something to open: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsara
Also checked that out, posted opening time of 13:00.
Gonna be a long day.
#1 Magic Carpet, a bog standard spinning coaster nearby was running, so grabbed that first. Judging from old pictures it’s had a decent retheme (from concrete wasteland) to integrate with the new area. They were only running full cars, so had a good little sit down waiting for a couple of locals to rock up and join us. Was alright for a car seatbelt model.
Hung around for a while longer, eventually joining the queue early with a few others to watch some test laps.
Finally the time came to do some stretching. Contrary to every other park in the chain, they hold a very firm belief in their exercise routine here. Where the rest of them treat it as a bit of fun and a laugh, the staff here will aggressively shout at anyone who is not following the instructions with the utmost of seriousness. I usually half-arse it just to show I’m in the zone and have a vague understanding of what’s going on, but this wasn’t good enough today and I was one of many victims to a sharp tongue.
#2 Great Desert-Rally
On to the ride then. Seems a while since I was last acquainted with a GCI and due to their consistency so far I was rather excited.
This one lacked something however. A Wodan style beginning with meandering up high sections and then nothing particularly notable came of it afterwards. It didn’t seem to have the signature surprise moments that I’ve come to associate with the brand, everything just rode exactly how it looked, no surprises. Maybe Gravity has just spoiled me recently. Solid fun, but nothing amazing.
Having never seen them before and then seeing them at 3 parks in a row, decided to do the modern version of the Flying Machines attraction. Another good little sit down, slightly ruined by the parks nonsense rule of no glasses on a gentle observation ride and thenn trying to force everyone to remain seated for a minute after it had finished, because if you get up too fast you will become dizzy…
Took a lap of the park from there to see what else was cooking.
Mine train closed, as promised.
Rapids looked cool, but been put off ever doing a Happy Valley one by my first attempt in Shenzhen.
Jumped on the flying island for some views.
Closed creds and high rise buildings, the usual stuff.
Had a Mcdonalds in the park out of boredom and for the novelty of HV not having all the major food establishments outside the park entrance with a no re-entry rule.
SLC started testing. Joy.
Priorities though, this had as well.
#3 Western Regions Heaven
Forgot about the unorthodox loose article storage system here, the suspended wooden box that carries itself over the track to the far side. Seemed very flimsy up close and almost didnt trust it to not tip everything out onto the train along the way. Made it easier to get the seat you wanted at least.
The ride was decent enough. It’s pretty. It does what dives do, just slightly weird to have the straight drop with less anticipation at the top. The section after the second drop starts cool, with the tunnel and the interaction with the woodie, but then it’s just two dumb corners and feels a little pointless, ending on a low.
Had a bit of an unpleasant situation on the second lap, when 2 Americans(?) appeared out of nowhere and started abusing the staff. First problem was nothing to do with Asian operations at all, in that they got shouted at for putting their shoes in the storage device and trying to ride barefoot. The reply to this was “you guyyys are STOOPID”, to which the staff just laughed in their face, which I respected. Second problem was local operations, in that they didn’t like the exercise concept, loudly booing the staff, making gestures at them and saying ‘we just wanna get on the riiide’, while I stand there thinking please don’t associate me with this awfulness.
The staff then seem confused by the length of my legs and kept shouting and gesturing at me to sit back in my seat so they could try and get an uncomfortable extra click of the restraint on me, even though I was as far back as I could go. They were getting quite worked up and frustrated with me while I physically can’t do anything about it and I began to regret even coming back for another lap. I was rooting for you, bastards.
Took a couple more laps on the woodie to forget that ever happened.
This proverb amuses me.
From there, found a dark ride I never knew existed. Panda Warrior 4D. Another system in the style of Spiderman, also like their storm themed one in HV Shanghai, but far superior to the latter. It went on a lot longer and did a lot more. Contrary to the name and queue, showing Kung Fu Panda the film on TVs, the panda is a magician. Some city is getting wrecked by an earthquake and the magic panda is whisking you through it all for a bit of light entertainment. He seemed rather emotionally disconnected from the destruction and death around him and was a bit mean in some cases, but he got rewarded with a medal for services at the end. Odd.
Also did another flying simulator, Flying over the West. This was alright, going over some different sights from before. The ‘West’ here meant ‘Western part of China and neighbouring Asia’ so lots of mountains, temples, buddhas and stuff. Think the Wuhan version is still my fave, cos dragons.
