packfanlv

My experiences were the opposite when I visited the Gold Coast. I found Movie World to be pleasant and the rides were great experiences IMO. Like another poster said, it does lack quantity, but what they have is great with the exception of Lethal Weapon. While Vekoma SLCs are known for headbanging, this is by far the worst one I have been on. An unpleasant experience is a kind description. As for Dreamworld, it is ok. I would closely compare it to some of the more run down Six Flags parks here in the states. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any truly great rides with the possible exception of the Drop tower. The Motocoaster was epically disappointing. As for other parks, I think both Luna Parks were ok for what they are. I was sad that Scenic Railway was closed for refurbishment when I visited Luna Park Melbourne and the rest of the park is quite rundown. Luna Park Sydney is alright, but with the prices I just opted to get the credit before leaving. While the Australia parks don't really compare to U.S. parks in terms of rides and size, I think Movie World is by far the best and I was so surprised at the level of theming on the rides like Wild West, Scooby Doo and Superman.

Looks interesting. We skipped Sea World when we visited because the rides at that park just weren't enough to draw us in. Hopefully this will be better than Mick Doohan's Motocoaster at Dreamworld. I am assuming by the look of it that this is a similar style coaster. That ride sucked! Anyway, thanks for the update.

We have been back home for a bit now and I thought I would try to finish out this thread with a couple of parks not seen on this site before. First off I have what's left of Nairamdal Park in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia which housed Mongolia's only known roller coaster. I first heard about this park in an online blog post while doing research on Mongolia. I then found more information in the Lonely Planet, but ultimately discovered that I made it to Mongolia about a year to late to experience this special place. The Lonely Planet describes Nairamdal Park as Mongolia's version of Disneyland. Even though it is now defunct, judging from what I saw, they were stretching a bit with that description. I hope you enjoy! and eat some gigantic Mongolian balls. Thanks! Oh well, at least we got to see throat singers Just think of all of the fun we could've had. And found the basis for all of those Disney comparisons. After a few moments of silence for the defunct coaster that I wasn't ever going to be able to ride, we moved in for a closer look at the ferris wheel. and then came down closer for another picture while yelling "I conquered Mongolia's only roller coaster!" (Ok maybe not) I climbed slowly on the rusted out steps to the top of the lift hill. After looking around for a while I decided to fulfill a coaster geek's fantasy. It has been partially disassembled. One scary looking mouse! As we approached the wheel, what is left of Mongolia's only known roller coaster began to appear. Sexy! Why its a very scary looking ferris wheel. Continuing on, what do I see in the distance? Ah we have some sort of Chinese themed building. Now I know what they are talking about with the Disney comparisons! At first glance this just looks like a vacant lot. Its hard to believe Mongolia's version of Disneyland stood here just one year earlier. We did find an opening in the driveway to a sports complex that is located adjacent to the old park. Nairamdal Park is located not to far from the shark's fin building. The whole park had a fence around it, with one exception. But with the fall of communism more interesting buildings have started to appear. UB is full of old soviet style apartment complexes. Shawn Reece loved being a millionaire! 1 US Dollar is worth around 1100 Tugriks. Here is a million! Welcome to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia or as the locals call it, "UB"!

Hey guys, Does the Extreme Play Pass include free parking at all of the SF parks or just SFMM? I know the 2009 pass was just announced, but I am going to assume it is the same as far as free parking goes as the 2008 pass. Also, what does everyone think of the Flash Passes not being included now that they have upgraded to the electronic system. Their site just says you get a discount now. I searched the TPR forums and tried to call SFMM a few times (Busy signal) but can't seem to find an answer to my question. I did see where someone asked this question earlier in the thread but no one seemed to respond. Thanks for any help.

I think its great to see that they are trying to come up with creative ways to make the attractions they already have better. Lets hope that with the stock so low right now that the company survives, since the management seems to be doing a great job IMO. Now if they could only plant some grass underneath Scream at SFMM!

