Fantawild are my favourite theme park chain in China right now. It’s been a bumpy ride over the last 5 or 6 trips out there but my most recent visits really highlighted how much I do actually love what they do.
The definitive niche they have over all other parks in the region is that they design and build their own dark rides – even the ride systems are done in house. The end result of some of these is nothing short of incredible and when you pair a couple of attractions of this nature with a top tier coaster, a few of which they also have, I get very excitable.
Currently owning 27 properties throughout the country (with another 8 on the way), many of the locations are resorts in their own right with multiple gates and extensive hotel complexes. There have been a few generations of development so far, each one being bigger, better and more ambitious. They’re a bit harder to come by on a quick jaunt in the region, usually sitting a fair distance outside major cities with limited transport access, but a good number of them are well worth the endeavour.
With so many locations already existing, the prospect of visiting all of them is likely largely offputting to most people and because of the repetition seen throughout these parks (there’s only so many times you can listen to Chinese Opera), working out which one to visit can seem a bit overwhelming. However, if you do go to China for theme parks and don’t experience Fantawild I will consider it a crime of the highest order.
I’m missing a couple (tons) of early Adventure parks (no big loss) but by the end of my last trip (more opened since…) I had visited every Dreamland and Oriental Heritage in the country so I thought it might help to create a little overview guide as to what attractions can be found where, what those attractions are and which parks I think personally give the best of everything.
I’ve been meaning to get onto dark ride reviews on the site at some point so I’ll have to branch off with more detail on some of these incredible examples. For now we’ll have settle with this list, which will end up as a ranking (of course) of the overall contents and feel of each set of parks in a resort. I shall aim to name 5 signature attractions in each gate and give them a Tier rating from A+ (world class) to E (trash).
Space Warrior – dark ride (C) Dino Rampage – dark ride (D) Sky Sailor – flying theatre (D) Mount Tanggula/Vesuvio Volcano – mine train coaster (D) Flare Meteor – suspended looping coaster (E)
We’ll start with an example of why the first generation Adventure parks aren’t much cop on their own and not particularly worth seeking out. It feels a little unfair to have Shenyang at the bottom because I didn’t mind the place once I had my expectations set super low, but it’s the only standalone version I’ve bothered with (by accident too). It’s a competent enough theme park in the grand scheme of things, although once you’ve done literally any other Fantawild at all, it just becomes a cred run.
Location notes – The city is half a day away from Beijing in the opposite direction of the rest of the country, so not ideal. The main draw for visiting Shenyang would be the Hotgo resort, although half of it remains unopened. Allowing some breathing room for spite on a trip could result in a visit here, but I wouldn’t go out of the way for it. I didn’t.
Personal bias here because I had a really rough day at the Ningbo park. It was my first ever Fantawild experience and it couldn’t have started any worse. Terrible, nonsense weather policies meant that absolutely all of the outdoor attractions were closed for the whole day, so I haven’t actually ridden this Jungle Trailblazer. Fortunately (can’t believe I’m saying this) it has been cloned at another park in this list so my assessment is based on that one. Even the second worst woodie in this post is still an A, so you know these lineups aren’t messing around. They’re getting a second gate and a big shiny Vekoma so I’m hoping things turn out better when I come back here for that. For now, any Oriental Heritage by it’s own right is a fantastic park and well worth a visit, but I can’t bring myself to recommend this one.
Location notes –Although named after Ningbo, this one is almost equidistant between the outskirts of Shanghai and it’s namesake, albeit over a massive stretch of water/Hangzhou Bay Bridge. The cityitselfis under 2 hours away from Shanghai with the right train and also contains Romon U-Park, so it’s a decent enough shout from the most commonly visited regionfor coasters.
And the aforementioned clone lives here. It has taken me actually doing this exercise to notice how identical the Jinan and Ningbo parks are and it really pains me that this one only ends up 7th because I absolutely loved the place. If I was doing this park by park and not on resorts then it would place a lot higher. It marked my second visit to a Fantawild establishment and was the perfect showcase as to how Ningbo should have been, sparking the honeymoon phase of my relationship with the chain. As an added bonus (since I’ve been), there’s been a mini expansion (a small family coaster) and it is now home to the most creds in any of these parks. From the gorgeous aesthetics of the place to the cracking ride lineup, you can’t really go wrong in Jinan.
Location notes –Jinan can be as quick as 90 minutes away from Beijing by train, so a day trip from the capital would be possible. As a better alternative it’s a decent stop off point within the golden triangle, particularly if you’re doing both Beijing and Shanghai in a single trip. Quancheng Euro Park is just up the road but if you’re new to the chain then please don’t try and do them in the same day. Soak this one up first.
Things are getting tougher now because every resort I’ve done from here on in contains at least one of the A+ attractions – Jinshan Temple Showdown in some form or another, which justifies a visit all by itself. Xiamen is the first 2 gate establishment in the list and mainly suffers from having the weakest Jungle Trailblazer in the country. Aside from that, all I can really say is the location doesn’t lend itself well to any theme park based route through China. A solid pick, but only if it works for you.
Location notes –4 hours in the wrong direction from any other major parks, you’d have to be as desperate as me to want to add this to any itinerary.In a moment of particular insanity I even considered going by boat from Taiwan. Don’t.
The weather spited my first attempt at this one and I tried to use that opportunity to experience more indoor attractions and do some shows, of which this resort has many. Bad weather means absolutely no one turns up and the day is a complete write off so the park don’t bother to run anything anyway. That plan failed. On a redemption visit I only allowed a single day, starting with the good and then rushing the bad, missing the signature shows yet again. I believe they’d elevate the experience, but can’t guarantee. If this is your first Fantawild resort then allow 2 days or you’ll likely miss too much with the time slot based attractions. If things go well there’s even some bonus creds and you can complete the hat trick in a third Adventure park in Wuhu, at the complete opposite end of the city.
Location notes –3 hours from Shanghai, but an easy day trip from many other significant cities in the region. Under an hour from either Nanjing (a good base with nothing in it yet) or Hefei (for the Sunac park). Other than Ningbo, it’s probably the most conveniently located Fantawild resort for theme parking in and around Shanghai, but that part of China is becoming so basic – buck the trend.
It physically hurts me to put this park in in 4th. I had tears in my eyes on the way out of the place – it was that good. It’s the newest build I’ve done to date and absolutely sealed the deal on my rejuvenated passion for Fantawild parks. They’re stepping the theming up even now and they still have the capactity to invent new mind blowing dark rides. I didn’t think they had it in them to exceed themselves any more and then Magic Gallery happened. Things aren’t stagnating forever, there’s already infrastructure for a second gate here and I’m so excited for their future. But, and it’s a big but, it doesn’t have a woodie and the Vekoma just can’t compete.
Location notes – If it wasn’t what felt like 500 miles from the next resort in the list, even though you can daytrip both from Changsha equally comfortably, we’d have a winner. There’s always the option of ignoring my criteria and doing that anyway.The city is a pretty big hub in itself these days, with a good little triangle between Nanchang (for the Sunac Park) and Wuhan (Happy Valley) all within a couple of hours of each other. If you’re on a particularly long trip, Changsha is very central and a good stop off for almost any cross country direction.
Adventure Space Warrior – dark ride (C) Dino Rampage – dark ride (D) Sky Sailor – flying theatre (D) Mount Tanggula/Vesuvio Volcano – mine train coaster (D) Flare Meteor – suspended looping coaster (E)
It’s not worth calling these next two a resort because the way they’re split you simply don’t need the 2nd park for anything but creds. With no Oriental Heritage to steal the spotlight, the Dreamlands end up getting it all. The Jungle Trailblazer here is a clone of Fjord Flying Dragon at rival chain Happy Valley’s Tianjin park and that also took the edge off for me slightly even if it is one of my all time favourite rides. Weaknesses over the below? A Boomerang instead of A Vekoma SFC and the 2nd best woodie instead of the 1st best. For a one day visit, you can’t get a much better representation of 2nd Gen Fantawild.
Location notes – Forget it’s called Zhuzhou, do it from Changsha. Other than that, see above.
