Final day in the city and my backup plan list was already running dry. It had all been very unsuccessful and rather demoralising. Options were: risk the Botanical Garden being winded out again (they weren’t answering the phone), do another city park with basically the same boring lineup as the first day, or put myself through another Fantawild Adventure park.
Reluctantly…
Day 3 – Fantawild Adventure Shenyang
The bus pulled directly into the car park which was a welcome start for one of these parks. There looked to be about 20 cars total, with someone in a BMW trying and failing to do donuts in the open space.
Walked down the massive main street section which is all set up for a second gate. It’s just wasteland for now, but will probably open before the new Hotgo park. For a rare change, I didn’t even care what was open and what wasn’t so ignored the signs, no questions to the staff, bought tickets and headed in.
The castle centrepiece is in scaffolding making for a pretty sight. Quite a nice effect, from a certain point of view.
Came to Sky Sailor first, which was next running in about an hour. Seen several of the buildings that housed these rides before, but hadn’t actually managed to do it yet, missing the most recent one by about 5 minutes. So we made plans to try it this time.
Water ride wasn’t open. Don’t think I’ve ever seen one of the themed ones open.
#1 Vesuvio Volcano
Cred then. Mount Tanggula, but with a volcano instead. That same double lift mine train layout that is just absolutely everywhere over here now. Not as hilariously bad as the previous iteration though.
#2 Flare Meteor
Standard operations meant that took an age, so cred ran to the Golden Horse SLC to get it out of the way. It actually felt a bit windy today, unlike the day before when things were closed, so my thoughts on the lift were mainly ‘please don’t stall, please don’t stall, please don’t stall.’
I reckon the wind made an impact as the ride had an overly long upside down moment in the cobra roll that actually felt quite cool. The rest of it was quite bad. It’s not the side to side that gets me on SLCs any more, it’s the weird backwards and forward pumping that some of them develop. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it just shakes your insides a little too much. This was the latter.
Slightly injured, cred ran back to the complete opposite end of the park (dedication) to arrive just in time for Sky Sailor.
Rode too many flying simulators on this trip, so I’m struggling to even remember which one this was… Nope. Can’t.
Not bad, but obviously nothing special. Better than Ferrari Land.
Did a full lap of the park from there, seeing what else might be new to me/interesting enough to do again. Everything we came to was either closed or had a time slot that was way later in the afternoon, by which time we would have to leave.
The only attraction even worth considering was Space Warrior in the end, the screen shooting ride that I really didn’t like previously.
Some of the dark rides at Fantawild parks have what I’ll call reception areas at their entrance, separate to the queue, with benches and in this case, books and colouring pencils. This is mainly because on quieter days they take regular breaks from running the ride, only operating in waves or a few cars at a time. Stood in this reception area for about half an hour while the staff girl was waiting for ‘the call’ from the ride team. Ended up having a good chat as she was rather friendly. Apparently only 3 ‘westerners’ had been to this park before (I reckon I can name them) and life working at Fantawild is rather boring. Gave up in the end, said we’ve got a train to catch and told her not to worry, we’ve done this ride in Zhengzhou. Shock face.
Gave up on the park as well, leaving nothing to chance with transport and getting out of this city. It wasn’t necessary to hurry as for the first time I’ve ever seen, all the high speed trains in the region were delayed by over an hour. Due to, yes, wind.
Didn’t mind this park as much as the previous iteration as there were zero stakes, minimum faff and no particular need to rush anything (though I still ended up running like an idiot). Still felt like achieving very little (other than a +2) out of half a day out though and, ugh, this hobby bothers me sometimes.
Grabbed a taxi the next morning and asked to head for the Hotgo resort. It contained another friendly driver but he was somewhat useless and must have smoked about 30 times during the journey. The somewhat useless part came half an hour into the journey where he pulled over and asked a man on the street where Fantawild was. Whoa whoa whoa, whoa whoa. There’s no way I’m going to another Fantawild Adventure in a hurry (HA!). In his mind, Hotgo was in the same place. In reality, I knew he was way off. He opened up maps on his phone and got us to find the route for him and then set off again.
Another half an hour later we had left civilisation behind and a massive castle with a couple of B&Ms appeared on the horizon. I fully expected them not to be ready as the construction progress was almost moving backwards by that time, but I wanted the woodie in the same resort, so told him to follow signs to the already completed Jungle World park. As he got near he pulled over to what looked like construction workers sitting around in the road, but he maintained these were local taxi drivers. Turns out the whole resort was closed. Turns out I’ve discovered a new adversary and stumbled across the only big brand park in China with a seasonal opening calendar. None of it wast open at all until the following weekend, so cheers to the website for being completely useless.
The driver now had no clue how to leave the area we had taken so long to find and, while I got out my list of backup parks again, he jumped out of the car and into the passenger seat of another passing taxi for a chat. “Where to next?” “Botanical Garden mate.”
Got a rather spiteful view of Time Travel on the way out of the area. The rollercoaster I had come so far to ride, only for it to slip through my fingers by a mere week. To add insult to injury, I didn’t realise how good it actually looked until I saw it in person. It seems to follow the terrain very well.
Day 2 – Shenyang Notanical Garden
This place wasn’t too far down the road and we were soon pulling over at the side of the road by a big bridge that crossed over to the entrance. Desperate to get back to civilisation, the taxi bloke had already acquired another passenger before we had even left the vehicle. Thanked him for the detour and jumped out.
