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Photo TR: Romon U-Park (October 4, 2017)


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October 4, 2017: Romon U Park

 

I got to Ningbo, Zhejiang, China late this afternoon and decided to go to Romon U-Park for the evening. It was somewhat of a waste. It seems that the Intamin made Euro Express, which I was looking forward to, can't carry passengers weighing more than 80 kilograms. This is not the fault of Intamin. This is the result of Asian paranoia. Here is a coaster made by a western company whose coasters carry millions of average-sized western riders without incident each year and goddamned China chinks it up. This country can't do anything right it seems. Intamin needs to be in touch with the idiots at Romon U-Park on how to operate the coaster.

 

Dragon Legend is a fun ride. It is very smooth. It became my 1100th coaster. I rode Poseidon Adventure. This turned out to have a surprise. I thought it was a log flume. It is actually a combination of flume, dark ride and coaster. There are two sections of dry track as well. The second section follows the second lift and makes a u-turn as it slightly drops. The first section is what makes this a coaster. The section of track starts with a dry drop and then a small hill and a short drop into the water. This section is enough to qualify the ride for being a coaster. I consider it to be coaster #1101 for me to ride.

 

To be honest, Romon U-Park has the potential to be a great park, but this craphouse weight limit on Euro Express is ridiculous. I will not be visiting the park again-even if this policy is done away with. In the past 13 months, I have made 3 trips outside of China because of garbage like this. I was permitted to ride the kiddie coaster at Ningbo Childrens park in 2015. This makes no sense at all. It supports my statement that China is a backwards country.

 

No offense to my Chinese friends, but your country needs to do a lot better. China is going to have to offer something other than overpriced taxi rides if the country wants my tourism dollars. Romon U-Park became park #558 for me to visit.

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I will check out Romon U-Park tonight.

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The castle has many lights on it.

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I have to get in the carousel shot for this park.

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Indoor parks are interesting.

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Here is Poseidon Adventure.

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It looks like a log flume, but there is a section of coaster track on this ride.

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Euro Express looks like fun, but thanks to Asian paranoia, nobody over 80 kg can ride.

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I would have enjoyed this. It is too bad this place will not get anymore of MY MONEY!

Edited by The Angry Darren Mullins
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^ while I love seeing your pictures. . this seems a little. . . um. . . . off-putting.

 

raging against a whole Country because you can't ride a roller-coaster?

 

I'll give benefit of the doubt that you didn't intend to use racial slur, but yeah, to me you're not coming across well here, Darren.

 

 

good pictures tho.

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^ while I love seeing your pictures. . this seems a little. . . um. . . . off-putting.

 

raging against a whole Country because you can't ride a roller-coaster?

 

I'll give benefit of the doubt that you didn't intend to use racial slur, but yeah, to me you're not coming across well here, Darren.

 

 

good pictures tho.

 

I'm sure his best friend is Chinese.

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^ while I love seeing your pictures. . this seems a little. . . um. . . . off-putting.

 

raging against a whole Country because you can't ride a roller-coaster?

 

I'll give benefit of the doubt that you didn't intend to use racial slur, but yeah, to me you're not coming across well here, Darren.

 

 

good pictures tho.

 

I'm sure his best friend is Chinese.

 

since Darren lives in Hong Kong? probably.

 

which is why i'm giving benefit of the doubt that he is not intending to come across as he is

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Not appropriate at all to use racist terms like this in a report. Many of us have issues with 'China' but to use such negative language and include the entire country and over a billion people is ridiculous. Get over not riding the coaster, it belongs to the park and they can do what they want with it. Maybe if they see your report they'll just ban all westerners.

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My wife is Chinese, both parents from the mainland...and the three of them would pretty much agree with everything you said. lmao. I could never live in that country after all the crap I've heard from them, there's a reason they left.

 

Having said that, too bad it was such a frustrating day for you. The silver lining/positive takeaway is that stories like this help remind me why I shouldn't give money to parks, organizations, even countries in some cases that don't deserve my business.

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Having said that, too bad it was such a frustrating day for you. The silver lining/positive takeaway is that stories like this help remind me why I shouldn't give money to parks, organizations, even countries in some cases that don't deserve my business.

Agreed. While I also have frustrations with the Chinese culture, I won't turn to flat-out racism to express my feelings, but I most certainly wouldn't visit this park on a future trip.