Adventure Space Warrior – dark ride (C) Dino Rampage – dark ride (D) Sky Sailor – flying theatre (D) Mount Tanggula/Vesuvio Volcano – mine train coaster (D) Terror Twister – Maurer Sky Loop (E)
Except for this one of course. The same, but better. We’ve already had some world class woodies in the list and words cannot describe how this one takes the cake (well, they will when I get round to writing them down). I had issues with the logistics of this resort. Thanks to the official transport we got stranded on the wrong of a massive road, their customer service was abysmal and the place angered me. My first Adventure park angered me even more. The Dreamland park was the perfect remedy for my foul mood and in a matter of moments I fell in love again (this keeps happening). It’s only a snapshot and likely to change at any time but they’re the only example of the 2nd Gen parks that I saw actively running preshows for their dark rides. Given how intensely themed the queue areas for these attractions are, having the excuse to stop and appreciate that with some back story only elevated things further. Bottom line – save all the hassle, get your Didi driver to take you to the door and don’t even bother with the second gate. Trust me, you don’t need that Skyloop. I didn’t, and no doubt you’ve seen what I’m like on here.
Location notes – They call Zhengzhou the crossroads of the Chinese high speed rail system, but it’s quite far from anything else to consider doing as an in and out and much better to do it in passing. The golden triangle was bound to come up again – Beijing, Shanghai and Xi’an, but I’ll add Changsha into the mix and make it a diamond. If you’re doing any 2 of those in one trip then you can easily knock off this city en route.
We’ve made it to the top at last. If you want the most concentrated injection of what Fantawild really has to offer you then look no further than this one park. No second gate, no distractions. It’s a visual feast. The park is a compilation, but it’s also all new stories and it shows off Fantawild at their most creative. Everything’s fresh, clean, wonderful and from what I saw they intend to keep it that way, unlike certain other places. After doing 5 things the same at all the others this park finally got me excited again and I haven’t stopped being since. They have the best woodie, again (I hate them for cloning my fav… *bites fist* not now) and they have an awe-inspiring alternative version of their signature dark ride. In going through ths list with all the pairings of JTs and JTSs, everything above us was lacking the complementary pinnacle of their home grown pure dark rides – they never had a Nüwa in the same gate. Nor does this park, but it has a Sita (same tech, new story). The boring and stupid Chinese Opera ride is no more and they’ve replaced it with a heart warming tale filled with mesmerising scenes (and smells). I didn’t even get to try everything due to a couple of closures, but on top of all that there’s many, many more quality dark rides and shows (and a Wacky Worm) to give you one of the fullest days an empty Chinese park has to offer.
The only problem with this park being different to all the rest is that it’ll make you want to try another one. Wait… That’s a good thing.
Location notes – Definitely not the default go-to area for a Chinese theme park trip yet, but the region has improved significantly with just the opening of this one. Under 3 hours from Guangzhou on certain trains, it can be reasonably be incorporated into a southern trip if you stay over. There’s also a rubbish Wanda park just over a bridge.
While trawling through the Parks & Trip Reports page checking for dead space it struck me that there’s no love on here for good old Thorpe Park. Having lived less than an hour away from it since birth and having gone to the place far too much already, obviously I’ve never written a trip report about it.
R.I.P.
From having family focus and a farm to becoming the nation’s thrill capital, Thorpe has seen quite a change over the years. Sadly my first visit (the one where I didn’t ride anything anyway) took place in the midst of this transition so I never got to experience the park when it had dark rides and stuff. There’s also been an unhealthy dose of remove the good and install the bad more recently and I could spend a while moaning about that, but there’s enough of that around already.
Today I’ll just have to cast history aside and talk about rollercoasters again. If you want the former, here’s a man getting emotional about it. If you want the latter, there’s only 7 of them, I won’t keep you long.
#7 Flying Fish
Struggling for pictures here, but there’s only one place to start this list. Runaway Train at Chessington was one of the first major attractions I ever rode and this Fish is just the same thing in a field with none of the effort.
#6 X:\ No Way Out/X (not confusing at all)
Ooh, struggling to pick what comes next. I think it’s this although I always enjoyed the onride atmosphere whether it was in backwards mode or rave mode (awful, awful queue). As a coaster it never really gets going thanks to the multiple block sections and we would often use the time spent on these discussing how one could utilise these to improve the experience. Surprisingly I haven’t yet actually seen the real life attempt at this, in the form of The Walking Dead: The Ride. Circa 2018 I still held a Thorpe only annual pass because it was dirt cheap and I liked to pop in for a couple of hours when the opportunities arose. They held an introductory event for passholders but the retheme failed to open to the public on that day. So they invited us back several months later for an ‘even more special’ introductory event. And it failed to open again. The same year I noticed that I couldn’t even blitz the park on a mid week September visit (i.e. empty) without queueing what I would personally consider to be extortionate amounts of time (i.e. 20 minutes) and I haven’t been back since.
#5 Colossus
This is a shame, because the ride is (was) a legend. No points for creativity on the layout itself, but the way they blended this huge, record breaking coaster into the landscape is totally admirable. I used to like the ride a lot. It provided me with my very first inversions (all 10 of them) and I remember a time when doing back to back laps of the thing to close out the day was an exciting prospect and something to be proud of. Now it’s just there, steadily getting less interesting as hundreds more of the same model get thrown up around the world without a second thought. I have no desire to ride it any more because a) it’s not that good and b) it’s not that special. Stop me please, I’m moaning about clones again, but this is one of the reasons why – status. Colossus was a big name in the UK, even just being a rollercoaster that your average person knows by name is an achievement in itself. It broke records, set standards, had an identity. Then China builds a couple more of the same – oh no, it’s not unique any more but it’s alright, I’m the only man who actually experiences this sacrilegious act. Oops, watch out, there’s one in Italy. And then this daft idea happens and I’ll say no more.
#4 Stealth
From one British icon to another, I won’t mention the fact that this one got cloned too. It bothers me less because you’d hardly call this a layout and it’s become a bit of a ride type in its own right – a way of making things go very high and nothing else. Aside from the lightning quick duration of the ride I have to admit that the sensation of launches on their own don’t particularly excite me any more. It’s my own loss, I’ve just ended up doing a fewtoomany and the impact just isn’t as prominent as it once was. Once that’s gone, there’s nothing much left of Stealth. A bit of an ‘nnnnnngh’ into shoulder restraints over brake fins and the sound of someone’s makeup bag exploding into the car around you. Unlike Colossus this ride still has presence though, and I appreciate that. The strong thematic experience of the whole Amity area with the seemingly endless Big Bob on WWTP radio loops, the existence of Tidal Wave and side plot of ’50s drag racing might just be the most quality thing about Thorpe Park.
#3 Saw: The Ride
Despite it being the first rollercoaster I really followed the construction of, I took basically no pictures of this once it opened. All I’ve got is this terrible one that wouldn’t even pass as ‘artsy’. There may be some twisted reason as to why I did follow this one, beyond the fact that I was old enough to have free reign of the internet and it was being built at my local park. I was also a fan of the Saw franchise. Mmm… torture porn. I was talking about status above and things just stick in your mind about some rides. 1) There was a BBC Radio 2 talk show about how inappropriate the branding of this ride was. The arguments amused me to no end and I just enjoyed the fact that it was getting attention. 2) Based on hearing this my Dad decided to start telling me to stop riding these rollercoasters because the forces aren’t good for your brain (1000 later he still does! Sorry). 3) It made my cousin cry. This type of stuff helps a ride to become a legend in it’s own right and the fact that it has both retained the brand and remained uniqu- “Excuse me.” “Wait, what?” There’s one in Australia? Oh it’s alright, I haven’t done that one yet and err… it has a different theme.” “Hypocrite.” -as an attraction means that Saw: The Ride still interests me. It’s far from the best of coasters but I do enjoy the dark ride elements and on the days when the train decides not to slow down in the second half of the layout it packs a particularly violent punch.