Confirmed the Megalite was indeed closed for ‘Annual maintenance’, further going against the web of lies the previous day. It’s only a clone, but someday it’ll spite me the full set of these and I wanted it at least for scientific research purposes, with the previous one being so inferior to the original.
Just the SLC then. Oh no, the SLC.
#4 Dragon in Clouds
The queueline consists of half a mile of narrow cages, just to get you in the mood for torture. Had the exact same issue with the staff again, angrily telling me to sit further back in the seat when I can’t. Not like I’m trying to trick them into a loose restraint for a bit more airtime on an SLC is it? Another observation here on how they worship the pre-ride exercise routine. If the train is half empty and you’re sitting in it ready to go, but 2 more people rock up into the station, everything stops and they’ll make them do the whole routine separately before letting them get on with it.
The ride experience awful as well, I think Vekoma wins worst of the trip. Just a really unpleasant shaking throughout, haven’t felt it that bad since Condor. Ugh.
Can’t really say no to the shooting Santa rides, though I should have learnt to by now. The staff on North Pole Adventure were bored to death and rude, no one rides it and absolutely nothing works on it any more. For somewhere that loves maintenance so much, they really don’t look after these.
No idea.
What other stupid ideas can we come up with? Let’s ride the ferris wheel.
We had already had some views with reasonable ventilation, but it’s only 35°C outside and about 45 in this greenhouse that’s scratched to pieces.
In case you can’t tell, I wasn’t particularly fond of this park by the end of the day. I thought I would have had the worst of Happy Valley behind me, but Chengdu hit brand new lows. As much as some of the other parks had their faults, I’ve very rarely had issues with the staff as well and they haven’t even got a killer ride here to aid any kind of forgiveness.
Woke up here to find it raining somewhat. There goes that day then. I do resent how easily everything takes a turn for the worse again.
Spent a bit of time dwelling on the catastrophe and it looked like it was going to rain the next day as well. In order to stand any chance of salvaging the last few days of trip, I decided to reschedule the following day as well to allow the chance to come back to this city later in the week, at an additional cost of course.
The weather had cleared by the afternoon, so took a chance on a smaller park to try and get something done.
Shenming Unoversal City
Struggled to get into this place as they were in the middle of setting up huge marquees for an upcoming food festival. As is usual on a day that once contained rain, many stares of ‘what the hell are you doing outdoors?’ were shot in our direction by everyone we encountered. The park has no entrance as such, you just wander into a rides area in between some buildings and it’s a wristband or token system. There were lots of staff milling around, cleaning things, running some kiddy flats for a laugh, but absolutely no guests. Interrupted a bloke chatting up the token girl to ask if the creds were gonna happen. “It’s not safe, the track is wet.”
Example of wetness.
Thought so.
Day 11 – Chengdu
Arrived first thing in the morning, the sun was shining. Let’s get something done this time.
Happy Valley Chengdu?
Took a bus to the park. It did a Fantawild Zhengzhou, but worse, dumping guests on the wrong side of 12 lanes of fast moving traffic with no way to cross. There wasn’t even an enterprise of tuk-tuks to come to the rescue. Ended up complaining a lot, getting back on another of the same buses until somewhere much further down the road where there was a bridge to cross, then getting another bus in the opposite direction to end up on the right side of the death trap. How is this a thing?
I later worked out that there’s 4 bus stops for ‘the resort’ on the corner of Chinese spaghetti junction and it depends on which route the various buses that serve it are headed (east-west/north-south) as to whether you can actually get into the place without dying in a traffic accident or not.
Highlight of this experience? Chicken on a bus.
Well that took longer than expected. Let’s actually ride some rollercoasters today then.
Got to the ticket window, read the dreaded ‘things that are closed’ sign. All 3 major creds (Megalite, GCI, B&M) closed for today. Sweet. Another park that can’t be bothered to run more than 50% of what it has. Asked the staff for a bit more info, stating that we could reasonably come back in the next couple of days to actually ride something worthwhile, if that concept meant anything to them at all. The response was some obviously made up crap about annual maintenance for the 2 new coasters (not even a year old yet) and the “red one” (Megalite) “might be back tomorrow. It’s best if you buy a ticket, go inside and ask them yourselves.”
Laughed in their face and went to see some pandas instead.
Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding
Most likely the best place in the world to see pandas of all shapes and sizes.
Unfortunately many of the shapes and sizes weren’t accessible at the time.
But I’ve never seen so many in one go, so still impressive stuff.
Always been a bigger fan of red pandas to be honest.
Happened to catch the feeding time.
Some small birds came in to steal a portion, but they’ve emplyed a peacock security guard.
