Gutterflower

Some more recent shots of the new Jiayuguan Fantawild Source: VHCoasters via Wiebo

Next up was Fantawild Zhengzhou. This was my first Fantawild and I actually really liked it. The park itself is located about 40mins East from the center and unfortunately there is no regular bus service. I got my hotel to phone up for a taxi and paid about $8 to get there. Fantawild Adventure is currently the only park on the site but they have just finnished building a Water Park and Fantawild Dream Land is due to open as the 2nd gate next year. Anyone who's seen a Fantawild before will know they are known for their good themeing but tend to have poor knock off coasters. Thankfully this park had ditched the knock off SLC in favour of a real boomerang and sky loop combo. The park does have excellent themeing and although not up to Disney and Universal standards it is much better than your average park anywhere else in the world. The themeing also seems to be more uniform than the majority of Happy Valley parks. Fantawilds also have a ton of dark rides. There were some pretty good ones here in a variety of styles. Again not up to Disney or Universal standards but all pretty good when taken in context. The 2nd gate is already well into construction and I tried to get some sneak peaks through the fences but Fantawild have sewn up the construction site pretty tight. The parknew is expected to get a Gravity Group woodie before it opens but there was no sign of it yet. Mostly just the big buildings were up. The invisible coat brigade were out in force today. However as it was the day after a week long national holiday I can see why it was quieter. Just in case you didn't know where you were. The parks 2 main coasters. It had been a while since I rode a Boomerang. This one is actually a real Vekoma. And it sits nicely by the central lake. Yet another Nanfang built chair swing ride. I actually really like Sky Loops and this bit freaks me out no end. Shockingly this one is also a real Maurer ride. The park has a good cartoony vibe going on throughout Roller coaster number 3 was one for the little guys. But they did let me ride it... I don't think anyone saw.. Double decker merry go rounds are popular out here too. The main pathways are easy to find. They are bright green. This Boomerang has Vekoma's new trains. It's still pretty rough but much better without the head banging. This building holds a show which I unfortunately missed. Lunch was from the burger bar in the middle of the park. It was acceptable if not great. The Space Talent Show theater was a ride system I hadn't seen before. 6 massive cars rotate and move into another cinema room with 5 huge 3D screens. Some of the talent show entrants on show outside. 2 of the parks many dark rides. The parks 2 main coasters are on an Island in the lake. It does make it a little awkward to get to as the only 2 ways on are at the back of the park. It's a simple ride but they give a pretty intense experience. Going Up. I always find the pull out from the first drop to give some good forces. The new Vekoma trains on the Boomerang. The vest style OSTR is much better than the old head banging ones. The 2 main coasters were pretty popular with a 15min wait each. Best of all both queues had seats while you wait. Just in case you stall I guess. This is why we call it a Cobra roll I guess. Another show which I again missed. The Sky Loop is called Terror Twister. And it's visible from everywhere in the park. The parks 4th and final coaster is a knock off mine train. Some good themeing around the mine train area. The entrance. As far as these rides go this was a pretty good one. Same layout as the Vekoma version. But well themed and pretty tough to get a good photo of the ride. Some amazing matching outfits. The parks big splash ride drew a crowd. The dinosaur area includes the splash ride and a dark ride you will see in a moment. The indoor sea show was closed for now. The castle contains a huge play area for kids. The boomerang from behind. Literally viable from everywhere. The lake even has fish in it. Another pic of the Terror Twister across the lake. The parks spiderman esque dark ride is themed to Dinosaurs attacking a city. The idea is good but the execution was poor. You could see some screens activate as they came into view. The queue area reminded me a bit of Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom. The parks shooting dark ride was really weird but quite good fun. It's all done on 3D screens and you fire various virtual projectiles at a number of fairground style games. Seriously these are everywhere. I actually rode this one to get a view of the park under construction next door. I did not die. The restraints are however a stapley. The park has a number of boards advertising the new park. It was getting late and I had another park to visit today so I headed for the exit. Overall I really liked Fantawild and would certainly visit one of the many many other parks if I got the chance. Some more signage for the new Dream Land Park. Looks like they have even more dark rides planned. Looking forwards to seeing the results. SoonOping 2015 apparently The entrance square for Fantawild already has 2 gates. This is the park I just left which is on the right side. The big services building in the middle. And the gate to the new park is on the left hand side Construction is well underway. The entrance area is enormous. So sometime next year. I'll keep you updated And as an aside. This is some of the weirdest merch I have ever seen. Next up is People's Park.