Crossed the bridge into the massive entrance plaza and spotted the ticket window. Asked about the rides. Nope. Turns out I’ve discovered 2 new adversaries in China. All closed for the wind. Not wasting any more time with that then. Back over the bridge and into the car park where apparently a bus should be along soon. On closer inspection there was no way a bus was going to bother entering this run down car park with barriers everywhere, so waited by the side of the road while a dog barked at us for half an hour. Another taxi would have sufficed as well, but it was a desolate place. Salvation appeared on the horizon. A bus back to the city.
This terminated at the main station, directly opposite the hotel we had left many hours earlier. Well that’s the morning gone. Next backup park?
Jumped on the metro. Went to the wrong mall. Had ice cream.
Went to the right mall.
Day 2 – Sinbad Happy Castle
This place had a certain charm to it, reminding me most of Berjaya Times Square. Interesting setting inside a building, but a bit tacky really.
#1 Jungle Explorer
It felt so good to actually get on something for the day, so Children Coaster (dont think it’s called Jungle Explorer, but who am I to argue with the internet?) was an instant hit. Only 1 lap of magnificence though.
#2 Star Express
Another spinner was up next, high up in a mall alongside some bad windows looking out over a construction site of a city. Oh yeah, that’s where the resemblance comes from.
Were joined by a local couple, who received a swift nod, so had a full car on this version. It actually span a lot and the guy was loving every second of the girl’s reaction. Not bad.
Took a lap of the park to see if anything else interesting was lurking. It wasn’t.
Just to be sure, rode this suspended monorail which takes a lap of the park. Nope.
Well this trip was a right mess, hopefully that makes for a good read.
First day was cut in half by a ‘rescheduling’ of the flight. Not that this really mattered in the end (spoilers). Touched down in Shenyang halfway through the day to find that apparently there’s no legit public transport from the airport to the city. Ended up with a taxi ride that seemed to take forever, though the driver was friendly enough.
Checked into the hotel. Still time for a few creds. Took the metro to somewhere vaguely near a backup plan park. Strolled through a nice green space from there, but there were no surprise creds in sight. I always forget how massive everywhere is in China, so the plan to walk it was becoming a burden and ended up jumping on a bus to…
Day 1 – Nanhu Park
Always good to start strong. One of those ‘stick a grubby amusement park in the back of some trees in the city’ places that China does so well.
Walked past various other activities like karaoke in the pagoda, karaoke on the bridge and karaoke on the riverbank. Varying vocal quality.
Eventually stumbled into the hustle and bustle of the amusement area. Turned down about 50 people wanting customers for some dodgy looking flat rides. “Nah mate, creds only.” The first person to earn some money was standing outside this ride, somehow managed to negotiate a 2 for 1 deal out of him.
#1 Spinning Coaster
Classic spinner of unknown origins. The cars have the ability to rotate from the top of the lift, unlike the usual ones of these that don’t allow any spinning to kick in until about halfway through the layout, but the poor trackwork never allows it to pick up enough speed to do anything much.
A proper beast was up next, looking lonely and abandoned. An old woman was running some insignificant ride in front and beckoned. No no, open the cred for us instead. Money in hand, how could they say no?
#2 Golden Dragon Roller Coaster
Loved this one. Such character. Before we could sit in the train, a musty old cushion was placed on the seat for us. After squeezing in, a second musty old cushion was wedged in between my left side and the edge of the car. I like where this is headed.
Got 3 laps of pure comedy, each time the lift struggling more and more to engage, breaking our backs once it did. Need to relocate that cushion.
#3 Jungle Squirrel
JUNGLE MOUSE! I’m ashamed to say that I’ve had to enter the country 5 times to get on one of these, so I was very happy to finally do it. Close your eyes and the spirit of Wild Mouse lives on. Minus the air time.
Headed over a bridge to a more barren section of the park for the biggest ride of the day. Now some damage could be done. The guy running it was delighted to have a customer and immediately jumped on the microphone to try and churn up some more business with me as the poster boy. Nah. No one was buying it.
Off we go then.
#4 Roller Coaster
The layout starts with a slow helix of doom that builds tension before you plunge into the undersized loop.
The inversion was pretty grim, something akin to a sucker punch. The remainder was manageable.
The final and most shameful cred in the park was a small worm thing, but it was abandoned and the train parked in the wrong place, so that didn’t happen. Pity, probably one of the few of those that would actually let adults on. Here’s a depressed monkey instead:
Jumped on the ferris wheel opposite for some views.
Boat ride on a zipwire there that I expected to go into the water at least. Nope.
The pods on the wheel didn’t smoothly follow with gravity, rather lurched and grated in stages, so it felt a little sketchy. Not the worst wheel of the trip though.
I had some days spare to use in Asia while out in Singapore again and wasn’t quite sure what to do with them. Not enough time to do anything too major, though sadly there aren’t many places left out this way I could do for too long anyway. With RMC consistently hammering into my rankings over the last 6 months, Hakugei was obviously the most major draw in the region. But it didn’t feel like enough – all that way for one ride… I don’t think I’m quite ready for that stage of the hobby just yet.
Hit some more of China was the other idea, with new stuff up and coming all the time and the odd bits to mop up in between. But they’re so slow in getting things built – rides that spited me over a year ago still not being ready and I couldn’t be arsed with the disappointment again for now.
If I can add one more major coaster to this trip, I’ll be happy.