Here is an article about it on Marketwatch http://www.snipurl.com/4n11h

I just read an article stating that CBS is in negotiations to license a new Star Trek Experience at the Neonopolis shopping mall in downtown Las Vegas. I am really excited about this. http://www.lvrj.com/columnists/normclarke/breaking_news/31119589.html

I enjoyed watching you on Leno Big Mike. I am still enjoying the thread. I can't believe this thread may soon be coming to a close!

Just voted! Good luck. I hope you win.

No flame war here. I am glad you enjoyed the park and it is obvious I am in the minority. At least Elissa agrees with me! In the end, we are all very blessed to have been able to even visit such a place. Life is fantastic! Thanks again for the updates.

^Believe me I am not just complaining about the feeling and the theming. While the atmosphere was way off, the long lines, single train operations and staggered opening times added to me not having a good time either. I agree that Happy Valley Shenzhen is a much better park. I think that HP Beijing just doesn't have enough rides to be operating them in that way. There are only a handful of full "American style" theme parks in China and while the theming might be a little more intricate at the Happy Valley parks, IMO Chimelong Paradise runs laps around them. Not only do they have a lot of rides, but the park is a pleasant place to be. At the end of the day, after having visited around a dozen parks in China, I think that Happy Valley Beijing just isn't a great or pleasant park. Unless they add a lot I wouldn't go back. For what it is, it ain't great! At least that is my opinion.

I was the only one, but something felt SO wrong with that place. Totally trying to be something amazing, but something was just horribly wrong! I did see a bit of that in the pics. The caption on the following pic said the theming was Disney/Busch quality, but neither of those would paint "rock texture" on steps, they would actually sculpt them: This is the problem. The fake rockwork is everywhere and pretty poorly done. Whenever I get around to finishing my China thread I will post a few pictures of some of the areas. The flying coaster was great though although as was mentioned before with the staggered opening times we only got the opportunity to ride once due to long lines.

Thanks for all of the updates guys. I pretty much agree with your opinions on all of the parks except for Beijing Happy Valley. I thought the park was horrible and the theming was cheap and starting to look bad even after two years. IMO Beijing Happy Valley is one of the worst parks I visited in China. I do agree that HK Disneyland Resort is fantastic and I can't wait to revisit when they have added a couple of "E" tickets. I was so surprised at how much I loved the park and the resort as a whole. The park's surroundings are just unparalleled as compared to the other "Magic Kingdom" style parks. Thanks again for making me wish I was back in Asia. Being surrounded by "white" people here in the U.S. is getting a little weird after spending so much time there!

They just saw a huge attendance increase this year over last (from 4.2million to 5.7million) and Disney has said they are willing to put the money needed into the park for expansion. I think the issue now is with Disney and the HK government working out exactly how much money each side is going to put in over the next several years to get the park to its proper size. I can't wait until they expand the park a little more. It is a wonderful park!

