We’re definitely overdue an update on this old classic. Since my original guide in 2020, Fantawild have opened at least another dozen parks and I’ve managed to bring my total up to an almost absurd 25 individual Fantawild park visits. They’ve also diversified in their styles of park a fair amount since the original trilogy of themes, which is exciting, and there are plenty more interesting and unique attractions to spotlight as their dark ride game has gone from strength to strength.
Rather than expanding on the original ranking in the same style which only looked at a handful of attractions each, I figured I’d try take a similar approach to the old Happy Valley/Six Flags ranking posts (both also overdue an update). This means separating each park that I’ve visited into two main categories – the coaster rankings for the coaster fans, and the dark ride rankings for the dark ride fans. Check those posts for a list of all the rides that can be found at each.I’ll aim to flesh out the review section for individual attractions over time as well.
Overall Resort Ranking
Now let’s combine the scores and see how the results turned out. When it comes to multi-gate resorts I figured it makes sense in most cases to base it on the best score of any individual park at that location. Having more next door is at best a bonus, at worst a distraction. This should highlight which locations have the most overall appeal right now, and we’ll look at a bit of location logistics along the way again for good measure.
Well somewhere had to come last and it’s poor old Tai’an today. It just so happens to be the oldest Fantawild park that I’ve visited, and potentially that’s still operating, as something weird is going on in Shantou. I actually really liked this park, it had a very chill atmosphere and a great setting with the Taishan Mountain backdrop that the city is predominantly famous for. I’ve spent more time than not being stressed out in Adventure parks over the years, usually because there’s something better to do that day, so visiting one as a standalone gives an opportunity to take it in a bit more.
There’s nothing special in the lineup, just the standard Dino Rampage, headbashing Suspended Looping Coaster and Mine Train combo, which is why there’s very little appeal against any other parks in this list. However I did manage to combine it with a morning at Sun Tribe, another park with plenty of Chinese dark ride intrigue and more bad coasters, so that’s something to look out for. If that’s sold it to you in any way, Tai’an is best visited from nearby Jinan, which itself is only 90 minutes from Beijing by train and found along the common Beijing – Shanghai route.
The only other solo Adventure park I’ve visited is Shenyang, under much different circumstances. Everything else I wanted to ride in the city was closed, so popped in for a half a day and didn’t really pay it much attention to be honest. Just a tick box exercise, while wishing I was somewhere else, but it does the job it needs to.
Based on images alone, Tai’an wins this by a mile, but Fantawild Adventure Shenyang has a couple more dark rides on offer to try and compensate. As for what else is nearby, the main draw for visiting the city would still be the Hotgo resort, although half of it remains unopened. Shenyang is half a day away from Beijing, in the opposite direction of the rest of the country, so not ideal.
This also feels harsh as it was another great day out and, for being the most city-centred of almost any Fantawild park, managed to hide it rather well. For any coaster fan it’s an easy skip and while home to a couple of very good dark rides, there’s just better options throughout the chain to experience the same, and more. The unique card up Qingdao’s sleeve is the interactive Chicken Fight Back, but it’s not going to change lives.
Qingdao has multiple small Sunac parks within a mall, but not much else of interest on the theme park front. It’s also several hours of detour off of any major Beijing – Shanghai route, so a bit of an ask, unless you’re also into beer or movies. Quite a pretty city for Chinese standards though with a cleaner, coastal feel, as seen from the waterfront Ferris Wheel.
Figures, of all the multi-gate combos this often feels like the least remarkable one. A lot of that is down to the headline wooden coaster being a bit disappointing, but the combo puts you in an awkward spot. There’s slightly too much to do across both parks in one day due to likely awkward time slots on some of the major dark and show rides. While Jungle Trailblazer is still the main draw for Oriental Heritage, you probably don’t want to miss Jinshan Temple Showdown over in Dreamland.
Location-wise this also checks out, as it’s a good few hours in any direction from other major theme park destinations and even more off route from your average Chinese city hotspots. I day-tripped it from Shenzhen, which was far too long, but it’s probably best done from there or Guangzhou.
I was intrigued to find out what the ‘Oriental Legend’ brand specifically brought to the chain, especially as it was the only one at the time of my visiting. Turns out not much, this is essentially an Oriental Heritage park with a near identical lineup to the Changsha park and as such it doesn’t have any specific draws when compared to other locations. Just a great standalone theme park with good, clean Fantawild fun.
Speculation suggests the park name needed to differentiate from another nearby Oriental Heritage in Anyang that never opened, but as of 2025, Fantawild have opened a new park with the Oriental Legend name and it does now carry some differences. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues.
It’s located almost exactly between the cities of Handan and Anyang and can therefore be reached from either. Both of these cities are on the train line from Beijing to Zhengzhou (hosting two more Fantawild parks) and then onto Xi’an, so a reasonable stop off / halfway point from a major tourism route.
This pains me, but we can’t argue with the numbers and my love for Silk Road Dreamland is highly specific to the fact that it’s a uniquely branded Fantawild park with two unique dark rides in Legendary Dunhuang and Silk Road Saga Also a bit of a cheat entry, these two parks don’t form part of the same resort and are found at opposite ends of the city of Jiayuguan. But let’s be realistic, if you’ve come this far, what else are you going to do in Jiayuguan?
The location is only for the most dedicated of souls. It’s about 8 hours by train from the nearest theme park or well established tourist destination in Xi’An. I opted to fly from there instead and it’s a pretty interesting area for other things, while also being very unlike the rest of China. It’ll knock a few days out of your itinerary at least.
I’m not sure what the specific intention around the Wonderland brand is yet, with this being the only one for now. The park has a playful mix of styles from across their portfolio, old and new. The key takeaway from me was that the ‘old’ has all been lovingly updated and brought into their modern era of technology and showmanship, such as on the remake of the Wizard Academy dark ride. The headline coaster is one of the strongest in the chain for me, but it’s also at Six Flags now, so that’s no doubt going to influence some decisions.
Xuzhou is a bit of a stretch from any major city, but is another that falls rather neatly on the Beijing – Shanghai route. In terms of Fantawild parks specifically, it’s also on a line between Huai’an to the east and Zhengzhou to the west, both of which are yet to come on this list, so there’s a good dose of variety to pick up between those three.
Tied with the above on numbers, I’ll give this park a bonus point for personal bias. Changsha seems quite middle of the road on both the coaster and dark ride fronts, within the chain. But let us not mistake middle of the road here for not being an amazing theme park in its own right. It beat out the Handan park by just one spot in both categories, while having the same headline attractions of Magic Gallery and a Vekoma Space Warp, there’s just a little more going on in the supporting lineup.
Changsha is quite centrally located and convenient for a more ‘advanced’ Chinese theme park route. It’s not likely to be on many lists for most people’s first couple of visits but it puts you within striking distance of a number of big names inthe coaster world and a couple of intrigues in thedark ride world. There are also two more Fantawild parks in nearby Zhuzhou which can comfortably be reached by car from Changsha as well.
This placing highlights again just how bad a lot of the coaster lineups are at these parks, as Jingzhou still has absolutely no specific draw other than on pure count inflation. The dark rides are doing all the heavy lifting here, with Battle of Red Cliffs being the real reason to visit, it was for me at the very least. There’s also a good number of other classics here to tick off at the same time though. The main thing to watch at this park, in my experience, is how sparse and inconvenient the timeslots for all the major attractions can be.
If you cut a line straight from West to East, Chengdu to Shanghai, you’ll find this park just left of the centre. Jingzhou itself is best reached from Wuhan, particularly onwards to Chongqing and Chengdu itself, where you can find plenty more theme parks, Fantawild and otherwise.
#10 FT Wild Land (#11 on coasters and #12 on dark rides)
A fascinating anomaly of a park for now, home to both a unique dark ride and very good Vekoma thrill coaster, and the only Fantawild to bear this name so far. All of that could change in the future however. Regardless, FT Wild Land is a very pleasant park with some impressively themed areas and buildings to be explored, with a bit of a twist on the more regular Fantawilds. I like it a lot.
Taizhou (not to be confused with a different Taizhou to the north of Shanghai) is south of Ningbo and can reasonably be done as a day trip if already visiting Ningbo for other Fantawild parks. They’ve also opened a Boonie Bears Bay park within Taizhou if you want to stay over.
Tied on points with the above but I’ll give it the edge for having two parks for the price of one (and a half-ish, for a two park ticket). With Fantawild this often comes with the caveat that you can’t speedrun most of their parks to full completion due to timeslots and big shows, so 2 days is always the recommendation if you want to soak it up, or don’t plan to visit many other parks with the same attractions. Dreamland is all about the dark rides, the best of which usually outshine the Oriental Heritage offering. But over there you’ve got a unique Jungle Trailblazer and one of the better ones at that. Solid all round resort for what is fast becoming a bit ‘old school’ Fantawild.
One of the closest resorts to the Chinese theme park hot spot that is the Shanghai area. I’ve always found the nearby city of Nanjing to be a great stopping off point, from which you can comfortably hit this park, some major Sunacparks, Dinoconda, even a Glorious Orient park. The possibilities are endless.
A more complete Oriental Heritage experience with a slightly worse (in my opinion) Jungle Trailblazer, it was the first Fantawild I truly fell in love with for the aesthetics. Where Wuhu requires you to visit two gates, Jinan packs both a woodie and the best dark ride of the era into one condensed experience. This particular park, also the original of it’s type, appears to be treated well by the chain, receiving a number of additions to the lineup since opening, which isn’t that common overall.
This might be driven by a rare close proximity to local competition in the slightly infamous Quangcheng Euro Park not far up the road. There’s also now a decent Sunac park on the other side of the city with more wooden rollercoaster goodness and Jinan is a good stopping point or crossroads towards the north for a number of parks we’ve already seen, while only being 90 minutes out of Beijing.