So I took a gamble on some wood and booked three dirt cheap one way flights.
And in no way did it look like it was going to pay off.
I’ve been spited by Wood Coaster twice before. It’s about my most spiteful ride going. I got as far as the entrance of the park the first time, after 90 minutes on a bus from hell and then being chased down by people trying to sell me plastic buckets and spades for a trip up the mountain. The ticket desk said the coaster was closed. I walked away. The second time I was in Shenzhen I didn’t bother with all that, just phoned up the park 2 days in a row from somewhere nicer and got the usual stories about “it’s been raining the last few days so… you know… maintenance.” Yeah, I know.
The park website has become more fancy these days and now has details in writing about their extensive maintenance schedules for rides. For the star attraction it says every Monday, every third Thursday of the month, every April (and from personal experience every January or every time there’s sight of rain either before or after that day). In summary, the world’s most closed coaster. To avoid all that then, we’ll hit it on a Saturday in June.
As the day drew nearer, the weather forecast for the city was just… terrible. 2 weeks of thunderstorms either side of the day I was going. It doesn’t make meteorological sense, but it’s China, so that’s that then.
Day 0 – Arrival in Shenzhen
So I landed with the full expectation of just spending a rainy day in a hotel.
I’m obviously getting too complacent with the whole immigration/entry/getting around system in China because I expected to just walk in the door and get a transit visa on arrival this time. There weren’t any staff available for this when I got there, so I spent a good hour standing around in ghost town airport waiting for someone to show up at the visa desk while the immigration helpers did their best to avoid eye contact with me following our initial encounter and a couple of other officers at their desks eyed me suspiciously. I thought the people I was waiting for were gonna be one of the official uniformed looking immigration officers that rocked up with their 7-Eleven instant noodle dinners and disappeared into an office to eat said dinners rather than acknowledging my existence, but it wasn’t them. Instead what seemed to be some random/normal looking airport staff member appeared while chatting into her phone and asked to look at my passport. She looked at it and walked off again without saying another word to me, still on the phone. Clearly no one knew what they were doing and they don’t get many people doing it this way. I would say I’ve missed this fun, but it already felt like a wasted journey to begin with. She eventually reappeared with a friend and they bumbled their way through the process over the period of another hour or so, constantly phoning people up, running off to somewhere else in the airport to get information on something, looking up something on the internet or chatting to other officers at the desks. Eventually I got a stamp and got in. They were gone again before I could thank them for their swift service. And now the metro is shut for the day. I do love a good taxi.
The faff didn’t end there as the hotel ended up being the first I’ve ever come across in China that doesn’t accept ‘foreign cards’. It’s 2am, give me a break, I want to sleep. This was only a daytrip, so I wasn’t packing enough cash to settle that and do everything I wanted to do the next day but fortunately, as they bluntly told me, there was a cashpoint round the corner. Ugh.
It’s not actually raining though.
Day 1 – Knight Valley
Less than 3 hours later and I’m getting déjà vu from the previous time I was in this city, waking up stupidly early in the morning to check the ‘weather situation’ outside before deciding whether to bother with a 2 hour journey to the park for absolutely nothing. It’s still not actually raining, but I’m too tired to care. Back to sleep.
Still wasn’t willing to commit to the extra journey purely on a whim at this stage, so waited ’til office hours and phoned the number we had had some success with before. No luck, couldn’t get through to a human. Well, I’ve come this far, lets see if I can at least lay eyes on the damned thing this time, open or otherwise. But I ain’t taking that bus again, someone can drive me. The hotel staff were like “whoa man, don’t do it, that’s gonna cost you £20.” Their opinion was ignored.
It rained the tiniest of bits on the journey over to the park, but otherwise was just lots of low hanging cloud in a regular fashion for a mountainous climate. Game over I thought, they’ll be doing their track walk now and instantly think ‘time to go home’. Driver bloke was friendly enough to offer his phone number and a return journey once we arrived, as it was a ‘remote area.’ That’s a sound option, I thought. Could be returning in about 5 minutes.
Got to the ticket desk. There was a sign of closed rides up on display, which I don’t even remember existing before, more positive steps? Wood Coaster wasn’t on it. The woman with the tickets re-confirmed this. In we go then.
I think the following walk was my new peak in cred anxiety. I’ve been lied to by staff enough times now to still think it’s not open. I failed to pick up a map so didn’t know where I was going either.
You keep climbing these escalators up the mountain, half of them broken, and still can’t see the ride for about 15 minutes of walking – I expected it to be dominating the hillside, but it’s insignificant in comparison to the size of the resort. Passed a sign with ride specific opening times. ‘The Wood Coaster is open from 10:00-18:00.’ Is this actually happening?
I joined the queue at 10:00 and there was a bunch of engineers on platform, with the ride making familiar GCI brake noises. It took them another half an hour, but it tested and it opened.
#1 Wood Coaster
Ahhhhhhhhh. It was so good to get on it. That and the ride itself is… so good. I was a little worried as GCI have been a source of minor let downs for my last 2.5 years as well as seeing reports of it having not aged well. But if there’s one GCI out there to rival the mighty Bamboo, it’s this thing.
I got everything I want from one of these – it’s fast, relentless, has buckets of airtime, goes on forever and is aggressive – really, really, aggressive. Perfectly on the limit.
The layout is just majestic. Never mind the station flythrough that due to questionable park operations no queueing guest ever sees, there’s a bloody quad down passing in between the station and the brakerun. It did a Lightning Rod before Lightning Rod and it made me giddy with happiness. I loved everything about this ride so much.
