Divv3k

The penultimate park of our trip was Hong Kong’s Ocean Park. Built over a couple of levels on a hill this park has experienced quite a bit of investment in recent years and it really shows. There’s a new section at the top of the park where the B&M Floorless, Hair Raiser lives. This recent B&M does pretty much what you expect a recent B&M floorless to do. It’s quite re-rideable as B&Ms go and I didn’t notice any of the rattle some had reported. The rest of the park has a decent selection of rides and animal exhibits. There’s also a really cool funicular railway which actually goes through the mountain and connects the two halves of the park. Some of the windows inside are actually TV screens which have cool little animations on them as you travel through. I guess you might see something similar to this on the Hogwarts Express at Universal one day. All in all it was a really fun day at a park which rivals bother Tibidabo and Wonder Rakutenchi for the “best theme park view in the world” award! For my money this one is the best – take a look at the photos and judge for yourself. Wait no more! Here’s your Ocean Park entrance photo! Although since we’re special (so special) we didn’t use the main entrance and went through the VIP entrance. Ocean Park did a really great job at decorating the interior of the funicular railway that goes through the mountain in the middle of the park! Even after going through the mountain there’s more hills to navigate. Thankfully there’s plenty of escalators in the park to help you out! Creepy clown dude chews up and spits out all the Hair Raiser riders prior to boarding. Apparently the back row is where it’s at on Hair Raiser. It’s not going to win any awards but Hair Rasier is a solid coaster with some brilliant views so you can’t really go wrong! Speaking of great views, does it get any better than this? (The backdrop is pretty cool too, don’t you think?) Really, can you get a better view than this at a theme park? Hong Kong can get pretty hot so a Polar Adventure isn’t such a bad idea! The recently added Arctic last might be powered but it packs a bit punch. I think after this encounter Larry might have had another story about crapping himself to share. Glass floor + penguin = win. I think I’m about to be mutilated by a tiny coaster train, Final Destination style. Seaweed Shake Shake Fries! Okay, it’s no Shaka Shaka Chicken but these were pretty good! Everywhere you turn your head in Ocean Park you keep encountering awesome views like this. Continue the good views theme, The Wild West Mine Train definitely holds the title for best view on a coaster! Look at that! Now imagine this view without Larry and Jim’s heads in front of you and think how amazing it would look! That’s my social media profile photo sorted for the next wee while. I probably should have warned you that this TR was going to mostly comprise of photos of the awesome views from Ocean Park! Sorry about that. Here’s a great look at all the recent additions to the park, plus an awesome view in the background to boot! If you want some more great views then the cable car is a fun alternative to the funicular railway through the mountain. The cable car probably gives the best opportunities to see what Hair Raiser looks like. And approaching the bottom half of the park with another amazing view! This is my kind of place! I know what you’re all saying and you’re right. This TR has went on way too long without any panda photos! Check out this Giant Arse Panda in action. There’s been pandas at Edinburgh in Scotland for years but I’ve never seen them Seeing them on the other side of the world is clearly a better idea. Eat this Panda-Fudging-Vision! World of Color joke anyone? we finished up our visit to Ocean Park looking at their giant aquarium. It was HUGE! The number of sharks in here would not have made Scottish Steve happy. That’s it for Ocean Park – a really nice park to visit and it seems to only be getting better and better. Well worth checking out if you’re ever in Hong Kong! Up next – Hong Kong sightseeing!

^ I was terrified he was gonna pull me in with you guys!

^ It's China, so I'm guessing they considered it theming of some sort.

The Idol is definitely only good through the final five, so it's useless now. What's interesting is whether Probst will tell everyone that - usually he tells people Idols are useless at this stage but for whatever reason he didn't do it this season. What a great final four - fascinated to see how it all plays out!

Our last park in Mainland China was Happy Halley Shenzhen. This was the first Happy Valley park to be built so for the Happy Valley fanboys it’s kind of like Disneyland. Everyone knows that it’s not the best park in the chain but don’t try and argue with them that original isn’t the best. The park has a fairly well rounded collection of rides including a couple of Vekomas, a Golden Horse spinner (of course) as well as the very recently added S&S launched coaster, Bullet Coaster. There was also a couple of unique indoor attractions, the park certainly had plenty to do and was about as nice as any Happy Valley park can be. Bullet Coaster was actually closed to the public on the day we visited due to an American TV production filming on the ride. Robb, yet again pulled a masterstroke and worked some magic to make sure we all got to ride. TPR trips never cease to amaze me int he lengths they’ll go to to get everyone on the rides! Very much appreciated. After the park we had a very popular Chinese dinner in KFC (Seriously, they love it over there) and then set off for Hong Kong. Here’s some photos.... Happy Valley Shenzhen entrance photo! It’s the last park in Mainland China of the trip! Oh dear, looks like we arrived on school trip day! Good thing they’re too short to ride the coasters! First credit – Vekoma semi-hotness. A metal bull protruding from a wall can only mean one thing... Golden Horse Spinner, of course! These local girls were quite taken by Stacey. I guess they had never seen a blonde girl before! As scary as it is to see an SLC, in China you just have to be happy that it’s made by Vekoma! This SLC had a really cool “RCT inspired” element! This SLC also gets really close to the ground. Ghetto horror maze! Can’t get enough of these! This one seemed to involve yetis getting mutilated. Spooky stuff! Ben had clearly been through quite a tough night. There’s something very saucy about the height markers at Happy Valley Shenzhen! Speaking of saucy... CREDIT! Trip highlight. Larry finally found a girl who won’t get up and walk away the minute he sits at a table. HI ERIK! I’m always up for a Happy Time! The last in a long line of water rides in China that I avoided! Happy Valley Shenzhen’s comparisons with Disneyland continue with all the buildings that exist around the park. The Chinese school kids were quite enthusiastic as Dan found out early in the morning when he led them in song! Pass the poop! This kids land hadn't opened yet. Here’s an exclusive construction shot. You’re welcome. Desperados!!! It’s also worth pointing out that I absolutely kicked Larry’s ass at this! Now for a Happy Valley staple. The original Shooting Santa! Die festive trinkets, die!!! This is where Scottish Steve spent most of the day. Kiddie credit. Of course we rode it. Happy Valley also had this pretty cool obstacle course section. Not quite up there with some of the Scandinavian efforts but better than you’d likely see in America. Little do these guys know that there’s a crowd of TPR people around the corner manning the water cannons. This attraction was really weird and cool. You would sit around a table and wear a pair of headphones. The lights would be turned out and binaural audio of scary crap happening would play in your ears! It was pretty effective, as demonstrated by Larry here! It’s amazing how those rock structures transform these Vekomas into awesome looking coasters! Another one of the cool indoor attractions... Here’s your Extraterrorestrial knock off! Thankfully Stitch didn’t terrorise us in here! Alright, only one coaster in Mainland China remains for us on this trip! And it’s a good one! The S&S launched coaster was quite impressive, I’d be happy to see more of these pop up (if they can make them reliable!) Jon Locke apparently is a huge fan of Canada’s number one escape artist Dean Gunnarson! Happy Valley definitely isn’t the nicest looking of the Happy Valleys but it does have a pretty decent selection of quirky attractions. I just hope that the S&S keeps working for them! And that’s your whack for Mainland China. After a couple of weeks it feels nice to move onto somewhere a little more “Westernised”... That’s right... HK baby! Once you cross the border everything switches and you have to get onto the other side of the bus. After all that time in China the whole group seemed pretty excited about our next stop... YES!!! Disney’s Hollywood Hotel was pretty awesome! Everyone was just giddy with excitement when we arrived here as can be evidenced by the next photo... Check it out! Goofy’s actually in the pool! This is pretty much my favourite photo from the trip. It’s all kinds of awesome. Alright, that’s your Disney tease for now. And it’ll stay that way for a day or so as Ocean Park is up next!