Part 2: Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park Beijing Shinjingshan Amusement Park gained fame last year when they were shown using knock off Disney characters. I am happy to report that on our visit there were no characters around, only the Cinderella Castle that sits in the back of the park. As for the park itself, it houses 9 coasters (With a tenth almost ready to open) and all of them are crap! The park also has no unlimited ticket so each ride must be purchased individually. This lead to me paying quite a bit to ride the coasters and nothing else. The park sits on two sides of real train tracks and the front seems to be quite a bit more run down than the back. Also there is a new section of the park in the back that is quite nice, but very cheaply done. It is quite obvious that this park has had a monopoly for some time and they are now trying to compete wit Happy Valley by building these new sections. The other thing that makes this park noteworthy is that it houses a fake Vekoma SLC. That ride was horrible. The first half was so rough and the second half the train meandered slowly through the track. Quite an experience! Anyway I hated this park, but what the heck I picked up 9 credits! Enjoy. (Look for Part 3: Happy Valley Beijing in a couple of days!) Shawn Reece what do you think? Ok thats about it. The park really mixes crappy and ok, but mostly crappy. (As seen here and this mountain is brand new!) Beijing Park #2 and open gate #2 The parks last coaster just basically went in circles. Before the next coaster its time to take our photo in front of Cinderella's Castle. Hence the name! This mouse was quite crazy. Ok back to the coasters. Ok this is cool. This ride was fun though! The rock master at work. I snuck into the station to get a peak at the trains. The parks other new coaster was not yet operating on our visit. It is a suspended coaster that goes through a really fake looking forest. Whoa! This mountain also houses a dinosaur themed indoor coaster that is brand new. Here is an example of the excellent rock work. The water ride actually looked good, but we didn't ride. Leaving Dream World we came to the fakest looking rock mountain ever! And employees that ride standing up. Heck they even have a water battle. It is bright and clean and for kids. Now on to Dream World the new section of the park. Methinks it is going to be painful! They also have a looping double corkscrew coaster. I know at this point you are wondering if they have a spinning coaster too! Well of course they do. But then you have cheap crap like this. (It is just a screen!) See parts of the park look really nice. Yay for coasters that go through apples! The fourth coaster of the day was Worm Coaster. It was a big version of the kiddie ride at Sun Park! Hey the park looks really nice here! The ride is painful and incredibly slow at times. At times I actually saw the wheels leave the track. GOD please don't let me die! Fake SLC seats! I was really scared to get on this thing! Double Decker carousel and fake SLC! Now on to the back section of the park. These "real" train tracks run right through the park. And Spaceship Earth! The ball housed a ride that sounded like a rip off of Soarin', but we didn't ride it. Walking further we found more ripoffs from Disney. The American Adventure... Except that it has top notch theming! The next coaster was the same mine train from Sun Park. Here is the other side! The first coaster we came to was a shuttle loop. (It wasn't that bad!) But just look around and the truth suddenly becomes apparent! From here everything looks nice! After 30 mins at the front trying to figure out if they had an unlimited ticket we finally gave up and headed inside the park. I introduce to you hell on earth!

Mostly because I won't have much time over the next two weeks and partly because TPR will be visiting these parks shortly, I have decided to combine all three of the major Beijing parks into this super update. (In 3 Parts) Since TPR will cover them in great detail I'm sure, I will try to stick to the major points and give my opinions of Sun Park, Beijing Shinjingshan Amusement Park & Happy Valley Beijing! In a week or two look for a few more updates from China including a couple of parks in Shanghai and what remains of Mongolia's only roller coaster! Also look for an Olympic trip report including pictures from our patronage at seven of the Olympics finest events! After that it is on to Japan and a few of those parks that you have seen mentioned here numerous times before. As always keep the comments coming. I really appreciate the feedback. (Please note that these pictures were taken several weeks apart during different visits to Beijing!) ______________________________________________ Part 1: Sun Park (Chaoyang Park) This park is located in the eastern part of Beijing and in addition to be a huge public park, it has loads of amusement rides and even a science museum. The name may also be familiar to you since it also houses the Beach Volleyball venue for the 2008 Olympics. We really enjoyed the atmosphere and rides at this park. While it doesn't have anything life shattering, it was quite an enjoyable place to spend the afternoon. Now on to the trip report. Enjoy! Ok I'll close with the picture I know you wanted to see! This day was the worst air quality I have ever seen anywhere. (It felt like breathing in cigarette smoke!) The Bird's Nest is 10 times more impressive in person than on TV. Also since we visited right after leaving, I'll throw in a couple of shots from our first visit to the Bird's Nest and Water Cube area. I'll close part 1 with a few random shots from Chaoyang Park. Here is the entrance to the Beach Volleyball ground pre olympics. (Check back later on our Olympic TR for the inside since we were lucky enough to see a few matches there!) There was literally a team of 10 gardeners in this area working to keep the site looking nice. The park is fantastic! With all of the credits out of the way, we decided to explore the park further and check out the Beach Volleyball Olympic venue. (This was a couple of weeks before the Olympics started.) Another China amusement park staple is the fireman game. The theming is quite impressive. Look its Tarzan's Treehouse! Ok on to the sixth coaster. It is a family coaster that is themed to Tarzan. Now call me silly, but this gave a great head chopping effect. (And we got to run 7 cycles on it!) Ok credit whores... back to the coasters. The lion head was my favorite animal to shoot. If you guessed no then you are right. It is a powered shooting ride! Moving on, I have a test. Do you think this is a credit or not? The First Person Responsibility System is in place here. The Disk-O is very popular in China. Every park has one! Along the exit path a gate is left wide open that leads right under the coaster. (You wouldn't see this in the U.S.) Another view. Its your standard loop then two corkscrew layout. Moving on we see the next coaster, which is coincidentally the same purple color as the other two. Not bad for what it is! They also have another mouse coaster. The next coaster was their spinning wild mouse. (Yes this is the same as all of the others!) Another look. It basically helixes around the mountain a couple of times. All in all, quite lame! Ok on to the coasters. The first coaster of the day was the mine train. It is housed in quite the fake looking mountain. Heck they even have a parachute tower! We were really surprise to see just how many rides this park had. The park itself is quite serene much like all Chinese parks. As you can see from this map the park is enormous and the amusement section takes up about a quarter of it. Ok now on to the update. The first park "Sun Park" is another park within a park. It is located within Chaoyang Park in Beijing. To enter the public park you pay 5yuan entrance. Here is the entrance though. Actually there is a 4th park in BJ. Its called Beijing Amusement Park and unfortunately we didn't go in because they have two coasters and admission was north of $20.