Technically another tie with the above, but I’ll give it half a point for being the only Dino Kingdom (for now). This one still falls into the ‘not really worth it for the coasters’ category, but the rest of the park more than makes up for it with at least 3 (for now) unique dark rides. It’s also just a great all round experience, they really went all in on the theme, as the local region is famous for fossil discovery, and there’s dinosaurs antics to look at everywhere.
Zigong is in a seemingly growing hotspot for theme parks, Fantawild ones in particular, all located around the city of Chengdu. It’s now possible to daytrip three different variants that all opened within the last 5 years and though there was a recent major coaster loss, there’s quite a bitof competitionnearby too. And pandas.
#6 Oriental Heritage Mianyang(#16 in coasters and #1 in dark rides)
The last park on the list entirely carried by dark ride lineup, which just so happened to come out on the very top of that list. While not interesting in the slightest, at the very least there’s 4 coasters for the count here, tied most with any Fantawild. As one of the more recent and refined versions of Oriental Heritage parks, there’s plenty else to keep you entertained however.
As with the above, Chengdu is your main base for this park, Dino Kingdom and now Oriental Legend Ziyang.
The current flagship brand of the era has plenty going for it, even if the storytelling is a little hard to digest for a theme park. Anything with a Fighter Jet in it has the best steel coaster Fantawild can offer right now, and potentially best coaster full stop if all the woodies have significantly slipped since opening. Then some of these latest dark ride projects are technically brilliant, they’ve really outdone themselves in many ways.
Huai’an is reachable by train from Nanjing, which itself is served well from Shanghai and a good hub for many other theme parks in the region. It’s also reasonably well positioned on a route up toward Beijing, not a million miles from Fantawild Wonderland and there’s another couple of interestingparks for dark rides closer by.
Thinking about these next two a little more in the context of a top 5, I’m going to go against my own ‘only based on the best score’ rule and mark them down for their neighbour parks as they both came rock bottom of the list on their own. As such the Adventures really don’t add much of anything other than a niggling urge to try and rush both parks in a day for maximum value and coaster count, or settle for what will feel like a comparatively subpar experience that’s nothing more than an intrigue for a second day.
The true breadth of the resort also lives and dies on the performance of the Jungle Trailblazer, which is debatable these days, with a seemingly established pattern of deterioration. And you can ride it elsewhere. But if it hits, it hits hard.
Zhuzhou was mentioned above in the Changsha advice, a fairly central location for a China trip a little more off the beaten path. You can complete the original trilogy of Fantawild brands with relative ease from this city.
When averaged, these tie with Zhuzhou and that seems fair as they are essentially cloned resorts, the only two of their specific combination in the country. Strengths here for me in a slightly better Jungle Trailblazer that’s also a Fantawild exclusive layout (provided it still runs well). Weakness in having the lowest ranked park for both categories next door. It’s almost best left ignored, but go on, you may as well suffer it and do it better than I did.
Zhengzhou is another very central location, just positioned further north. Bit of a trek from Beijing but serves Xi’an quite well as a stopping off point. As with Zhuzhou you can get a third type of park in the area with relative ease, as Oriental Legend Handan is the next nearest Fantawild by train.
Ningbo is one of the superior Glorious Orient parks in terms of lineup, both within and next door. The park also includes Hangar Breakout, the smaller and more nimble of the war-themed 4D motion-based dark rides. And then it has an Oriental Heritage, with all the staples.
It sounds pretty perfect now I’m talking about it and is the main reason I broke my own rules on the two above. Shame I’ve had the worst experiences of any Fantawild here and that I can personally vouch for the wooden coaster being a bit brutal these days. But the strength of Ningbo is that it won’t live or die on your experience with Jungle Trailblazer, as this is the only resort with another top tier coaster to back it up.
It’s also the closest resort to Shanghai, though in a bit of an awkward spot, the wrong side of a massive stretch of water in Hangzhou bay. The namesake city of Ningbo is actually pretty far away too, at around 90 minutes by Didi, or a slightly shorter, cheaper and more complicated combination of train and Didi. It takes a bit of dedication, but is probably worth giving a couple of days for what should be the most comprehensive Fantawild experience right now.
I do love an anti-climax. Five years on I’ve ended up crowning the same winner. If Ningbo is the most comprehensive resort then this park remains the most condensed Fantawild experience going.
Whilst I’ve loved seeking out all their other attractions across the country since, I don’t think anything quite compares to this particular combination of unique dark ride discovery and insane wooden coaster. As a huge fan of both, this still represents the purest essence of Fantawild for me and though I sincerely hope otherwise, we may never see one like this again.
As before, the only problem with this park being different to all the rest is that it’ll make you want to try another one. And that remains a good thing.
Still not really near anything else worthwhile in the theme park world. Though it tops the list, Nanning probably shouldn’t be your first port of call in China. The nearest sensible city is Guangzhou, and there’s plentygoingon in that region, so it works best on a southern trip of some description.
We’re definitely overdue an update on this old classic. Since my original guide in 2020, Fantawild have opened at least another dozen parks and I’ve managed to bring my total up to an almost absurd 25 individual Fantawild park visits. They’ve also diversified in their styles of park a fair amount since the original trilogy of themes, which is exciting, and there are plenty more interesting and unique attractions to spotlight as their dark ride game has gone from strength to strength.
Rather than expanding on the original ranking in the same style which only looked at a handful of attractions each, I figured I’d try take a similar approach to the old Happy Valley/Six Flags ranking posts (both also overdue an update). This means separating each park that I’ve visited into two main categories – the coaster rankings for the coaster fans, and the dark ride rankings for the dark ride fans. Then we’ll combine the scores, figure out some convoluted system for how the multi-park resorts are affected, and highlight which locations have the most overall appeal right now. Plus a bit of location logistics again for good measure.
Start with the basics, the signature dark ride of the Adventure parks was always Dino Rampage. The very first Fantawild had one of these and it kicked off a series of many 4D motion-based dark rides being staples of future parks throughout the country. Crude, but effective, I wasn’t a fan at first. Since becoming such a stan of their later work however, I appreciate this one on new levels. It’s worth experiencing either as a piece of history at this point, or for the pay-off of Dino Rampage 2.0, if you want to really geek out about it.
Same as above, but with two simulator attractions for the price of one. Crazy Idioms is a more modern overlay of Space Journey, which may have also been rolled out to some other places by this point. Not necessarily an upgrade though.
#22 Fantawild Adventure Shenyang – Dino Rampage, Space Expo, Boonie Bears Theatre, Space Journey, Boonie Bear Adventure, Sky Sailor
Same as above, but with a Boonie Bear takeover. Again, the shooter is an overlay which appears to have happened a few times, but they also got the revolving theatre added, which has a few different decent films worth tracking down in your travels.
#21 Fantawild Adventure Jiayuguan – The Silk Road, Wizard Academy, Boonie Bears Theatre, Space Journey, Boonie Bear Adventure, Sky Sailor
As a long time advocate for the unique attraction, much of my later love for Fantawild has come from learning that they do in fact have their fair share of them. The external opinion has always been of this machine-like mass-produced ‘just another Fantawild park full of clones’ situation, but the individuality and creativity has always been in there to at least some extent. Even I was guilty in the early days of thinking once you’ve done one of each brand, you’ve done them all.
The Adventure park in Jiayuguan has a dark ride specifically tailored to its region, in The Silk Road. In terms of timelines it seems like it was developed directly alongside Chinese Opera Express which uses the same huge vehicles and ride system, but I find the theme of this one so much more engaging. Being a later adventure park they also got a Wizard Academy, the successor of Dino Rampage, though there’s plenty more of those to come.
These parks were seen as the gold standard when I first started visiting them, but I’m not sure if it’s true with the early ones. Being built next to existing Dreamland parks that actually did a little better on the dark ride front did them no favours and in terms of coasters there wasn’t much between the two brands of this era. It’s more of the surface level aesthetic that these parks really nailed and I think it resonated with the national audience, a true Chinese feel that went on to see Oriental Heritage become the longest serving brand in the chain.
Legend of Nuwa is considered the headline act in most cases, the third generation of 4D motion-based action. The supporting lineup includes robot arm dark ride Devil’s Peak which probably sneaks in as my personal favourite here for the atmospherics, along with several other long story-telling dark rides and simulators such as Dragon King’s Tale, Chinese Opera Express and Bridge to Love, which make it hard to do the adjacent parks in the same day.
#18 Fantawild Wonderland (Xuzhou) – Wizard Academy 2.0,Boonie Bears Theatre, Boonie Bear Adventure,River of Tales, Adventures in Dragon Palace, Let’s Fly
For the most recently built Fantawild park I’ve visited, this actually falls surprisingly low. The most exciting thing here for me was Wizard Academy, a name we’ve seen many times before but instead here they decided to lovingly remake one of their old classics with new technology, new scenes and even a new wizard, with plenty of throwbacks to the original. Love to see it.
The rest of the lineup is rather common. Though this marked my first experience with Adventures in Dragon Palace, and this one has the best entrance from it with the moving dragon, I’ve since stumbled across it many more times. The rest is of the same modern quality that ties up with other recent parks, from the Boonie Bear shooting dark ride to the River of Tales boat ride.
Interesting how these line up slightly ahead of their neighbour parks. I think the one-two punch of Jinshan / Whitesnake and Qin beats out the best of their other, newer gate in terms of dark rides. This is where it will get muddy for the final results as they both perfectly compliment each other as a resort, filling the gaps. But you need two tickets and, reasonably, two days.
The Qingdao park is a weird outlier because it’s the only Dreamland that doesn’t have a second gate. It’s one of the most inner-city builds of any Fantawild and presumably has no room for expansion, so they threw it one weird extra bone over the above two in Chicken Fight Back, a seemingly unique shooting dark ride based on an earlier franchise from Fantawild Animation, before the bears took over.