After Knight Valley we hit a couple of smaller parks in the Shenzhen area. First was Zhongshan Park, which was just really a credit stop. Next up we hit Window of the Wolrd which is a park that has a lot of models of landmarks from around the world. Nothing amazing in terms of rides but some really hilarious sights to be hold are housed here. I’ll let the photos do the talking... Zhongshan Park entrance photo! (Complete with Overlord) For the Ferris Wheel enthusiasts. Oh yes!!! A Golden Horse spinner! If I had to work in a dragon’s mouth all day I’d be more enthused about my job. The theming in the middle of the kiddie coaster looked quite phallic indeed. Excitement levels were off the scale here. Alright, credits done. Let’s move on! The Brit Crew’s favourite hotel chain are still alive and well in China it seems. (kind of) Window of the World entrance photo! (Also note the Overlord) Window of the World essentially is like a Legoland Miniland without the Lego. Credit fest! These things freaked me out more than the statues at Knight Valley! This park’s credit was a bit more imaginative than your usual Chinese coaster. Indoor boat coaster! It was pitch black inside this thing! Quite disturbing in a park like this! Yay, I finally got my Niagara Falls credit! So much America in one photo. I guess this means that the park has been around for a while. Larry's trying to figure out how to get to Africa. It’s like Lego but nowhere near as awesome. A big crowd of TPR people gathered at a fence. This can only mean one thing... Facials!!! This was trip highlight for these guys, I’m sure! Just like being in the real countries! Larry got us lost in Africa. Never trust Larry to take you somewhere in a park. What’s that, Larry? Camel toe. Another culture credit that I can check off the list. Who needs to visit the real Greece when you can just come to the middle of nowhere in China?! I miss Hotel Colosseo. Feels a bit more like home now. So much culture in this photo and without having to be in Paris. Win! In Window of the World all the buildings are really small scale but the fruit is HUGE! Here’s one for the Harry Potter fans. This was amazing. Some of the guys walked past a gift shop and got totally accosted and dragged back inside by the staff! Glad to not be at Fuji-Q today! No need for me to visit India now! I miss Japan. At Window of the World you always leave very satisfied. This stuff all looked pretty cool. The real way to see the entire world is by monorail. It seems like there’s plenty of space here for the park to do shows and stuff. The place was relatively quiet when we visited though. Here’s Larry demonstrating that he’s completely inept at framing a photo on an iPhone. Window of the World was fun – I always like seeing these quirkier Chinese parks even when a lot of the stuff in them a bit crap! After the park we went for more traditional Chinese food. Tonight’s main course... Duck head. we also had Mr Fish. He was pretty tasty. Tonight haul of animal parts... Duck head, crab claws and fish head. After dinner and a fair few drinks this happened. Oops. Sorry guys! This day was quacking! We did some fun and random stuff as well as look into our dinner’s eyes. Up next – the last park in mainland China – Happy Valley Shenzhen!

Window of the World coming up...

^ Yeah, Knight Valley had all the ingredients to be awesome but just didn't deliver the goods (apart from the GCI!).