Today was the day I'd head out of Beijing for the last time and head south. I had tickets on an early morning bullet train from Beijing West Station to the city of Zhengzhou. Beijing West Station is an incredible structure. It's absolutely huge. It's really easy to navigate and having read my train number off the big airport style board I wandered down to my waiting area and took a seat. The main arch of the station is HUGE A panorama just about manages to show the scale. As this was the last day of the national holiday I'd had problems getting a ticket sorted. They all sold out incredibly fast. Thankfully I managed to get one of the few remaining Business class seats on an early train and although it cost a fair bit extra over the standard 1st of 2nd class seating it was a very nice trip. I even got to sleep in my fully reclining chair. I wish all trains told the speed. This got up to around 320km/h So comfy The train travels to Zhengzhou East (Not Zhengzhou Main) station which is a bit out of the way. But Zhengzhou has just opened its first metro line which runs from East to West and links the two main train stations. Zhengzhou is a fairly new city and was basically built because its on the cross roads between the east west line to Xi'an and the north south line between Guangzhou and Beijing. The city is in China's industrial heartland and as such suffers really badly from air pollution. And I mean REALLY badly. I've been to a fair few smoggy cities but this was by far the worst. The view that greeted me at the exit to Zhengzhou East station. Once I'd caught the Metro to my hotel I got a taxi down to the Century Amusement Park on the South Side of the city. It is really easy to get the Bus in Zhengzhou. The bus system is actually awesome. Every bus stop has a massive map showing exactly where each bus goes and where it's come from so you can easily plan your route. Best of all its 1yuan wherever you want to go (about 10c) They even have an express bus system which uses its own lanes and you pay on the platforms which are found in the middle of the road, (accessed via crossings) These are even better as once you are on the system for 1 yuan you can get off and on as many buses within the system as you like. You only have to repay once you leave the platforms. Anyway I arrived at Century Amusement Park to a mad crowd outside the gates. I quickly bought my ticket ($20) from a ticket window and went to the join the queue. Only to be ushered through an express gate to one side. CAP is an odd park and the ticketing is very strange. I didn't realise it until later though. I found the queue for the knock off SLC was over 3 hours. (YEAH 3 HOURS). I was about to say sod this and go ride something else when a nice (and cute) Chinese student came over and explained the ticketing system. You can either enter the park for a small fee and buy ride tickets separately like you do in Sun Park OR you can buy a park ticket like I did. Now if you buy individual ride tickets you have to join the main queue. Just like the poor guys waiting 3 hours for an SLC. BUT if you have a park ticket you can walk up to the ride exit and get on straight away. Best of all it appears you can buy one park ticket and use it with multiple people. So once you get off the ride you hand it to another person in your group and they get on next. Now to me this makes no sense. But I'm super glad I didn't have to wait 3 hours for a fairly awful ride. Anyway I waffle. Onto the rest of the park. After walking in the park the first view you have is this. The themeing in the park is a mad jumble of things. This must be Egypt This is the main ride here. And the parks newest coaster. The famous immelmann isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It looks a lot better than some photos made it seem. The parks other main coaster. Mysteriously called the Old Gold Mine Roller Coaster. Also the queue for the new 3D cinema was huge. This SLC is built by Hebei Zhongye Metallurgical Equipment Manufacturing. A company who would probably be better off building almost anything else. The ride is called Suspended Looping Coaster Over Water, despite not actually being over any water at all. To be fair the ride rode no worse that the SBL one in Beijing. One enterprising man was selling big water pistols next to the splash battle ride The kids were loving it and the people on ride were getting a drenching Surprise Surprise its a spinning mouse. Every park worth it's salt has one of these now too There's some nice themeing on a ride by ride basis but its very random The queue for this was over 3 hours. Thankfully it was explained to me that my park ticket allowed me to walk up to the exit and get on straight away. Not sure 3 hours is ever worth it for an SLC The lift hill makes an interesting sound. This bit was reasonably OK The massive cushions on the OSTR's tell you all you need to know about the rides smoothness. The ride, like the others, is crawling by this point The helix is pretty rough. The next victims take their chances. I quite like the colour scheme on the ride though. These are taken painfully slowly. Another shot of the lovely OSTR's My favourite bit was the shopping trolley's used to place your bags. The on ride photo involved a man taking a picture of the people in the front row while in the station. You survived. I assume there is actually meant to be water under here. I forgot how many pictures I took of this thing The double roll in all its painful glory. You can walk around almost the entire ride. This just looks painful Ready, set, go. This bit IS over water at least. Now for a look at the parks other major coaster. The oddly named Old Gold Mine Roller Coaster. A Japanese built looping coaster from Sameco. Similar if not identical to the Meisho loopers found at places such as Seoul Land. Pretty rough ride but its tolerable. Threading the loop. The park has a bit of a Train theme going on. Located right next to the railway tracks you can watch the Bullet trains as they head out of Zhengzhou from the east side of the park. The park has an extensive and very nice garden section. The shot tower near the entrance. Another of the parks many trains. This one occasionally fired off some steam No idea... I waited about 20mins while having a drink for a UFO... no such luck. This huge tower is just near the park. I didn't get a chance to go up but it looks cool. Next up Fantawild Zhengzhou