Much as I think Magic Gallery is the best thing ever, this park still feels a bit Oriental Heritage-lite. While the park saw many debut versions that substantially improved on their earlier iterations, from the boat rides to the shooting rides and even more elaborate simulators, for me it lacks a second hard hitter. It paved the way for greatness.
It’s also weird that this lineup looks rather shallow to me now, as it was pretty peak at the time I experienced it. This park in particular, my first encounter with Magic Gallery, mere weeks before covid hit and I was kept away from Fantawilds from over 3 years, when I had just properly fallen for them… it holds a special place for leading to such an obsession. But that obsession has led me to seek out all of the other incredible lineups and I think, most importantly, unique attractions. And that’s where I’m going have to draw the distinction in ranking these at some point. Again, much as I love Magic Gallery, we can’t escape that it’s in other places too. Sort of.
#12 FT Wild Land (Taizhou) – Forest Drifting, Realm of Warriors, Let’s Fly, Finding Merlion, Bullseye
This park really hit me out of nowhere with it’s dark rides, as I hadn’t done my research properly and was very pleasantly surprised with what I encounted on the day. I think it really set me down the specific path of making sure I got every unique Fantawild dark ride under my belt because it proved how much I, and probably the world, were sleeping on the assumption that it’s all only a bunch of clones.
Forest Drifting is simply joyous and magical, bringing new special effects to the Fantawild arsenal that I hadn’t seen before. Realm of Warriors is by now a 4th generation 4D motion-base dark ride, following on from Legend of Nuwa and, at least to me at the time, an entirely unique story of one at that. Even the flying theatre here is actually excellent, as it’s full of fantasy and dinosaurs rather than the overplayed wonders of the world nonsense.
The early Oriental Heritage parks that didn’t get built next to a Dreamland managed to get a Jinshan Temple Showdown all to themselves, instantly raising them a level above the others. Beyond that these have a near identical lineup, notably only missing Dragon King’s Tale. They’re pretty iconic within this space.
#9 Oriental Heritage Jingzhou – Battle of Red Cliffs, Magic Gallery, Legend of Nuwa, Boonie Bears Theater, The Tune Tour, Bridge to Love, Let’s Fly
I put Battle of Red Cliffs at the forefront here because it’s another one-of-a-kind. It directly replaces Chinese Opera Express in ride system and theme, and the unique storytelling does it so much more justice. Paired with Magic Gallery we’ve already got a killer combination going on here, though the rest is standard Oriental Heritage fare.
I didn’t know what to think of Glorious Orient at first. It was the first new big brand that came along after my obsession with Fantawild truly began and expectations were perhaps set immeasurably high. Some of the steps up in technology are astounding but the wartime theme of the place takes a little getting your head around, over the whimsical mythology I’ve come to know and love.
Zhiyuan x2 is so visually striking and takes their boat ride systems to a whole new level. The storytelling actually hits really hard in places and provides some excellent moments. Railroad Warriors is I guess the hotly anticipated 5th generation of the 4D motion-based dark ride, their most iterated vehicles in history. It flows and is timed with an insane level of precision and more than any other version before it really plays on a true combination of physical scenery and screens, making it by far the most accomplished of them to date.
Besides that, the shooter and the flying theatre are nothing special, and it’s just not my vibe. And I’m not sure where that leaves it, as it’s a head vs. heart scenario, but I do know that the Huai’an park didn’t receive the full Glorious Orient roster.
These two manage to play out like ultimate compilations of the dark rides of their generation. It seems perhaps in ‘completing’ their resort alongside an existing Adventure park, everything on offer was thrown at them as a last memento, rather than any of the halfway-mismatched lineups above. The only real downgrade is Wizard Academy over Legend of Nuwa, but they didn’t even get any of the filler stuff like the early flying theatres, simulators or boat rides. Sadly I can’t also speak for the quality of upkeep on these rides as of today, they are getting pretty old for Chinese theme park standards and that scares me slightly. In their heyday though, what a lineup.
The Glorious Orient here also has Hangar Breakout, yet another motion-based dark ride based on the disturbing themes of war, but with smaller vehicles. So Fantawild have two, new, excellent versions now, and I’m fairly sure these have been rolling out to the latest Boonie-specific parks I haven’t yet managed to visit. Can’t wait to see how they transition to a happy story again. Still, an incredible top three from a technical perspective, and for being unlike any other park in the world.
#4 Fantawild Dino Kingdom (Zigong) – Deep Down, Dino Rampage 2.0, Mystic River, Jurassic Journey, Let’s Fly, Bug Zapper
Oh no, now we’re in the danger zone. Deep Down did things to me, deep down. It may well have the best scene of dark ride horror in the entire theme park landscape. I thought this ride system was dead for Fantawild and didn’t even know what I was getting into at this park until the moment I clocked a model of the vehicle outside the entrance, and screamed in delight. This is what they do to me these days. It might be my new favourite.
But we’re not done with this park. They also brought Dino Rampage back to life with new technology, new media and a bigger, badder dino. As with the Wizard Academy remake, this just makes me so happy that their ‘older’ properties are looked back on fondly and with respect, as they bring them into their new golden age. That’s not done by a chain that doesn’t care. Mystic River brings more dinosaurs, this time to their boat ride system. It’s a little ropey, but they also have the best (dinosaur) version of their flying theatre here, and a solid shooter. And some Boonie Bears that might make you cry.
#3 Silk Road Dreamland (Jiayuguan) – Legendary Dunhuang, Silk Road Saga, Legend of Nuwa, Tune Tour, Bridge to Love, Chinese Opera Express
So Deep Down happened, the supposed rebirth of the enhanced motion dark ride system that really got my motor running. Nope. I’d been obsessing over this park particularly, among many, for ages, because literally no one has been. It’s the most remote bit of Fantawild theme parking you can possibly think of (until the one in Hami opens) and, as we saw in the previous part, the coasters are absolute trash so no one even takes a second glance here. Except me.
Two things weighed heavy on my mind. 1, it’s the only Silk Road branded park in the chain, that’s exciting and needs to be ‘ticked off’ for my own completion. 2, what is this Legendary Dunhuang? I think it’s a unique dark ride, but it could be anything. It’s a dark ride, it’s an enhanced motion vehicle ride, the only one they made between the original Qin Dynastys and Deep Down. The only one with this theme. So for the second time in four months I was discovering this mid-queue and screaming. And then with all manner of superlatives did I fall in love with the rest of the ride experience. It might be my new favourite.
But we weren’t done with dark ride discoveries for this park. Silk Road Saga? What’s that? I had thought the Fantawild robot arm ride system was also dead, but it’s here, in a different form, with an extra seat on the cars, a circular station and an entirely different style of storytelling. Sure it amounted to a lot more of a ‘flying theatre in front of several screens’ type experience compared to the original, but it appears to be the only one and I still loved it’s own unique charms. I’ve seen at some point that they sold this system to somewhere else in China but never managed to find it again, the rabbit hole is endless. The rest of the park plays out like a basic Oriental Heritage, not that that’s a bad thing.
5 years after winning my original list, Fantawild Asian Legend still stands alone as something pretty special. While the Finding the Merlion simulator, potentially it’s weakest attraction, has found its way into other parks throughout the country, the rest of the South East Asian twists on their popular ride systems have remained unique. There’s just no other park on this list with this many exclusives so it’s always going to tick a lot of boxes towards completion. Even the flying theatre manages to play well to the strengths of the park by being a compilation video of what it represents, rather than arbitrary sights. Then, when you’re all Jinshan Temple Showdowned-out, Hero of Malacca offers the only equivalent it ever received. Meeting in Ha Long Bay is a refreshing delight compared to the operatic counterpart, as is Rama and Sita over the omnipresent Nuwa.
I really want to return here, even though they rarely add much over time, if only just to document it better and re-experience a couple of the favourites with more experienced eyes. It’s been 6 long years and though my main fear is that the place has deteriorated, there were signs back then that they were putting the effort in to look after it. We’ll see.
I’ve struggled so much with the ranking of the top 5, they’re all winners in my eyes. Mianyang threw another curveball at me, casually strolling into what should have been just another Magic Gallery, my supposed favourite dark ride. It turns out there’s an almost entirely different version, as a reader once pointed out to me long ago, and it’s essentially just as outstanding. This one plays on the same basic concept, with a different protagonist, and throws in an actual motion-base for the trackless vehicles to drive onto in the ‘flying theatre over the painting’ section. So, all the tricks of the big players at play.
What I do know is that pairing that with White Snake’s Fury is, probably, the best top two of any park here for me. Plus you’ve got one of the most modern Nuwas, which seem to move a lot more violently, and an insanely facelifted classic in the return of Rumble under the Sea. I feel like it’s the most well rounded example of the most iconic Fantawild park so far.
So quickly, for the dark ride fans, because this has gone on long enough, what’s the logistics?
Chengdu has become a bit of a hub in recent years, though the city doesn’t directly host a Fantawild itself. From here you can comfortably day trip both Oriental Heritage Mianyang and Dino Kingdom in Zigong. Plus they’ve recently opened an Oriental Legend in Ziyang, which is even closer, and looks like it can place well on this list with more new and unique attractions.
Beyond that it’s back to basic old Ningbo, sadly. Having both Glorious Orient and one of the highest ranked Oriental Heritage parks, they’ve just got such a depth of lineup in one spot that’s reachable from Shanghai. It’s the obvious choice.
Lastly, Changsha plays host to a well rounded roster, with Oriental Heritage in the West and then the Zhuzhou resort combination of Adventure and Dreamland very close by. Just an hour out by train is also another park I haven’t yet visited, Boonie Bears Land in Yichun, might be something special there too.
We’re definitely overdue an update on this old classic. Since my original guide in 2020, Fantawild have opened at least another dozen parks and I’ve managed to bring my total up to an almost absurd 25 individual Fantawild park visits. They’ve also diversified in their styles of park a fair amount since the original trilogy of themes, which is exciting, and there are plenty more interesting and unique attractions to spotlight as their dark ride game has gone from strength to strength.