#2 Swarm
Aww, I like Swarm. Everyone says it’s boring and bleak and while standing in the queue I’ve literally seen guests playing a game of cards on it mid ride in mock fashion (I hope) of the apparent forcelessness. To illustrate that point better than I ever could, here’s that man again. Mr. ‘Launches don’t excite me’ over here actually sees stars on the sustained turn around the water so doesn’t personally see the logic. The near miss elements are cool in the right seat and the inversion over the station is, well, it’s good to watch. Sometimes there’s fire! and the year they turned the back seats around (brave it backwards) was a stroke of genius. I laughed uncontrollably from start to finish on this version, had a ridiculous amount of fun and miss it deeply.
#1 Nemesis Inferno
Another UK park, another B&M invert at the top. It’s no wonder I used to consider it one of the most consistent ride types in the world (don’t worry, just like everything else I’ve since put myself off that idea too). Inferno feels like the most complete rollercoaster package in the park, partly thanks to the quirky little pre-lift dive through the volcano but mostly just from the fact that it’s the most quality piece of hardware at Thorpe. There’s a flow and grace to these that you’ll struggle to find anywhere else in the country and it seems to be getting more forceful as the years go by – ageing like a good cheese. Personally I’ve never been offended by the whole Nemesis branding comparison because I’m not overly attached to the original and in my eyes they’re definitely not worlds apart as an onboard experience. I view this one just for what it is and it’s a cracking coaster.
Bonus Round
My favourite ride in the park isn’t actually a rollercoaster and I wanted to give a shout out to Detonator. Whenever I spent a cheeky hour in the park it was Swarm, this, Inferno, this, leave. Buzzing. I’m not big on flat rides but I am a sucker for drop towers. With the majority of my hobbying life now dominated by a lack of butterflies in the stomach on even the most vicious of airtime, a top tier drop tower can still have that gorgeous effect on me and this is a prime example, right on my doorstep. This little Fabbri absolutely destroys most of the much more significant towers I’ve ridden throughout the world. They’re all heartless, soulless and comparatively forceless. Whether Thorpe are playing the ticking time bomb soundtracks, mindgames over the microphone or running it in absolute silence it still gets my nerves going. It cheats, supposedly, it kicks the car downwards rather than leaving things to pure freefall, and that makes all the difference. Why can’t they all do that?
I had just finished writing up the Flying Aces review when it truly struck me how similar my whole fairytale experiences with Intamin Wing Coasters were. By the time I made it to Hersheypark I already knew it could happen this way and yet, for whatever reason, I didn’t expect everything to repeat itself in quite the same manner.
We spent so much time on this ride rather than underneath it and it was surrounded by Candymonium construction during the visit so apologies for the lack of quality pictures. All you need to know is it’s big, yellow and deceiving.
The morning laps began as soon as the ride opened and the first was more memorable to me due to the other guests in our row than from the onboard experience itself. Clearly local enthusiasts, they had managed to fit both Dorney Park and Knoebels into the first sentence uttered and as the train raced up the ridiculous fast lifthill, leaving me totally unprepared, there were loud hoots, hollers and screams of “Phoenix 1958!”
For whatever reason this had me in fits of laughter over the drop, which punished me for not paying attention by violently throwing me forward in my seat. I had forgotten the most commonly criticised aspect of this ride in that the sheer lack of substance on the lap bars is far less forgiving than what I was used to on the subsequent creation, perhaps even any ride ever.
The traditional hills were manageable, with the famliar dig into the thigh that can leave you bruised after a good coaster marathon, but when the train hit a couple of sharp transitions and the winged seat I had chosen flew up or down in response, I was taking all the weight directly to one leg and it was rather uncomfortable to say the least. There’s absolutely nothing to hold onto with this train design, no way to brace as you’re going along and that made it both exhilarating and excruciating.
I can see why this becomes a dealbreaker to some, and it’s very unfortunate if you do fall victim to this because, quite simply, you’ll be missing out on something spectacular. Personally, I attempted to rectify the situation on our second lap by sliding forward and taking the bar into the hip joint as opposed to bare leg bone. This fixed everything about it 100%. I was able to fully immerse myself in the remainder of the experience following this minor revelation.
And once again, for whatever reason, I liked Skyrush in the morning but thought it wasn’t all that. I came off thinking there’s some good airtime in there but nothing special. Over lunch I said it’s probably no better than something like Piraten’s airtime pound for pound and by 14:30 that day we were sat on a ferris wheel having completed the park, coming up with some stupid plans to leave and go elsewhere. Yet again I could have left too soon and never really got to know the ride properly. I didn’t believe lightning could strike twice and that we’d be having the Flying Aces situation again but thankfully, THANKFULLY, the late opening of Storm Runner shot down our other plans.
So we returned to the lair of the beast with an hour left on the clock. Darkness shrouded the layout and there may well have been a full moon in effect causing this sudden change. How is it that different, why is it now creating all of these sensations that simply were not there earlier? Alright, the first drop was probably the same. I always loved that bit, the wild momentum of the super fast cable lift just chucking you over the edge without a second thought and then the totally unique shaping of the track – with the tiniest of almost vertical kinks halfway down deciding to almost have you out of the train head over hills.
It really is a struggle to keep your hands (and legs) up throughout the whole layout, to not instinctively just reach out and try and grab hold of something, anything to stop you either feeling like you’re falling out or to reduce the numbing pain being inflicted on your body by a thin metal bar and nothing else.
But it wasn’t just the airtime hills, which are truly outstanding in their own right. It’s the unsuspecting moments that really make Skyrush stand out for me. The entrance to a corner, that should be boring right? Nope. The train decides it’s just going to try and lose a couple of riders out the side there with a vicious lateral snap. A slight change of direction? Nah, that won’t do mu-BAM, I’ve just been ragdolled vertically down 10ft before I can think. These moments don’t happen on any other ride type and for that reason alone it’s so gorgeously refreshing to experience these extremes.
It’s no exaggeration to say that we were struggling to walk as the night went on. The lure of another ride was so compelling that even though the body might be saying no, the mind just kept on plodding down the stairs, round the station, back up the other stairs, straight into the back row, no questions asked. Again, and again, and again. If anything, that short walk provided some momentary relief and so, as if to top it all off, as the last train of the day pulled back into the station the staff decided to offer everyone a second consecutive lap just for the hell of it. The bars had just been lifted as this announcement was made and I had already instantly stood up, as we instinctively had to in order to stop our legs falling off. “No… I just can’t go round again… please, no…” The words came out, but there was no attempt to leave and the ride host was already there, we had fallen back in our seats, the bar was down. What have we done?
There’s a very exclusive club of rides that provide me with a truly magical moment, where the stars align and all you feel inside is pure joy at what you’re doing right here, right now. It happened again on Skyrush as we were sent round to our deaths one more time, against our will. A brief moment of contemplation looking out at the lights of the Pennsylvania night – this is perfection and there’s no place I’d rather be. And then it kills you.
There’s a certain ride type that remains a bit of an enigma to me. Most of the coasters amongst my all time favourites made their intentions pretty clear to me over the first few laps, but the Intamin Wing Coaster is all about the element of surprise. If things had played out differently during my visit, this ride probably wouldn’t have made the list and I likely wouldn’t be writing about it at all. Luckily there’s a bit of a fairytale ending.
Located at Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi, home of the world’s fastest rollercoaster, Flying Aces has an unusual physical setup. The entrance is found indoors, part of the expansive overall indoor complex that makes up the park. Every piece of the ride bar the station is outdoors, in the burning sand. It leads you through an extensive heavily themed queue of rocks, jungle, artifacts and videos inspired by the adventures of Francesco Baracca, a famous Italian fighter pilot from World War I whose plane carried the logo that later became that of Ferrari itself. It’s quite rare for an attraction of this nature to have such an historic influence, so that alone makes it stand out for me in terms of theming. The sound effects of planes flying overhead as you move through the area is loud to the point of deafening (accurate then) but luckily, as with all the parks I experienced in the UAE, it was very quiet and we never had to stick around and hear it for very long.