Awww.
Hmmm.
Quite enjoyed the place. It is what it is really. There’s a few buildings with information, stories and interactive stuff around (panda porn included) and they’re doing some good work in trying to stop the fussy fellows from making themselves extinct.
A two day drought of rides on a trip like this is just unacceptable. Let’s see if we can get back on track tomorrow.
Back to the important stuff then. Jumped on a free shuttle bus with a handful of guests, one of whom was bringing a cat to the park.
This particular bus dumps you the other side of a big food court that you have to walk through to get to the park. I believe they’re commercially linked, but you can never be too sure.
And here we are. Day 9 – Lewa Adventure
Ticket lady said all of the rollercoasters ‘should’ be open. Hmmm.
Had a bit of faff upon entering the park, where the bag scan found a couple of snacks of ours and they didn’t like that. They did however let us store food at guest services for free.
Powered over to the back of the park to find out for myself if I was instantly going to hate this place. One of the biggest draws of this trip was the opportunity to ride Flash, the very first Mack hyper coaster, but with my luck so far it could easily all have ended in another let down.
Where other rides had opening times, this had nothing. It’s a humourous read though.
Staff guy in front of some tensa barriers says “they’re just doing some cleaning before opening for the day. Wait 10 minutes.” Well that’s a relief.
Camped out the entrance with a few others. This never usually happens, so the locals obviously have a rare sense of appreciation for quality rides here. 20 minutes later he got the call and everyone excitedly rushed up to him again, only to stand and watch him slowly take down 5 of the barriers, one at a time, walk them over to another area of queue and set them up again.
From there, he lead us to the cattlepen holding section where we waited yet another 20 minutes, watching the staff wander backwards and forwards in the station, occasionally looking over at him and saying nothing. Gets another call. Safety announcement spiel. We’re in.
#1 Flash
First impressions were really good. Going up the lift with the loop track directly above you is quite a surreal sensation, making you think it’s not going to make it up there, but then the train just keeps on climbing. The power-dives alluded to on the sign are great fun, as are the gallops and vrilles.
It’s very well paced and rather graceful about the whole execution, with a great mix of forces all round. I couldn’t feel the trims on the hills, all of which had a very decent kick to them. The zero-G is spot on (great to see hyper coasters breaking the mould by having inversions now) and the fast twisty section at the end adds a bit more flavour.
Operations note: The station has an exit ramp, but they weren’t using it for the first half of the day, resulting in that same old problem where the already ridiculously low throughput is further destroyed by having to wait for everyone to slowly bumble out of the station and back down the entrance ramp. It didn’t matter at all on this day, as they were struggling to fill the train, but I hope they don’t pull that nonsense with any sort of queue present. False hope. If one of the ideas out of this great Chinese park mystery is true, that they purposefully run these rides slower to keep costs down, it gets cancelled out by them missing out on potential revenue from not diverting you through the exit shop here.
Interesting note from the ride plaque: My favourite Mack trains have a predicted life span of 10 years. The structure has a life of 50 years!
What other things do I have to suffer before I can come back for more laps then?
SLC?
Another great sign, ‘tortuous way’ sounds about right.
But the demon of spite says it’s closed all day.
Not to worry. Been a whole 3 days without a mine train clone.
Sabertooth tiger, eyes filling with blood, says come on in.
#2 Crazy Mining Kart
It was a thing. The operator was having a good time singing.
Another Chinese youngstar?
Demon of spite says no.
There’s also another worm ride here but with specific signage saying no adults. Fair enough.
(Not) a Vekoma Boomerang? This had no signs at all, but apparently it’s broken. Bit disappointed, rather wanted to try a different manufacturer’s attempt at awfulness.
You guessed it. Closed.
Another hideous loopscrew coaster? This one has a very peculiar maximum height restriction of 1.73m which, being a top end thrill attraction, rules out almost anyone from riding it. Got the briefest of eye ups from a staff member who very scientifically said nope, you’re too tall. Laughed in his face. Next.
#3 Motor Rider
Which only leaves the Motocoaster. I believe I’ve only done a Zamperla original of this and this Golden Horse edition was somehow better. Slightly. It’s still moving for the sake of motion.
And that’s the park. I’ll leave you with some Flash porn then.
Racked up a fair few laps and it seemed to get even better over those hills, both front and back. Great stuff.
I would criticise the park for having less than 50% of its major attractions available during the day, but I don’t care now. I got what I came for and I absolutely loved it. It takes a ride like this to see the priorities sometimes.
