I believe this was the hottest day of the trip. The bus to the park couldn’t make up it’s mind whether it was 38°C or 54°C. Then it broke down and we got abandoned at the side of the road for 20 minutes, not ideal.
Day 3 – Happy Valley Tianjin
Could be worse.
Mercifully half of this park is indoors, so there were at least moments I could save myself from bursting into flames.
#1 Mini Coaster
Started strong with this Zamperla speedy coaster.
Then couldn’t wait any longer for the Gravity woodie.
#2 Fjord Flying Dragon
Well this was absolutely brilliant. A near perfect amount of being thrown about in every direction. Not too rough, just violent enough to give you plenty to think about. Exactly how I like it.
I didn’t look into any of the wooden coasters on this trip in any detail, so didn’t know any of the layouts or their key features. This one definitely exceeded my expectations and is just full of both straight hills and twisty hills of all shapes and sizes that deliver a ton of fun.
Woodies and locals anecdote 1: After the first ride, a man ever so casually walks up to the staff and asks where there is a bin. She points behind and he ever so casually wanders over to it and proceeds to throw up into it. It certainly kicked his arse.
Disappointed that this tower ride was closed. I wanted it to be better than Mystery Castle.
Did the haunted walkthrough next to it instead and it was a vast improvement over the Beijing shambles. Back in business with the classic humour and not particularly scary-ness.
4D Xmas Adventure Ride with Santa getting up to all sorts of mischief is pretty good, as long as you notice the 3D is broken and take your glasses off again.
Back inside for a bit.
Ex-spite-dition of Volcano. Closed for the day.
My reaction.
#3 Crazy Bird
I’ve lived through the Joyland Skyloop, so this is nothing in comparison, but I feel like the tale should to be shared.
They were running their El Loco with 3 cars. The station platform has space to hold 3 cars, but they are only able to onload and offload the front 2 cars. If you are in the 2nd car that gets despatched you end up sitting in the ride, in the station, having completed your circuit, for the entirety of the following sequence: Car 1 offloads people at the front of the station. These people clamber out and gather their belongings in the usual faffy fashion. Car 2 offloads people at the front of the station. These people clamber out and gather their belongings in the usual faffy fashion. As with most of China, you are prevented from leaving the station area until a check has been made by the staff that everyone is out of their train and has taken their items, which often ends in an awkward encounter if you’re out of the train in 5 seconds like a normal person and are left standing and staring at the staff for at least a minute waiting to leave. 8 people leave. Open the gate for 4 people. Let them clamber across the 1st car, sort out their loose items, sit down, seatbelt on, seatbelt check, restraint down and restraint check. Open the gate for 4 more people. Let them clamber across the 2nd car, sort out their loose items, sit down, seatbelt on, seatbelt check, restraint down and restraint check. Dispatch 2 cars. Car 1 takes the circuit straight away, car 2 stops just outside the station until car 1 has cleared the first block of the layout. Once car 2 pulls away, car 3 which has been sitting in the station with people in it this whole time can move to the front of the station and offload. Make sense? Of course I was the 2nd car to be despatched.
Fortunately this version has only a lap bar and not the Slammer/Mumbo Junbo restraints so it was comfortable to sit stuck for a good 10 minutes. Obviously the restraints also made the ride a fair amount better than I’m used to and it was exceptionally smooth, so a pretty good experience overall with their characteristic wacky inversions, corners and drops.
Mario has got the El Loco cred.
Some other shooting dark ride I wanted (Bavarian Animal Rescue?) was also closed today. Headed back outside for a few more laps on Fjord instead.
Plucked up the courage to give the final go a hands up, which would normally be very easy me. This one of those rides where you really don’t feel you should and then get somewhat tenderised by various parts of the train and lap bar as a result. In a good way.
The viking area is rather nice.
Quite a nice park overall really, just the amount of closures of secondary rides meant there was little else to fill the day with other than sitting in the comfy woodie train, waiting for customers to arrive. It would be good to see this one get an expansion to the coaster lineup like some of the other Happy Valleys are currently going through (the first parks in China to really see anything like this). Hopefully it can get some better transport links to keep up with the others as well.
Satisfied, went back to the station for a look around.
Tianjin has a rather posh appearance in the middle. Not so much as you head outwards.
The journey to this park was one of the most straight forward I’ve encounted in China, it’s usually an adventure in itself. An easy metro ride and a quick stroll can get you to:
Day 2 – Happy Valley Beijing
Yeah. That good stuff.