Congrats on 700 Big Mike! You continue to inspire.

IMO having been to Happy Valley Shenzhen and Happy Valley Beijing, these are some of the worst run parks I have ever been to. Shenzhen does have nice theming, but Beijing, while it looks nice in pictures is really really cheaply done. All of the fake rock work (which is 90% of the park) is already looking worn two years later and they stagger there ride operating times so there is always a line for every ride. I have also never seen them run more than one train on there major coasters. As for the Chengdu park I translated their site with Google a while back and it didn't have an opening date, but according to RCDB its supposed to open this year. I am not sure if this was delayed because of the earthquake which was nearby. BTW OCT is also opening a new park in Shanghai next year. Lets hope that they actually learn to run a park. Chimelong Paradise is much much much much much much much much better park in my opinion!

^No problem. I don't remember what exit, but the signs are in English in the subway and it is about a one minute walk to the big park's entrance. You have to pay admission to the big park. Once inside walk straight towards the back for about five to ten minutes and you will see the amusement park. I don't know operation hours unfortunately. (We visited in the middle of the day.) As for Zhuhai, we didn't make it over there, but are trying to squeeze it in before we fly out of Hong Kong on August 24th. I have seen pictures of Pearland and it doesn't look very nice and Mysterious Island is a bit far out so I just don't know at this point. Thanks for the comments! Shawn