The route ends behind closed doors in front of the usual air gates, concealing the ride a little longer and maintaining the mystery of what’s to come. Even the station gives very little away, other than the huge and imposing rollercoaster trains with their two-up two-down winged seats and minimal lap bars of course. The outside world is also sealed off by a pair of doors that, once dispatch is pressed and you hear the noise of the plane firing up, fly open to reveal the scorching hot desert sun. And this.
The world’s steepest and fastest cable lift isn’t just a bragging right, it’s a thing of wonder. Before you have time to think, you’re being dragged up to the top at such a ridiculous pace that it feels like you’re just a toy for the ride to play with. I love that about Flying Aces, it’s a character moment – “whether you like it or not, you’re coming with me now.” In the daytime, these outdoor rides in ~50°C were an interesting phenomenon in themselves. Of course while you’re moving and the wind is blowing through your hair, you don’t really feel the heat. As soon as the brake run hits, it felt like I was on fire – shouting to the ride to hurry up and get back inside.
I was actually in the UAE as part of a work trip for some global conference, so had the rare opportunity to bring a colleague along to experience this park for the first time with me. For the initial lap I had us sitting apart in the back wing seats, not to be anti-social but because clearly that’s the best place to be – one of the usual alien concepts to your average visitor. He had done nothing of this scale before and was of course blown away by the experience. I wish I could have shared in those initial moments of sheer unprecendented terror, but battle-hardened me found it all a bit par for the course. I was asked as we made our way through the exit what I would rate the ride out of 10 and, to great surprise, all I could muster was an “umm… 7?”
It was definitely really good, but I simply couldn’t avoid drawing up comparisons between other rides, in particular the Intamin Mega coasters and to me at that moment, Flying Aces was no more special. I didn’t know what it was trying to achieve in focusing on a range of elements like the ‘world’s tallest non-inverting loop’, whatever that means, rather than the obvious airtime machines like Expedition GeForce which only have one thing on their mind. Was it a jack of all trades, master of none?
We tried it a couple of more times spaced out during the day and not much changed for me. It was starting to become a bit much for my companion though – oh to feel like that again. In the afternoon we were also joined by my boss who wanted to see what the place was all about. Sadly we didn’t manage to coax him onto the two biggest rides and instead whiled away the day on the lesser attractions, though I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. I really want to like Flying Aces – I should give it some more attention later.
After some photo laps in the outdoor viewing areas, we ended up leaving the park in the early evening (under my command of course) to go hunting for a cred in the mall, where the more unusual side of my hobby was witnessed for the first time and er… admired? to a degree. Apparently the phrase “I’ve never seen such dedication in a man” was used as I stood in a queue surrounded by small children for the stupidest of little coasters that actually causes physical pain with its shoulder restraints. Following that we sat down for a relaxed meal in the food court. I had it in my head that Ferrari World was open until 22:00 so there was plenty of time to give my clear favourite from the day another opportunity to impress me. For some reason, halfway through a large (and amazing) sandwich I decided to confirm this fact and discovered that it was actually closing at 20:00. “What’s the time now?” “Just gone 7.” “Oops, bye!”
Leaving the mortals behind (they were done for the day) I walked as fast as I could back through the mall to the park, simultaneously devouring the significant remainder of the sandwich and downing at least half a litre of Sprite in the process. This was where I didn’t miss being inexperienced – I had been cruising all day and felt like it had only just begun, skipping through the queue alone in giddy excitement. I also imagine walking straight onto an intense rollercoaster while eating a meal makes most people feel ill.
I don’t understand how, but Flying Aces was completely different at night and I couldn’t be more glad that I gave it another chance. The ride was doing things to me that just weren’t happening earlier on, but it wasn’t just that, it was doing things to me that I had never felt before, on any rollercoaster. I fully believed those days were gone.
The earlier comparison to Intamin Megas is an important one because though I do enjoy them a lot, those rides have a glaring issue for me and that’s the predictability of the layout. You see an airtime hill up in front of you and you expect glorious airtime. It generally happens, and that’s great, but it’s diminished by the anticipation. The absolute best moments on rides for me are the unexpected ones and in the winged seats of Flying Aces, suddenly nothing was riding anything like how it appeared it should.
What seemed to be a gradual upwards curve into a reasonably drawn out hill, as pictured on the right here, would actually deliver an insanely unprecedented burst of what can only be described as sideways airtime. I wasn’t just being chucked up out of my seat in the usual fashion, I was simultaneously getting thrown laterally, colliding hard with the side of the restraint as the entirely free top half of my body tries to fold itself over the edge and completely leave the train. This ride is actually trying to kill me now and I can’t emphasise enough how good that feels.
All the twists and turns that had seemed a little meandering in the morning now had the capability to provide moments like I just described and as I moved through the various seats of the train during my glorious night time marathon, this never became predictable. I was at the complete mercy of the plane at all times and loving every second of it. Through lap after lap of it hauling up that lift hill I must have had the most stupid grin on my face. The playful character of the ride was back and better than ever and I found myself uncontrollably laughing with glee at the mere thought of what was to come each time. It’s rare when you get a moment this magical on a ride but it always serves as the greatest reminder of exactly what this hobby is all about.
It seems to me that Intamin’s best creations come out of experimentation and pushing the boundaries and this serves as the perfect example. I can’t imagine that they knew what they were really dealing with making with this ride type. I’d like to think that all the computer simulations in the world couldn’t show you the physics of what’s actually going on here and in my humble opinion things should definitely stay that way. If we come any closer to engineering perfection with these rides, then it may well extinguish the spark that makes something so special.
Deep in the heart of China, amongst a forest of bamboo, lives the best wooden rollercoaster I have ever ridden. I knew nothing about the ride before I arrived other than it has a cool looking train, courtesy of this amazing picture:
Subsequently it blew my mind.
Python in Bamboo Forest is the longest ride GCI have ever made. No one seems to know for definite, but to achieve this you’d have to assume it’s the tallest as well. It depends how you measure height though, the lift hill doesn’t go up 160ft and then drop to the floor on a flat piece of land, all you’ve got to go on is the difference between the highest and lowest piece of track, but none of that is relative to the floor. This is a terrain coaster. And as we learnt from Helix, I love terrain coasters.
I’m going to struggle with pictures today because you just can’t see any of the ride from the park. The hill that it lives on slopes away from the entrance area, out towards the park boundary and one of China’s massive, empty roads. I’d love to go back one day and do a photoshoot from outside the park somehow.
The hill is what breathes life into the ride, defying the inherent physics of a rollercoaster that in theory should always start off fastest and then gradually run out of momentum, getting weaker and weaker until it ends. Python never runs out of momentum. It delivers with an equal experience from start to finish and I find that to be nothing short of masterful.
The ‘first drop’ is completely untraditional. A teasing, twisted triple down that builds like nothing else. The snake heads out to the far end of the layout in a seemingly unremarkable fashion.
A major advantage of making rollercoasters out of wood is the sensation with which they ride. This varies hugely from those which are glass smooth, indiscernable from steel and often criticised by enthusiasts for that fact (me included), to coasters so violently jarring and rough that they causes serious internal injury, making you question whether you can ever ride another coaster again – a story for another time. I do like violence in a ride, ideally ones that push you just to the edge of what’s physically tolerable, but it’s important that this line, which is different for everyone, can’t be crossed. This coaster sits perfectly in that sweet spot for me, in a zone that seems to be dominated by a handful of GCIs and most of the biggest offerings from the Gravity Group – all sharing a characteristic I can best describe as aggressive.
Any part of a wooden coaster that looks unremarkable can still be fun because the ride is doing something to your body at all times, just from the way it negotiates the track. Just physically existing on a ride like Python while it moves brings me joy. An equivalent steel with an unremarkable section of track should be completely forceless and would therefore have a dead spot, most likely taking me out of the moment.
At the end of this section is a magical turnaround that somehow looks higher than the rest of the ride, like you’re not going to make it. This provides the only real opportunity to catch your breath between the lift hill and the brakes – a brief moment of contemplation looking back at the rest of the ridiculous layout below you. And then you plunge into it.
The layout weaves back and forth across the side of the hill, gradually heading downwards and every time you think it might begin to ease off, it drops further and further, maintaining that blissful sensation of a ride that doesn’t want to end. It just keeps on giving, eventually diving into dips and trenches below the height of the station to make sure that not a single second is wasted.