As is often the case in this country, I had a minor mental breakdown upon entering the park and immediately being told Extreme Rusher was broken. A quick walk-by showed there was a train on the launch track and engineers were doing something to it. There was still hope.
Headed over to the B&M flyer in the meantime.
#1 Crystal Wings
Well this was alright at best, though visually very impressive. Starts off well with the pretzel. Pretzel is good. And now we’re turning… and we’re… turning some more. Corner after corner and I find myself willing it to do something else. Oh good an inline? Brakes. Gave it a second go in the back just to be sure. I guess you just can’t compete now Flying Dinosaur is on the scene. Highlight: The start. Lowlight: The rest.
#2 Jungle Racing
Became reacquainted with the Vekoma Mine Train. Jungle Racing without the racing. They would never run two together. Highlight: Nicely themed. Lowlight: Only about 10 more of these to come on the trip.
Have to give a special mention to the visuals in this place.
Troy!
Spent a good while milling around, waiting for the SLC that had a later opening time.
Did a haunted walkthrough as they’re usually a laugh. This one was simply awful with 90% of the effects and lighting broken and a constant announcement being played over the speakers instead of ambient spooky stuff. Wait…
The thunderous boom of an S&S air launch venting echoes across the park. Oh, that noise is so good. You fixed it boys.
#3 Extreme Rusher
I already have much love for Bullet Coaster so was particularly looking forward to trying the other layout. It didn’t disappoint. For Happy Valley they were hauling arse on operations. A significant amount of people (for this trip) had also rushed into the queue, but despatches were every 4 or 5 minutes over Shenzhen’s 20 minutes. They still wanted everyone to do exercises before you board though. To be fair the locals probably need it as the ride is such an intense experience from start to finish. Sitting on the launch still puts the fear back in me, which is rare these days. It has a great mix of extremes throughout – the best acceleration money can buy, crushing twists and turns, crazy and weird air time and a brutal snap into the brakes that you really have to defend yourself against.
That wonky hill at the end is fantastic, a very unusual sensation of lateral ejection. This made me seriously question whether it’s the better of the 2 layouts. We’ll soon see. Highlight: All of it Lowlight: Cred anxiety
#4 Golden Wings in Snowfield
Well this thing is finally open. Completely zoned it out and didn’t even notice the rare bonus helix in the layout. It did that same weird forward and back pumping motion that I’ve felt on a few recently, but SLCs haven’t given me any grief for a couple of years now. Highlight: Good views on the lift Lowlight: Queue was a good 5 mile walk. Far too much effort.
Jumped on the flying island for some more good views.
Queues dwindled quickly on Extreme Rusher so rode it until satisfied (the queues were a bit much) before heading out earlier than anticipated, looking for something else to do.
This lurks just across the road. Don’t want to be reminded of home just yet.
Sun Park
Figured we still had time for a quick stop off here.
Started off a bit confused, but eventually figured out it was a Chinese Prater. There were several women hanging around brandishing leaflets of the rides they could sell you as well as deals for multiple tickets. None of the leaflets contained any creds so they were politely declined. The trick is to find the nearest ticket huts to each ride you want and hope: a) There is someone in it (usually watching Naruto on their phone) b) They have creds on their sign c) They aren’t doing ‘maintenance’
There’s one.
#5 Roller Coaster
That baby may have been stolen, but is also thinking ‘one day’. At last something properly sketchy to try out. The way the train rocked back and forth at a 45 degree angle to the track while going up the lift created a fair amount of trepidation. Once it got going it was surprisingly fine. Just doesn’t handle well at slower speeds it seems. Highlight: A proper cultural experience Lowlight: I think I wanted it to be worse
Things got a bit hectic after that. Although the ‘amusements’ were meant to be open until 17:30, ticket sales stopped at 16:00… It was now 15:50. Time to sprint around and try and catch as much as possible. It was very tempting to hijack someone’s golf buggy to help with this.
The motorbike, the rainbow children coaster, the mine train and the jungle mouse were all down for ‘maintenance’.
Managed to catch the Golden Horse spinner, #6 Spinning Coaster Highlight: +1 Lowlight: Almost came to a standstill on all the final blocks. No time for that.
The Beijing Jiuhua Amusement Rides Manufacturing Co., Ltd. spinner, #7 Crazy Skateboard Highlight: +1 Lowlight: They kept trying to get me on things that weren’t creds. No time for that.