Rather than expanding on the original ranking in the same style which only looked at a handful of attractions each, I figured I’d try take a similar approach to the old Happy Valley/Six Flags ranking posts (both also overdue an update). This means separating each park that I’ve visited into two main categories – the coaster rankings for the coaster fans, and the dark ride rankings for the dark ride fans. Then we’ll combine the scores, figure out some convoluted system for how the multi-park resorts are affected, and highlight which locations have the most overall appeal right now. Plus a bit of location logistics again for good measure.
Wish me luck.
Fantawild Park Ranking by Coasters
#24 Fantawild Adventure Zhengzhou – Stress Express, Terror Twister, Mount Tanggula, Spiteful worm
#24 Fantawild Dreamland Xiamen – Stress Express, Terror Twister, Mount Tanggula, Spiteful worm
Tied in dead last we have these two parks, which demonstrates an interesting overlap in time periods for the Adventure and Dreamland brands. Both opened within a year of each other and both received exactly the same coaster lineup, while their dark rides are a whole different game. The reason these sit in last is that you have to suffer not one, but two large and terrible thrill coasters. Boomerangs are bad enough, but I absolutely despise Sky Loops these days. The best in the park for both is the mine train and even they ride comically poorly. For added insult to injury, they also contain a worm coaster that adults can’t ride. Not a strong start.
The only other park that, like the above, operates two large scale abominations, but I’ll take the SLC (which is also a rare, China exclusive layout) over the Sky Loop any day. Plus no spiteful worm.
#22 Fantawild Dreamland Wuhu – Golden Whirlwind, Puppy Coaster
Not much going on here. Golden Whirlwind is a bit of an anomaly for the chain, the only Sameco looper they ever installed and it’s not good. At the time of my visit, it was just that and a worm that you couldn’t ride. Looks like they’ve since added a Puppy Coaster, so they’ve had a bit of an upgrade.
Classic combo of SLC, mine train and one you can’t ride. It’s a real shame that both of the Jiayuguan parks have the same ride type as their headline coaster.
These aren’t much of an upgrade, but a mine train AND a puppy? At least we’re back into +3 territory. Shame about the worms.
#16 Oriental Heritage Mianyang – Grand Showman, Pine Tree Rocket, Puppy Coaster, Water Coaster, Spiteful pedal
These were the unfortunate Oriental Heritage parks of the chain that were seemingly not deemed worthy of a world class headline coaster, unlike most of the others. Instead they got just another SLC, but it’s the rare layout again. Pine Tree Rocket is the first of many family Vekoma coasters on the list, Puppy is always a plus, although this one is in name only, and a worm is always a spite. Also the first pedal-powered children’s coaster that we can’t ride and are ending up everywhere just to annoy. The other one I’m considering a minus here is the water coaster, which is just a ridiculous ordeal to have to put yourself through for a questionable +1. Too wet.
#15 Oriental Heritage Jingzhou – Grand Showman, Pine Tree Rocket, Puppy Coaster, Spiteful pedal
It has taken us to about halfway through the list to reach ‘respectable’ territory, which is a shame as at least some of the parks above are amazing in almost every other aspect. There’s no rollercoaster here in Zigong that’s going to actively try and hurt you, but the headline is a Vekoma SFC which, while enjoyable, is only a filler attraction at other Fantawild parks and also pretty common worldwide these days. Turbo Dino is another family Vekoma, this time some junior boomerang fun, but we’ve got them at home (Paultons in my case). Dino Dash is cute.
#13 Oriental Legend Handan – Flying Dragon, Sky and Earth, Puppy Coaster, Water coaster
The first of the headline coasters to get excited about, Flying Dragon is a modern Vekoma sit-down thrill coaster, Fantawild’s go-to since 2019. The layout is solid, being a lift-hill version of Formula at Energylandia, one of the pioneers of this design style, but also with an extended finale section. Sky and Earth is a unique family coaster for Fantawild, and Chinese exclusive as a family layout. +1 for the puppy, -1 for the gross water coaster, you know how it goes now.
Celestial Gauntlet is the same Vekoma as above, with a better aesthetic. Big Top is proof that the SFC headling in Zigong is only a secondary coaster elsewhere. That still being a solid ride in its own right, and the lack of a water coaster, edges Handan out by one spot.
#11 FT Wild Land (Taizhou) – Invincible Warriors, Pine Tree Rocket, Puppy Coaster
Invincible Warriors is a so far unique Vekoma thrill coaster, the Renegade model. I’d rate it slightly stronger than the predecessor layout on this list and it also lives in one of my favourite themed areas of any Fantawild, so that’s nice. Outside of that we’ve got another Vekoma Junior and a Puppy. All good here.
The first of the big woodies, and the least impressive. Fantawild had an incredible run of installing Gravity Group creations called Jungle Trailblazer, which changed at least my life for the better. We can fall back on the specific rankings here for more detail, but it’s a shame this one didn’t meet expectations. It still kicked ass, in places. Galaxy Express is another Vekoma SFC, a good second place. There’s no other filler here, for better or worse.
The next of the Jungle Trailblazers was built twice, at the next two parks. I feel I need to mention here that all of the wooden coaster rankings in this list need to be taken with a pinch of salt as I can only base things on when I personally experienced them. Ningbo’s was the last in the set for me (when it should have been the first) and a good number of years after it first opened. It rode extremely aggressively, but in a way that demonstrates it was already past its prime, in dire need of some good maintenance work. I’ve since received reports that this may be the case across the chain (and Chinese woodies in general), with the roughness outweighing the underlying thrill. There was a golden age for these incredible specimens and sadly we may already be past it. Elsewhere in the park we’ve got a Boomerang, which is a shame, and the first of the indoor mine trains for the list, which are interesting for some light (dark) theming.
#8 Oriental Heritage Jinan – Jungle Trailblazer, Stress Express, Night Rescue, Space Vehicle, Spiteful worm, Spiteful pedal
Same woodie, Boomerang and indoor mine train from above but they’ve also added a family coaster from Jinma since I last visited so it’s an extra +1. Along with 2 things you can’t ride instead of 1. So it looks like the highest count of any Fantawild on paper, but only ties it with Handan and Mianyang thanks to their water coasters.
#7 Fantawild Wonderland (Xuzhou) – Cloud Shuttle, Pine Tree Rocket, Puppy Coaster
Back to Vekoma, and this is the most recently built Fantawild I have currently visited. They were somewhat put on the map for western enthusiasts for this particular coaster, as it shares the layout with Six Flags Great Adventure’s new Flash coaster which opened the following year. Of course I rode Cloud Shuttle and then subsequently skipped the chance to go to SFGAdv this year (yay, clones). It’s pretty awesome, with some very special sensations, particularly in the stall element. Round it out with a Vekoma Junior and a Puppy and you’ve got a good day out.
The strongest Fantawild Vekoma for me so far has been installed at every Glorious Orient park to date, it’s the signature for the theme with the aircraft carrier station launch combo and custom train decoration. Round it out with a Vekoma Junior and a Puppy, but with different names and trains, and you’ve got a good day out. Capacity is horrendous though, so make sure you’re the first one on it for the day.
As above, but it doesn’t have the pedal-powered thing to annoy.
#4 Oriental Heritage Wuhu – Jungle Trailblazer, Stress Express, Land of Lost Souls
I think the first of the truly exceptional woodies trumps the most exceptional Vekoma for me, and that begins in Wuhu. This is the only other unique Trailblazer and it packed some serious punches. Grouped with another boomerang and indoor mine train combo, it’s your classic Oriental Heritage coaster lineup and as good as they get.
#3 Fantawild Dreamland Zhuzhou – Jungle Trailblazer, Stress Express Unique to Fantawild, but a clone of Fjord Flying Dragon, one of China’s first big names in the wooden coaster scene. It is (was) incredible as a lengthy layout packed with everything I love about this style of ride, and near perfect. Shame about the boomerang.
As above, but paired with the far superior Vekoma SFC and it looks like they’ve since added a weird kiddy spinner so it beats out Nanning on two counts now. Unless you can’t ride it. Best bang for your buck on Fantawild coasters. Unless the woodie destroys you.
That’s it for the coasters. I guess if they’re all you care about we can take a quick look at logistics here.
Ningbo is the obvious answer, sadly, as I’ve got a bit of a love hate relationship with that particular resort. For having both the best of the Vekomas in Fighter Jet, and a Jungle Trailblazer in two adjacent gates it’s the highest ranked one-two coaster punch in the chain, something which every single individual gate currently lacks. Even if the woodie might kill you these days, you might love it. Ningbo is also one of the closest to Shanghai and the highest density theme park region of the country. Though the Fantawild is nowhere near either city and a bit of a pain to get to, it’s China, logistical pain is to be expected.
Wuhu is similarly positioned not too far from Shanghai, potential day trip material with faff or a solid stop-off point along a route. Next best option for giving a woodie a try. The rest would have to be built into a more bespoke itinerary, but let me know if you ever need advice on that. As for the next best Vekoma, it’s in America…
Beyond that, I think this list just highlights Fantawild aren’t your go-to chain for coasters in the country. Your next best can be ridden in the U.S. under more or less duress and this is why I probably started off on the wrong foot with these parks many years ago. They’re about much, much more. Which leads us nicely into part 2.
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. There’s only 78 of them, I won’t keep you long.
2025 update – last year was a massive year for the UK coaster scene and Thorpe Park in particular, with the opening of Hyperia. It’s had me visiting multiple times again, something which hasn’t been happening for many, many years now, so I guess it’s pretty obvious where it stacks up…
#8 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.
#7 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. I have now, it’s awful. 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 untilHyperia.
#6 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.
#5 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.
#4 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.
#3 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 a man in sunglasses. 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.
#2 Nemesis Inferno
Another UK park, another B&M invert near 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.