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Wow so many years in China doing all the trips and visiting hundreds of parks and one coaster they didn't let you on and suddenly the whole country needs to burn to the ground

 

I'm from China, I understand the struggle of being taller and heavier than an average Chinese very well and I bitch about China more than anyone I've met for sure. But your comments are offensive even for China, where political correctness doesn't really matter to begin with.

 

Also, given that the park is struggling and they had many issues during construction, are you 100% absolutely sure there's not even the slightest chance that the management actually asked Intamin to engineer the coaster with a low weight limit in order to cut down maintenance cost? This would have no effect on the majority of the visitors of the park and if it saves them a crap ton of money, I don't see why not.

 

I am slightly above that weight limit and I have been turned away from many coasters because I am 6'2". Thank you for providing the information and now I am very unlikely to make a trip to the park. But you need to work on your wording.

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Listen folks...I have a mainland Chinese wife. In regards to racism, here is a little story to tell you. In August of 2016, my wife and I got off of a train at 4am in the city of Kunming. We went to several motels because we had trouble finding one that would accept a foreigner. To top it off, the workers said that my wife could stay there without me-basically MY MONEY WAS WELCOME BUT I WAS NOT!

 

I am also tired of Chinese blocking my links to family and friends back home BECAUSE THE CHINESE CAN"T DO NOT LIKE FOREIGN WEBSITES COMPETING WITH THEIR COUNTRY'S WEBSITES.

 

The internet cafes here will only allow you online if you have a Chinese ID card. This means foreigners can't have access at these places (although a few places will occasionally break the rules and let me in).

 

Even buying train tickets is a mess here for foreigners.

 

This is not just about Euro Express at Romon U-Park. This is about an entire country's racism towards foreigners. The sign outside the entrance says that Euro Express can be ridden by guests from 145cm tall to 195 cm tall. Let's face it, this is a bit misleading as someone who is 195 cm tall would probably be above the weight limit they are enforcing. Also, many westerners are above 80 kg. This policy is racist in that regard as most foreigners can be turned away-making it an exclusive thing only for the locals.

 

Back to other things in China, one of my friends had a life threatening condition earlier this year and when he went to the hospital HE WAS REFUSED TREATMENT BECAUSE HIS CHINESE EMPLOYER FAILED TO SIGN HIM UP FOR INSURANCE. THIS WAS AN ILLEGAL MOVE BY THE EMPLOYER.

 

I have used my trip reports to try to showcase China as being fun and to encourage others to visit, but now, when I post a report, I am going to tell of bad experiences (if any). I have actually kept quiet in the past.

 

As a side note, one time, while I was living in Korea, a Korean teacher had sex with a young student. The school district relocated him to another school. Foreign teachers will be fired in Korea if they teach one boring lesson. Asians are very racist. It is time to stop taking the high road with these idiots. Hollywood needs to stop portraying them as having high IQs and such. Intellectual copyrights are a farce over here. Look at all the loopscrew/powered coaster/SLC knockoffs made in this country. Can't they think for themselves? The fact that they will not let westerners on a western designed coaster shows that they are not thinking right. I am all for safety, but I am not going to tolerate BS. Enthusiasts who visit China can now plan on skipping Romon U-Park. They can run their parks their way and I can take my money to other countries.

 

A Christian website criticized South Park for showing that hell was a livable place. I can't imagine what they would think of a country that routinely mixes in plastic when making rice and noodles-hence my earlier remark about going out of mainland China to buy groceries.

 

I recently watched the film Idiocracy. One phrase I heard in that was "I like money". Nobody in that time period could do anything and yet they wanted money. It reminds me of Hefei Wanda Park wanting to win Golden Ticket Awards with an 80 kg weight limit on the tilt coaster. I am not being unreasonable at all. What is unreasonable is that I can ride a fruit worm, a powered dragon and a Wacky Worm, but I am turned away from a loopscrew.

 

I am off to Harborland this morning. I will have my wife ask at the gate if I can ride the coaster. If not, I will WAVE THE MONEY I WOULD HAVE SPENT FOR THE ADMISSION FEE IN FRONT OF THEM AND TURN AROUND AND WALK AWAY WITH THE MONEY STILL IN MY HAND.

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I recently watched the film Idiocracy. One phrase I heard in that was "I like money". Nobody in that time period could do anything and yet they wanted money. It reminds me of Hefei Wanda Park wanting to win Golden Ticket Awards with an 80 kg weight limit on the tilt coaster. I am not being unreasonable at all. What is unreasonable is that I can ride a fruit worm, a powered dragon and a Wacky Worm, but I am turned away from a loopscrew.