I've not seen a video of the mine train. The majority of it takes place in pitch black anyway so it wouldn't be a great POV. I shall have a look through some Chinese sites later though. I didn't find Extreme Rusher too rough. A little rattly around the edges maybe but the Lap Bars are good and it didn't detract too much from the ride in my opinion The next park for me was Victory Kingdom. Victory Kingdom sits about halfway along the train line between Beijing and Tianjin at Wuqing station. For this trip I bought tickets on the day at Beijing South station. (I always take a printout with the names of places I want to go in English and Chinese so if all else fails the point and smile tactic comes into play) The park is about a 30min walk from the station and it appears Wuqing is an up and coming city. Just next to the station is a new shopping mall with huge copies of structures in Venice such as St Marks Square. It was under construction as I walked past but it looked almost finished. The city is also criss crossed by a number of canals giving it a much different feel to Beijing or Tianjin. Victory Kingdom itself is a really odd park. Like when TPR visited it was dead quiet. There were some people around but they were mostly watching a show at the entrance. The park provided me with my first big miss of the trip as the Intamin Flyrider was closed. However the other 3 main rides were open. The SLC is pretty poor and was probably the worst of the trip, the kink in the cobra roll is all kinds of wrong. The spinning mouse was standard but had a weird musical lift hill. And the water coaster thing was pretty weak, I'm fairly sure the water hadn't been cleaned in months. Here's the magic musical lift hill for your enjoyment. After Victory Kingdom I wandered down to the nearby Youth Center Park (again about 30mins walk) and took in the sights. It's a pleasant city style park with 2 small credits. A powered coaster and a jungle mouse. Despite ample time in China this was my first Jungle Mouse and it was perfectly enjoyable. At first I thought both the rides were closed. But when I went to buy a ticket at the ticket booth the woman summoned a ride op to walk with me to the ride. I didn't comment on the beer in his hand but what's the worse that could happen right? The entrance to Victory Kingdom. Seems busy. The SLC towers over the right hand side of the entrance. LOOK... People There's something almost poetic about this picture. The invisibility cloaks were out in full force today. The park is reasonably nicely themed. But it's like they stopped half way through. That's what I came for. If Burger King sells burgers what do they sell here? One of the few sunny days on the trip. It certainly stands out and it looks awesome. BUT it's closed. No flyriding for me today The spikes are beyond vertical. The famous Somalia themed zone. Not inspired by Car's at all. But also closed. I'm not sure if you can fire these. But yes you can fire these. Sniper scope and all. Not real bullets though. Stop taunting me... This was open. Down we go. Free Malaria with every ride. 7D? or is it 6D? I'm not sure. Either way thats a lot of D's The Coliseum There's some weird areas of the park. None of them are busy. Some of the more random flats were open. Every park here has one of these. Time to brace and try this out. The station looked nice enough. But it rode like a car crash. Considering the one at Happy Valley Beijing was so nice this one was a shock to the system. This just looks painful. And it was. The worst jolt of the whole ride. No copy write infringement at all Nothing to see here. Still not open. Eventually after another hour of hope i gave up. The last credit is predictably one of these. The magic singing lift hill. You may look nice but you are still rubbish. This rode as you would expect. I don't hate these, there are just so so many of them. Random piece of track just lying around behind the ride. Despite what it looks like this isn't a backstage area. Just the way to the toilets. POV. Wuqing is a fairly nice city. It seems a lot more open than Beijing. Plenty of Canals around too. don't drive in a wine glass! Youth Center Park. Plenty of weird flats around A couple of credits too for those who count such things. It was actually open. Price board I think... didnt seem to match up with what they really cost though. It was as you would expect. OK. These city parks are really common in China but are slowly dying out. The second credit was a proper one. They look so happy. Quite a nice little ride. I didn't try this out but it looks fun. First Jungle Mouse of the trip and certainly not the last. It hit the brakes with quite some speed. I do like these curves. Next Up is Zhengzhou's Century Park.