And whose wonderful idea was it to stick a big wooden coaster up here anyway? It did the Wildfire turnaround atop a mountain before Wildfire did. That makes me love it even more.
There was a bit of jeopardy added to the whole experience (which probably heightened it even more) in that the lift hill contained an assault of weird looking moths and other weird and not wonderful flying creatures that would crash into your face or land on you as the train climbs 200ft into a rainforest. Eww. I hate bugs. I don’t even want to know what those things are doing to you when you hit 60Mph, but I ended up with one inside my shirt that looked like a leech at one point. So much no. But so much yes. Have some more pics.
Just to tease me a bit further it also rained a little more during a queue for another lap. They made announcements about stopping if it got worse, but it didn’t, so they didn’t. Good for them.
Kinda wish the park ended there, but there was some other stuff to see. Stumbled into what I only knew as discount Waterworld. Sums it up nicely. Wasn’t the most professional of performances, but it was a laugh. The show ended to announcements of “stick around to have a photo with the white man.” Think I’ll pass on that one.
Foolishly followed the crowd out of there into the queue for an underwater ride simulator. Some aggressive announcements were being made about an 80 seat capacity and 30 minute show intervals. It then turned into an old timey bumpkin scrum as the, less refined, guests started pushing and shoving to make sure they made it in to the next show. It’s only the second time I’ve seen this sort of behaviour (the first being that awful tour group at Fantawild Ningbo) so it’s far from the norm, but it is rather disgusting to behold. We didn’t make it to that show and left the queue rather than wait again. I’m sure it was nothing mindblowing.
From there it was a hot and sweaty queue for the cablecar up to the top of the mountain. Things only got sweatier when the greenhouse-rooved portion of the queue became home to two huge hairy moth things that were bigger than my hands. If they end up at Wood Coaster, I’m dead.
Some lovely views up top. Didn’t bother with any of the rides as the queues were too grim.
Did the funicular train back down, it was completely empty in contrast to the cablecar for some reason.
The Bobkart spited me disappointingly, but got what I came for.
Got a friendly staff girl to lend us her phone so we could contact the driver from earlier, as our Chinese SIM had conked out up the mountain. He said 40 minutes. This made an easy excuse for me to have one more lap of Wood Coaster, as the queue was invariably 30 minutes for 30 people.
When he turned up we made an outlandish request to be driven to a mall in the city to get some food rather than straight back to the hotel, at which point he got all mopey saying he wouldn’t have bothered coming back for us if he’d known it wasn’t the full fare. Well thanks.
And that’s it for one long day in China. Seems like a lot of text for one ride. Good times.
There was time for one more park in the morning before the plane home. A humble affair in the middle of the city.
Hunan Martyr’s Park
Entertainment ground. That’s the one.
Spongebob x Nemo collab.
#1Jungle Flying Mouse
Jungle Mouse was the order of the day of course. It had a weird smoother track style and a much less vicious layout. A questionable modern perk.
And there used to be a looper here on this patch of grass. Spite.
The end.
Summary
New creds – 45 Total parks – 18 Dark rides – 26 Jungle Mouses – 8 Best coaster – Jungle Trailblazer (Nanning) Best not-a-clone coaster – Harpy Best park – Fantawild Asian Legend for the overall lineup. Honorable mentions to Colourful Yunnan Paradise and Oriental Heritage Changsha Distance travelled ~ 3313 Miles-ish Not counting things that haven’t opened at all yet (Xingdong and the S&S), Spites – 5/50 (10%)
Back where the trip began then, in Changsha, they’ve got this shiny new Fantawild resort.
With a second gate on the way? From the décor it looks like they’re going backwards and doing an Adventure next. I hope it’s an upgraded version. I do like it when they do something new, as we’re about to find out, again.
Day 13 – Oriental Heritage Changsha
Having being put back in a cynical mood, I wasn’t expecting the coasters to be open for another 6 hours after the park, if at all due to the cold. So the first thing we ended up on was…
Another flying theatre called Let’s Fly! Yes! It was alright, I think.
In poor taste it did have this picture in the queue of that stupid Vekoma Stingray that spited me twice before being demolished.
On to better things, the area for Celestial Gauntlet looks amazing. I’ll be doing lots of visuals as I go along for this park as I really think they’ve outdone themselves this time. Normally the ‘thrill ride’ areas with a Woodie and bog standard water rides are very plain and often lazy by their standards.
#1 Celestial Gauntlet
To my surprise it was already open and they were just waiting for someone to ride it. Go on then.
I liked the look of this thing, other than the vests. Ride without prejudice.
And it didn’t disappoint overall. The lift hill provides some unusual audio of people screaming as you approach the summit. The drop gives you the briefest moment of ‘wahey I’m out of the seat, oh no I’m not.’
The hang in the inversion is insane. I love how all these modern rides are managing to pull off sensations like this now. Loops used to be so boring.
Everything else in the layout is about a third of the height of the first element so it hauls its way through a bunch of hills and a couple more inversions with a varying degree of pleasure – some of them actually are good and some of them just look good while not really doing anything to you.
Tunnels at the end provide some great interaction.
It’s a cool ride. Nothing game changing. Very fun and re-rideable, but to me not quite worthy of being the stand out attraction at a park. It should be a secondary compliment. To a Jungle Trailblazer. With a new layout.