#1 Hyperia
Yes, the latest and greatest from Thorpe Park comfortably took the crown for me. Upon visiting in opening year, it quickly blew me away with the power of it’s initial innovative elements, although the second half of the already short ride left a little to be desired. Having gone back a couple times since in 2025, the ride has only improved, with rumours swirling around new wheel compounds or other methods to make the train run reliably run faster, or at least not get stuck in one of the valleys as it had been doing a little too regularly. In any case, I’ve experienced a noticeable extra kick to the final two hills that follow the (already no longer functioning) splash section and trim brake. While this still results in a ride that leaves you wanting more, because it’s just so damn short, every element now hits, and hits hard, and I love it for that.
Bonus Round
One of my favourite rides 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. Now it’s Hyperia, this, Inferno, leave. 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 (none of these now, the new theme is bad) 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 was impressed with how solid the rollercoaster selection is at Busch Gardens Williamsburg. A common trend among larger amusement parks is having a glaringly disparate gap in quality between the one or two headline attractions and the large quantities of what I would call ‘filler’ for an enthusiast. You’re more than likely in this hobby to come across a lot of clones and experiences that aren’t unique to a park, so it’s refreshing to experience a lineup such as the following.
#9 Grover’s Alpine Express Due to its location, the smallest coaster in this park is often the first ride to open for the day, making it easy pickings for adding +1 to the count. While it is twinned with a ride at the other Busch Gardens park, at least the Zierer Force 190 is reasonably hard to come by.
#8 Tempesto The number of Premier Sky Rocket IIs in the world is growing at quite a rate and this is one of the newer installations, so it was a little disappointing to see it built here. It filled a very limited niche in the lineup when it was built, now nullified, by having both forwards and backwards direction of travel, and now multiple launches are already covered better multiple times elsewhere in the park. The main reason it’s a popular ride type to buy is most likely the tiny footprint and compact layout that still provides a high thrill level to the average guest. Sadly Tempesto has the worst restraints available for this model of ride the form of ‘comfort collars’. The restricting nature of these shoulder straps make the experience more of a chore, rather than something to enjoy.
#7 Loch Ness Monster Though it has somewhat legendary status as a classic ride of an earlier era, in todays terms Nessie isn’t a coaster I would describe as exciting. Arrow loopers can often lean towards being rough and ready due to their interestingly shaped track transitions and older technology, but this particular installation posed no issues to me whatsoever. In fact it was a rather amusing experience with a big square helix in a shed and a smaller second lift that seemed rather out of place. The interlocking loops are a great off-ride spectacle, it’s just that the layout itself has very little to offer.
#6 Griffon The other clone in the park comes in the form of this B&M dive coaster. It isn’t Busch Gardens fault however, as the other version arrived much later at a park in Korea, nor is it their fault that I happened to ride that version first. These are always solid fun, with a ride experience that generally centres around their one or two massive vertical drops. The drops themselves provide a well sustained out of the seat moment but due to the sheer size of the track and trains the remainder of the layout can often feel a little slow and meandering. Griffon is no exception to this, but it is a good looking ride – the well positioned splashdown section provides an impressive off-ride experience as well.
#5 Invadr I’ve found that GCI are at their best when their rides are huge so that they can really make the most of the relentless sensations they are capable of creating. Invadr is small for its type and yet still manages to pack a certain punch, though perhaps nothing on the scale of an equivalent sized Gravity Group, but it still means that Invadr is worth several laps of good fun. One of the features I enjoy most about these rides is the unpredictable forces that come out of their unusually shaped corner transitions. On certain GCIs these have been nowhere to be found, but they were back and in plentiful supply within the layout here. The ride looks great from outside the entrance, but leaves a little to be desired in the barren landscape that surrounds the majority of the track.
#4 Alpengeist B&M inverts used to be one of my favourite ride types. The first few that I encountered were all smooth, stupidly intense and offered well varied layouts so I was firmly of the belief that you could’t go wrong with one of these. I did eventually stumble upon a few that didn’t meet any of the above criteria. It turns out it is possible for some to ride rather poorly, lack intensity or have the monotony of repeating the same elements, in order. Alpengeist suffered mainly from the first of these. On the day I experienced it, this did ride poorly, particularly towards the back of the train and in the outside seats (usually the most enjoyable positions) with an unpleasant rattle that, although perfectly tolerable, detracted from the performance somewhat. The layout is very refreshing, with the huge swooping downwards spiral that turns far more than your average first drop and the following unique inversion sequence. After the mid course brake run however, the ride ran out of steam to the point of hilarity. We couldn’t help but laugh when Alpengeist was almost travelling at a walking pace through the final turns that dangle your feet over the fake snow trenches carved into the landscape. Speaking of the landscape, the attention to detail in the theming of this ride is wonderful and I really did appreciate the overall aesthetic it provides. It’s a shame the hardware couldn’t match that standard on this occasion.
#3 Apollo’s Chariot The main aim of most hyper coasters is to provide you with a plentiful supply of large hills and a great deal of speed with which to experience them. In an ideal world, these hills will be trying to kick you up out of your seat and the B&M train design for these rides has an almost unrivalled sense of openness and freedom which can only enhance that sensation. Apollo’s Chariot pulls this off a fair few times, but sadly not quite every hill is a hit. The strongest moment of the ride turned out to be the exit of the mid course brake run which angles back to a steep drop much faster than any of the camelback sections of track and provides a great surprise moment of ejection for riders.
Another challenge in designing rides of this scale is keeping things interesting in between the signature hills, finding a good way to transition from one element to another. Most notable in this layout is the turnaround, which is a very long, flat, banked corner that offers nothing to riders other than a means to get them and the train facing in the right direction to head back to the station. Moments like this always bug me as it feels like wasted potential and one of my most sought after characteristics of a ride is that it doesn’t give you any time to stop and think. That corner aside, Apollo’s Chariot is one of the better B&Ms hypers that I have ridden and although the frequency is just a little too low for my liking, in the moments it does deliver, it delivers well.
#2 Verbolten I have to admit that I was surprised to walk away from Busch Gardens Williamsburg in 2019 with Verbolten as my favourite ride in the park. This attraction is usually billed as somewhat more of a family-thrill adventure as opposed to the many taller and faster offerings that surround it, but the ride experience contains a good number of factors that set it apart from the rest of the lineup for me. The queueline, station and overall theming is on the same level as the strongest examples in the park with particular little details like the number plates on the trains all having unique references to elements of the current ride and in one case, the retired ride that once operated where Verbolten stands today.
Beyond the station, the ride has the most extensively themed coaster section of any in the park with a large show building containing the most significant portion of the layout. The train initially takes you wandering into the forest before hitting the first launch, which thrusts you into this building with a surprising amount of gusto. It’s completely dark inside to begin with and you cannot see that the launch track ends in a hill and corner transition that provided me with wickedly fierce and out of control airtime moment before it navigates some tight corners with strong positive forces. The building begins to light up with various themed effects around you as the train continues its journey into an apparent dead end!? Verbolten is one of few rides in the world with a section of drop track. The train comes to a complete stop and one of (I believe) three sequences begins with the lighting and scenery again, one of which, pays homage to the ride’s predecessor ‘Big Bad Wolf’. The train and track section drop together in unison with a gleefully powerful moment of surprise airtime, usually only enhanced by the anticipation and reaction of unsuspecting riders around you – a real crowd pleasing scare element.
The ride picks up a pace again as you leave the building from here and enter a second launch track. My main gripe with the layout comes here in that it doesn’t use this multi launch aspect (usually one of my absolute favourite elements on any ride) to any significant effect. All the energy is immediately sapped from the train again by a single uphill section into the next trick. The trick itself involves crossing a bridge that appears to be collapsing beneath you and a significant drop follows, leading you into some final turns back towards the station, unfortunately again with somewhat less vigour than the immensely strong first half of the ride. Overall I loved Verbolten. It’s a very special attraction and it stands out as the most complete ride experience package in the park and is certainly, so far, the best ride Zierer have ever made.
#1 Pantheon
New for the 2022 season, after a particularly agonising series of delays, Busch Gardens Williamsburg finally opened their Intamin multi-launch coaster. We had known this was coming ever since the previous visit in 2019 and, for various obvious reasons, it took 3 years both for us to visit again and for the park to be able to construct and sign off the attraction. It was wholly worth the wait as by sheer merit of the ride type alone, Pantheon slots comfortably into position as best coaster in the park, the headliner. The comfort of the trains, the modern quirky elements and the moments of serious airtime all blend together into a world class coaster experience, and one that is exactly the sort of thing that keeps me on my travels.
The ride was full of pleasant surprises, but also had its fair share of minor flaws. The very existence of the initial launch and inversion had managed to escape my knowledge and gave Pantheon a very strong start, reminiscent of another world-beating Intamin. From this moment it does get a little messy and convoluted however, with a very abrupt change of pace followed by the signature triple launch section. This segment undoubtedly provides some fantastic moments, the bursts of acceleration over what is essentially a speed bump and the weightlessness of that intimidating vertical spike, but I find it’s hard to gel with the flow of the overall experience with all this starting and stopping going on. This also comes at the price that once the ride does get fully going and takes all the biggest, hardest hitting elements, it then hits the final brakes very suddenly. None of that can take away from the power of the top hat, beyond vertical drop and banked airtime hill however, which all seal the deal on a spectacular package. My surprise favourite moment in fact came from the backwards launch when seated in the front row. The violent nature with which this chucks you over the mid-launch hill is very special and unlike anything else I’ve experienced.
Busch Gardens Williamsburg already had a very impressive lineup, but it just got even better.
It’s coming up to 5 years since I last visited the most well attended theme park in Europe outside of Disneyland. 2016 was a time when Europa Park had more coasters than anywhere else on the continent, when Energylandia was just a small(er) handful of Vekomas, the ridiculousness of Wonderland Eurasia was still under construction (only to close almost immediately after opening) and the permanent funfair setup of Wiener Prater hadn’t quite reached the dizzying numbers we see today. Since that time Europa themselves have only added their smallest coaster to date, choosing to mainly focus on investments in other areas such as dark rides, hotels and a water park and it makes sense not to play the numbers game – they are by far the superior destination in terms of a complete theme park package.