As mentioned on the China Projects thread China is currently building a new Hello Kitty themed park which is located in Anji. The park is the world’s largest Hello Kitty theme park, with a total area of about 95,000 square meters. Now we have some proper construction shots it seems right to give the little white cat it's own thread. Construction already seems pretty far along with most of the main buildings up and the hotel looking almost finished. Unfortunately the shots below don’t really show off any major attractions apart from the Ferris wheel cleverly placed over the main entrance. Source: VHCoasters

Thanks for the comments guys. Always nice to know people read these The next park for me was another Happy Valley park, I had visited Tianjin as a day trip so I was still based in Beijing, The location of the second Happy Valley ever built. The park is currently a bit annoying to get to as the nearest metro station Jinsong is about a 40min walk from the park, However it was a lovely day so I took the opportunity to enjoy the weather and ambled my way to the park entrance. Of course with Beijing's ever expanding metro by the time you read this Line 7 may be open (due to open before the end of 2014 and currently testing) which includes a handy station right outside the Happy Valley gates. This was my 2nd Happy Valley park of the trip but my 4th overall and I liked it a lot. It's not as cohesive as Tianjin which is a shame but it is smaller than both Shanghai and Shenzhen and requires a bit less walking. The main attraction here for me was Extreme Rusher the S&S launched coaster. Bullet Coaster in Shenzhen was one of my favourite coasters of my trip last year and I was interested to see how the other layout holds up. In short it's a great ride although I prefer the Shenzhen and Wuhan versions. The launch is excellent on all 3 and they've quickly become some of my favourite coasters anywhere. The layout on this one just felt a little less varied than the others. Golden Wings the B&M flyer was also excellent and confirmed Pretzel loops as my favourite elements on any coaster. The SLC was a welcome step up from the knock off across the city. I quite like this layout and when it's done well it's a good ride. I especially liked the Himalayan queue themeing. The mine train was a standard Vekoma affair but perfectly rideable. New for 2014 the park has added an undersea themed indoor area including an Air Race, 3D cinema and a number of other flats. They have also added a new boat ride similar to Small World at Disney. For those who are wondering, The spinning mouse looks like it is now SBNO and has been removed from the park map. Unfortunatly due to an oversight on my part my camera died halfway through the day so I lack many pictures. I did end up using my phone but as you will notice my phone takes pink pictures in dark situations... grrrrr The walk to the park is quite far at the moment but the day was lovely so I went for a wander. Noted! Golden Wings looks much better in it's yellow paint job. A real Vekoma... praise be. The park certainly has a decent ride lineup A view over the lake to the parks two main coasters. This looks the same as the one as BSA across the city. But better. This is the new boat ride. Sorry about the pinkness. It was a nice ride though. Quite long. Not quite up to Disney standardh as you cant imagine. The use of big video screens was pretty cool The entrance to the new boat ride HAPPY WORLD... they certainly were happy This is the new indoor area themed to look like life under the sea. It's similar to the indoor area at Shanghai's park. But this one has an Air Race. The park map noted NEW for 2014, Dream Coaster. But it was not quite what I hoped for. but about what I expected. This is what I really came for. I really like these rides Extreme Rusher is in my opinion the weaker of the three but still an excellent ride. I love the 4 across cars. Looking over to Golden Rusher. The positioning of the pretzel is excellent. I managed to get front row thanks to a group of 3 taking the front and me being on my own. The queue was huge however at almost 2 hours. Love these elements. Probably my favourite elements on any coasters. Flyers may be my top B&M coaster type. Theres plenty of good themeing around the park. It's just a little haphazard in places. The first drop on this ride is excellent. Waiting for a launch. This is such an odd turn. Sorry for the lack of pictures but next up is Victory Kingdom

Correct. Easier than i thought. Your turn.