From there, we unknowingly wandered into one of the standouts of the whole trip. I had something written down on my bit of paper for the day saying ‘new dark ride?! – rocks and vines out front’ and didn’t even notice this was that until afterwards.
The queue went on forever and just kept getting more and more insane, to the point where I was beginning to think it was the attraction and there was no ride at the end.
Particularly when you end up in this room looking like an art gallery with this big ancient scroll on display. So, it’s just a museum?
No, keep going.
It’s a trackless dark ride. Oh yes.
It’s called Magic Gallery or perhaps better, Magic Brush. It follows this boy who can turn into a brush and then bring to life the contents of any drawings or paintings. He takes you on a bit of an adventure.
The ride is really, really long and packed full of intimate detail. Stuff of proper wonderment and awe as you go round. What real dark rides are made of.
The smells are back and more amazing than ever. You end up inside a physical set of a rotting ship at one point and it smells just like the Mary Rose museum. Then a massive flood effect happens while a dragon is playing hide and seek with you.
You learn some history along the way, you meet a sexy water Goddess with her Kirin-drawn chariot, then it smells like the nicest soap ever, you go behind a curtain and he’s found that giant scroll painting from the gallery in the queue and it comes to life and you fly around and it’s all magical and ahhhhhhhhhh. So much to take in. So much charm.
I get back to the station in the midst of re-contemplating my life, like you get on the brake run of a new top 10 coaster. The ride host walks over with two cups of tea for us as we get off. I can’t describe how happy this makes me. It’s the simple things.
Stuff like that just doesn’t happen and yet here we are.
So we’ve got a potential Jinshan beater on our hands here. I’m tempted to give it the edge as it’s much more of a ‘ride’ and therefore better paced, without reliance on a show. The ONE criticism I do have is that because it was running so few vehicles (no capacity required), you often got a bit ahead of the scenes and you’d have to swivel and crane to catch all of it.
Here’s one of those water rides that looks anything but plain. Sadly all closed for the weather.
A show was starting here soon.
#2 Puppy Coaster
The puppy was round the corner to fill the time.
Entrance area to the show.
No big deal.
In a similar vein to Magic Brush the story was about reawakening a famous lady who was mummified in a tomb, along with all the creatures in that flag, but this time it was done with science rather than magic. The characters came to life, portrayed by actors, some conversations and traditional dance happened. I don’t know what black magic was going on here. The techonology of the Butterfly Lovers show I described at the start of the trip with the translucent projection screens around a stage was cranked up to the max. They described it as augmented reality and you couldn’t see a screen at all in front of the single big stage but projections appeared out of thin air, completely covering up the action when required. This was complimented by a huge screen behind the stage as well. Sometimes they used that lying on the floor of the trick with more projections and a giant mirror to make it look like people were flying and it was overall pretty epic.
Same closed for winter story with the rapids, but wow.
Legend of Nuwa has had an upgraded entrance façade since the other parks as well. She’s much bigger and more detailed and the fighting blokes aren’t normally there.
In fact the whole package felt like a Legend of Nuwa 1.1 to me. I may be suppressing things but it felt like there were a couple more details thrown in. Most importantly it was running with a ton more ferocity. Properly vicious movements from the car that make you concerned for your safety. Do they weaken over time or do they just make them better now?
They’ve got another cool show here that I’ve seen before – Legend of Lady Meng Jiang, that contains a brick version of the bubble ballet amongst other things. Good lineup.
And something else that stands out to me about this park is how each attraction has much more of it’s own dedicated themed area. Often they can look amazing out front, but where they are is a bit plonked amongst everything else.
#3 Big Top
Not quite as pretty, but it’s in the kids area themed to Boonie Bear at the circus.
I like the Orkanen layout. The opening drop and turn are really good and it’s generally much less meandering than the smaller models.
They had the most relaxed staff in China here. You could just walk in and sit on the train at any time without any of the usual batching nonsense. Or even have a nose around the operator’s box because they’d just disappear down the queue for a chat while people were taking their seats. And it’s one of very few rides in China, if any, that I’ve been allowed to keep my glasses on. A nation that doesn’t like them on gentle flat rides.
Maybe it is pretty after all.
Maybe I’ve just got a thing for reflections now.
I hadn’t done this drop tower ride, The Plummet for about 3 years, back in my first Fantawild where I despised the place. Maybe that gave me a bad impression of it.
Nah, it still sucks. So much wasted potential. It has that horrible controlled sensation all the way up and all the way down. It has doors at the top that make it look like it’s trying to be Tower of Terror. But it doesn’t do anything. It has screens in the middle that make it look like it’s going to do something cool. But it doesn’t do anything. Very slowly drifts past a snake on them at the end of the ride cycle while the hardware hisses loudly. Staff were friendly though, sneaking me up the exit path just before the sequence was about to start. High chance it was time slotted
I’ve managed to put the Marvels of Chinese Culture off at about 10 parks previously. Finally gave it a go on this day. Expected a lengthy 3D cinema that wasn’t particularly interesting, but actually got a brief and graphic history of all the different Chinese dynasties and the various wars involved.
From other reports I’m not sure if these are all the same now, even if the names are. It was decent enough.
This was amazing. Another boat ride with a new theme, River of Tales is all about 4 letter Chinese idioms or ‘Chengyu’, represented by scenes.
Rerides until satisfied then, followed by a slight sadness on departure.
