milst1

Nice report Divv!

Today we visited another really cool park: Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village! It's in a beautiful mountainous area and adjoins the largest body of water in Taiwan, Sun Moon Lake. We found a great restaurant there after the park. What's Formosa, you ask? In 1544, a Portuguese ship sighted the island and called it "Ilha Formosa", or "Beautiful Island". We're back in the car, heading to FACV! Scooters such as these are ubiquitous. In the big cities, there are giant seas of scooters, making it tricky to navigate the city streets. The first thing you see is this train. And that's where we are. And the train's route is a circle around this this giant European garden. Across the garden, beyond that stand of trees, we think we see the kind of things we're looking for. Actually, the big Intamin gyro drop was down. It's a nice walk. Up these steps. Through this big pavillion and up some more steps. And boom, you're in the park. This ride, Space Race, was down, so we weren't sure what it was. Here's the layout. The whole park is on a rising valley between two mountain ridges. You can see the European garden at the very bottom, then you have the amusements area. There's a cable car (not operating when we visited) to the top of the mountain on the left. The face of the hill is full of little villages and displays showing aboriginese life and culture. At the top of the mountain is another cable car that takes you to Sun Moon Lake. We're off to get the first credit, Mayan Adventure. Mayan Adventure is a Vekoma Satanic Looping Coaster placed within simulated Chinese Mayan ruins. The only interesting thing about it is that there are some parts that go into the ruins. Otherwise, it was a very painful headbanger and I definitely took a shot to the chin. Remember to ride this one defensively. The Mayan theming fits with the aboriginal museum next door, featuring artifacts of native peoples throughout history and the world. Next is Caribbean Splash, a Mack SuperSplash. There's a lot of good theming for this ride. Excellent theming from the Mack factory! Are their production facilities also in Rust, near Europa Park? It's a fine looking ride. The park was empty enough so this was a walk-on. We got pretty drenched on this one. And we also took a pretty direct hit from the splash cannon. Sorry for the thumb. You could walk behind it, which I don't think you can do this at the SeaWorld parks, can you? This seemed like an unusual angle to me. As did this. As is the norm in the Taiwanese parks, we found a large indoor area, and this one had a credit. Move over Disney! Here comes Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village! This one is a Vekoma MK-700 Custom. There were flashing lights in the dark! Another forlorn Top Spin. But I'm not sure if I've ever seen one indoors before. Waikiki Wave was the name. And I don't think I've ever seen a single row before. Might not be a Huss? No clue. Remarkably similar to its sister attraction in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee! Good times. Here's a good view of Mayan Adventure. You can see the sky ride to the top of the mountain, which was down, so we had to take a shuttle bus. At the top of the mountain we were able to board the larger sky ride, the Sun Moon Lake Ropeway. This one will take us over a larger ridge to Sun Moon Lake, the largest body of water within Taiwan. Great views from here. And there's the actual lake. The park entrance fee included the trip. After the cable car round trip, we walked down the hillside through the Aboriginal Culture Village section. There are sections for each of Taiwan's indigenous tribes. There are displays showing how the various tribes lived. We watched some ceremonial dancing and singing. There was also a museum. There were a bunch of life sized open air dioramas, like this nasty one showing a coming-of-age ritual...kill the monkey in the cage. Not cool. Back down to park level, we found another well-themed flume. Formosan Gold Mine, as it was called, had a section that ran through a restaurant we visited after riding. Here we see the monkeys taking their revenge. No need for a queue product on a light day like this one. Overall, it was a very nice park, but we said our goodbyes and drove... ...to the 921 Earthquake Museum of Taiwan. Unfortunately, it was a bit late and they were closing down. The 9/21/99 earthquake killed nearly 2,500 people and injured over 10,000, with an epicenter in a place unused to quakes, which are usually on the east coast. The museum is at the site of a former school. Just look at what the quake did to the track! This is pretty incredible for us east coasters. Our fault for arriving so late. Then we drove back to Sun Moon Lake. Chiang Kai-Shek, the father of modern Taiwan, summered here at the lake. Now there's a resort on the grounds. This was his summer home, and many heads of state visited this "summer White House". And we had an excellent dinner there at the Lalu resort. Thanks for following! Next up: EDA Theme Park!