Our next park on the tour was Knight Valley in Shenzhen. I was particularly excited about this one as it is the home of the fairly recent GCI woodie called Wood Coaster. I’m in the camp of people who really loves GCIs and find them very re-rideable so a TPR filming session here was reason to be excited! Knight Valley itself is built on the side of a hill and so the park is navigated by a number of escalators and staircases as well as a funicular railway to take you up to the really high up parts of the park. Wood Coaster was a lot of fun, it’s certainly in the upper tier of GCIs for me. If you’re not a fan of GCIs (and I understand why many people aren’t fans) then it’s not really going to do anything new for you but I found it to be a lot of fun. The rest of the park is a little frustrating. There was an accident in the park in 2010 when their Mission Space knock off fell apart and killed some people and the legacy of the accident seemed to mean that a lot of the rides at the park remain closed. It’s a shame because some of them looked genuinely intriguing but maybe with the accident in mind it might be for the best that these knock offs are closed. There were a few things open and there are some really great views from the highest point of the park so there was still plenty to do. Here’s some photos. Knight Valley entrance photo! And again, here’s one for the map enthusiasts. The park is on the side of a mountain so you get some nice views like this on your way up. Then when you get halfway up you will encounter this! GCI goodness! It might have a lame name but Wood Coaster has great setting! GCI nerd. The coaster is a lot of fun. GCI fans will love it. This was the first of many indoor rides that we found to be closed. The 2010 accident in the park had some long lasting ramifications. I understand! The alien splash battle thing looked cool. I think it was closed though. I’m not taking chances with Chinese water either way! Speaking of Chinese Water – we checked out the stunt show. It’s called ROANING FLOOD, Like all good Chinese stunt shows this one had plenty of fire. As well as of course, the titular roaning flood. Hey look, an indoor attraction that’s open! Let’s just hope the glass doesn’t crack and the jellyfish don’t eat us all! If you wear 3D glasses the jellyfish will appear jellier. True story. The stars for the Chinese knockoff of Avatar have finally been cast! Why of course this is a real spaceship! Yet another dark ride closed up. This is the one that killed a bunch of people to be fair though. Who’d have thought that these Chinese knock off rides would be so dangerous?? Now there’s an exciting sight – Bobkarts! Larry gives us his best impression of a Knight Valley guest. Can’t beat a bit of shoe POV on a Bobkart. This sign was half way through the Bobkart course. It made no sense to me then and it still doesn’t now! Larry very wisely coordinated his shirt with the park’s ground colour scheme today. Disk’o! Larry’s such a poser. Neil calls for a hooker just like he would back home. The log flume was also out of action. No bad thing, really. Still, this one did look pretty cool and a little different from your normal water ride. There’s some other parts of the park that don’t have any rides which are actually really nice! Plus they have a Starbucks which makes it Divv-approved. To get to the really high up part of the mountain there’s awesome funicular railway. We see you, Wood Coaster! The view just gets better and better as you ascend. Look mum, I’m on the side of a hill in the middle of nowhere in China! CREDIT! The Batman and Spider-Man vinylmation knock offs were very confusing. So there’s Knight Valley – a park that has a great GCI woodie, some great views and not much more. It’s worth visiting if you’re into your GCIs though! Up next – Window of the World!

Chuanlord Holiday Manor was the most “traditional” Chinese park on the trip. Or that’s the way it seemed to me. I think this park came the closest to being what you might expect a Chinese theme park to be like if you hadn’t been exposed to the photos of the recent Happy Valleys, Golden Horse Spinners and the like. This park had a lot of weird stuff. There was a REALLY cool haunted walkthrough in a pirate ship (complete with pre-show video showing clips from Pirates of the Caribbean). There was also some interesting rollercoaster contraptions, though that’s not always a good thing! A number of areas of the park were under construction when we visited. The Chinese don’t seem to think that keeping guests away from construction is that big of an issue however. All in all this park stands out to me as it was a good bit different from most of the other parks we visited and i was glad I got the chance to see it. And as far as traditional Chinese meals went on this tour Chuanlord Manor was one of the better ones. Here’s some photos... Chuanlord Holiday Manor entrance photo! Complete with construction barriers! Park map fans, this is for you. This may well be the scariest park mascot I’ve ever encountered. The fact that the dude inside was speaking in Chinese to me really added to it! There’s some construction going on at this part of the park but don’t worry. Just step over the hole in the ground! Not only is this place a theme park it’s also a farm and crucifixion centre. Wanna shoot some bows and arrows? Well at the Holiday Manor you can do just that! Has anyone seen Larry today? Ghetto Chinese credits are Jim’s favourite kind of credits. Powered Dragon Wagons are more my thing though. The credit whores got very excited when they spied this contraption. I guess they heard that the Road Show might have been in town. Too late guys! I rode this once. I’m not counting it as one credit nevermind four! This Dave Thomas approved flat ride stuck out like a sore thumb. It looked so new compared to everything else! This thing was certainly scary and felt like it was going to valley quite a few times! Behind these misters sits a coaster that remained closed on this visit. No big loss. We weren’t brave enough to try the Chiense go-karts. That building looks like it’s about to fall to bits. OCTOPOOOOSSS!!! This brass bull stood proud in the middle of The Manor. Baws oot as we say in Glasgow. The best attraction in the park by far was housed in this ship. A haunted walkthrough where we had no clue what was going on! It was themed to Gothenburg so it had to be good! Rules of the Ghost Ship. If you wanted to get into the walkthrough you had turn the frozen donkey wheel. The safety video you had to watch before entering the walkthrough was a great collection of clips from pirate movies over the years. Zipline monorail? Check! The zipline monorail actually offered some really nice views of the park. You can gain eight credits by simply looking at this photo. More zipline monorail POV. This was one of my favourite bathrooms of the trip. Any time you can pee and look at fish you’ve gotta be appreciative. Or as I call it - Fish and Pish. Speeaking of... Now for the weirdest/scariest attraction of the trip. Fishing! They would give guests a net and you would proceed to wade through this disgusting water to catch fish. Eww! Needless to say we gave this one a miss! Chicken cookies anyone? For our traditional meal this evening we stayed in the park to sample some of the local cuisine. As traditional Chinese meals went this one was actually halfway decent! Mostly this was due to Mr Fish and how amazing he tasted. Chanload Manor was the bull's bollocks! Really, I liked this park more than anyone really should. It was just a nice change from the other parks we'd been visiting, I don't think I'd like to do parks like this for days right enough! Up next - GCI goodness on a hill!

Chuanlord Manor coming up...

Yeah, that was it. I had the same as you. Really good! Although, I think that was the evening the Pizza Hur staff forgot about us and brought everyone their pizzas way before ours!