No one here is disagreeing with you on the Idiocracy of some policies put into place in China. Even posters we have on our site who are native Chinese agree with many of the things you mentioned.

 

We also have no problem at all with you airing frustrations with those policies (I share some of the same frustrations you have.)

 

All we ask is that you choose your words so they don't come off blatantly racist, even if you don't mean to be as harsh as you were sounding. That's all. I hope that's not asking too much as we do enjoy the trip reports.

Edited by robbalvey
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I am not trying to be racist, but these idiotic policies are becoming more common. I actually sent an email to Intamin suggesting that maybe they could contact the park and educate them about the weight limit. What if the designers the designers of Euro Express visit the park? Would it make sense to turn them away from their own coaster? They should know more about it than the park does. I also have no problem with Chinese parks competing with western parks for things like the Applause Award, Golden Tickets and so on, but they can only compete if they offer an experience similar to what the western parks offer. The Wanda Park in Hefei is very interested in the Golden Ticket Awards, but they have that stupid policy that allows me to ride the wacky worm and not the tilt coaster. How much more backwards can they get? I have not visited the Wanda park in Hefei because of this.

 

There is also a desire in China to bring in "top foreign talent". There is nothing wrong with this, but they had better be able to accommodate them.

 

Here is the typical trip report from me (you can choose my fate at the end):

 

I went to catch a bus to the train station, but the bus was late because some Chinese driver was watching TV and didn't show up in time for work. Once the bus arrived and took me to the train station, it took the Chinese lady selling me the ticket 20 minutes to check my passport, print the ticket and take my money...oh and she typed in the wrong train number and initially said there were no tickets-all of this with me being the only person in line. Once I got to the city I was going to, Chinese drivers tried to over charge me for a taxi ride. After getting to my motel that I had booked online, I was told they could not accept foreigners. I finally make it to the park and when I get to the coaster:

 

A. it was rusted to pieces.

B. they didn't want me ride it.

C. I waited one hour with only 100 people in line as they were dispatching the train once every ten minutes.

 

Once again, I have no problem with letting Chinese parks winning industry awards and with Chinese people being portrayed as being intelligent. They must make an effort.

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If you don't want to deal with all those stuff, don't go there and try only visiting Shanghai Disneyland and Chimelong Parks. Wanda has zero chance in industry awards but the Chimelong team did try their best and they deserve the industry awards they have earned. And Hollywood portraits China in a good way because Chinese market is huge and they are financially ready for trash movies like Transformers.

 

China gets very confusing even for me, I was yelled at by the attendance at a parking lot because I didn't use mobile pay to pay for parking prior to exiting the parking lot even if they accept cash and credit card at the exit. Her excuse was that I was young and I should know how these things work even though she made me wait for a solid two minutes while the cars behind me formed a line because she was chatting with her coworkers. Economic development does not reflect how well people treat each other and China has many many years to catch up and would never reach the level of Japan at least before I die. Part of me does feel guilty that international guests need to deal with the insane amount of confusion everywhere but thinking as an individual, I am offended by your comments because I am a part of China and I know plenty of people that are nothing like what you described. Your comments are just like those people that assume everyone of European descent contributed to slavery and should feel guilty about it.

 

Yes, you have had plenty of awful experiences around China, but please don't generalize all 1.4 billion people like that. I know it's likely to not make any difference just like the Facebook posts but here's my opinion anyway.

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I just added a copy of the riders guide for the rides at Romon U-Park. You will notice that it says nothing about a weight limit for Euro Express. I looked at this before buying my ticket. Basically what happened was I was told before buying my ticket that I could ride Euro Express and then, after I paid the entrance fee, I was told I could not ride.

 

Chimelong is wonderful-both of them and today, I went to Harborland (photos coming soon) and had a decent experience in a park with efficient operations and a fun Intamin ride. I also noticed that Harborland had more people than Romon U-Park. I am very happy to see that. At 160 RMB for Harborland versus 230 RMB for Romon U-Park, it is better value anyway.

 

I am not trying to be racist. I am a bit tired of poor park operations, being denied lodging and being called "big fish" by taxi drivers looking to overcharge me.

 

One last note about Chinese parks and awards, Chimelong (either of them) could easily win the Applause Award.

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Ahhh...yes! Here are the ride requirements posted by the ticket booths at Romon U-Park. Notice that it says nothing about a weight limit. This is very misleading.

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