Like so many amusement parks in China, today's amusement park is located within a small area of a much larger municipal park. Wuhan Zhongshan Park is located in the city of Wuhan in Central China. Haven't heard of Wuhan? Don't worry, I recently heard that China has 90 cities with populations of one million or more. This city is the only one on the Yangtze River that has large population centers on both sides. The amusement park sits in the heart of the city and is a popular place for locals to hang out. (Note: This park and area will not be visited on the TPR China trip! Haha an exclusive for me! ) On the way back to the hotel it started raining so hard that we missed our bus stop and ended up on the other side of the city. 2 hours, three buses and a taxi later we finally made it back. Like I said before, it was all worth it because we got to hang out at a Chinese park in a very cool city and in the end picked up three credits. How good is life? From the ferris wheel. And now a few random photos to finish off the TR. But we got the credit! It looked like a copy of the coaster in Guangzhou that we discovered in the rain. The car kept making noises and felt like it was going to fly right off of the track! Thats right baby, victory is ours! Finally after an hour at the shopping mall we returned to find the monorail running. Would the coaster be going as well? Naturally Shawn Reece and I had to give it a try. Can anyone say oven? Near the lake we came to these Zorb like things. At this point the coaster was still not running for us, but it looked to be getting closer so we left the amusement section to walk around the park and adjacent shopping malls to kill some time. Oh ok, there we go! Where are all of the animals to shoot? We were a little nervous going through this tunnel. Ok then I guess its time to ride the shooting jeep ride through the jungle. I said, "Hey is that a girl riding the coaster?" The ride op inferred, "Why yes it is Mr. White Man, but you can't ride the coaster and I don't speak English and you don't speak Mandarin so all I can do is very rudely shake my head and fists at you!" And a ferris wheel. Heck they even had a drop tower in this park. Yes the legs did move as this went around the track. They looked like cheap vacuum tubes. It was quite the interesting sight! At this point still no luck with the elusive coaster. It was running periodically but they never would let me ride. I was still determined, but went back to poking around the park. Cool a UFO themed ride with dinosaurs!?!? This explains a lot. Rides for both the old and young at heart. For the most part the flats were in great condition! At this point with the third coaster still not operating we decided to walk around the park and look at some of their many flat rides. A view of the station. As is normal with Chinese coasters I get a lot of knee banging with the decreased leg room. The ride features a loop and double corkscrew. It was one of the smoother versions of this ride I have been on. It was built by Sameco. A little disappointed in the missed credit we then headed to the park's third and final coaster aptly named Roller Coaster. The next coaster we came to was the In The Woods Flying Mouse. We watched two people ride in front of us, but were then told it was closed. After a few minutes of arguing I left, but did not give up hope! At least it was a credit! The ride was quite rough at times, but not too bad. It is an older style Spinning Wild Mouse. The first coaster we came to was Flying Saucer. What a pleasant place! I was immediately impressed with the sight of the log flume. (Unfortunately the smell was quite a bit less impressive!) Finally after twenty minutes of casually walking, we came to the amusement section. As far as city parks go, China does pretty good! Ok back to the park. In the front non amusement section they have a large lake with peddle boats for rent. So you can see how along ago we visited! The amusement park is located in the back corner of this lovely city park. No chicken butts or pig snouts on the menu here! Before heading over to the park we decided to get some lunch. If anyone tells you McDonalds isn't popular in China they are lying. I have never seen a McDonalds that wasn't busy!

^The park in Guangzou that Jing Ying is located inside of is called Yuexiu Park. It also houses the famous Five Ram sculpture and Zhenhai Tower. It can be reached directly on line 2 at the Yuexi gongyuan stop which literally means Yuexi Park. I hope this helps!

My experience last year pretty much echoed yours. It is certainly the biggest dump in the Six Flags chain. I did enjoy Goliath though. It wasn't life altering but was a nice ride. If I remember right, the ferris wheel looks nice from far but suffers from a lot of graffiti inside of the cars. The Canadians don't treat this park very nice! Thanks for the TR!

^STR8FXXXINEDGE: I use Picasa to export my pictures into an acceptable size. You can download it for free and it is from Google. The good thing is you can resize a whole folder at once. Simply select the folder in Picasa and choose File>Export. You then choose the size and it does everything at once. Once you down size the pictures it puts them in a separate folder so you don't confuse the full sized ones with the new smaller ones. If you have any other questions feel free to ask. I am looking forward to your TRs. Ok back to Big Mike's Roadshow. Thanks for the updates Big Mike. As always I enjoy what you do.

^No there was no sign of construction on the Water Coaster. In China they tend to open rides early in the year to coincide with the Chinese New Year so it is possible that this ride will go in early next year. Perhaps things will be different when TPR visits there on the trip in a month. When I was there I talked with Duane at RCDB and he said that he got his information on the new coaster(s) from Mack, so perhaps the park backed out on the deal or postponed it. They do have a lot of room for expansion though. If they add a couple of other great rides I can see this being the premier park in all of China. (Besides Disney of course!) Thanks everyone for the great comments!