The powered coaster, #8 Space Scooter Highlight: +1 Lowlight: Too many laps. No time for that.
And finally the Zhongshan Jinbo Recreation Equipment Co. spinner, #9 Jungle Block. With a height difference of no more than 10ft, best ride in the park. Highlight: The operator excitedly shouts “WE’VE GOT CUSTOMERS” and two of the nearby staff girls decided to join us for a ride. Lowlight: They’re onto us. Apparently “westerners love this ride.”
Suppose it would be rude not to pay this thing a visit. Getting there under your own steam is surprisingly easy, even though all the tour websites would have you believe it’s impossible to do and you should pay £200 a head for a personal driver.
How do we get up the top? By cred of course.
#1 Sliding Car
This unusual contraption runs a long chain of alpine coaster cars up to the top, at which you get off and do your thing. The other half comes later.
It’s only about 8am at this stage and I could already feel myself burning alive. Turns out it was going to be 1000 degrees for most of this trip. Views were nice though. Making this is an incomprehensible feat.
For the second half of the ride you get back on the long chain of cars and go racing back down the mountain at intense speeds, with a staff member barely controlling the brakes at the very front. All that green sheltering really messes with your eyes.
On to more important things.
Beijing Spitingshan Amusement Park
This place has become a graveyard of rides. Most of what I expected wasn’t even there. It was one of the busiest parks of the trip for guest numbers, so not sure what the deal is.
One of those parks you’ll probably see an online news artical about Disney causing a fuss over copyright. All I know is they play a lot of Roller Coaster Tycoon – maps cost 20p in this park.
#2 Mine Coaster
Started out with a quality mine train. They should be proud of this one, look at that overgrowth.
Highlight: It actually still exists. Lowlight: Huge deadly hornet creatures tried to stop me getting on it.
#3 Atomic Coaster
This locally built looping coaster was fine. Everyone else in the train was doing a weird uncomfortable bowing of their head stance, probably thinking ‘I cant handle this ride’ while I’m just thinking ‘good little sit down’. That baby is blatantly thinking ‘one day’.
Highlight: It actually still exists. Lowlight: The plague of offensively elaborate seatbelts on rides returns to my life.
The SLC still stands but was broken. Disappointed, the fact that it’s a Chinese prototype makes me want it so much more. That and the sign says it’s world class.
We then found what I had labelled on my paperwork as ‘rabbit with a gun shooting dark ride‘. Same ride system as the Everland one? That probably doesn’t help anyone. I still don’t know the name. Was actually not too bad for this park, had a bit of length to it and was reasonable fun. I got the highest score in Asia as always.
That was the park. Everything else was apparently missing in action. For a laugh we asked someone in the ticket booth directly underneath where a spinning coaster used to stand where said ride had gone. In typical fashion they acted like they knew what they were talking about and said it was the other side of the looper. It wasn’t. Half the supports still remain above their head.
That was all rather uneventful, so we went to queue with 1000 people sweating profusely to get through security gates and see this thing.
Pretty much this x10. Started out impressive, but got rather repetetive.
Quaint. Fortunately you can’t tell the fact that Taron queueline levels of chainsmoking was going on directly behind me. Stupid tourist things.
I ‘just happened’ to have an 8 hour stop in Vienna on the way out to China. Due to its location and lack of anything particularly interesting, Prater was never a place I wanted to make a dedicated trip to. This was the perfect opportunity to pop in and tick that box.
Day 0 – Wiener Prater
#1 Dizzy Mouse
Walked straight on to the first ride of the day, some sketchy bloke with a sketchy mouse. Must have done at least 10 of these this year, unfortunately. Got a decent spin, nothing life changing.
#2 Super 8er Bahn
This was quite mighty in size for a Pinfari, but it didn’t do much with it. The operator was rude to some Chinese tourists that decided to join me for the lap. It’s a sign of things to come.
Spent a good chunk of time after that wandering around and stumbling upon everything else, just to find it all closed. It was early in the day and the other rides don’t seem to have the same hustle as the first 2, they’re all run by invidual people rather than a collective so there’s no common rules or structure to the place. It’s quite easy to accidentally walk out of the park and end up in some apparent slums in several directions. That combined with several ‘staff’ that were mooching around their rides and being either less than useless or downright rude with my requests for information and the whole place really started to grind me down very quickly.
#3 Wilde Maus
Next thing to become available. The operator was mean to me this time and impatiently pushed the restraint down as I was half in, trapping me in the middle of the 2 seats. Physics dictates that the middle is not a good place to be seated when these rides hit corners at high speeds, resulting in an awful ride.
