rctneil

Loud coasters I can think of: Dodonpa Superman: The Escape Tower of Terror A whole load of woodies (especially if you are standing right by them!)

Great report Craig. It is such a shame to see it in the state that it is in. I visited a lot when I was younger and the park did look amazing back then. During my visit last year I noticed a lot of broken and fading models. Just bits of basic TLC and they could keep it in tremendous shape. The refurb of Fairy Tale Brook looks great though. Some nice additions and it looks super colourful. Massive shame about the Dragon as that is Legoland's standout attraction. Come on Merlin, fix Legoland!

Batman clones and Nemesis Inferno are two coasters that come to mind that have made me very dizzy when I arrive into the breakrun. Spinning coasters but dependent upon the weight distribution. Han Katten at BonBon Land made me very dizzy yet I rode Tornado at Bakken several times and felt fine each time apart from the final lap and I came of feel extremely dizzy and sick. Amazing how the rider combination can affect a ride so much. In terms of flatrides, I normally stay far away from rides that spin but I have made a rule for myself at new parks, which is if the park has a flat spinny ride that I have never ridden before then I will push myself to ride it at least once. This is what made me ride the inverted twist ride at Happy Valley, some of the chinese knockoff rides at Victory Kingdom, Kieppi at Linnanmaki and a nasty looking spinning ride at Sarkkanniemi. However, I did ride Kieppi twice and I felt absolutely fine both times which surprised me.

Excellent video Robb! Thanks for putting it together! The SCAD Tower was one of the highlights of the Scandi tour for me. Really glad I did it but was super nervous. Hanging in the centre and having no control over when you are about to drop is the most scary thing ever. Thanks so much for including it too!

Thorpe Park on Sunday

The shows have a way of making you say and act in terrible ways that you never would in real life. I hate that every show has to have some sort of 'spin' or 'angle' or 'story'. Just show some fun roller coasters like they used to in the 90's shows. Just ask 'my best friend Neil who I planned the Taiwan trip with' for another example of reality tv!!! oh no. I'm dreading seeing this show! Someone will need to record it and send me a link as it won't be broadcast here at the same time as the US I expect. I can then watch it once and never again! haha. It was a very strange day that day.

Thanks for a reminder of our day at Ocean Park. Ocean Park was the surprise park of the trip for me. It's a beautiful park in a stunning location and if you can't tell from Divv's photos, the views are spectacular. Hair Raiser was a great ride. The bunny hop half way through gave nice airtime and I agree, I didn't notice any shaking that others had reported. The penguin exhibit was nicely done with glass topped tunnels under the floor allowing the penguins to swim under the guests feet. I really enjoyed the aquarium in the lower half of the park, It's HUGE! Brilliant aquarium and well worth a visit. The two forms of transport to get from either half of the park are well worth making an effort to ride as you get amazing views from the cable cars and a strange underwater style experience on the funicular (This one is also very nicely air conditioned too!) Anyway, looking forward to the report of HKDL!

and boy did it work from what I am told of the old ride experience. I remember people saying as we were queuing for RS how much it was gonna kill us and then we were all pleasantly surprised by how nicely it did run.

It's a real shame that people over here can't see how good woodies can actually be. And also how quiet and smooth the newer ones are. I wish more people would go to Oakwood and ride Megafobia as that is running so so well at the moment and just shows how great rides like that actually are!

Thanks for the report. Glad to see Thorpes still doing well this year. I visited on the preview day and had a great day. Everything was at 5 minutes queues too so got to ride everything really quickly. I agree that X is much better now. It's so quirky and strange that's it's fun!

I have to say Tokyo's as I have done Paris, California and Tokyo's. I prefer the Tokyo story with Shiriki but I hear the ride system is much better in the Orlando one. I've heard people saying the Orland ride system with the Tokyo story and theme would be the best Tower of Terror!

Gravity Max is well worth going to ride. It's perfectly smooth and quite a strange experience when it tilts. Janfusun is a nice little park which has the two B&M's. E-DA park in Kaohsiung is a really nice albeit small park with 3 coasters. One is a Vekoma Big Air, (only one).