While all this is going on, it’s just a top notch ride experience. GCI at their absolute best. The signature thing they do with corners where you enter or exit on a weird kink pops up in all kinds of places. Every spare moment is punctuated by little airtime moments that have you out of your seat more than you’re on it. It’s not the strongest ejector around, you can’t compete with the likes of El Toro and T Express for that, but those rides can only ever have 2 or 3 really significant moments and I personally find that the rest of their experience pales in comparison. Because I’m always overthinking, I would spend the remainder of those rides in distracted anticipation of a few specific hills and once they’re done, I’m done.
I’d much rather have 50 little moments and not count them, each one indistinguishable from the last to keep me guessing, keep me laughing with joy from start to finish. In some twisted way it all becomes just one single extended moment of abuse.
I was fortunate enough to have this elite rollercoaster completely to myself for an extended period of time. It was a freezing, murky day and I could count on one hand the number of other guests that appeared on park. The ride was running both cold and empty, a combination that generally means ‘slow’ and ‘not at it’s best’. But it was still the best woodie ever. It still tried to rip the shirt from my back every lap. It was still THAT good. How could it possibly get better?
Happy Valley, under the OCT group, were the original major theme park chain in China. They led the way in introducing imposing and impressive thrill rides from Western manufacturers (sadly beginning with the Vekoma SLC) to the local population and were at least partly responsible for kickstarting the current boom in theme parks being thrown up throughout the country, at a rate which the world has never seen before.
The company currently has 7 amusement parks under this name up and running across many major cities, along with some other resorts such as the Window of the Worlds, OCT East outside Shenzhen (home to Knight Valley and the wonderful Wood Coaster) and have recently started developing a second brand of properties titled Visionland, with a heavier focus on emulating a ‘movie park’ with more dark rides, less coasters.
Today I’ll be sticking to just the Happy Valley parks as they’re more directly comparable and I have managed to visit all of them so far, though there’s another already on the way – I’ll try my best to keep up. I do find parks a little harder to rank as there’s just so many factors involved in how a visit goes and impressions are made, so I’ve split things into a few significant categories: the ride lineup, the overall look and feel of the place and any particularly positive or negative personal experiences.
#7 Happy Valley Chengdu
This will be a common theme throughout the list, but the place looked good only in parts. Mainly the new area was nicely decorated and integrated with some existing rides that received an image overhaul. Other places were particularly grim and falling apart. The SLC queue consisted of nothing but metal cages and the state of the nearby dark ride was a complete embarrassment.
Rides: The park had a significant expansion just before I arrived, adding a GCI and B&M dive to the roster. Before this I can only imagine how comparatively dire the lineup would have been, relying solely on the cloned Intamin Megalite to do all the heavy lifting. I do appreciate the fact that both of the new rides were custom designed and even had a little interaction between them, but they were both a little underwhelming for their ride type.
My experience? Not good. Not good at all. I arrived on my first day to be told that all three of the major coasters were down for ‘annual maintenance’ at the same time and had to re-arrange our trip around returning another day to counteract this. The staff were also the worst I have encountered anywhere in the country. The usually light-hearted process of that infamous OCT invention, making guests exercise in the station before riding the biggest thrill rides, was treated with almost military diligence – anyone who did not fully conform got angrily shouted at by ride hosts.
#6 Happy Valley Shenzhen
The place has been an absolute wreck on both occasions I’ve visited. A long term development plan left half of it to look like a construction site (and now that it’s done it doesn’t even seem worth it). The Shangri-La theme around the star attraction does have a lovely vibe but that’s as far as it goes.
Rides: All about that Bullet Coaster. The standard lineup of SLC and mine train, even the fact that they have since added a Mack Powersplash does nothing to compliment the amazing S&S air launch coaster.
I ruined the place for myself on a second visit. Nothing had improved, everything had got worse and even Bullet was running far more poorly than I remembered previously. As amazing as the initial development of these parks in China are, it’s all too often followed by complete neglect. Why look after something when you can just build another one?
#5 Happy Valley Shanghai
The main things that spring to mind on the feel of this place are ‘big’ and ‘hot’. There’s huge open areas of unshaded pathway (I remember none of these trees) between some of the attractions that take forever to navigate. Like with Shenzhen, the Shangri-La area is the standout on looks, but there’s absolutely no attempt on most of the other coasters and the poorly maintained front end of the park with its crude circus theming is quite the eyesore.
Rides: To the more casual observer it looks like Shanghai has the most impressive lineup in the chain, perhaps even in all of China. A Gravity woodie, B&M dive and Megalite along with a couple of above average family coasters. Sadly all I see is Sheikra, two Danish Intamins & Kvasten. None of these are unique creations and so are unable to truly excite me. Everything rests on Wooden Coaster – Fireball and fortunately this is one of my absolute favourite rides.
As the busiest of their parks I’ve ever experienced, the impact of painfully slow Chinese operations has never been more apparent than in Shanghai. By far the longest queue I’ve ever suffered in China was in this park, with the station exercise audio track being broadcast for miles around, robbing me of the will to live as I stare at a neglected second train on a transfer track. Aside from this they seem to be rather complacent with the amount of attractions built so far and will take any opportunity to not open the full lineup at any one time. It took me three separate visits at different times of year to actually complete the park and I never particularly enjoyed it.
#4 Happy Valley Tianjin
Half indoor and half outdoor, there’s a certain charm to this park that I enjoyed. There’s less of the big tacky water rides and crude funfair areas found at most of the other parks and a more coherent theme of Vikings, magic castles and Christmas going on outside that I have an unexplainable soft spot for. It’s the first park on the list that I would describe as pleasant to just exist in.
Rides: My favourite coaster from any Happy Valley park lives here – Fjord Flying Dragon is an absolute monster. There isn’t a great deal else to compliment this at the moment sadly, with the next most significant coaster being an S&S El Loco which, though the restraints have been infinitely improved over the original models, isn’t much to write home about in the context of this list.
I enjoyed my time here, nothing really went wrong aside from the bus to the park breaking down by the side of the road, on the hottest day I’ve ever experienced in China. There were a few closed attractions – the mine train coaster and a dark ride, but that was all par for the course in this part of the world.
#3 Happy Valley Beijing
A quick look at Crystal Wings alone will show you how Happy Valley really surpassed themselves with theming here. Beijing has by far the most consistent atmosphere, attention to detail and general good looks of all the parks in this list.
Rides: The B&M flyer might be attractive but it’s a weak layout, cloned from the USA so to me there was only one real standout attraction here and that’s the S&S air launch coaster Extreme Rusher, which is simply world class. Since my last visit the park have added a B&M hyper, so I reckon there’s a good chance that this lineup could climb higher in the future.
I liked this park enough, once I got over the initial concern of the S&S being broken first thing in the morning, but it never truly grabbed me. The place was really lacking in things to do for a seemingly more major park than Tianjin above, in China’s capital city no less, we struggled to spend any more than half a day here.
#2 Happy Valley Chongqing
The newest of their completed parks definitely had the most polished feeling, time will tell whether that’s just because it hasn’t had long enough to degenerate yet. The main thing that thrilled me on arriving at this park is that it actually has terrain! The entrance lies at the top of a large hill and there’s just a greater sense of adventure in working your way up and down the landscape when exploring the park – everywhere else in this list is completely flat and lifeless in comparison.
Rides: And finally we reach a properly strong coaster pairing. Jungle Dragon is a fast paced GCI with a thrilling use of terrain and Flying Wing Coaster (shame about the name) is the most intense B&M wing I’ve ever experienced. I could bounce between the two all day, but it’s such a huge walk. I haven’t really spoken about any yet because pretty much all of these at Happy Valley parks are unremarkable, but they really upped their game on the shooting dark ride here and it’s one of the best in the business.
It may have been helped by visiting straight off the back of Chengdu, but this park was a breath of fresh air for China and, not really knowing anything about it beforehand, I liked it far more than I had expected to. Everything was running as well as could be expected and I don’t even have anything negative to say for once!