Next up was one of the “bigger” parks on the tour – Chimelong Paradise. This park was more or less a Chinese version of a nice Six Flags park. Imagine a Six Flags park with some nice landscaping, questionable food choices and a B&M Dive Machine. That’s more or less it. The park also offers a Thorpe Park Colossus clone which was a nice relief in that it’s a least a few years behind Colossus in the rattle stakes. All in all it’s a nice park but bucks the Chinese trend in that it doesn’t have any knock-off dark rides. Maybe that’s for the best when you look at it from a Health & Safety point of view. Also, this park wins the award for best ride names in China... Another park, another entrance photo! We’re at Chimelong Paradise! All the park map enthusiasts can get their fix before they even enter the park! We arrived in the park prior to opening and were transported around by these fine drivers. First up, the imaginatively titled 10 INVERSION ROLLER COASTER! It’s like Colossus but not as deadly! Just wait a couple of years and this thing will kill as many people as the English version. I might be a fan of this ride but I love this photo op! Next up we rode the Intamin credit that I don’t count as a credit. I prefer the non-spinning Disney version. Chimelong next provided us with a Vekoma Booster Bike to hit up. It was indeed named “Booster Bike”. Can I just take a moment to point out the brightness of Larry’s shirt today? I mean look at the glow actually coming off his shirt!!! Anyone need to use the Giant Frisbee? The” Flying Horse Family Coaster” might have been my favourite name for a coaster in this park. Ben loved his front row ride with the random Chinese chick! You can see where Chimelong got the idea for the name of this ride! Hmmm... Wonder what this ride is like? Yay, Sheikra clone! Just like Sheikra, Dive Coaster has a signature skloosh moment! Hey look, I made it to random middle of nowhere Chinese park! It’s always exciting when you find food in a Chinese park that looks safe to eat! Larry demonstrates the best way to deep throat a dumpling. I don’t have the exact information to hand but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that this ride is called “Splash Battle”. As you can see, it really was a busy day when we visited Chimelong Paradise. Kind's Land, where all sorts of magical stuff happens. Day-Glo Larry was really excited to see the show and was disappointed when it appeared there would be no show today. So he put on his own stand up show. He’s being really funny here. (Note the visual cue for laughter) I’ll never understand why people would want to cycle their way around on one of these. Probably just my laziness! Where I will always be happy to expend energy however, is on a Fire Truck attraction! Check out Neil and I putting in huge amounts of work for Team GB! Team USA didn’t stand a chance. Top Spin, that’s it name. That name again... Top Spin. Who cares if it’s a scene from Ice Age 3 – it’s indoors! (It was a very hot day!) Neil was dying a slow death following his Fire Truck exertions. I don’t understand why he was feeling so awful, as I felt absolutely fine! The lights might be off but Larry’s shirt is making sure we can see! Huge crowd for the stunt show at Chimelong Paradise today. Oh my! This looks good! YES!!! FIRE!!! EVEN MORE FIRE!!! Who’s hanging with the hotties now?!? Looking awesome, Scottish. As always. So that’s Chimelong Paradise. In all honesty it’s a very nice park with a solid line up of coasters. If China had a Six Flags park it would probably be Chimelong Paradise. Though this park looked a lot nicer than any Six Flags park you’ll ever visit. Chuanlord Manor is next!

I think this is her problem, I get the impression that the jury don't know how vital a role she has played in some the votes this season. The fact that there were at least two votes after the merge in which she didn't know what was going on may count against her too. I think Kass woukd struggle in the finals mainly because of the bridges she has burned on the jury (Morgan, Sarah, Jeremiah and Tasha at least) who won't vote for her. Tony's best shot is probably against Kass but I do think he has some chance against any of the others (except Spencer). I don't think that Spencer was lying a few weeks ago when he said he would vote for Tony is he got to the end - it's up to Trish and Woo to take out Tony when his Idols become useless if they seriously want to win the game.

^ There's a web show showing what goes on at Ponderosa at CBS.com. They're not supposed to discuss the game at Ponderosa but it certainly happens and is shown (in small doses) in the show. It doesn't always show you who they like but you can get a flavour for who they don't like at least. But this season all comes down to how the jury views Tony. I think the fact that he's been able to get his alliance back on board twice after flipping on them means that he might just be able to pull it off. He has to get rid of Spencer next though. If Spencer wins out in immunities he will win. Surely they'll get rid of him the second he loses though.