Yeah it closed last month. They are completely revamping the hotel and attractions so the coaster is going. Dolphin show and swinging ship are staying though.

Galaxy Express 999?

Next up for me was Happy Valley Tianjin, The newest operating park in the Happy Valley chain. Tianjin is about 30 minutes south from Beijing on the bullet trains and it's a really easy trip. The Bullet trains were the main way i traveled down through China this time and the system is excellent. There are a few things to know before you use them though. Bullet train tickets in China go on sale 20 days before the train leaves and popular long distance trains almost always sell out. For foreigners the best way to buy tickets for these trains is before you leave. Everytime i get a train in a forigen country I use the excellent website The Man In Seat 61. I can't say enough about how useful this site is as it goes into so much detail and I highly recommend it. To buy the multitude of tickets I needed in China this time I used one of the sites recommended by Seat 61 called China Train Tickets. These sites will let you book before the 20 day limit but they actually only buy the tickets when they go on sale and then send you the confirmation. They then deliver these tickets to your chosen Hotel or Hostel. I saw one guy buy a ticket over the phone in my hostel in China and the company actually delivered the ticket to the hostel within 40mins by motorbike courier. Just don't get that service in the UK Now to get to Tianjin from Beijing the trains leave from Beijing South station. Which as you would expect is easily accessible from the Metro. It's good to arrive at least half an hour early as the Chinese bullet trains use an Airport like system of waiting rooms and security checks. If you are a foreigner you WILL need your passport to catch any bullet train. For the first train of the week I chose the top class, Business class which was quite a bit more expensive at around $17 for the trip to Tianjin But wow are these seats awesome, Fully reclining to a bed and complimentary slippers and a blanket. One thing to note is that Tianjin has 2 bullet train stations. For Happy Valley you wan't to go to the Tianjin Main station, Not Tianjin South station. The number 663 bus goes from outside the main station to the park. However as I was a little short on time (I went to the wrong station) I took a taxi which cost around $8 for a 40min drive. The park itself was probably my favorite park of the trip. Happy Valley's are usually well themed but lack atmosphere. This park seemed more cohesive and while it's a whole lot smaller than the other parks, it packs a decent ride collection into it's small space. More than half the park is contained within a massive dome and a separate dome holds the water park. The entrance area is classic Happy Valley. But unlike the other Happy Valley parks you enter into a massive dome. The Main park is accessed on the left and the water park to the right. One of the first things you see as you walk into the park is this S&S El Loco. Called Crazy Bird the ride is the same as almost every other El Loco but with the smaller trains. I actually really like these rides and it was a decent example of the model. The ride stands out well and just about fits into the dome. The dome itself is enormous. The ride was very popular and I guess it is the only example in the country. The Crazy bird theme is a little weird but fits into the Rain forest area nicely. If you've ridden one of these you'll know what to expect. Love the airtime on these drops. The mini coaster is still closed. No clue as to when it will finally open. The themeing is top notch, apart from one small area between Bavaria and the Jurassic lands. The indoor splash down was a first for me. This is the parks main restaurant and is found in the Viking area as you leave the dome. The Viking area is the parks only outdoor area. And has some nicely themed rides to boot. Of course the main reason for coming was this beast. Fjord Dragon is an excellent Gravity Group Woodie. The indoor drop tower was unfortunately closed today. The whole outdoor area is lovely. Fjord Dragon is brilliant and full of air time. It places a little below Fireball for me, Fjord Dragon has more airtime but Fireball has the insane jinking return run to the station. This ride was also closed, But it looks good. The first drop is almost a double down with a low airtime hill following. Its difficult to see from the park though. Some of the standard flat ride collection can also be found around the area. As with many parks in China the operations were pretty poor with only one train running. The queue was about an hour but well worth it. Airtime all round. There was a lot of screaming. The pacing just never lets up and it really flies round the course The first turn around was the only section that felt a little rough, Not too bad though, And Happy Valley actually seem good at keeping their woodies in good condition. Some of the multitude of airtime hills, The ride has a double out and back layout. Why hello there. The exit from the dome looks like this. Back inside you can see the parks other main coaster a Chinese built mine train. Some more dinosaur themeing. This is the only section of the ride not housed in the giant Volcano outside the dome. I think the ride is built by SBL but I'm unsure. Interestingly it is a custom layout, And actually really smooth. The ride finishes with a large helix round a glowing pool of Lava and easily took the title of best mine train on the trip. There are plenty of viewing areas for the main rides too. Despite having two lifts they were only running one train. But the queue was about 15mins They really cram the rides in. No idea whats going on here. Creepy as hell though. The park seems to have 2 disco rides. One outdoors and one indoors. The Indoor one doesn't have the middle hump though, Crazy Bird was my last ride of the day as I'd skipped it earlier. They were running 4 trains but were still pretty slow. The ride broke down while I was in the queue meaning I waited almost an hour in the end. They've wedged it in well though. The locals loved it. Saw plenty of people leave the exit only to walk right back on. Just before the brake run. You can walk round the entire ride giving some good photo opportunities. So close... yet so far. This is Tianjin Main Station. An impressive structure. The Bus station is just behind where I took this picture. Next up Happy Valley Beijing