Chimelong Paradise is located in Guangzhou, China which sits about an hour north of Hong Kong. The park itself is perhaps China's best example of a typical western style amusement park. It opened in 2006 with five coasters and recently added a B&M dive machine. While Chimelong Paradise has a small amount of theming, it doesn't go over the top like Happy Valley. What the park does do is provide a lot of rides and a nice pleasant atmosphere in which to enjoy them. They do have staggered ride operating hours which I don't like, but have so many rides that the lines hardly ever get out of hand. With all of that said Chimelong Paradise is by far my favorite theme park in mainland China and only second to Hong Kong Disneyland to the parks I have shown in this thread. In short, it rocks! Enjoy the trip report. P.S. The day we visited was very grey, so some of the pictures didn't turn out well. I hope you enjoy the rather large update. Alright then. I think that is it. Anyone who is going to Southern China needs to go to Chimelong Paradise. Now I leave you with a few random shots of Chimelong Paradise! What can I say? I liked it! The show has jetskis, boats, hovercrafts, submarines and more. It is high budget and high energy! I spy a credit! But there big show is a rip off of Water World at Universal Studios. (Only better!) and this. Also a lot of fun! They also had a second show that we stumbled upon on accident. It had aerobics. The whole thing was a lot of fun and the Chinese seemed to eat it up! And here are the Canadians!?!? They don't look like Canadians to me. It was USA vs. Canada. This is the USA team. Before closing I have to talk about Chimelong's shows. We saw three and they were all very good. The first one was a lumberjack show. They wouldn't let Shawn Reece do the sub ride by himself so I brought an umbrella. This frisbee was top notch. It is the best one I have been on! Here are a few more rides. Jasmine was glad to see Mexico was represented. Chimelong also has plenty of rides that go in circles. Unfortunately with horrible height requirements, Shawn Reece was stuck on kiddie rides for most of the day. Like I said pleasant but not overdone. They also have the Chinese staple fire truck team work ride. The park has a ton of kiddie rides. Ok now its time to see some more of the park. Here is a picture of the bikes if you have never seen this type of coaster before! This ride actually has a little speed and is a good family ride. (Of course with the 1.3m height requirements families really can't ride it!) This Vekoma motorbike is much much much better than the Intamin version I rode at Dreamworld in Australia. The park's last coaster is named Motorbike Coaster. They also have one of those horrible Golden Horse spinning mouse coasters. One picture is enough! And they play this interview with Walter Bolliger in the queue for all you nerds out there! The Chinese girls just love it! Well if kiddie coasters aren't your thing then they also have an Intamin Halfpipe! Not bad for a kiddie ride. After 10 inversion we headed to the only coaster in the park we could handle. Not my favorite coaster. Just to give you an idea of how intense this ride is, here is a sign directly outside of the exit. (And plenty of people were using this area) This is before my first ride. (Jasmine wouldn't go back on it!) The coaster does five heartline rolls which IMO is too much! As its name implies the coaster goes upside down ten times. It is a clone of Colossus at Thorpe Park. The park's other major coasters is aptly named the 10 Inversion Coaster. Ok last picture of Dive Coaster. IMO the ride was fun but not life altering. I had high hopes with this being my first dive machine, but left a bit disappointed. Did I say splashdown? The second drop goes into a tunnel before emerging and making a turnaround into the splashdown. Going through the Immelmann. And now for some random photos of the ride in action. Here is a look at the train. Just inside the queue. Oh here it is! I couldn't have said it any better myself! Where is the entrance? Oh that way! This was my first dive machine experience and I was excited! The brand new "Dive Coaster" as it is called really dominates the back of the park. Here is the turn around into the splashdown. Chimelong back entrance. Shawn Reece is excited until I tell him that he can't ride the dive machine! =-( The subway stop actually brings you to the back entrance of the park. (Where the dive machine is located!) This proved to be quite beneficial. This advertisement in the subway gets me excited for the day. Chimelong Paradise is part of a large tourist resort that is conveniently located off of the Guangzhou Metro.