Following our visit to Dinosaur Park we were due to take an internal flight to Guangzhou. However, with China being China there was a slight issue in that our flight got cancelled right before we were about to board. All hell broke loose amongst the Chinese travelers but Robb took the calm and collected approach and managed to get us into a hotel that night so that we could take an alternative flight the next morning. I went through a similar experience before the 2011 Japan trip when I ended up spending a night in Beijing so I don’t know if it’s me that causes this bad luck but I’m grateful that Robb & Elissa continue to allow me on their tours regardless. Speaking of our tour hosts, what a great job they do at taking account of these unfortunate circumstances and making sure we don’t miss anything. No sooner than arriving at our last minute hotel did Robb have a backup plan ready to go that meant we wouldn’t lose any time at the parks that were originally scheduled for the following day – Chimelong Paradise and Chuanlord Holiday Manor. Instead this day was substituted for a credit whoring day. How Robb managed to pull this plan together so quickly and effectively I’ll never know but it really is great to have tour guides like this to take care of you! With this in mind here’s some photos of our credit whoring day! Following a cancelled flight our group ended up spending a night in a local hotel. It was all good as Robb was already putting backup plans into place. The next morning we were off and made our way to southern China! As a result this day became credit whoring day! Here’s your Guangzhou Zoological Garden entrance photo! Hey look, a map! Parts of this park weren’t quite finished when we visited. But hey, at least the credit whores were satiated! Speaking of the credit whores... They must have been loving this... OCTOPOOOOOSSS! Remember, everyone: Mono = One, Rail = Rail. James loves a ride in a creepy looking mouse. This was one of the bigger coasters on today’s menu. Who needs Shanghai Disneyland when you have locations like this? Tianhe Park entrance photo! Russ is excited to add another to the coaster count. Watch out for the trees! Doesn’t that look fun? Random Chinese Ghost Train! Certainly an interesting ride vehicle on this one! But who cares about weird ghost trains when there are kiddie credits to be had? Not any kind of kiddie credits – POWERED kiddie credits! At this point I can only assume that rollercoasters have some kind of special drying powers that we don’t know of in the West. How else can you explain how often we saw clothes drying on rollercoasters here? Two parks down! Let’s keep this going! Xiaofantain. This park didn’t have an entrance of any kind so here’s a photo of flat rides. Here’s Larry, lapping up every waking moment of credit whoring day. Get a room you two! The ghetto walkthrough in this park was unexpectedly fun. I mean it was all the usual crap you see at these places but it made me laugh! I’m pretty sure Larry crapped his pants in here too. He does that sometimes. Alright, add another to the list. Movin’ right along... Amazing World! Amazing World, Amazing Entrance. It’s really a mall with a big indoor park attached. I wasn’t lying about the name of this place! Chinese Peena Puu will eat your children. YES!!! A Vekoma!!! Where else in the world are you absolutely delighted to see a Vekoma in front of you?? This one uses the “traditional” Roller Skater theming. Weee! Enough of the semi-decent coasters. Here’s some spinning Zamerla pish... Never ones to pass up on a haunted walkthrough we had to spend some tickets on entering this guy’s mouth! It was of the usual high standard of Chinese walkthroughs. Not for me, but Chinese bouncy bouncy clearly was a highlight for many of the group. There’s also some outdoor attractions at Amazing World. Liek this Total Wipeout style course. I can only imagine you would die a horrible, horrible death if you fell into this water. There was a cool drop tower in the outdoor section. Somehow we managed to gain quite an audience of locals whilst we rode this. I guess they don’t see many Westerners around here. After a tiring day of credit whoring a dinner stop at Pizza Hut is always much appreciated! Although I forewent pizza for this pumpkin/bacon lasagne thing. What was this again, Larry? I remember liking it a lot! Of course, passing a McDonald’s with a unique menu item is not something I can miss! The Sweet Taro Pie is nothing compared to Japan’s Bacon Potato Pie, however! Thanks for the pie, Ronald! Alright, that brings credit whoring day to a close. Hope you’re still with me! Next up – Chimelong Paradise!

The next stop on our Chinese adventure was an anticipated one – Dinosaur Park! Just hearing the name of this place I knew it would be a trip highlight. A park filled with statues of Dinosaurs seems like something China can handle pretty well. On top of all the cool statues this park was also going to (finally) give me my first opportunity to ride one of the fabled “4D” Arrow/S&S coasters. This was a quick visit to the park but looking around this place was pretty cool – there’s a cool indoor booster bike coaster and a decent amount of flats all with pretty decent theming. Dinoconda, the 4D is obviously the big draw and I was pleased to finally get to ride one of these. It’s a little bumpy but certainly a unique experience which is always good to encounter when you’ve been visiting parks for a while. Here’s some photos... We’re still in China but everything just got a little Jurassic! Entrance photo for Larry. Right away you could tell that this was another of these Chinese parks that had some money thrown at it to make it look good in photos! Coming soon in Jurassic Park 4 - dinosaurs don armour in the ultimate battle to the death. Dino booster bike! You can thank Larry for the topspin being included in the park index. I'm so eating here if I ever end up at this park again. If you were starting to get impressed with all the cool theming and armoured dinos, don’t worry – this is still China so there’s a Golden Horse spinning mouse right in the middle of it all. Don’t we just love these things?! I can’t decide if this is cute or terrifying. James takes his chances with some mystery meat. Rock and roll dinosaurs live in here, I think. As you can see, the majority of rides had dinosaur theming of sort. Buoyed by James’ success, Karl and Steve take their chances with some mystery meat of their own. Alright! Dinoconda time! This station is Divv-aproved. The station is also incredibly well themed. Eat this , Magic Mountain! Jon and Larry prepare to assume some sort of fourth dimensional position. There it goes. These rides certainly look impressive, which I guess is the point in these new Chinese parks. All in all, it’s well worth a few rides. I’m glad I finally got on one of these but I’m not clamouring to see more built anywhere. Larry got some scary flashbacks to the umbrella thievery of 2011... The Chinese sure like their ponchos! This part of the park was certainly going for the “Jurassic Park money shot”. They look cool from afar but when you start to get up close to the statues you realise they don’t look so great! This was a horror maze that was being prepared while we were there. A dinosaur themed Halloween haunt would be pretty awesome! So that’s Dinosaur Park. A really cool looking place that's probably in need of a few more attraction but certainly worth visiting in China!