Funny, I loved X2 (ERT during WCB 2010) and Eejanaika (well, the one ride I got before the *mist* pretty much closed the park) and pretty much despise California Screamin' and wonder why it's in the top 100. Different strokes... I wish my Steel Eel fave got some more love, and Eagles Fortress just didn't get enough votes for its last SBNO year. Did it operate in 2010 at all? An Arrow in my top 10! Let's see, I've got 8 of the top 10, 19 of the top 25, 41 out of the top 50. Must re-commit to the goal.

Awesome report! Wish I could go to White Castle right now.

Day 4: Finally, a day without driving! This was our experience at Janfusun Fancyworld. It's a very nice park in a beautiful setting. Whoops, this is the night park entrance again and it's closed and we have to walk around. Entrance to Janfusun Fancyworld. Notice the show advertisement. We didn't watch any shows, but were amused by the Wikipedia article about the park, which claims that there is a drag queen show. We didn't investigate this claim. The gates as seen from the parking area. It's KiKi! There's KiKi and KuKu and the whole gang, one of whom seems to be a plate. A plate mascot. Welcome. Security camera and spokesplate can be seen on the left side. More entrance plaza. Drat, non-working escalator. Spooky stuff happening. We are climbing the hill to get to the rides on the other side. Horrorwood is the walkthrough. Lots of nice landscaping for Horrorwood. Baby Ghostface! Baby Dracula! Le Petit Mort! Lending a hand. Baby Ju-On! Great views from here. This is facing east, towards the mountains. We finally crest the hill and make it over, only to find this piece of bad news. The B&M Dive Machine is down. I'm guessing that they'd just repainted this. There was no wheel wear on the paint. It's closer to Oblivion than to Sheikra or Griffon. View of the park facing west, towards the plain. Looks like they didn't repaint the railings. There's the other B&M. Hopefully that one's not down too. That would suck. Escalator down to the other side of the mountain. Empty wave pool, ProSlide Tornado, and diving machine. We've found the floorless coaster! And it's open for business! Some lift hill for the pervs. Basically a walk-on at that hour. A Chance Inverter and a Huss Frisbee Huss Fly Away Cheryl found the rotating sunflower ride to be quite pleasurable, though she did not wait for the cycle to end before getting off. This is how patrons get killed on rides. But she may have gotten off for good reason: there was an alarming sound during the chair rotation "element". Worth noting here that photo shops were all over the place, offering green screen photography that could then be customized. Up, up, and away. There's G5 and the waterpark. The hotel is on the other side of that hill. Dirty windows, but there's Insane Speed, the floorless coaster. Kind of a unique layout. And to the upper left is a part of the park that we're going to explore next. See the big building there? Worth noting that many of the parks we visited had this kind of giant indoor section with lots of flats and games. Better view of the full layout of Insane Speed. Full view of G5 Diving Machine. S&S Turbo Drop and Space Shot, though only Turbo Drop side was open. Swings...and I think this is the first time I noticed that flat in the right background. What's that? Nice candy store, but only the bottom shelf looks vaguely familar. Toy Workshop and refreshments! Another one of these things that I still don't know the name of. English name was Super Swing. We love drop towers. You can call Cheryl "Drop Tower Junkie". This one was pretty high. Largest ferris wheel in Taiwan. We're gonna go check out the big building. Kiddy Land! The plate welcomes us. Not quite the Fremont Street Experience, but interesting. We've got a bunch of kiddy flats. This was unusual: A *three*-tiered carousel. I've never seen one before. And the levels turned independently. One was going while another loaded. I didn't see them fire up the top level though. We took a spin on the powered KuKu coaster. It's a Zamperla. This was the cuing area for the funhouse, but we were too big. Everyone there was either waiting for their cue or chalking their cues. Kiddie theater. I'm a plate! The Janfusun Kiddy Land Mission Statement. I can just picture management: "We need a plate..." Don't let the sign fool you. It's not a Pexan train at all! For a moment I was worried! Train does a loop. We saw one of those toilet bowls in the waterpark and we got close enough to G5 to clearly see that it had recently been repainted. We ran across a forlorn Top Spin. Ah, the ride we saw earlier from the Ferris wheel is a Flic Flac. Closer look at the Flic Flac. Time to cool off! This little flume had a dry lift hill, turnaround, and drop. It made me think of a mini-Mack SuperSplash. I want to ask Duane about the classification of such flumes. Surpisingly high quality Disney wood art props in one store. I wouldn't mind having one of these. We're still in the park. It's a tea house. And we found a refreshing break...where else but... Of course! The Janfusun Coffee Museum! They build the culture credits right into the park. Cheryl scored this nifty pizza in the coffee museum. Not bad for park food. Sorry, we skipped the haunted walkthrough. There was a fairly huge queue inside. The park started getting crowded as school groups began arriving. Another bizarre culture credit was the Panda Classroom. Wtf? We made some friends from the school! We're tired. Thanks for visiting Janfusun Fancyworld with us! Next up: Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village and Sun Moon Lake!