Really, really liked this place. I thought I would be done after the Asian Legend park on this trip but even after so much fatigue I fell in love with Fantawild all over again here. They’re now by far my favourite chain in the country – and it’s taken them long enough. Ningbo was clearly an anomaly and I’ll take the Adventure parks as a learning process for them to develop their rides further. This is a spectacular example of that process continuing.
I shall now follow their future with greater interest than ever. Sunac can suck it.
I can’t maintain the poorly held suspense about Dueling Dragons any longer.
The weekend arrived. I went hunting on the website to find specific ride opening times rather than risk turning up several hours too early for the dragons again. 10:30 you say? Time for a revisit.
Day 12 – Guangzhou Sunac Land again
Of course they weren’t sticking to it. Got to the entrance of the ride. 12:00 opening. Sat on a bench for an hour, depressingly noticing that the amount of people in the park was exactly the same as it had been on the Wednesday.
They tested both sides separately, exactly as they had on the Wednesday. I stood and watched the staff activity in the station intently. They were up in the red station, wiping down the railings and the baggage holders. Making it presentable? Then they put a rope across the stairs and went back down to the green one.
The green one opened. Asked about the red one today? Nope. Not happening. “Maintenance?” “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… yeah… let’s say that.”
The girl that had promised me it would open at the weekend wasn’t in guest services for another chat. The rest of them didn’t care. “Ride the green one – it’s better.” So I left.
Have some pictures of the poxy thing running empty if you want.
‘Erections strictly prohibited’ is so very true.
Decided to go up the Canton Tower after seeing it the other day.
The attractive look it has on the outside is a bit of a design flaw on the inside when it comes to being an observation deck. All that twisted cladding just blocks the views.
They have some engineering stuff on show on one of the floors.
A graph. Erections no longer prohibited.
Perhaps the building design was a money making scheme all along, as the only way you can get an unobstructed view is to pay an extra 20 quid to ride the silly bubble thing on the roof.
What’s in the mystery door?
I went up for the Intamin drop tower though. ‘Highest thrill ride in the world’. I’ll take that claim for the collection.
As a piece of hardware it ain’t much. Not as tall as I expected, hardly leaves you in suspense at the top at all and a slightly punchy drop. Something about just looking down to the ground over the edge of the building and appreciating the sheer height you are at while on it though. That was a pretty special feeling. Would recommend.
It was a train back to Changsha after that, completing the round trip. One more major park to come and finish things on a high and I’m getting excited again just remembering it. I do love this hobby really.
When I say actual park, I use the term loosely. I skipped this place 3 years ago because well… it has nothing going for it. Just a highly concentrated cred run.
But here I am, stuck in Guangzhou with nothing better to do.
Day 11 – Chuanlord Holiday Manor
They chuck about 10 tickets at you for entry to this place that included some ice exhibit and some animal exhibit that I didn’t want. What I did want was the cashless ride card on which you get about 4 times what you pay to get in and far more than you’ll ever actually need.
Warning: quality of my pictures matches quality of the park.
#1 Spinning Surfboat
First thing I came across was this spinning yacht device . First time I’ve managed to get on one. It’s a joke of a ride, consisting of an oval with a kicker wheel.
#2 Sliding Dragon
Mmm. Powered Dragon. Something you may notice here is that all the rides are painted in the same colours. I’m not just posting the same picture 8 times and inflating my coaster count, honest.
#3 Jungle Squirrels
Best ride of the day right here. It had a slightly unconventional layout for a Jungle Mouse including a couple of moments of surprise airtime.
This area is where the park got tricky. They have a minimum number of riders they require to operate some of their rides.
And as usual, the park was heaving.
So I got warmly greeted by a ride host and told to wait in this area for some more people (after being verified that I was under 1.8m, relief). Notice the scales as well. Between 40kg and 75kg. There’s a very narrow band of criteria here.
A good half hour went by and eventually some blokes turned up and spent an age faffing about with whether they wanted to or not before several of them got declined anyway for weight reasons (while wearing rucksacks and carrying shopping bags, no doubt with chickens inside). I’m still holding out for the day I caption ‘chicken on a rollercoaster.’
#4 Longfeng Roller Coaster
I didn’t even want to ride the bastard. It was horrible. I laugh in the face of Intrimidator 305 and honestly the closest I’ve ever come to blacking out on a ride was on this thing. The sustained force throughout the whole of the double loop was pure disgust. Why?
#5 Self-Spinning Pulley
The spinner took tactics as it needed at least 3 people per car. Got flatly refused the first time, then in passing later I saw 4 girls walk up to it and start the usual collective fuss about whether they would ride or not. I sprinted up to join them. One of them decided against it. A swift nod from the operator. I’m in. They lost their minds on it. I didn’t.
#6 Shenzou Surfing
Talking of losing their minds, I made a new friend on this one, stealing her from her husband while they were having an argument in the queue about riding it. It was dumb and rough for what it was, but I’ve never quite seen a reaction like this from someone on any ride – full on panic attack. Well maybe Kitt SuperJet. And the Taron queueline. This needed 2 people and it took me an age to get 1 of them, so I didn’t bother with the farcical matter of attempting all 4 ‘tracks’.
#7 Jungle Pulley
Was beginning to worry that this one didn’t exist. Couldn’t find that final cred anywhere on the park map. It was craftily hidden under a roof. It spins, really viciously, once.