World Joyland is a brand new park that opened in 2011 which draws inspiration for its theming heavily from video games like World of Warcraft apparently. Not being much into the games much I just thought it looked cool. From a distance at least. This is another of those parks that looks really cool in photos but when you get up close you realise that what’s inside is all cheap knock offs. Don’t get me wrong some of those cheap knock offs are fun and interesting but I actually think photos flatter this place a little. This is a place that hasn’t been reported on a great deal and that’s apparently because the various license holders that the park has infringed upon are pretty pissed off about it. I couldn’t tell you how close the lands in this park resemble their supposed source material but it did look like they put a lot of effort into making the place “look” legit at least. It’s not just video games though – the kids land is a shameless knock off of the Doctor Seuss land at Islands of Adventure right down to the trolley ride above the area. What is not a cheap knock off is the B&M Flyer, “Sky Scrapper” – this is the real deal and it’s pretty darned good. As far as fleyers go it’s pretty intense and is certainly one of the better options out there. There are a couple of other coasters, including a Maurer Sohne Skyloop that operated a limited number of times this day. Thanks to Robb & Elissa for helping make sure we got on that one! The park also has a Soarin’ knockoff which may well have fallen apart by the time you’re reading this and a Spider-Man knockoff that seemed to blatantly rip it’s scenes from video games like Resident Evil (fun ride though!). All interesting for sure, I just question how long this place can last. Even in China. Alright, here’s some photos... Entrance photo! Look, I’m at World Joyland! Hanno was going a bit doo-lally this morning... As soon as you enter you get the impression that the designers really like Islands of Adventure. Over to the “Sci-Fi” land at the back of the park... While we waited for the coasters to get up and running we checked out this weird 3D simulator thing. Not much to it really. This park had a number of weird indoor attractions like this. Alright, scrap everything else – it’s B&M time! Yes, you’re reading that right. This ride is called Sky SCRAPPER! Scottish prepares to scrap the sky! Larry’s all “Scrap this!” Everyone get your scrapping hands out! In all seriousness, the ride is very good. Definitely in the upper tier of B&M flyers. Whatever’s at the top of those stairs will have to be left to my imagination. Scrap walking up those! Random theming. Another credit! Who’s ready for some Golden Horse mine train goodness? Nom, nom, nom! Soul Hunter – Now this was a unique and interesting attraction... We walked through the entrance and were each handed some sort of video game firearm which also has a camera on it. (Demonstrated admirably here by Chuck). You are then sent in your team of six to walk around a haunted house firing at ghosts which appear on the screen on your gun. Bustin’ makes these guys feel good! More random theming. Russ is at one with the game. Much like IoA there’s a big lake in the middle of the park. (The similarities don't end there) Here’s Josh, chatting to a bunch of Chinese girls. I'm guessing he's just quickly asking for directions. This is certainly a “Happiness Factory” for us! Free samples! Don’t drink your shot of Coke all at once now! Next area – Seuss Land... I mean Mole’s World! Certainly an original looking land if ever I saw one. I’m sure Mr Mole came up with the idea for this ride all by himself. Russ and Stacey tried the fried ice cream. It looked weird. Speaking of weird.... This thing was really strange. The group sat in a theatre that is divided into different colours. You all then take part in a video game against each other. It’s in 3D. You have a joystick and a microphone in front of you too. Russ and Stacey gave everything the had for the red team. Did I mention this thing was really weird? Just in case you were wondering what kind of bathroom Mr Mole uses. The creepy babies did not scream cute kiddie theming to me! Alright, what’s inside the Spaceship Earth building knockoff? Something called Fantasia Atlas! (AKA Soarin’ Knockoff) This isn’t any ordinary Soarin’ Knockoff though. This one has X-Wings and Tie Fighters to add to the worry that the thing might fall apart at any second! In this building – random video games! Larry thinks he knows how to play Kinect. But this dude shows him how it’s really done. Housed under this scary looking thing is World Joyland’s Spider-Man rip off! Predator guy watches over you while you queue. Here’s your Spider-Man knock off vehicle. I remember the ride being pretty long with lots of scenes stolen from various video games. It’s a fun ride for sure. After you get off the ride you exit into a gift shop which has a selection of swords and blades for you to purchase. Seriously. Russ loves a horny dragon. The drizzly weather meant that the Maurer Sohne Skyloop would be closed for the day. But thanks to some magic worked by Robb and Elissa the ride ran a limited number of cycles for TPR people who got there quickly! Thankfully we were among those who get there quickly! Thanks to Elissa who alerted us to this as she was leaving the trip for good! Even when leaving Elissa is always looking out for the best interests of her trip participants! The run from the front of the park to ride almost killed me though! So that’s World Joyland. Certainly it’s a curiosity worth visiting and by Chinese park standards it’s one of the better ones. After running for the Skyloop there’s no way I’m walking up those stairs! Alright, that’s it for this park. Next up – Dinosaur Park! ROAR.