#1 Happy Valley Wuhan
You know what? This is probably the ugliest park of the bunch. It’s not being helped by the dreary weather in the pictures of course and after going through this list it just looked like yet another rehash of brown water and undecorated amusements (plus obligatory tower blocks of course). I don’t even think there’s one particularly nice looking area. But I don’t care, I loved it.
Rides: Two of the parks above had one of the best launch coasters in the world and two of them had one of the best wooden coasters in the world. This park has both of those things, and one of them duels. I couldn’t really ask for more. There’s also a Maurer X Car, sadly a clone, which would be a worthy headliner for many smaller establishments. It was closed. And a Maurer Skyloop, which I hate. But I don’t care, I loved it.
I don’t exactly know why I loved this park. It came off the back of what I’d say was the three most intense days of theme parking in my life and I was absolutely buzzing. Three tasty new Gravity woodies back to back, establishing themselves as pretty much my favourite ride type. Duelling Dragon was even the weakest of those three and one of the sides wasn’t running so I got spited 1 cred AND didn’t get to experience the interaction. OCT Thrust SSC1000 (now that’s a cool name) showed me who’s boss – the most dominant of its type, ever. The staff were amazing here, super friendly, they just seemed so at ease compared to anywhere else in the country and that made me happy, particularly when the park itself was empty. The host of the skyloop was singing Jay Chou songs to me while simultaneously trying to round up enough guests to be able to run the ride so I could get the damn cred. Moments like that stick with me so strong, when most of the world just couldn’t care less. I would have stayed all day, running frantically between the two and bouncing off the walls with joy but it rained in the afternoon. Usually that’s instant lockdown for China, but Wuhan bucks the trend again – I managed to get one more lap on each, in the pouring rain, before they eventually gave up. It hurt, and then we had to leave early. But I don’t care, I loved it.
You many have noticed the score cards I like to put at the bottom of a coaster review post and have perhaps wondered what the significance of this is, so here’s a little bit of back story. I’ve always been a fan of collecting things, not just rollercoasters, and currently own a reasonably significant quantity of Top Trumps decks. The game has always appealed to the part of me that loves statistics and data and, sad though it may seem, I even preferred playing with the cards alone as a child, rather than with other people.
Instead of traditional play I’d set up tournaments within a deck, with cards going head to head with each other across all categories at once, racking up wins and losses. There would be heats, quarter finals, semi finals and eventually a winner would be crowned. Through this process it was generally a guarantee that I would discover what the best card was, which individuals dominated in each statistic (giving me the advantage if I ever did take on other people) and, though this is another subject for another time, there’s some surprisingly similar maths going on between this bit of harmless fun and the method for the most accurate polling systems currently used to rank rollercoasters online. The more comparisons the better.
It will probably won’t come as a shock that I’ve been creating a massive deck of my own cards based on all the coasters I’ve ridden in my time. I believe I can trace the inspiration of this back to a pack that a certain UK theme park chain put out a number of years ago:
Initially I’d be thrilled at the idea that they had put something like this together, but the deeper I studied them the more the cards began to bother me and I would of course start thinking about how I could do it better myself. There’s two main problems I’ve encountered with the world saturating the market with this game for every single topic imaginable. 1) A distinct lack of care or effort seems to go into the details. Have a look at the top speed of these two rather similar log flumes and tell me those numbers are accurate. Even the fact that the units aren’t specified here bothers me.
The other issue can still be seen here in my most recent acquisition from Poland. 2) It’s a bit of a stretch to come up with even 30 valid entries (though sometimes highly amusing). In this particular example you’re having to compare vastly different entities, from Darth Maul to a rollercoaster, and often the categories become arbritrary or even incompatible.
The worst deck I’ve ever encountered is titled Space Phenomena. Aside from the blatant inaccuracies like Venus apparently not being discovered until 1990, you can see even more clearly here what I mean about the creators stretching to fill a deck. When you have to resort to using a card that doesn’t have data for two thirds of your subject matter (the dreaded N/A and its ambiguous rules), you need to go back to the drawing board.
My favourite deck from childhood was the one about dinosaurs, how cliché. There were a couple of minor flaws but I found it to have to the most efficient and effective set of categories for actual gameplay. Four facts – measureable, physical attributes and two opinions – ratings out of 10, it’s important to have this variety in order to avoid any cards dominating too strongly. Every card needs weakness and you won’t always get that from factual information alone.
And here’s what I came up with. Height, length speed are obvious (with units!) Elements is an ever growing list of special features that I’ve been keeping track of, starting out as just inversions but to keep things more interesting it now includes anything from launches to drop tracks. The opening year gives a chance for the oldies to shine as we tend to build bigger these days – earliest wins. Theming is where my opinions come in and is a score out of 10 based on an overall assessment of the rides aesthetic including physical set pieces, landscaping, styling and soundtracks. And perhaps most importantly, excitement is my rating out of 20 for, you guessed it, how much the ride EXCITES us. I have to put a caveat in and say that this will never fully tie up with my actual coaster rankings. Results can vary on how objectively good a ride may be and I’m sometimes more generous about a highly significant ride that I didn’t happen to like, and more critical over something good that lacks originality. Mega-Lite likes to throw a few spanners in here as well.
Naturally all of the data for these cards lives in yet another spreadsheet and with this tool I managed to suck all the fun out of the tournaments I spent my youth orchestrating. It automatically works out how many other rides in the list would be beaten by each and every figure, then calculates an overall score to determine which cards are the most (and least – used for keeping the duds out) powerful in the deck. Of course now there’s 379 of them this is the only sane way to run it, I don’t think I’d have the floor space to do it by hand any more. The current leader surprises me – Alpengeist. It’s a jack of all trades, master of none and not a ride I would say I’m massively fond of. Being big, old and full of inversions is the path to winning at Top Trumps, but not to being the best rollercoaster.
Making a conscious decision about which rollercoaster you make into a milestone can add a little extra fun into the world of cred counting and spreadsheets. Whilst I’ve never gone as far as specifically planning a trip or visit around any of these milestones, ever since coaster #100 I’ve at least arrived at a park with an idea in my head about which attraction I would prefer it to be and then planned the necessary order of events around it.
I have a confession to make however. Due to a recent enlightenment about my childhood as well as having a slightly fluid methodology for counting in the earlier years, none of the below rides, with the exception of my most recent #1000 are actually chronologically genuine.
#1 Big Apple – Peter Pan’s Playground
While putting together this site, doing some general discussion and digging my Dad revealed, to my horror, that I had ridden a Wacky Worm in Brighton well before we ever went to Legoland and rode the Dragon which, for 20 years, I had always believed to be my first rollercoaster. Granted, this information earned me an unexpected bonus cred, but it offset everything I had ever done by at least 1 position and for someone with such pride in their detailed spreadsheet that just doesn’t bear thinking about.
In the spirit of what these coasters meant to me at the time though, I have decided to gloss over the technicalities and stick with what I personally acknowledged to be each milestone at the time of riding. I’ll try harder to do it properly across the next thousand, honest.
#100 Battlestar Galactica: Human – Universal Studios Singapore
Due to a technically troubled past this pair of duelling coasters teased me by remaining closed for two years before I was actually able to ride them. When the opportunity finally arose I opted for the sit-down Human track for this milestone, wrongly assuming that it would contain moments of good airtime and be more suited to my personal tastes than the suspended Cylon track. It turns out that Cylon is the far superior ride of the two but having the tallest duelling coaster in the world as my 100th coaster, in the very park that reignited my passion for this hobby, is a pretty satisfying achievement to me.
#200 Troy – Toverland
In the earlier days of exploring various opinions online we had read and subsequently often joked about the fact that one particular person with a ridiculously high count considered this woodie to be the best in the world. The phrase ‘it never got better than Troy’ was soon coined and it almost seemed a little disheartening that I might well end up saying this myself after every subsequent experience until the end of time, after trying just 200 rollercoasters. In reality, though a highly enjoyable ride, I found this GCI to be largely underwhelming and one of the weaker examples in Europe. It’s a legend though.