#8 Magic Ring Vertical Coaster
I was subconsciously putting this thing off. It turns out I didn’t actually need to because I spent well over an hour in the same scenario as earlier, sitting outside it waiting for other guests to justify the running of the ride to the staff. They said they needed 4, but then settled for two children plus myself and forced me into the front row.
I thought I hated these before but now just sitting here recalling the ride experience again is making me feel ill. Time stopped in the upside down bit. I hate that soooooooo much. I simply can’t deal with it. But there’s nothing I can do. It felt like something gave way in my head and for the briefest of moments I was alright again. And now I’m worried what that sensation signified. Positive thinking – it was smoother than the one in Finland.
Jumped on the wheel because I had tons of credit left and didn’t want to reride anything in the slightest.
Regretted it immediately because it was creaky and dirty. Couldn’t get through the holes properly for pictures either.
Spent too long waiting for an operator to show up for this thing. The cheapest of cheap shooting dark ride hardware, but not a shooting dark ride. Just a ride through some caves and animals in the dark. It was actually really claustrophobic and I guess kinda cool, in an unintentional sort of way.
I then wanted to leave rather abruptly but Didi decided otherwise. In the first instance of it letting me down it said my car was there, but it wasn’t, then got stuck for 15 minutes not letting me cancel or rebook until, I guess, he cancelled at the other end. In my impatience I got guest services to taxi me up instead, the driver of which then attempted to rip me off at the toll booth, reminding me why Didi is still so superior. He was mumbling to himself as he drove off, disappointed that he failed to fool ol’ ghost face.
Well that was cheerful. Don’t worry, it gets better.
To save extra (potentially wasted) journeys, the two spare days I had at the weekend were reallocated to extra time down here. Hotels were extended and shortened and the train back to Changsha was postponed. One of those spare days was provisionally another day trip to Wuhan – had a couple of spites there last time involving a different set of duelling dragons but the ones down here were a different ride experience at least – higher priority right? Wuhan was also where the initial outbreak of this virus took place and it was already flooding the regional news so depending on your scepticism could have been a bullet dodged there too. (Epidemic – does that count towards my natural disaster spite collection?) The other spare day was provisionally another day trip to Nanchang but the way Sunac was currently treating me that could have ended horribly as well, souring my previous experience with the park by running it terribly and leaving me coming away from the trip with more damage than improvement to my favourite rides. No big loss in retrospect, but it did feel like a waste of potential at the time.
Quite often in China the city zoos will have a small amusement section.
#2 Little Worm Train
Wow. Look at that unique layout.
#3 Forest Flying Mouse
This one not so much.
Aww, pandas.
What you can’t see here is a sign every 12 inches saying do not bang the glass, then as everyone has blatantly been ignoring those signs, crowd control barriers physically keeping you away from the glass.
Always been more of a red panda man myself. Can I take one of these home?
Next?
South China Botanical Garden
In fact almost any outdoor attraction in a city is likely to have something for me in it.
Are we sure about this one?
Go on, take a closer look.
#4 Jungle Flying Squirrel
Fear not. The tranquility of the Botanical Garden has been broken by some ugly amusements.
Sadly this one was ‘maintenance.’ From what I saw, I’d say it’s beyond help.
Like Shanghai, I always underestimate how stupidly huge the city of Guangzhou is. What I thought was a decently located hotel between the south railway station (the only practically usable station out of 4 in the city – ridiculously overcrowded, a total pain in the arse and miles from anywhere) turned out to be a 2 hour journey from the park I was here for. And that was without the random traffic jam that cost another half an hour within spitting distance of the park (should have got out and walked at that point, but couldn’t be sure).
The only entertainment on route was this. I love the idea of someone ‘beating’ the glass, most likely in frustation.
So turned up frustrated and late to
Day 9 – Guangzhou Sunac Land
Entrance is a bit more garish than the others. For some reason, like it was fated, we asked whether all the rollercoasters were open today – hadn’t really been bothering this trip because it’s usually a waste of breath. The answer though – yes.
Let’s start with the ticketing system here. China is obsessed with making payments via apps with QR codes these days and it’s frustrating to behold. Everywhere you go there will be someone stuck at the front of a queue for a convenience store counter, standing in front of the ticket gate for a metro or holding up the awfully slow queues for high speed rail tickets in the way of everyone else, head down fumbling with their phone because for any number of reasons they’re struggling to make it work. If it doesn’t work when they scan it, they never have any backup method to pay so just begin a shouting match with the staff who obviously can’t do anything about it.
The park has decided to roll with this system and operates a pay per ride as an alternative to getting an unlimited ticket at the entrance gate. This confuses everyone because they all turn up to the front of a queue to then have a shouting match with the member of staff who is supposed to be batching for the ride about their eligibility to ride something. “I thought it was free.” “No use the app.” “Why can’t my children go on?” “No use the app.” “That’s going to cost me 4x X, I don’t wanna pay that much.” “Use the app for your children and then push past everyone else to get out of the queue then.” Every time.
If you get an unlimited ticket they do a Fuji Q and use facial recognition on screens to let you into each ride, but the initial setup of this isn’t upon entrance to the park, it’s upon batching of your first ride, only adding to the faff each time someone comes to start using it and doesn’t understand (or it doesn’t work).
So a queue of 5 people can easily turn into a 10 minute ordeal. And this is what greeted us at the first ride.