Nice report. I'm hoping to get up there this weekend, depending on the weather. As you pointed out, La Via Volta (now Speed of Sound) hasn't operated since 2006 so we missed it on our 2009 visit. And rcdb shows Xpress as SBNO.

Found it! Awesome report! Love the food and activity. Simply gawgeous. Thanks for the shout out!

And I'm sorry I was snide in my response, MrSum1_55. Long day.

Erm, no I didn't. It was down on my first visit due to Typhoon Sinlaku (reasonable) but would have been operational otherwise. The ride I've missed twice is Screaming Condor at Leofoo Village. Whoops, got my coasters mixed up. Sorry RB.

There is one at Gilroy Gardens (aka, Bonfante Gardens) in Gilroy, CA called Rainbow Garden. I believe it was built by Chance Morgan, but I do not have any idea about the make of the one you posted a photo of. It could very well be Chance. If you haven't been to the park before, I strongly suggest you check it out. Dang, I totally loved Gilroy Gardens! But we somehow missed the boat ride! We may have done CGA, GG, and SCBB in one day. Checking...yep, May 3rd, 2008. We're waiting for something big/new to show up one of at the NorthernCal parks and we'll head out there again.

You may have noticed from reading the report that we just checked in to the Janfusun Prince Hotel and visited the "Night Park". Work on Day 4 begins tonight. Thanks for checking it out! The complex Vekomas seem to have a lot of issues. RichardB said it was down on two tries.

Yeah, Gravity Max was down. And Fancy Balls too, can you believe it? It was a bummer when I saw Gravity Max on the website maintenance list before our trip. Ironically, I saw that the Farglory Ocean credit would be up during the same websurfing session, this after seeing it scheduled for maintenance during our trip when I checked several weeks earlier. Half the problem is trying to read the maintenance schedules, if you can find them. The Chinese characters don't exactly translate to the same name as in RCDB so you're not sure which ride they're talking about. Take Gravity Max. The Chinese characters are: 搶救地心 and that translates into "Rescue Center of the Earth" in Google Translate! Fortunately there was a picture in that case, but others were more challenging. Well, that Farglory credit (the characters for which - 小藍鯨歷險記 - translate to Xiaolan Jing Adventures, not Wally Whale's Deep Sea Adventure) required an extra flight, so I guess it all evens out. Like I said, we'll be back. And another very unique Vekoma was up and running (albeit briefly), and that's in a coming update. For some reason, we were having big breakfasts and big dinners and just didn't eat much in the parks themselves. Some of it was nasty, as in, this society eats parts of the chicken that you and I might normally throw away (remember Mr. Chicken from the TPR China trip in '08?). We didn't see that specifically, but things like bones in a breaded chicken patty, yuck. Tea and coffee houses in the parks, however, had amazing desserts, and we did have another really nice dinner besides DinTaiFung (see Day One) that I'll report on. But overall we didn't sample a lot of park food. Unfortunately no, but I do have a daytime shot in the next update. You're right, he is very merchandisable. Thanks for following, everyone.