#300 Ultra Twister Megaton – Greenland
Oh yes, this is my ride. Despite staking it out as my online branding for enthusiast forums a few months prior, I hadn’t actually ridden a Togo Ultra Twister yet. When we discovered that I was due to ride my 300th coaster at this park in Japan, it seemed only fitting that the honour go to my namesake and it didn’t disappoint. I love how ridiculous these contraptions are, from their terrifying vertical lifts and drops to their car crash brake transfers and backwards inversions. A perfect example of the weird and wonderful side of riding rollercoasters.
#400 Gold Rush– Attractiepark Slagharen
Back in the Netherlands with double the count, the choice was simple – this brand new, attractive looking, triple launched Gerstlauer Infinity coaster or a boring old Vekoma Junior. As it was the very attraction that put this park on the map for us in the first place, and it ended up being a really good ride too, Gold Rush was only ever going to be the right pick.
#500 Shambhala – Portaventura
Back before ever leaving the UK for rides, Portaventura was a park we always thought would be one of the first to tick off as an easy weekend in Europe and we had come very close to booking it a good 5 years prior. With the way things turned out I was destined for a much more unorthodox sequence of trips with which to conquer the coaster world and it took me half my current count to get to somewhere this comparatively basic. Throughout that time Shambhala had remained a huge name in Europe and a significant bucket list attraction for me – I had even had dreams of riding this coaster well before we got there, so it was the perfect setup for a big milestone. Sadly when the time came it was a major disappointment. The sensations for which most people seem to praise B&M hypers just don’t really do anything for me. The ride failed to deliver on any level, but I’m still happy to have landed 500 on such an iconic coaster.
#600 Rocky Coaster – Suzuka Circuit
Double the creds and back in Japan, this is progressing in a rather orderly fashion isn’t it. How nice. While perhaps the least significant ride in the list in terms of hardware, this particular Japanese Jet Coaster was hugely memorable for two reasons. 1) Half the train contained backwards facing seats, turning what would usually be a mild thrill ride into a disorientating romp. 2) Our lap took place in the middle of a spectacular thunderstorm, turning what would usually be a disorientating romp into an extremely intense experience.
#700 HangTime – Knott’s Berry Farm
The unorthodox sequence of trips clearly continued as it took me nearly 700 creds to even touch the shores of the USA, undoubtedly the greatest nation for rollercoasters on the planet. After a day in San Diego I had a little night-time preview of the legendary Knott’s Berry Farm thanks to my newly acquired Cedar Fair Platinum Pass. I used this opportunity to sneak a quick lap on almost all of the major attractions, making the following full day visit a much more relaxing experience. Of the attractions on offer, HangTime intrigued me the most and thus became my second Gerstlauer Infinity to be honoured in this list and my first and only milestone to start out as a night ride. It’s a particularly spectacular coaster under cover of darkness, utilising a complex lighting package installed inside the track itself to display various mesmerising sequences and this only enhanced the occasion for me.
#800 Twisted Cyclone – Six Flags Over Georgia
Now that I had a taste for the American coaster scene, it ended up gifting me two milestones back to back. Though actually the weakest RMC on a trip that contained an overwhelming amount of spectacular coasters, this little masterpiece is still one of the best rides in the world and by far the most exciting of any on this list so far. A security guard that became suspicious of us taking photos of the ride from a service road outside the park didn’t really believe us when we told him we’d come all the way to Atlanta from England to ride Twisted Cyclone – I guess he needed to try it for himself to see what the fuss is about, as does anyone who hasn’t ridden a rollercoaster built by RMC yet.
#900 Raptor – Gardaland
With a list getting steadily more intense I was a little unenthused by the options for my 900th at Italy’s Gardaland. Still, any B&M (unless it’s a stand-up) is nothing to shy away from and I opted for their world’s first wing rider. While the visual aesthetic of the ride is highly commendable, it became the second B&M on the list to disappoint as a ride experience, even with my expectations set rather low. The use of terrain in the layout leads to very sluggish pacing with no real moments of any intensity or significance. I’ll put it down as part of a learning curve for greater designs in the future.
#1000 Hyperion – Energylandia
With the unpredictable nature of travel in 2020, the task of reaching the big 1000 has been a bit of a rollercoaster in itself. If things had gone according to plan, I would have been stateside again, but after my longest hiatus since riding the first coaster in this list, the only alternative was a characteristically ambitious roadtrip through Europe. Poland contained by far the most significant rides on the continent that I had not yet experienced and as we had also had our flights here cancelled a few months prior, it seemed only right that we should make it happen any other way we could. I’ve already summarised the reasoning for my decision on Hyperion over Zadra in my trip report for this massive park with an amazing co-headline act. Although this coaster came a close second in Energylandia’s lineup for me, after two days of thorough riding, I stand by my decision because look at it – it’s an absolute beast. Europe’s tallest lift hill and first inverting hyper coaster – it was an utterly amazing experience and, I’m happy to announce, the strongest ride on this list so far. Most importantly it was just the best reminder as to why I do all of this in the first place.
I made the bold statement in the about section of this website about how this ride changed my life, so I thought I had better back that up with some reasons.
Situated in Universal Studios Singapore, Revenge of the Mummy is an indoor coaster built by Premier Rides and themed to the hilt by Universal themselves. To this day it remains, for me, the finest demonstration in the world as to how to combine the thrilling hardware of a rollercoaster with the awesome spectacle of a dark ride. These are the two types of attractions that really get me going in parks and I really wish that more places would attempt something of this magnitude again.
The area of the park that houses the ride isn’t big (the park isn’t either), but it has a wonderful aesthetic to it. The cheery Egyptian style environmental music quickly works its way into the ears and draws you in as you approach from any angle, the scenery looks great and the whole vibe suits the burning Singapore heat perfectly.
As soon as you enter the queue, everything changes. The temperature drops a good 20°C, shadows dance across the walls through the sudden gloom, the music is replaced by eerie noises and whisperings and the bustle and excitement of the park outside is instantly shielded. Only a foreboding dread remains. For that single moment of transformation, this is easily my favourite queue in the world.
I’ve been lucky enough to visit on several occasions when the ride has been extremely quiet and so taking the opportunity to wander alone through the actual labyrinth of pathways (the main queue, single rider and fasttrack all dip in and out of each other at various points) is totally mesmerising. I could get lost in here and not even board the ride, but still be happy about it. An unfathomably vast statue lies within the centre of the various staircases that lead up to the station and you can never quite see all of it. It’s not in your face like some of the perhaps better queueline scenery out there, but it looms impressively nonetheless.
As we enter the batch point of the dual station I have to mention how much I love the staff uniforms throughout the ride. They’re all dressed up and looking gorgeous in their desert rags and I’m a huge fan of little immersive details like this.
The trains leave a little to be desired in their restraint design with a slightly obstructive ‘shin bar’ on longer legs but the lap bar itself is just what we needed. If both sides of the station are operating simultaneously you can often get a fun moment of two cars dispatching at the same time, heading towards each other, the point at which the tracks merge and playing a game of chicken, with one stopping suddenly at the last second to every rider’s delight. I love it when ride hardware has a bit of a character building moment for itself, I get the feeling that it’s toying with me and that’s exactly what I want it to do.
‘The boooook… find the boooook’, the creepy whispers bounce off the walls as you progress around the first couple of turns and truly leave civilisation behind. Just thinking about this moment and these sounds chills me to the bone. Perfectly complimenting the earlier feeling of entering the queueline, this time strapped in with no escape, it’s the most beautifully atmospheric moment I’ve ever experienced on a ride.
With desperation in his voice, the explorer demands that we find this book and kill Imhotep just as the nightmarish Mummy animatronic reveals himself and shuts him up with a pop of magic. Our souls will be his for all eternity… eternity… eternity… the whispering echoes return, each one getting deeper and more devilish in tone.
The following is the most breathtaking scene, a twisted face appears on a huge screen up front and threateningly requests that we serve him and enjoy the riches that fill the room around us, lighting up in tempting response. If we refuse? BAM! Mummies popping up on all sides, water effects, fire effects, the whole bloody marvellous package. Through the chaos, the ride speeds up and races towards a door that’s closing down on it from above, with a narrow escape.