#1 Garden Fantasy
Which was this thing. I wasn’t a fan of Arthur to be honest. It was a cool idea, but poorly executed. Compared to this it’s a masterpiece. If you’re in the back of the 3 car train, you miss all the screen based scenes and just catch the characters as they’re literally walking off screen to the next one. Every single time. Like it’s a joke.
The outdoor section looks crap.
I’ve seen pictures showing that the ride has the ability to produce tons of fog effects. This is already broken.
And their equivalent of the really majestic part of these ride systems where you go swooping out over a big public area, triumphant music playing? It goes over this.
A frog hopper.
Here we are then. All the lateness from earlier didn’t matter of course because they didn’t open this until 3 hours after the park. Sat down to wait.
#2 Dueling Dragons (Invert)
Watched them test both sides seperately. We’re in.
Got to the station behind 2 kids and their parents. 10 minute ordeal with ticketing. The green side was open and ready to roll. Got to the airgates. Another 10 minutes of waiting for who knows what. Sat down in the ride. Another 10 minutes of waiting before they do the restraints.
It was really good overall. Definitely some interesting sensations in there. The launch is surprisingly un-punchy but the amount of time spent upside down in the loop feels off the charts.
It has some great forceful turns, the inversions are cool. A couple of attempted airtime moments that it’s nice to see, but don’t quite pay off. And it leaves you feeling a bit short at the end. Like it’s yellow soaring brother. The potential for something truly special but doesn’t quite pull it off.
Coaster-wise this was my main draw of the whole trip really. I held off from this area until it was open. It looks so badass. So I was a little disappointed already. I wasn’t expecting a duelling ride by any stretch of the imagination, but have faith in Wanda/Sunac – I’ll get both sides separately. It’s already been reported that they alternate between the two when it’s quiet. Had a quick chat with the staff at the entrance about that, see if they knew roughly when. But they didn’t understand the concept of that at all. “It’s the green one now and you get what you get when you get there.” Most of the staff don’t usually know what they’re talking about, I’ll come back later.
This show was round the corner. It was mildly entertaining, if a bit more child-orientated. (The whole park seemed to be really. Spent most of my time sharing the rides, even the big coaster, with 10 year olds).
It had a couple of decent magic tricks, a bit of dance, slapstick. And it’s namesake dog in a crude costume alternating between walking on two legs and all fours in amusing fashion.
This one seems to be trying a bit too hard. That’s not just translation. It’s self-aware.
#3 Crazy Waves
Didn’t know what this was, but I think it appeared on RCDB as a water coaster-ish ride a couple of months after the rest of the park opened. The ride sign does actually say ‘the dual combination of drifting and roller coaster’.
Thought I’d judge it for myself. Got a free thin poncho, which was cool. Got stuck behind 2 people at the front of the queue for 5 minutes…
Anyway, it has an extensive indoor section. Drifts around some jungle stuff, enters a stormy cave with both wind and rain effect in your face and while that’s happening to you, up an elevator lift. Does the backwards coaster section of your Atlantica Supersplashes. Drifts around some crystals and a volcano before a…
Big drop finale. It looks very Tidal Wave and does the same thing where the water hits your legs a good 5 seconds after touchdown. My poncho had ridden up in the wind so I got stupidly wet knees and nothing more.
Storm Surge! Sums up the park really. It had been about 3 hours since the dragon opened, so headed over for another look to see if they were thinking about swapping over yet. Still the green side. The maintenance card gets played. Right.
It was billed to be open for 7 hours in total that day, so we’ll give them a while longer.
A parade happened. I would have felt a little sad for them like Xishuangbanna in the fact that it’s all fenced off for them to perform, dance and wave on both sides of their path but it was quiet enough for one side to be completely empty and often they would stand still waving to nothingness.
Jumped on the wheel to watch intently.
Don’t know what this was other than closed.
Another flying theatre. Fast becoming the Jungle Mouse of the dark ride world. The video takes you round Guangdong province and basically it ain’t as good as Yunnan province.
The day started to ebb away.
So went to guests services for a chat. Usual rubbish in that there is no actual answer, just a long string of meaningless excuses including: “Maintenance.” “They only open the red one if they get enough footfall.” “The green one is more thrilling, so you don’t need the red one.”
Being in this silly hobby, those last words hurt. I know it doesn’t affect anyone else in the world but even though they’re different ride experiences and they are here actually acknowledging them as such, they treat it as a single attraction and if you’ve done one track, you’ve done Dueling Dragons, what’s your problem?
I think I was 10x more wound up by it all by having the knowledge that they used to do the sensible thing and run both alternately on a quiet day, but only 6 months into the operation of the park they’ve already decided themselves that it’s a wasted effort. I should have gone in blind.
Anyway, the footfall excuse caught my attention, foolishly . There were a couple of spare days in the trip allocated for instances such as this so asked whether it would be open in the next few, including the coming weekend. I’ve done a weekend at a Wanda before, it was really busy (and this city is stupidly busy) but they were coping really well and became the only park in China I’ve seen outside Disney to run 2 trains on a major rollercoaster. The word weekend then caught their attention. “Yes. The red one WILL open at the weekend.” “Ok then, I’ll hold you to that.”
Last ride of the day was this Octopus simulator thing that wasn’t any good. It was obnoxiously following a couple of octopi around a cruise liner while they bounced from danger to danger screaming oooooooooooooooooooooooooooh continuously and I was just done by then. Spent the whole time replanning the rest of the trip in my head to make sure I could come back and get that other dragon.
Oh I’ve experienced a Typhoon. They ran more rides in it than you do.