Great update!

awesome, keep it coming!

Day 3: Day 3 was a mixed bag. It started with a scary drive into the mountains. I don't mind driving in general, but twisty roads with steep drop offs make me nervous, and Taiwan is pretty mountainous. Then we found the credit down after that harrowing journey. But all was not lost as we then discovered Discovery World at Yamay Resort. I know, it doesn't look too bad, but the photo doesn't do it justice and sheer drops make me nervous. Plus it was a bit misty and steep and we lost count of how many switchbacks we went through. We arrive at the strange, mysterious, and remote Atayal Resort. Throw these coordinates into Google Earth if you want to see where it is: 24.06692,120.941212 Using the roller coaster t-shirt to communicate again, we were directed to this strange scene. We couldn't devise the purpose of the ropes on the tower, and we could only speculate about the statue and structure on the mountainside. But we couldn't dawdle: We had a credit to get and I was anxious about driving to the next, bigger park. There was this flat... ...on top of this food counter. There was this "Little Train". This large pavillion... ...with large aboriginal displays. I mentioned the aboriginal thing before. I read that Taiwanese society celebrates the diversity of the inhabitants of the island before the Chinese came. But it also seemed to me like the amusement park industry had been ceded to the aboriginese in much the same way casino businesses are ceded to Native Americans in the states. Of course, I honestly don't know what I'm talking about, but this was my observation as we saw it in park after park. Some interesting sculpture. I was vaguely certain that getting the boob credit would be inappropriate. Some other flats about. What are these things called? I think we saw these at three different parks in Taiwan. This park called it "Universe Spider". "Musical Merry Go Round" and dragon sculpture. Here's another park that has a content use agreement with Disney (wink wink). The powered Dragon Roller Coaster. As you can see... ...it was actually quite beautiful. Dammit, not beautiful. Credit was down. "Rapidly Train" is a Barbieri Grand Canyon. It looks like a giant Butterfly coaster. The only other two are in Beirut and South Korea. Yellow tape, special sign. This did not look like a closure for an hour or two. We couldn't communicate with the staff about the coaster so we threw in the towel and got back on the road. Discovery World at Yamay Resort was a very different experience! Greeted by goofy theme park characters! Yes! Major unique Vekoma credit down! No! But we knew about this one, down for all of April. We'll show you the pics. Gravity Max isn't the only ride that's down. The park is called Discovery World, but this section sign was on the outside. The only other English name for the park we saw was "Yamay", the name for the resort (used to be a big sugar plantation, apparently). At the top is the Yamay logo that we saw on the t-shirts. We did see some some major rehab as we entered the resort facilities. Anyway, welcome to Discovery World! There is some nice theming here. And some nice landscaping. Dumbo ride is called... ...Fly to Sky! Swings. We saw a lot of school groups at the parks. We noted that all Taiwanese school uniforms consist of some variation on the classic 1970's adidas polyester track suit in various garish colors. Mine Express credit open with no wait. It's a Vekoma Junior! Ferris Wheel. That globe thing was the park's only eyesore. It was rusting and had no visible purpose or theming. Nice signage for Wild River Canyon... ...the river rapids ride. There was even an opportunity to do the on-ride photo without anyone getting wet! Unique gift shop item for riders of... Gravity Max! Which was, as you saw earlier, closed. The only one of it's kind, this is the famous Vekoma tilt-coaster, where the train rides to the end of the track, then tilts down and is released. We'll be back for this one. For you flat lovers, they had a Moser Energy Storm. A Huss Top Spin. Swinging Ship, any number of possible manufacturers. Yet another snazzy looking flume. Another look at the weird eyesore globe. I love these little boat rides. We've seen these only in Europe and Asia. Anyone know who makes this model? Cheryl found both Luck and Love at Discovery World. Not sure what these are called. We missed the teen stunt show...and the boob credit. Looks like a Gerstlauer Dancing Pavillion. Sonic Circle is a Music Express/Himalaya type ride. Here's another look at Gravity Max. One last look at this lovely park, Discovery World at Yamay Resort. It was on to our new hotel. We're at the Janfusun Prince Hotel. We have fond memories of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel from TPR in Tokyo 2008. We are introduced to Janfusun Fancyworld's zany cast of characters at check-in. We also learn that we are invited to the "Night Park". Night park? Some interesting night displays promoting a new walk-through haunted house. The Little Death...anyone get that? Time for bed. Tomorrow, Janfusun Fancyworld!