If there are other riders on board at this point, then it’s guaranteed that they’re properly losing it around you. The pace of scares becomes relentless as you hit a dead end, the wall breaks and a plague of bugs comes pouring out at you. It’s now hard to distinguish the audio from the genuine terror of guests as the car propels you backwards to supposed safety.
But oh, no, we’ll never find the book now. The room rotates as the train tries to point itself in the right direction again. It lines up, nothing but mist and darkness lie ahead. What’s that terrifying face doing up so high above us? ‘Your souls are MINE!’ The LIM launch kicks in and wrenches you up the hill into the mouth and now the thrills can truly begin. Pure narrative perfection.
The crest of this hill provides the best moment of airtime in the layout and I’ve found it to be the most potent in the back left seat due to the direction of the transition. A dizzying sequence of turns and transitions follow through the dark with the occasional flash of a scary banner lighting the way. As quickly as it all started, the train comes screeching to a halt in a block section. On good days this comes with a brutal braking force that takes the wind from your stomach, and rightly so.
It ain’t just any old block section though. We’ve found the book. And then the room catches fire. Sweet, beautiful, burning fire and the exhilarating feeling of the intense heat lapping at your face. Just before further injury is caused, the train plummets away from this and finds a way to the end brakes. It usually parks directly under a fog machine that keeps on pumping directly into my eyes while waiting for the block section ahead to clear. A wooden casket hangs above the track containing the defeated mummy, who each time makes one of several cool statements like ‘death is only the beginning’ accompanied by the sounds of the box splintering. Why should it be over? We can just do it again and again and again.
And I have. It’s the first theme park attraction I got truly addicted to. Of course I greatly enjoyed a wide variety of rides back in the UK before this moment (this was my first proper theme park visit outside of the country), but they never had me marching straight back around like a man possessed, a singular thought in my mind – ‘more!’ The sudden knowledge that something at a theme park can be THIS good is what really knocked me sideways and from that moment on I knew I had to kick this hobby up several gears in order to get out in the world and find ‘more!’ This ride is responsible for reshaping my whole future into a literally life-consuming endeavour.
I imagine I’ve failed to convey the sheer brilliance of this attraction as I’m just waffling away with a bunch of superlatives at this point but that really is how Revenge of the Mummy makes me feel. I’m sitting here in front of a computer screen, buzzing – my heart rate has been elevated by virtue of recounting these memories in my head and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. While I go and calm down, you go and ride it. Deal?
To me, Gerstlauer started off as a manufacturer who often made very solid family rides, but when it came to the high thrill creations, starting with their Eurofighter models, they were quite a way off the mark. The clunkiness of the trains and the seemingly below average track quality meant that these never managed to stand out as good rides by their own merit, instead relying on the public marketability of either a strong theming package or the signature vertical lift hills and beyond vertical drops.
In 2008 they began an experimental phase, introducing LSM launches into the mix with two ‘Launch Coasters’ built in Europe over two years along with the integration of this technology back onto Eurofighters. This started to point them in the right direction, but there was still the matter of the trains and those awful shoulder restraints to sort out.
Their first Infinity coaster came in 2013 and smashed the world record for the highest number of inversions in any layout. Although Smiler had different trains to any Eurofighter, the nature of this record likely contributed to keeping the restraints the same. Just 2 months later, all the hardware finally fell into place with the opening of Karacho. Open seating and minimalist lap bars not too dissimilar to the ‘clamshells’ found on a B&M hyper meant that, for me at least, the Infinity Coaster now had the potential to really shine. No one could have imagined where they would go with it next, but there have been some spectacular results.
For a very brief period of time, I would have ridden every one of this ride type in the world – between my cancelled trip to Adventureland, Iowa at the start of June 2020 and the opening of Pitts Special at Powerland in Finland by the end of the same month. For now we’ll just have to live without those two and examine the rest.
#9 Karacho (Tripsdrill, Germany) – Although it finally brought the lap bars to the table, this early attempt wasn’t quite all there for me. The awkward way it enters the launch by tipping you forward just moments before you get slammed back into your seat by the force of the acceleration is actually quite unpleasant. Beyond that, I didn’t encounter any standout moments in the layout and it became a rather forgettable experience.
#8 Madagascar Mad Pursuit (Motiongate, UAE) – As the first of these rides to not include any inversions, this entirely indoor launch coaster relies heavily on interacting with theming. It felt a little more like a family ride in that it never had any substantial moments of airtime and didn’t get particularly intense. I couldn’t but help get the sense that the ride was holding back a bit.
#7 Smiler (Alton Towers, UK) – It may have been lumbered with the shoulder restraints, but going upside down 14 times makes for a very intense ride experience even for the hardiest of enthusiasts, something I’ve come to appreciate more as time goes on. The airtime hills that interrupt the almost endless inversions are the most satisfying part for me. I can’t help but wonder how good this could have been.
#6 Fury (Bobbejaanland, Belgium) – Following the experimental trend of these rides, Fury was the first of its kind to have buttons in the seats that allowed riders to vote for whether they wanted to go forwards or backwards through the triple launch shuttle layout. It was a very satisfying moment for me to end up going backwards on my first attempt as there’s nothing I love more than to be surprised by a layout. Sadly I spent most of the lap just willing the ride to give a little more. While disorientating and fun, I believe it lacked just one truly intense moment to span the gap between good and great.
#5 Gold Rush (Slagharen, Netherlands) – Though lacking a little in length, the next of the triple launchers manages to pack a lot more punch into it’s footprint. The flop out of your seat following the reverse launch halfway through an inversion is insane, the exit from the top hat provides a strong moment of ejection and the train moves with a lot more purpose throughout.
#4 HangTime (Knott’s Berry Farm, USA) – The rides seem to be getting prettier as we go. Rather than any launches, HangTime returns to the vertical lift feature and then adds a terrifying holding brake into the mix. With a ridiculous amount of freedom and openness from the trains, riders literally hang forward over the edge of this drop with barely any contact between body and restraint for several scary seconds. Once the teasing is over, the vicious first drop hurls you into a layout that vaguely resembles one half of a Smiler – disorientating inversions punctuated by a killer airtime hill, providing the perfect answer to my earlier wondering about how good it could have been.
#3 Mystic (Walibi Rhône-Alpes, France) – Here we have yet another different style of layout. I really do admire the variety in this list so far. The vertical lift is combined with the shuttle aspect to produce some incredible results. The twisted first drop hits in all the right places and the inverted spike that stalls the train before sending it backwards through the course is pure insanity. It dangles riders on their heads for what feels like eternity with almost nothing keeping you in your seat. That’s the moment that really sets Mystic apart.
#2 Junker (Powerland, Finland) – To me, this felt like the perfect evolution of the Gerstlauer launch coaster design. With no awkward starting gimmicks, riders are smoothly and powerfully fired into the initial top hat. Every moment from here on out contains a wicked contrast in forces, with the strongest ejector coming as a complete surprise out of the mid course brake run and there’s a particularly odd and intense sequence throughout the wonderfully novel Finnish loop inversion. The result is an amazing all round package, which is exactly what I look for in a coaster. It’s also just that little bit longer than nearly everything above, which makes Junker even more satisfying.
#1 Schwur des Kärnan (Hansa Park, Germany) – As strong as some of the newer creations have been, 2015 really was the year of the Infinity coaster and there can only be one winner of this list, the beast itself. The ambition and scale of this ride is unprecedented, housing and theming a ~240ft drop like no other, the highest Gerstlauer have ever been by a significant margin. Within the same building Kärnan hides yet another unique feature – a backwards vertical freefall during the lift hill. The outdoor layout also puts most other similar sized hyper coasters to shame, with just two other high points in the first twisted sequence before the train plummets to the floor through some violent transitions and stays at almost full speed, low to the ground, for the remainder of the course. In complete contrast, the only inversion is taken at a snails pace and, apologies for mentioning them one more time, the trains give this a spectacular sensation, keeping it incredibly intense to the very end. There’s no other experience like this on earth, and with good reason.