Chuanlord was a very strange but interesting place. The Ghost Ship (as Divv mentioned) was 100% the best thing they had, it was crazy and just awesome. I remember when the guide told us that we'd be eating in the parks restaurant that evening everybody looked at each other rather nervously but I think we were all very pleasantly surprised as the meal was really good and Mr Fish was great!

Yes, it was exhaustingly hot that day and for the rest of the trip. The great people at Chimelong helped out tremendously by providing bottles of iced water earlier in the day too. The Fire Truck attraction pretty much killed me as you saw above but thankfully the UK won out there! I'm trying to remember if the day I had at Janfusun Fancyworld was hotter than the Chimelong day. I think it was rather close. But thanks for dragging me through those last few days! When I got back home after the trip I needed pretty much the same amount of time to recover as the trip had taken up! Chuck, you could be right there!

My list: 2002: - Air (Alton Towers) 2004: - Spinball Whizzer (Alton Towers) 2009: - Terminator Salvation: The Ride (Six Flags Magic Mountain) 2010: - Th13teen (Alton Towers) - Intimidator (Carowinds) - Intimidator 305 (Kings Dominion) 2011: - Ben 10 Ultimate Mission (Drayton Manor) 2012: - Suspended Looping Coaster (Victory Kingdom) - Dauling Dragon (Happy Valley Wuhan) - Hidden Anaconda (Happy Valley Wuhan) - Monte Carlo Racetrack (Happy Valley Wuhan) - Dinoconda (China Dinosaurs Park) - Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars (Hong Kong Disneyland) - Swarm (Thorpe Park) 2013: - The Smiler (Alton Towers) - Hero (Flamingo Land)

Chimelong was a really nice park. The Dive Coaster is a really nice ride and the Flying Horse coaster was not bad too. No, we didn't stay onsite at the Chimelong hotel.

I remember getting to Shanghai and suddenly realising that, OMG, we are only half way through the trip.

I know for Alton Towers, a lot of the signage and themeing is created inhouse at the design studio around the back of the towers called Studios North. All the recent themeing and signage was created there including the Marmaliser for the Smiler. I also think that the majority of the theme items for CBeebies Land is also being constructed there under the watchful eye of the BBC.

Wow, very impressive list. It just goes to show that there should be more than enough quality rides and attractions headed to China to fill future TPR trips to save everyone from all the millions of mice, dragons and spinners.

^ I have to agree there. I have never been a fan of the Sky Loop. Just seems a bit like a wasted concept. It's nice to see that Premier iterated on the concept, added the extra internal loop and a launch and it (looks like it) will be a much better ride. As for this knockoff, It looks reasonable apart from the very scary noises it makes. I still wouldn't rush over to China to ride it but if I was back at Chuanlord then i'd be more than willing to give it a go considering I have tortured myself on worse chinese coaster contraptions at places I won't name (Fishermans Wharf )

I honestly have to say that after riding more Vekoma rides in Asia, Vekoma really have made an amazing impression and made me change my opinion about them. Apart from their SLC's and boomerangs, a lot of their rides are great. Grizzly Mountain, Gravity Max, Space Mountain (Formosan), Big Air, Stingray, Space Mountain are all fine rides. I'm sure there are a load more I have missed.

Yes, all those small coasters spread out in those huge parks/gardens and the insane number of them make them very hard to identify a particular one! Maybe you could do a China compilation video?

^ and ^^, I'm glad people like Hex. It sometimes feels like a very underappreciated ride and it's themed beautifully and very nicely done. It has a great eerie but not scary atmosphere in the queue and ride. The location in the old chapel is brilliant too. It's a shame the vault slips and doesn't line up perfectly these days as if you watch closely the illusion is broken, but for those who are new to the ride, they hardly notice. I always make an aim to ride it during each visit and usually hang back and just watch people's reactions to it if they don't know what to expect from the ride.

The Stingray was a real highlight of that trip. Surprisingly great ride with some quite weird twists and turns. I'm guessing the main reason for it not turning up elsewhere is due to it's low capacity. I still think it would be fine in it's current form at some of the smaller parks around though rather than a large one.

The ship at Drayton Manor does single side loading and unloading.