If there's one thing that the Brit Crew love more than a visit to a theme park it's a wedding. Three years after sheer awesomeness of Dave and Amy's wedding we were all super excited to be down in Brighton this weekend to see TPR tour mainstays Russ and Stacey finally get married after all these years! Not only did we have the usual Brit Crew favourites present for this one but we also had a special guest star in MILES, who had made his way over from California to witness the event that he'd been nagging Russell about for years! This day was all kinds of awesome. Lots of food was consumed, lots of photos were taken (by me at least, mostly of myself) and lots of booze was consumed! We also found out that Anth REALLY doesn't like being called Tony, which he happened to make clear to us just as we were all getting our drunken dance on in the evening. This resulted in loudly shouted lyric changes to many of the songs of the evening. He embraced it eventually. Alright, not much more to say than congratulations to the couple themselves, feel free to add your own below! Here's some photos! It's a sunny day in Brighton and this handsome bunch are very excited for a wedding! Who's this? Why, it's only the tallest groom in the world! We headed into the venue to find some really nice collages over the walls in the hallways. Mike is in shock that there are so many photos of Russ and Stacey out there that weren't taken be me! This is where the ceremony was to take place. All very nice! Remember, best behaviour guys! No need to worry about Dave behaving himself today with Amy keeping him in check! OMG, a groom AND a bride! How amazing do these two look? (Even more so than usual!) Quick, everyone throw stuff at them to bring them down to earth a bit! Looks like these two have this wedding business nailed! Stacey's already laying out how things are going to be by getting Russ to carry her bouquet while they go out for a spin! Apparently this is how you do a champagne reception! Canapes! These were awesome. For Scottish Steve it's all about sausage, however. TPDave! Leave Andrew's gluten free canapes alone! Group photo! I'm just glad it was dry! Mike forgot to cream up this morning so had to seek alternate means. Scottish Steve is taking requests. As long as the request is for Chopsticks or Merrily We Roll Along. Dinner seating! I think we can all appreciate the table names! Ouch! It's the Hades table! Everyone's place was marked with a stick of purple rock with their name on it. Everyone except Mike, of course. He had pink rock. It's one of his 99 problems. Dinner porn! This tasted amazing! And watching Miles struggling to cut his crackling was hilarious! Pudding porn! Yum! Troy table! Let's play Yahtzee! Looking good, guys. Give it a few hours and you'll all look like you actually rode Hades! Speech time! These were all great and inexplicably Russ actually made a joke about someone else being tall! Like the rest of us, Steve will drink to El Toro! Dave hasn't rode The Voyage since 2007 so he doesn't realise how much of an arse he's making of himself here! PEGASUS! Russ used a Marshall family saying to somehow wangle his table names of choice. Good work, Russ! Aww! How this didn't end badly for all involved I'll never know! Ooft! Now how's that for a wedding cake?! TPDave just added this to his count. No one else is getting this credit now though! Russ and Stacey very elegantly kick off the dancing section of the evening. Don't blame it on the sunshine. Don't blame it on the moonlight. Don't blame it on the good times. Blame it on Tony. Miles proceeded to tear up the dance floor like the pro that he is. YES!!! It wouldn't be a Brit Crew wedding (or a random Spanish wedding for that matter) without Steve throwing moves around like only he can! Those moves are infectious! I predict a Tony! I predict a Tony! Oh what a feeling. Tony's dancing on the ceiling! Steve's all business when the next round of food is served. Believe it or not, we met some awesome non-coaster people there too! TPDave is always happy to pose for a celebrity photo when asked! Everyone say goodbye to Dave and Amy! Awesome to see you guys again! TPDave knows how to take a good Divv-shot. (He does an alright selfie too) Steve, on the other hand does NOT like a Divv-shot! He does however, LOVE a dance with the beautiful bride! Even James was a dancing machine! Our new friends clearly didn't realise that we were the "out of town rollercoaster weirdos". Booze levels are reaching critical mass it would seem! Steve still can't get this right! Well, these guys certainly know how to throw a party! I'm sorry to the poor, poor bus driver who had to deal with this lot on the way back to the hotel! I think the best man may have died. Steve had a brush with death himself as he missed his seat... Everyone just kind of sat there and watched him struggle. It's okay, Steve! I'll save you! We need to do this wedding thing more often. What do you think, guys? Oh dear! This probably sums up the entire bus ride back! Back at the hotel the after party got into full swing! Best night of Mike's life! Irene, if you're reading this, we have your stick of rock. Sorry. Afterparty group photo! Good hustle, guys! WOW. What an amazing day! Everything about the day was absolutely fantastic! Thanks so much to Russ and Stacey for putting on the most incredible wedding for their guests. We loved it and we love you both! Congratulations! Thanks for reading!

^ Yeah, if it hadn't been for Larry's notes I would have had no idea what was what!

After Happy Valley we headed over to “Giant Wheel Park” in order to check out the elusive Vekoma Stingray! This might have been the biggest surprise of the trip, I really loved the Stingray! It’d be great to see more of these pop up! The visit was followed by a “traditional Chinese farmers meal”. Make of this what you will... Wonder what kinds of rides this place will have? To be fair, the wheel is pretty giant. Stingray, stingray! This thing was brilliant! Honestly, when you hear the words “compact Vekoma flyer” you fear the worst but this was great! It is pretty low capacity which is a negative, but if they could work on that somehow I’d love to see more of these! The small park had some really nice pieces of theming throughout. Anyone want a Double Decker? Yeah, me too. After riding the Stingray Larry ran about the park like a mad man in pure Overlord mode. Giant Wheel Park was a great surprise! Well done, Vekoma! After a little drive our government appointed tour guide had arranged for us to have a “traditional Chinese farmer’s dinner”. Say hello to Mr Prawn and all his family. It’s not quite the Chinese food you’d order at the local takeaway... All the random dishes are placed in the middle of the table and it was like Russian roulette between everyone to find something that didn’t stare back at you! Or scratch you. So there you go – some real Chinese “culture”. I could do with some Pizza Hut right now. World Joyland is next!

Happy Valley Shanghai was the first “big” park of the trip. These are the parks that you’ve seen photos of for years and been impressed by the ride line ups and the level of theming involved. The ride line ups pretty much live up to what you expect. I don’t know if the theming holds up upon closer inspection at these Chinese parks. It looks good on the surface but kind of feels like it might not be the most durable of product (I guess we'll see how these parks look in 10-20 years). But still these are decent parks and China are lucky to have them. Here’s some photos... Happy Valley Shanghai entrance photo! Bumblebee welcomes you through the door. Wooden Coaster Fireball! Woohoo! Gotta love a bit of morning ERT on a TPR trip! This Gravity Group designed woodie was pretty good! I liked this one more than the US Gravity Group rides I’ve been on. I really hope the Chinese take care of this, I have a feeling these might deteriorate quickly. I hope I’m wrong! Hi Larry. Stacey was obviously up a bit late last night. Passing no judgement here. There was some scary type walkthrough set up between these mountains. Larry shows off our transportation between rides during the “filming sessions”. This is Chinese for “Intamin Hotness”. I love these things. Seriously, more parks need to get themselves a Mega Lite. Next credit! That’s some awesome photobombing skills from Chuck. Boo to horrible spinning coasters. I don’t care where in the world they are! Oh yes! I’ve been excited about this! Yup, it’s the dark ride where you shoot Santa and his elves to score points! Kill the Christmas trees! Desperados. You can never get enough of this ride. Unless you’re Larry and get your arse kicked. Next up we took flight on the flying island for a better look round the park. Mine train hotness. Intamin super hotness. There’s the woodie and some other assorted stuff. Oh yeah, this place has a SheiKra clone too! The Splash Down boat thing was closed. I don’t think anyone was too upset about this. China doesn’t limit itself to Small World rip offs like most countries. This full fledged Soarin’ rip off made you appreciate the effort Disney put into theirs even more! The park also had a haunted walkthrough. This is where it was. So now you know. Alright, back to that Sheikra clone! The imaginatively named “Diving Coaster” ticked all the boxes you’d expect a B&M like this to tick. That’s a good thing! You see these awesome coasters and think that they would be the best rides in the park. But you would be wrong. They're good, but post apocalyptic Fire Brigade trumps everything else in this park! Larry’s special. So special! Shame he couldn’t save the passengers though. I’m special too! Happy Valley Shanghai was a good park with plenty to do. If these are "Six Flags of China" then that's gotta be a good thing in comparison. Giant Wheel Park is next!