This was also a time in which I had barely done any rollercoaster riding, relatively, something that’s quite hard for me to imagine now. The visit was part of what we consider our first true ‘theme park trip’ outside of the UK and there was much less experience to draw on when forming opinions about new rides, a process which became entirely unavoidable the more I came to learn what I liked and disliked the most. With all that time to dwell on this place over years, opinions have primarily come down to those standout memories and moments that have stuck in my mind. One thing I do remember is not really walking away with a definite favourite and I think I’m still going to struggle today to pick one.
We could call that a weakness of a park lineup, with no one standout attraction making you desperate to return for more (and though the opportunity has arisen, I haven’t yet done this), but in this series we see this as a strength, a sign of a great park. And it really is one of those, for many other reasons. We just don’t know how the list is going to turn out (I don’t, even now), there’s no obvious pick for the top spot and there’s definitely a large and well rounded set of high quality coasters in between, which is always an achievement in itself – keeping the roster both broad and equally enticing.
I’m sure I will visit again at some point, perhaps when they get round to their next big coaster or maybe even sooner just to pick up several new dark rides – another collection aspect of the hobby that is heading towards the forefront of my interests right now. In the meantime, let’s get on with this list as I see it today, excluding Baa-a-a-Express of course.
#12 Alpenexpress Enzian
We begin with the park’s powered coaster which, while not an objectively bad attraction by any means (I do have to point out that nothing in this list actually is, well done Europa) was severely hampered at the time of our visit by the recently popularised Virtual Reality trend in the industry. I don’t have any good pictures of the ride but it looks great from the outside and does pass through this heavily themed indoor section of the park that is a bit of a hidden gem in itself and I really don’t see why you’d want to strap a mobile phone to your face to watch a crude video that may or may not even work and subsequently miss out on all of this.
#11 Atlantica Supersplash
The predominant emotion throughout this ride was fear of getting my bag wet as it was perched precariously on top of the restraint as instructed by the ride hosts. Water coasters are fine and all that, they usually look rather nice and it’s a +1 to the count of course, but I just don’t think there’s much to be said about the actual coaster part, particularly on this type of installation. Unless it’s really hot and you want to get soaked, it’s an obvious one and done.
#10 Poseidon
So it’s a good thing the park has two of these then, isn’t it? We see a little here how Europa is also a showroom for Mack Rides, the owners of the establishment. Two different styles of their water coaster model are present in different areas of the park and while the other one shows off turntables and backwards drops, this one demonstrates smaller boats and a more significant coasting section with some twists and turns. It’s equally well themed, equally wet and almost as equally uneventful as an actual ride.
#9 Schweizer Bobbahn
I really admire how this one is squeezed in, around and on top of the Swiss land which it inhabits. The theme is perfect for the ride of course and it’s a good time to give a shoutout to how intensely efficient the operations are in this park. If you stand in this spot there will likely be something whizzing past you more than once a minute. As far as Mack Bobsleds go, having since ridden them all across the world, this original is just a bit smaller and weaker, never really getting the chance to get properly going and feel in any way out of control – paving the way for a better future.
#8 Matterhorn Blitz
A fairly standard Wilde Maus, of which Mack are one of several competing manufacturers. They churned out a bunch of the most commonly seen layout just before the turn of the millenium, but this home installation was the first to have a different layout and also came with the bonus feature of an elevator lift. Going up in the lift as it tilts unnervingly to one side and back again is the most fascinating part of the experience these days, with chains such as Legoland having since snapped up an extortionate number of the same model, sans lift. I wonder why it didn’t interest anyone.
#7 Arthur
I feel like I’m being a little generous in this placement but I’m going to give Arthur the benefit of the doubt for what it is, or at least tries to be. Truthfully I remember very little of the on-board experience and for some reason have no personal photos to jog any further memories. What I do know is that the whole attraction process rubbed us up the wrong way, from the awful locker process to the seemingly sporadic intent of the ride system. As an inverted powered coaster with train rows that independently swivel, the hardware is best suited to that of a dark ride experience, which the only other Mack built model to date proves to an extraordinary extent (let’s not talk about the Beijing Shibaolai shambles). Arthur half does this, half doesn’t, taking some time to meander around some outdoor portions of track that break the momentum somewhat. The storyline was completely lost on me along with all the actual theming and screen based activities and so the single standout moment was swooping down over the publicly acessible indoor section of the main area, full of the hustle and bustle of guest activity. A spectacle that should definitely become a signature of any future installations.
#6 Pegasus
The other of the two VR experiences we had in this park was found on Pegasus, the debut of Mack’s Youngstar model. Sadly this far superior piece of hardware hasn’t taken off on anywhere near the same level as certain designs above, likely with such stiff competition from the prolific Vekoma Junior. I really like the Youngstars for what they are – family coasters with a bit of fire in their hearts, a few more forces than your average attempt while being almost unnervingly smooth. The VR itself was actually better here too, though still not something I’d actively choose to have, it had an unusual and jarring moment that has always stuck with me – one of the pictured characters leaps up out of the seat next to you, mid-ride, and if your brain has come to subconsciously accept that the characters just are just regular guests by this point, it’s quite the shock to suddenly notice one of them is no longer restrained and is free to invite physical injury. It demonstrates the real power of VR psychology that I have not seen used effectively, in the slightest, on any theme park attraction since, making it a total waste.
#5 Euro Mir
I think we’ve now hit the heart and soul of this park. This big crazy spinning coaster loosely themed to Russian space travel has an incredibly long spiral lift system filled with the thunderous sounds of an entertaining techno tune. While inside you can look up (or down) and just see endless track and, more amusingly, several other trains making their way up to the top with you, not something you’d have on any conventional lift system for sure. It’s a great system for holding suspense and padding the runtime (and capacity) significantly. The outdoor portion begins with many high up turns in and out of the striking structures, similar to that of a wild mouse, but the second half is where things really pick up, with several fast and tight corners over some nice landscaping of rocks and water. It can be a little violent at times, but I respect that.
#4 Eurosat
Except Euro Mir wasn’t even the first to do the whole spiral lift hill in darkness, music blaring bit. Eurosat does it even better, with a gorgeous soundtrack that still reaches me on a deeper emotional level even today. There was so much quirk about this ride that I simply adored, most significantly the astronaut whose projection mapped face was stuck through a wall, talking inaudibly to the train that had just departed the station. The coaster section was wild, vicious and out of control, taking place entirely indoors and hurtling down through some retro planetary theming and I loved the layout as much as the rest of the attraction. Narratively it didn’t fit into the France area of the park at all, but that made it all the more endearing to me. This fact has since been rectified (broken) by a retheme of the ride to Moulin Rouge and may well be an active factor in why I have been cautious of a return visit. I don’t want my memories of Eurosat to be potentially ruined without a very good reason.
#3 blue fire Megacoaster
At the time of the visit, Blue Fire was definitely a strong contender for my park favourite. As perhaps the most successful of all their prototypes to be showcased here, we’re now approaching double figures for the number of installations of this exact layout to crop up around the world. And I’ve ridden my fair share of them since then too. So while I still really enjoy the ride, it now loses out to the leaders here on pure lack of uniqueness. This still remains the greatest example of the layout as far as I can tell. The landscaping and aesthetic is particularly gorgeous and the fact that it has a soundtrack specifically tailored to, and synced with, the onboard experience is one of my absolute favourite things about this park. The coaster itself is well rounded with a launch, inversions that are either graceful or intense and a smattering of airtime for good luck. Can’t really go wrong with this one.
#2 Wodan
The other coaster in the Iceland area further enhances the vibe of what is generally considered the best area in the park. The way the rides loosely intertwine with each other, while still having a separate and impressive entrance area and set of theming makes it feel all the more magical as you enter into the realm of Wodan. The queue goes on for an age through dense rocky caves before emerging up the stairs into the station where you’re treated to both the signature GCI flythrough and some creepy statues that turn their heads to both greet the train on arrival and see it out on departure. I massively enjoyed this woodie on the whole, it was a significant step up from almost any other I’d experienced before though it would be a lie to say I was as completely enthralled by it as I would liked to have been, knowing now what the manufacturer can really do if they put their mind to it – they could have made it a clear winner here. It starts off relentless and had me quietly chuckling with joy by the end of it, with some less eventful bits in the middle. Can’t really go wrong with this one.
#1 Silver Star
I think I’ve just about settled, in this very moment, for the B&M hyper to come out on top. And that’s not very indicative of my tastes these days, as I tend to like these rides less than most it seems. However, Silver Star still remains one of the strongest examples of the type for me and I’m reasonably confident that that’s not just down to lack of experience at the time. It behaved differently, with more moments of pure ejector and less of the faffy floater than I’ve come to expect. The main caveat is that this only worked in the back row. If we move to the front of the train it’s business as usual, a bit more sluggish and less exhilarating and that would be enough drop it at least a couple of spots in this list – it’s that close up here at the top. Can’t really go wrong with this park.
Yes, that’s right, the place in the Arctic. #0 – nothing. The end.
Formerly known as Mitsui Greenland, this amusement park currently has claim to the second highest number of rollercoasters in Japan, though this can mostly be attributed more to decline than investment in much of the local industry at the moment. Like similarly scaled rivals, the park hasn’t seen a new coaster in over a decade and it does make me wonder/worry about the business side of affairs.
This was the first park I ever visited in this fine nation. It’s not the most well known of places amongst enthusiasts, particularly those only seeking out that next best coaster as there isn’t really anything in the way of a standout attraction to get overly excited about, but what they do have is a varied and interesting mix, of which it’s much harder to pick a favourite than your average park with filler and a clear winner. Creds are creds as well and sometimes the fun is in acquiring the obscure, whether that be the destination itself or a rare type of hardware on offer.