Gorgeous. Thanks for the cool report.

Amazing stuff! Thanks Robb!!!!

Nice report! Good stuff!

Plopsaland Indoor Coevorden Legoland California SeaWorld San Diego Belmont Park Efteling Parc Astérix Jardin d'Acclimatation Disneyland Resort Paris - Walt Disney Studios Park Disneyland Resort Paris - Disneyland Park Parc du Bocasse Parc Saint Paul Farglory Ocean Park Shangrila Paradise Window on China Theme Park Leofoo Village Theme Park Yamay Discovery World Atayal Resort Janfusun Fancyworld Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village E-DA Theme Park May Scream Zone at Coney Island June Linnanmäki Särkänniemi Amusement Park Gröna Lund TusenFryd July Not Set August TPR's Road to Cedar Point...see you there Groteslurf!

I love this report. I want to skip work today and just keep re-reading it!

That sucks Richard. Have you been to Taiwan more than once? For some reason I thought you'd only done one trip. I've only ridden the Vertical Velocity's at the Six Flags and Steel Venom at Valleyfair. I'm not a big fan of this particular type of ride so I haven't put much thought into which ones were better or worse. I do remember that Linear Gale kinda sucked and was underpowered. I think V2 at SFDK also had the same problem, if I remember correctly? That's the one with the lower towers, right? In any case, Screaming Condor scared the crap out of me because it seemed to go very close to the very end of the available track in each direction and kept its speed up through the cycle. And I imagined, during the ride, something going wrong with the LIMs and shooting the train off the end of the spike. This over-active imagination makes me a bad flyer too.

Your Ripley's was better than the one we visited in Blackpool. Nice report, especially the Bryan inclusion. I believe!