#4 Maskerade
I’d been told to go away earlier as he was too busy sweeping the floor, but now the man was sitting in his ticket window. He followed me up the stairs to run the ride, then disappeared as soon as it dispatched, leaving it unattended. I want to say that’s cool, but it didn’t feel like it in this instance.
Was reasonably interested in trying this Gerstlauer spinner. The weird ‘dark ride’ section full of mirrors and then “OMG! elevator lift” got me a little more interested. Then it did absolutely nothing through the main layout. I’m having more fun on my spinny chair while writing this than it is possible to have on this ride.
#5 Der Zug des Manitu
This powered coaster was the best thing so far, even if just for the name. Starting off backwards for half the layout caught me off guard, then it turns into quite a violent little thing, particularly in that tunnel.
#6 Hochschaubahn
This brakeman woodie was a pathetic excuse for a ride. I didn’t work where out the brakeman was going to sit as they were so rude and it was such an awkward experience to even present yourself as a customer. I ended up with the miserable bloke breathing down my neck and regretting his life throughout the ride. Why are these things allowed to exist alongside the mighty Tivoli?
I’m losing count of the crap now. There’s a Maurer spinner called #7 Insider, another indoor attraction. Only remember powering through a mirror maze and some lasers to get on an uneventful disco ride. Assume it’s a standard model by how much I didn’t enjoy it.
At last, a ride that brought a smile to my face.
#8 Megablitz
Quite a ridiculous little thing, a rare custom Vekoma. The positive forces it produces are so sustained it was taking the air from my lungs. The only coaster I was tempted to reride, but thought it was probably better leaving it with that single memory. Easily the highlight of the park.
Only a few things left to do, various walk-bys had taught me that the Boomerang was still dormant. Decided to get the Zamperla Volare out of the way.
#9 Volare
Had a ton of room behind me on this ride, which you experience lying on your stomach. I seem to remember getting reasonably clamped by the back restraint in the past so it took me a little while to work out that some more tactical endurance was required in the inversions this time to stop me flopping backwards and causing injury. Still don’t get the hate for these rides, they’re a very long way from the worst thing ever. Knowing I’ll have to ride more doesn’t concern or offend me.
Went for some food to kill time, Boomerang still spiting. It’s sad to think (considering how common and bad they are) that it was one of the main things I wanted to do in this park and that missing it would even bother me.
Did the non-fancy ferris wheel to kill some more time, my logic was that it didn’t have windows and would provide better pictures.
That and you get to at least look at the old timey one.
Saw the boomerang testing while I was on the wheel, so headed straight back over there. After asking a few people in the area when it was going to open and either getting grunts or a simple expression that said ‘get lost’ as a response, I sat on a bench for an hour. Eventually an old man and woman rocked up on a bike and told me 20 minutes. Cheers.
#11 Boomerang
This version is special in that it has strange lap bars (a slab of flat metal across your stomach) rather than over the shoulder restraints. Restraints make such a huge difference to ride experience and this is another great example. It gives the top half of your body the freedom to move around a bit and not have to brace for ear impact. The track was unusually smooth too and I actually felt something other than survival in the inversions. Makes me wonder if these things weren’t so scummy throughout the industry and this was the only one, would it be considered a good ride? Probably not.
Having earlier written off another kiddie coaster as a no, unless they let me ride the cars as rollerskates (it’s just that small), there was one more thing on the list.
#11 Race
(The yellow track on the right. I just felt more comfortable taking a picture of the fountain). I’d been bluntly told to go away earlier as they were too busy counting money to take any more, but it was now delighting a couple of kids. I waited for my turn and got 9 too many laps.
I wasn’t taken with this place at all. The staff were beyond rude, none of the rides are very good and overall it just felt like a chore. I’m very glad I did it as a layover, paying for flights specifically to come here would have been an insult. The pricing structure of this park makes it quite an expensive day out if you want to do a reasonable amount of rides. The total cost of a single ride on each of the coasters and the cheaper ferris wheel came to 50 Euros, which is significantly higher than admission to the majority of actual theme parks, at which you’ll likely have a much better day out and be able to ride as much as you want.
Back to Shenzhen for the final day and Wood Coaster has decided to evade me for a second time by being under maintenance.