It should make for a passable list topic in any case.
#10 Ladybird
I’m not one to rag on kiddie coasters. They fit their target market nicely and it just so happens to overlap with the more obsessive counters among us. At the end of the day though, this twin helix powered coaster can be found almost anywhere and it’s just a number to me.
#9 Nio
Speaking of numbres, the park is home to a Vekoma SLC. I’ve recently covered the topic of this notorious coaster design in great length on here and, basically, it’s not one to get excited about.
#8 Spin Mouse
Alright, one more. This common spinning wild mouse setup is often seen at travelling fairs and that’s just where it belongs to be honest. I’ve nothing against the type, they can even be rather entertaining, depending on the often hugely unpredictable performance on the day, but for a permanent installation – could do better.
#7 Blackhole Coaster
I don’t remember much of the Meisho/Zamperla international collaboration powered coaster here to be honest, in fact I was fascinated just to learn that that was a thing. Set indoors, with a sprinkling of alien theming and much cornering, most hardware of this nature tends to all blend into one – I guess that’s what happens when you don’t confine yourself to the design limitations created by gravity.
#6 Grampus Jet
And on the subject of coaster collaborations, during their demise Arrow passed the torch on to Vekoma for the suspended swinging coaster design, one of the key results of which was these happy Orca faces. Even if I thought the last coaster was full of corners, this one makes a mockery of it and that does have a bit of an impact on excitement, but I respect this one. Only three in the world exist and this is the last to retain the original trains.
#5 Sphinx
Something about this ride is just so adorable. I could barely fit in the car, it involved more struggles than the actual smallest cred here, but what a custom layout. Many straight lines winding down the hillside like a low key terrain coaster. Fun theming, amusing train, enthusiastic staff. The whole package.
#4 Milky Way (Pink)
The pink standard sit down side of this Togo racing coaster currently has the benefits of on board music and the drawbacks of shoulder restraints. It’s not the most significant and intense of layouts so it’s hard to see why the latter is necessary, but the ride is great fun for the interaction between trains alone. Despite the bad rep this manufacturer has earned from installations in the USA, the local examples are, to me at least, a fine relic of their era.
#3 Ultra Twister Megaton
As further evidenced by these amazing creations. This one might look familiar – a different angle of the ride tends to plaster anything online with my name attached to it. I was very happy with my first Ultra Twister mainly because it’s just so… ambitious. The trains look like torture devices and the vertical lift and drop sequence, although a lot more common right now, 35 years after these were first made, is terrifying simply because of that fact. They’re actually surprisingly comfortable though, if you don’t mind a bit of a car crash on the brakes, and the rest of the forces, both forwards and backwards, are always a pleasant surprise.
#2 Gao
So much charm. My introduction to Japanese jet coaster life provided the perfect example of what they do best. Cast aside any notions of force, intensity, airtime, this is a machine that simply rumbles around like an amped up transport ride. And it’s joyous. Huge, goes on forever, a dinosaur on the train and a dinosaur on the track. A dinosaur is the track (‘Gao’ is how dinosaurs roar in Japanese by the way). Not trying is the key to not disappointing. I can’t fault it.
#1 Milky Way (Blue)
I have to give the number one spot to this one based on sheer surprise though. There were a lot of firsts for me in this park but this stand-up was the greatest surprise among them, subverting all previous notions of the ride type being a dud. Never has the standing position been more accurately simulated nor unnervingly exposed on a coaster. Standing worried on a metal plate that gets carried up 125ft into the air, feeling every click of the chain and bump in the track straight though the legs. Then it starts racing the other train, all smiling and waving. Then, distracted, you get thrown into the air on the hills with no semblance of control. Togo are the kings of this specific game and I want them back in business for that alone.
It’s a wonderful world we live in when a roadside berry stand can grow into a world famous theme park. From selling jam and chicken dinner to racking up ten rollercoasters alongside an assortment of other classic attractions, Knott’s has a fascinating history, perhaps one of the best in the States. I didn’t know much about anything prior to visiting, believing it was just a quirky name and had even managed to somehow pronounce it incorrectly throughout my life until I heard it spoken aloud in a piece of queueline audio, but it was obvious on arrival – this place has vintage and charm, about as far removed from ‘concrete and rides’ in the US as you can get.
What they also have, which suits one of these lists particularly nicely, is no obvious standout rollercoaster from glancing at the lineup alone. Instead they’ve got a ‘big four’ going on that complement each other nicely, rather than just the one or two dominating signature attractions and the result is generally a very satisfying and varied line up, something you know I like to acknowledge on here. Let’s tuck in.
#10 CoastRider
We’ll start by getting the dud out of the way. Being a too common, off the shelf, Mack Wild Mouse with a bad pun for a name is the least of CoastRider’s crimes. For some reason it has offensively uncomfortable restraints not found on most other models that happen to dig right into the shin bone and ruin any potential funfair fun that could have otherwise been achieved.
#9 Timberline Twister
Being an unashamed credit counter, getting on this ride was a satisfying achievement in itself, though I didn’t take a photo of it to celebrate the occasion – you can have Snoopy and a train instead. It’s a rare childrens’ coaster by Bradley & Kaye, who only ever built less than 10 rides in the 1940s and just two remain in operation today, the other at Six Flags Magic Mountain having a strict no adult policy. Over the course of my multi day visit I patiently waited for the right (no queue) moment to give this one a go and subsequently found myself with loads of room in the car, relatively speaking, being taken on a rather wild journey throughout the unnervingly airtime laden 480ft of track.
#8 Pony Express
Much like the motorbike cars more commonly found on this type of attraction, I don’t find this horseback riding position particularly comfortable on a coaster. It may then count as mercy, but there really isn’t much of a layout here to go with it – essentially a figure of eight. I admire the attempt at interaction but sadly the neighbouring rapids ride was undergoing refurbishment during my visit, so no extra points there. Quaint though, and had some great staff.
#7 Jaguar!
Jaguar is the king of interaction for the park though. This rare, highly customised Zierer Tivoli layout winds its way absolutely everywhere, in and out of other major coasters, over the heads of guests across many pathways and through its own centrepiece of a pyramid themed station building. Though far from thrilling, I always admire this type of attraction integration and there’s just so much to look at and appreciate as it traverses the layout.
#6 Montezooma’s Revenge
The oldest Schwarzkopf Shuttle Loop still in its original location and my favourite to date for the simple elegance of the launch sequence. I only rode this one in the dark, where two satisfying sequential clunks turned all the station lights out and then accelerated the train off into the night. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again though, you can only go so far with an oversimplified layout.
#5 Sierra Sidewinder
This Mack Spinner had the disadvantage of me having already ridden and loved the far more intensely themed indoor edition of the same layout in the UAE. The ride type itself is rather hit and miss as to whether you get a decent spin in the right places and therefore the experience can vary hugely from a tame little family ride to a surprisingly intense thrill coaster. My laps on this one leaned towards the former, but the potential is there. I’ll soon have another version much closer to home to try my luck with again.
#4 Xcelerator
And so begins the big four I alluded to above. Sometimes Intamin launch coasters are an invention of wonder and at other times the entire experience hinges on just the acceleration itself. Sadly for me this one falls firmly into the second category, with very little going on outside of some big overbanked turns after the signature top hat also found on lesser layouts. I’ve often said that launches alone don’t do much for me any more and this ride is a prime example of that.
#3 Silver Bullet
It may be one of the weakest of its type but can we appreciate for a moment how attractive this ride looks. I really wanted to like Silver Bullet, as I do with all B&M Inverts and it even contains some cool and underutilised elements not found on others of the same model to help it stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately it seems to me that the elevated positioning over the walkways led to a rather lacklustre first drop design and the momentum just never really gets going throughout the rest of the layout. It lacks the power and intensity that has become strongly associated with this hardware and though it’s no doubt fun and highly rerideable, I just can’t see past that.
#2 HangTime
I’ve praised my 700th coaster on here a couple of times already and I think I’m managing to fall for it more and more as time goes on. Yet again HangTime looks fantastic but the onboard experience manages to match it this time. That holding brake moment is like nothing else out there and it’s all thanks to the restraints. So many rides around the world could be made better with simple physical details like that and this one stands as a shining example to all.
#1 GhostRider
For all the things I didn’t know about Knott’s Berry Farm before I arrived, this attraction turned into the biggest shock of all. I’d seen the odd account here and there that it was big, rough and a bit past it, then of course heard the news that they closed it for a bit of TLC back in 2015 & 2016. I remained largely sceptical, with the usual fear of bad woodies killing me in the back of my mind. The sight of new GCI trains for the first time as I walked through the queue was news to me however, as was the layout, which was riding particularly well (on the right side of violent) and contained a huge amount of variety – everything that was right up my street for a wooden coaster. GhostRider was hugely popular at all times of the day and night whenever I visited and understandably so. I only wish I could have become more acquainted with this beast. It’s a winner.
Home to the most rollercoasters in any one park across Asia, Nagashima is Japan’s answer to the classic American mega park setup, often affectionately dubbed by us as ‘concrete and rides.’ This place has caused me considerablepain over the past few years with dodgy operations, staff issues and even some unsavoury guest experiences. Overall this gives it very un-Japanese feel for me and I think it’s a shame that this one usually ends up as the poster boy while Fuji-Q gets all the stick. Team Fuji all the way (no doubt I’ll regret saying that one day).
The other issue here is that there aren’t many coasters at this park that are unique to the world, a factor I usually like to celebrate further in these lists. But creds are creds, and they have a lot more of them, so let’s see the list that makes all the suffering worthwhile. I know how to sell this hobby.
#12 Peter Rabbit Coaster
I think this one bothers me mostly because it was ridden on our fateful first visit. It’s surprisingly dull, even for a powered coaster, and never has slapping a child friendly brand on a ride been more lazy in execution.