Day 2: We spent a little bit of time in Taipei on the first night after flying back from Hualien. We walked from the airport to the rapid transit system and went to buy my Taiwanese Garmin GPS in the Guang Hua electronics market. Then we went to Din Tai Fung for dinner. I'm very jealous of you in Seattle and LA where you can find this place. The next day we got our car and hit three different parks, ShanGriLa Paradise, Window on China Theme Park, and Leofoo Village Theme Park. I'd never heard of Din Tai Fung before, but apparently they have a Michelin star. They are kind enough to show you how to eat dumplings first. Complete and total satisfaction. So we rented a car, I got used to the GPS talking to me in Chinese, and we ended up here, at ShanGriLa Paradise. Seems nice enough. A little restaurant, gift shop, rest rooms. Now, where's that credit? We walked all over the place, unable to find anything but gardens and empty seating pavillions. In the meantime, we can hear hundreds of schoolkids chanting and cheering and screaming from somewhere hidden from view. Finally we see some bumper cars and we stumble into this pavillion with a few rides and a magic show going on. Note the balloon roof ride. I ask about the credit and point to my shirt, which has a picture of a roller coaster on it! All of the shirts I brought had roller coaster pictures for exactly this reason! This girl was sent by her manager to lead us to the coaster! On the way we see bumper boats, this flat, a kiddie train. And then the Blizzard! It's a "Cavazza Diego" according to rcdb. The only other one we've ridden is at Flamingo Land in Yorkshire. Uh oh, tool box alert! The lady tells us it's closed. Argh! Nothing like travelling 7000 miles for a closed coaster. But we think she says 1 o'clock, so we sit down to wait a couple of hours. But then the grease monkey shows up and within 10 minutes, they say "OK!" You know how scary these things can be! Cheryl poses with the nice mechanic. We head to the exit for the next park, passing one of those cages that you see in circuses, with motorcycles and bikes inside. Fake pandas in the play area. A Disney-approved show! Note the teeming attendance! It's back in the car and we drive to Window on China Theme Park! Things are starting to look at little less forlorn. Happy Dragon welcomes you to Window on China! You walk in past a theater (there are a bunch of shows in different locales), a restaurant, and a gift shop. Then you come to the heart of the park... ...the miniatures. Window on China is first and foremost a miniature park. Apparently these are very popular and there's even an International Association of Miniature Parks, although Window on China and France Miniature don't seem to be members. Then you have to take a little train. This train brings you over to the theme park side. More miniatures on this side too. Nile River, a really good-sized Shoot-the-Chutes. A relaxing boat ride through the miniatures. A large indoor area. Wipeout And the indoor credit, Laser Blaster, a Vekoma Junior of course. Then there's an outdoor area with a bunch of more stuff. There's a ferris wheel and the other credit, Mini Mine Train. It's another Vekoma Junior! Don't ride if you're absentminded! There were numerous other kiddie type flats including a Rockin' Tug, a push-up-and-down-seesaw powered rail car, a small flume, and others but I wanted to point out... ...the somewhat adorable kiddie show... ...and this insane "Dark Ride"... The storyline seemed to follow a good vs. evil path. I think this was one of the evil guys. Just what the hell is going on here? Bad guys captured and all ends well! We caught a piece of a Chinese acrobats show on the way out. Thanks, Window on China! The last park of the day was Leofoo. As you can see, the signage was all Sponge Bob. You walk quite a ways until you reach this big open area.. Then you finally started seeing the park, which turned out to be one of the better parks in Taiwan. We were then miraculously transported to 19th Century America. And just as our American forefathers in the Old West did, we headed directly to the Intamin Inverted Twisted LIM Impulse Shuttle, Screaming Condor. The condor screamed "Get down there before the 2:30 maintenance break!" Op was nice enough to take a picture of us. Notice my t-shirt with roller coaster picture. You saw Cheryl's shirt from earlier in the day. Next credit was Little Rattler. A Vekoma Junior! Teacups ride was actually a Budweiser beer barrel ride! Now this ancient Arabia land was really something, especially the area's signature attraction. Sultan's Adventure was a cheaper Taiwanese ripoff of the Lotte World (Seoul, S. Korea) ripoff of the Disney Indiana Jones dark rides! Similarly elaborate queue theming. And just like that, I'm at the wheel of a Taiwanese EMV. The ride wasn't bad. It added a bunch of Chinese mystical stuff and didn't really have a hero, just a lot of monsters, with a Middle East War thrown in. It was good enough for a re-ride. Various unique theming touches. There was a fairly elaborate dinosaur walk-through area. And the dino area was integrated with a flume. Flume was good. You can see well-themed Intamin drop tower in background. The flume-y climax. The drop tower, Pagoda's Revenge, was great, with a base below ground level and a top with a view obstructed by the mask, which created some surprise when you dropped. Incidentally, the aboriginal theming is no coincidence and we found it throughout the Taiwanese amusement parks. Found this amusing notice in the restroom. Deep Sea Adventure was a wild looking flat. Self-serve coin-op cotton candy machine. I couldn't get Cheryl to bite. Damn that's a long report! Thanks for bearing with me for Day Two. Fortunately it was the only 3 park day of the trip. Go to Page 4 for Day 3: Atayal and Discovery World (Yamay)!

^^^ Yup, it was down. As I said, great time to visit for lack of crowds and fantastic weather, but terrible for maintenance schedule.

Awesome video and pics. Cannot wait to visit this park!