You're gonna love this, Elissa. --- Our next day was a whistlestop credit run tour around some small Shanghai area parks. Gongqing Forest Park entrance photo! Double ring Giant Frisbee. Larry was very excited by this. Credit! And another credit. Looks fun, right? Everything seems to be in working order. Anyone fancy taking a dip in the lake? Woohoo – Bobkart! Bobkart is awesome in any country! Bill’s always good at making friends with the locals. Larry’s getting very WACKY! One park down! Peace Park at Heping Park entrance photo! (Apparently that's what this place is called!) The pool of peace looks very peaceful. Here’s the entrance to the rides section at Peace Park. Credit! This might be the scariest dark ride entrance I’ve ever seen. Behold the terror! Jon can’t quite believe the horror he's just witnessed. Another one down. Where to next? Luxun Park entrance photo! Levels of theming here were off the scale. Attractions include – dancing class! Completely appropriate footwear for a ride operator. And we’re on the move again! Last park of the day! Century Park entrance photo! Ah, my first Golden Horse spinner experience! Everyone should get on one of these. Or three of four. Or twelve. Alright, credit whoring day is done! Happy Valley Shanghai is next!

Our first day of visiting parks certainly gave a real insight into the range of different types of parks China offers. The first park was a personal favourite of mine – Fisherman’s Wharf is about as ghetto as you can get. Situated on a beach in the (seemingly) middle of nowhere there are many great attractions to behold. From the discarded pieces of rides littered between the working ones to the awesome theming that came in the form of clothes being dried on washing lines hung between ride supports. I hadn’t seen anything like it. The scariest part though was the weird head protection they gave you before they let you on their toboggan coaster. That was nasty! Our next park, Jin Jiang was a little more “modern” and had obviously attracted some recent investment in the form of a Deja Vu clone. The park was nice for what it was, it also a few quirky dark rides and some extra credits. We finished the day credit whoring our way around some zoos and parks. Take a look at the photos... Whenever possible I always try to get a photo of the park’s entrance for eventual inclusion on the TPR park index. Welcome to Fisherman’s Wharf! Robb led us over the sand to our first ride. We already knew we were in for some TPR trip gold. Anyone want to ride the abandoned log flume?? I think this control panel just ate Dan. Looks like we arrived a bit too early to ride this one. Safety standards are nothing if not relaxed around here. Oh wow! Now this looks fun! When you’re in a park like this and they still care enough about your safety to make you wear this gear maybe you should give a second thought to riding it! Ow, ow, ow! Powered credit or clothes horse? You decide! Mmm... lunch! Over to our next credit! I think someone may have been living in this booth. Yes, Mickey. I am ready to road rally. Disneyland has nothing on this place! These guys like to give the personal touch by pushing you up the lift hill. This is probably the most ghetto park I’ve ever visited. But I got out alive (and hopefully without lice)! Up next - Jin Jiang Action Park! This place already looks a bit more upscale than the last one! What’s that I see? Chinese Deja Vu! This train didn’t go anywhere, it just served as a restaurant. It was actually pretty nice inside. Moto Coaster! If you couldn’t tell by the non-descriptive name this ride is a Moto Coaster. There’s Larry overlording it up. It had obviously been built a while ago but some effort has certainly been put into this park. Look at the fun these guys are having – let’s try it! Ready for fun? What wonders await us on this indoor coaster? Rooaarr!!! Jurassic Boat Ride eat your heart out! Speaking of boat rides... Corridor of fun. Here’s the first Small World knockoff of the trip! This knockoff was pretty unashamed. As most knockoffs in China are! Bigger than Disneyland’s castle. Just in case you missed the key message of the ride. Get your knockoff iPhone 5 here. Transformer dude welcomes you to Chinese Deja Vu! Unlike most other Deja Vus, we got on this one on our first visit to the park! It did breakdown while we were riding though! So it's not totally unlike most other Deja Vus. At least we got the credit! Some people just can’t pass up on a quirky ghost train. Racey are prepared for TERROR. Who’s hungry for some BBQ? Who’s still hungry for some BBQ? Oh yeah, there was another coaster. This seems to be the only photo I have of it! I don’t think it ran much! Thanks Chinese Army Man, for a fun visit to Jin Jiang! Here’s your entrance photo for Chang Feng Park! The real credit whoring fun begins here! Our government appointed guide tries to figure out where the rollercoaster is. Ah, a Dragon Wagon! There’s a lot of little parks like this with a few rides dotted around them. Cha-ching! Next? Zhongshan Park entrance photo,just to satisfy your entrance photo needs! Park map! Anyone seen a rollercoaster? Line ‘em up! WACKY!!! Cha-ching squared! Shanghai Zoological Park entrance photo! No ride sign for the coaster here but apparently its called Sliding Dragon. The only coaster in China to sport this name. No, this isn’t the same coaster we rode earlier. Cha-ching cubed! More credit whoring to come!

I certainly did not get ripped off, I paid less than everybody else and it still works. I use it at school all the time. I found out 6 months ago that you can unscrew the kaleidoscope dome and it works like a true laser pointer. Yeah, yeah.