Against better judgment, we went for a revisit to Happy Valley instead. The gate price has increased significantly and the ride lineup has been slashed since my last visit due to the huge construction site that is swallowing up the park. All for a Pulsar clone. I forgot at the time but the 1 cred I was missing from this park, the mine train, was in the middle of the construction site, so nothing to be gained today. Spite. The site really takes up a big chunk of the park and is poorly signposted/not advertised outside the park or on maps. To avoid it, a particularly arduous walk around the half of the park with nothing in it is required.
30 mins of walking later, arrived at the entrance of an old friend.
The first train had been loaded, but about 19 members of staff were walking up and down the train staring in a befuddled fashion at the back of each row where all the restraint lights are.
This went on for around 15 minutes with them setting and resetting bars before they decided it wasnt going to be a quick fix. The train was emptied and the queue evacuated.
Well that’s this park finished for me. Mega-Lite went to do the SLC while I sat on the bench thinking of the million better things I could be doing with my time right now.
Went to go do the worm. Empty Bullet launch noise.
Went to sit outside Bullet for an hour. Various stories about a quick fix and should be opening soon.
Went to go do the worm. Did the shooting Santa dark ride. A shell of its former self. Disgusting.
Went to sit outside Bullet for an hour. Eventually opened.
Bullet Coaster
Got 3 laps in in quick succession. Once again wish I hadn’t bothered coming. It was riding a bit crap and as a result, my original memories of how good this used to be have been tainted. It has now lost the tied spot with its twin OCT Thrust SSC1000 on my list.
Crappy Valley Shenzhen has also become the worst in the chain for me.
Xiamen isn’t really on route to anything to have been part of one of my bigger trips here, but it was a necessary step in my quest to knock out everything ‘decent’ in 2 years worth of visa. Started with another dirt cheap Scoot to Shenzhen (via Singapore again). They weren’t so hot this time, losing their gate by getting in the way of other airlines, being very late to take off and then somehow losing another hour on approach to the city in a straight line. Well I did say ‘you get what you pay for.’ First day was very familiar territory. It was raining. Phoned the relevant parks. All closed. This isn’t my first time in Shenzhen so I just laughed and went Kpop shopping in Hong Kong instead.
Day 7 – Oriental Heritage Xiamen
It was a nervous 4 hour train ride due to the possibility of more weather spite, but we had committed. It turned out to be a beautiful day.
Fantawild adversity begins (though not quite at Zhengzhou levels) with a massive spiteful walk over a big rainbow bridge to get to another typically huge entrance plaza. I swear I took a picture, but can’t find any.
Exhausting.
The shape of this resort gives the parks a long, thin layout, so it felt like another half hour walk, greatly exaggerated by cred anxiety, to Jungle Trailblazer.
#1 Jungle Trailblazer (Xiamen)
Very glad to have done it, but it was a bit of a let down. It certainly doesn’t keep up its pace like other Gravitys. On paper it looked fantastic, but after a strong start it loses all momentum and was crawling by the end.
The weather might play a bigger part than how much it gets run in the day. I’ve never done any of these that weren’t total ghost town parks and walk on rides that hardly ever get dispatched, but it was about 20°C colder here, which might count for something. That or they just plain messed up the maths on this one. It’s done at least, only 1 more layout to complete the set.
#2 Galaxy Express
Another Vekoma SFC clone. Also not running very well.
Oriental Heritage being its usual glamourous self.
Water park is getting an upgrade. If the entrance plaza is anything to go by, it’s actually the centrepiece of this resort.
Skip.
They’ve got a strong lineup of the usual Fantawild dark rides here, but hiding under different names. I know this one as Dragon King’s Tale rather than Rumble Under the Sea. The pre-show and spinning water tunnel were off here, but it’s a very good ride. They love to copy paste and so I shall do the same. ‘Actual ride is a big boat taking you around various scenes. Oh no, the city is flooded and the (supposedly meant to be a boy, but i’ll maintain it’s a girl) has to ask the Dragon King to fix things. Dragon King is a bit of a dick and refuses for a while, but after a bit of persuasion through few action sequences, including real FIRE, he sorts it in the end.‘
The Flaming Mountains also goes by Devil’s Peak/Better than Forbidden Journey. ‘It’s the Harry Potter arm system, but all slowed down a good 10x so there’s no ridiculous rushing through an incoherent amount of scenes, but it feels a lot more awkward in the movements. It has more of an actual story, being about the Monkey King scaling a big mountain, fighting that golden dragon and a big ass lava bloke (part of Journey to the West).‘
Legend of Nuwa. Same name, still good. ‘Spiderman technology with another Chinese tale. There’s a hole in the sky and you’re helping out some magic woman with the key to fix it, but big red bloke, big blue bloke and a couple of dragons are out to stop you.’ The staff in the park weren’t particularly nice compared to some other locations, particularly on the woodie. They clearly weren’t happy to have to deal with guests as there was literally no one else in the park (a standard day for them must just be sitting around on the phone for 7 hours) and they actively made it a bit of a hassle to do many rerides.