#11 Children Coaster
And in that regard, at least this one isn’t trying to be something it’s not. A Tivoli medium is what a Tivoli medium does. Zierer has successfully churned out 86 of these (across a few differently sized layouts) following the original model installed at the park from which it takes the name. Ah, to be at Tivoli Gardens instead…
Why have one wild mouse when you can have two? So that you can always have one closed, that’s why. It’s the Mack version, which is usually slightly better, but still an unremarkable fairground attraction on a global stage.
#9 Jet Coaster
Similar to Peter Rabbit, I wasn’t left with the best of impressions with this ride due to the circumstances under which it was ridden. This has also led to never actually taking a proper picture of it even after several visits. Luckily you can spot some brown track in the trees from this vantage point on the ferris wheel. I like Jet Coasters, probably more than most, just not this one.
#8 Corkscrew
Amusement can come in strange forms. This classic Arrow corkscrew coaster was unintentionally hilarious when we rode it, wet and miserable. Other than the fact that while queueing I had just discovered my raincoat no longer functioned as a raincoat, I couldn’t tell you why.
#7 Shuttle Loop
Another classic steel coaster, though we’re still struggling to get to the actual good stuff here. Schwarzkopf rides always have a certain charm to them, except I find that a little more lacking when there’s no corners in the layout. Lap bar for an inversion though, leading the charge on that front.
#6 Looping Star
Corners yes, that’s the way. This particular Schwarzkopf model seems to be actively avoiding me. Their numbers are dwindling and it feels like I’ve been to almost every park that used to have one and only ever successfully added this one to the count (and even that wasn’t on the first try). Good solid ride, ahead of it’s time, again with the lap bars and mixture of strong forces to go with them. Now we’re cooking.
#5 Ultra Twister
It’s not just personal bias, my ride type is just infinitely more interesting and special than anything that came before it on this list. Having not grown up in America during the 20th Century, Togo have yet to let me down and now likely never will.
#4 Steel Dragon 2000
Finally we enter the realm of legends and begin with some mild disappointment. Even with some lovely B&M rolling stock, there’s not much joy to be found in the first half of this Morgan, which has a weird way of making 300ft seem uneventful (to be fair, it’s not the only giga coaster guilty of this). The ridiculous run of consecutive airtime moments in the second half make it a breath of fresh air amongst this smog of clones though. I do secretly like a bit of Steel Dragon.
#3 Acrobat
Like quickly turns to love if we’re talking about B&M flyers though. The ridiculous forces know how to get me excited in ways that few other ride types can achieve and this one has a particularly strong layout to complement that vicious pretzel loop. Shame it’s a clone.
#2 Arashi
And so is number two on our list. This example of the increasingly common S&S Freespin (good old Six Flags) has the advantage of, according to research, being the best of its kind. For reasons I am unable to confirm or deny, Arashi is far more intense than others, to the point of stupidity, and is one of the few coasters on the planet that still genuinely scares me, even after attempting to get acquainted with it multiple times.
#1 Hakugei
Finally, leaving no suspense at all, the RMC tops the list. Had the park been operating competently on our first visit I would have managed to experience this both before and after conversion. Instead I only achieved the latter through some rather extreme dedication on my third impromptu visit. And that says enough about this rollercoaster really. It’s worth flying across the world for, even with nothing else on your agenda. I adore Hakugei and it’s a real gamechanger for the park (and the continent). Weather permitting.
Merlin Entertainments, the infamous chain that most enthusiasts in the UK love to hate for the current sorry state of our local theme park situation. The company acquired all of the existing Legoland parks in 2005, a major Italian park in 2006 and then the Tussauds group in 2007, which contained the other three key British players and a bonus German park. Their main efforts since those acquisitions have gone towards spreading the Legoland brand further across the globe and attempting to saturate the market with ‘Midway Attractions’ such as the almost inescapable Sea Life and Dungeons properties.
Aside from that there has been a varying degree of investment into the more thrill oriented parks since that time, with a particularly strong focus on B&Ms, doom and gloom themed attractions, becoming almost synonymous with the colour grey, the use of shipping containers and more recently wood on fire. Their time at the helm of the UK parks has coincided with my general decline in interest in visiting them, but to declare that this is entirely their fault would only be confirmation bias on my part – I’ve changed an awful lot myself since owning my first Merlin Annual Pass and we simply don’t know if things would have been done better by anyone else, though obviously they could have.
I’ve actually made the conscious decision to pass on a couple of Legoland parks (the horror) during my more recent travels simply due to a cost/time/benefit analysis. The brand of course comes at a high price with so much to offer to a local family and comparatively so little to offer me – 2 or 3 small creds. It just hasn’t been worth the detour. Those parks aside it took until the latter half of 2019 for me to finally visit all of the major European parks under the Merlin name, so now the list can begin.
#7 The other Legolands
As I alluded to in the introduction, I haven’t been visiting these parks as of late and it’s a shame. By nature, Legoland lends itself to being the quintessential theme park experience with imagination, theming and storytelling being inherent properties of their attractions. It’s not Legoland without looking like Lego or having Lego characters in it – the hand is forced. But you can tell these parks are a business model and not a passion project simply by the fact that every single one has the Dragon coaster in a castle land, the Xtreme Racers coaster in a lazily decorated land, and all with the same appearance. It would have been nice for someone to have been tasked with imagining and creating a unique signature attraction for each and every park that was built but sadly that’s not the world we live in. Where this creativity does come to life a bit more however is in the Miniland areas of each park. As evidenced by a recent documentary on British television about the Windsor property, each park has a team of dedicated model builders and creators that seemingly get to project their own imagination into at least a proportion of the designs that guests see. They usually contain a more regional showcase of landmarks and attractions so you can at least tell which part of the world you might be in by walking around one of these showcases of Lego wonder.
One other positive I have come across so far is in the water ride selection of the parks I have visited. Viking’s River Splash (Windsor), Jungle X-Pedition (Deutschland) and Dino Island (Malaysia) each happened to have a different piece of hardware with an alternative theme and they are above average for attractions of their nature, and that’s great. I just wish, as ever, it had translated to some of the coasters and dark rides.
#6 Legoland Billund
And it did just that for the exception to the rule. The original Legoland park built on the home of Lego itself contains a rollercoaster gem in the form of Polar X-plorer, a quality Zierer family coaster with a drop track section, showing that it is indeed possible to throw a little spice into the mix every now and then. This attraction combined with a strong showing of the now common other dark rides made this particular park feel a little more fleshed out and special amongst the brand for me. I’m looking forward to visiting the Florida property one day to try their inherited little wooden coaster, hopefully that one can fall under this category too.
#5 Chessington World of Adventures Resort
I have such history with some of these parks now and it’s rather difficult to put things in perspective. Rather than the usual spiel about how I haven’t properly visited for 10 years nor have they invested in anything that interests me across that time period, I shall focus on the positives. Dragon’s Fury is one of my favourite UK coasters and I actually miss it rather terribly. It’s one of the best examples of Maurer spinners in the world and Mega-Lite even worked on it for a year so I feel like I know it better than almost any other ride in the world. Oh, and the animals are nice. That is all.
#4 Gardaland
This Italian property appears perfectly competent as a theme park, but it lacked a certain spark. There’s no denying that the two B&Ms contributed by Merlin have made the place vastly more attractive to coaster enthusiasts, though the following Fabbri spinning mouse was certainly more questionable. The main issue we found with the place was that it just didn’t hold our interest. There’s a wide range of attractions and none of them a were standout, even the dark rides. Little niggles here and there like operational issues and queue jumpers wore us down before the day was out and though I appreciate Gardaland for what it is, there’s currently no desire to return.
#3 Thorpe Park
I do genuinely like a lot of the rides here and I’d still want to visit regularly just because it’s nearby and fun, but I haven’t had the motivation any more with latest changes in pricing, passes, operations (and investments). It’s coming close to 10 years now since we’ve had a new rollercoaster, which you’d think would be somewhat of a focus for the ‘thrill capital of the UK’. Sadly Thorpe Park have been having a bit of an identity crisis as of late, one year focusing on becoming more family friendly, pushing them away again the very next and then overly relying on intellectual properties to attract guests as opposed to good, solid, tried and tested attractions.
#2 Alton Towers
On paper this should be the best by now, but Wicker Man was a personal blow to me and I’ve just grown so tired of the place. I’ve already praised the lineup on here for being so nice and varied and they have 2 of Merlin’s best (Nemesis, Hex), though I never really found anything joyously rerideable here even in its heyday. On quiet days now I get bored and leave early. On busy days I get annoyed and leave early. There’s a lot more of the latter now and very little balance. Sure, this may well apply to all of these parks if you went enough times, but I don’t feel like I’ve overdone Alton to be honest. It just never feels worth the effort once I’m in it. First timers? Go nuts, but watch out for the hideously short operating hours. It has the potential to be a world class park, but it’ll try its hardest not to give you that experience.
#1 Heide Park
I think more so than any of the other parks in this list I found this one just a nice place to be. Being German it can’t help also being well operated and there’s a good selection of rides, many of which are stand outs for what they are. The B&M combo here is by far the best investment from Merlin in my eyes – the presentation, the soundtracks and the hardware all surpass anything else they’ve done in the chain for me. In the same corner we have Scream, one of my favourite drop towers out there. I’d get excited just standing in the presence of one of these monsters and that’s a highly sought after trait in a park for me. It’s a shame they’ve ruined Colossos, which is now by far the worst of it’s type, it has/had the potential to be the best single attraction across the entire company, but I suppose it’s still worth a few goes to flesh out the day. I hope that now the mess of cleaning it up is out of the way, the focus can shift to investing in something truly great again, but it’s anyone’s game at this point – one truly exceptional attraction at any of the top 4 parks in this list could potentially tip the scales for me. The question is, who and what will it be?