Due to some lazy resarch on my part (only knowing the coaster lineup), I had assumed that next door to this was an Adventure park, which I despise. As we weren’t as enthralled as we might have hoped with this place, decided we might as well suffer the creds. Yes, I was fully prepared to skip them. How unlike me.
On closer inspection…
It’s a Dreamland with the same coaster lineup as my last Adventure. My last Dreamland had the same coaster lineup as this Oriental Heritage. Did you get that?
Fantawild Dreamland Xiamen
The front and back halves of the park felt very Adventure but they’ve padded out the middle with some good dark rides. It was another ghost town thankfully, as a 2 hour queue for a Skyloop would have ended the day, and operations were surprisingly decent.
#3 Mount Tanggula
Mount Tanggula was nothing more than hilarious. Very weird vibrations going on that brought new experience to such a well traversed mine train layout.
#4 Stress Express
Ugh.
‘Fantawild so big, I’d like to hire a car.’ Yes, but outside the park. Also ‘Quick, that Boomerang is about to do the inversion from the outside, call an engineer!’
#5 Terror Twister
Double Ugh.
I seem to be missing half my pictures from this day, or I’m just getting lazy. Did another 3 dark rides in this park, all ones I’ve done previously and really enjoyed a lot:
Wizard Academy ‘We use the term academy loosely here. Yet another spiderman ride. The wizard is evil and says you shouldn’t have come. He then proceeds to send many large mythical creatures to attack you, chucking in a few of his own spells as well. Those are the lessons. You survive. You get a certificate from the academy. Well done.‘
Qin Dynasty Adventure ‘In my best film trailer voice: “Things take an unexpected turn when an archaelogical dig at the Terracotta army uncovers something more sinister.” I started off liking the vehicles for this as they have quite a punchy acceleration between scenes and they bank the wrong way on corners to exaggerate things. Then it goes up hills and does fake juddery drops and I wish they just called Premier and made it a cred.’
Jinshan Temple Showdown ‘With the big ass boats and hugely impressive effect scene at the end. The showdown in question is between a woman who can become a snake and a demon hunter who is rather irrational. Has a bit of a cliff hanger ending, which makes a change.‘
Then the park closed. Could have got a bit more in if I had considered doing this half in the first place, but I’m sure these rides will crop up again.
Another case of unfinished business, but definitely not for the coasters.
Great position.
Saw the rest of the animals.
Rode the vintage cars. A real RCT throwback.
Did the train again.
Walked in and then back out of the Giant Drop queue. Not with that throughput.
And that was Dreamworld.
Went for a drive around.
Up some hills.
Ended up back at Gold Coast to do the observation deck owned by Dreamworld people. You wouldn’t know it was a tourist attraction as it isn’t really signposted at all. Stumbled across a little car park round the back of the area and walked across from there.
One of the fastest lifts in Australia or some dumb claim.
A few views from the top.
Dreamworld was promoted on signs up here. Movie World was not.
Withdrawal symptoms kicking in. Better get back to cred hunting tomorrow.
Day 5
Last day in Australia spent in style going a long way for a +1. The morning drive took us through the middle of Brisbane.
What is this, Japan?
What is this, China?
Aussie World
It was 1000 degrees, so this terrible picture was taken in vampire mode.
Here we are. The main event.
#1 Bug Run Kiddie Rollercoaster
A rare no-antenna tyre-lift model. Also can’t park itself properly.
Are you… scared
Of spiders!?
Finally, the first water ride of the trip. Can’t beat a good double down.
Took a spin on the wheel.
No sign of that spinner being built yet.
Developed a fear of large deceptive mirrors.
What’s in the shed? Honourable mention to the ride ‘Little Beaut Toot Toot.’
Golf was fun, though a little on the cheap side. I could have made it onto the hero board, but we were somewhat liberal with the scoring. And that was Aussie World, a nice little family place. Shame they lost their rare wooden wild mouse.
Found a few more things to look at in the area and on the way back.
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.