I didn't ride back row but there wasn't that much airtime in the middle. It was an OK ride but its just a little shaky, Next up for me was Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park. A park that previously got in trouble for being full of Disney characters and the home of the first knock off SLC with that now ubiquitous layout. Getting to the park is easy as pie. Using the Beijing Metro is easy and each trip costs around 20 cents. Several parks are easy to reach from the metro including Sun park, Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park, Happy Valley and Beijing World Park. Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park even has it's own stop called Bajiao Amusement Park Station and is about 5 mins walk from the metro exit. One thing to note is that you can't get between platforms once you go down underground at this station so make sure you enter the correct side when you go home. The park itself is a bit of a dump to be honest. It is split in two by a railway line and each side a decent collection of knock off coasters. The most impressive thing about Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park is the insane collection of flat rides. There are tons of them in every form imaginable. However even though i visited during one of the busiest weeks of the year about half of the flats were shut. Thankfully the majority of the coasters were open but the Indoor Jurassic coaster was closed as was the shuttle loop. The shuttle loop looked like it had been closed a while with the area taped off. Overall I much preferred Sun park to Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park. It's a big park with a lot of rides but it lacks character and just feels cheap. I've not been back to Beijing in 11 years and it was cool to see how it had changed, This is the street with my hostel on it. Flags everywhere for the national day holiday. This is the railroad that runs through the park. You can either walk across it or cross over the knock off Tower Bridge. My first ride of the day was the knock off SLC. Shenzhou Coaster. Themed to the Chinese space program, I hope the taikonaut's had a smoother ride than this. It's always worrying when a man has to re-attach a seat belt to the ride after it fell off on the circuit before. The ride itself is pretty horrible but better than I expected. By the end it just crawls into the brakes. One of the more worrying trips to the top I've ever had. I assume this is the lift hill recovery cart... it looks like a torture device to me. This bit of the ride was acceptable enough. This was weird. A lot of hang time. By this point its crawling. The ride actually had a zero-g after the loop when it was first built. But the inversion was replaced during testing for the airtime(ish) hill we have today. The park has an impressive collection of flat rides. Some of the classics can be found. This was a pretty intense version of a Top Scan, Although fairly sure it wasn't a real one. It's not quite Disney is it? The Overcast smoggy weather was omnipresent on this trip. This is arguably my favorite ride at the park. It's a good fun little ride with some nice spiraling turns. Nothing too thrilling but just good fun. Amusingly you need two people to ride. As I was on my own the Ride Op called over a bemused security guard to ride with me. Another one of these. The less said about it the better. I still don't know why they need the chain on the lap bar. The Atomic Coaster is a Senyo built ride with newer Chinese trains It actually rides pretty well and was one of the busiest ride in the park. Number 2 of the many loopscrews on this trip The obligatory ferris wheel has a huge queue. Atomic Coasters first turn around. This area of the park is the kids area and probably the nicest part of the park. The themeing is pretty good but a bit random. The Batman apparently. The ride was shut, As i gather it has been for quite some time. I think there is a drop tower in here. But it was closed too. The splash ride has a nice theme but i gave it a miss today. It looked pretty long with at least 3 drops and the splash down had a huge watching crowd. Another closed flat but I like the theme. Every self respecting park has one of these. Also closed. Another closed ride. The ride is themed to a medieval tebuchet. I always thought the ride was next to that tower but the tower is quite a way behind the ride. Terrifying horses. Does anyone know if it is a tower ride in here? And if so has it ever opened? Taken straight from the Happy Valley parks, Not sure which is the original though. This perked me up a bit. Looking down to Atomic Coaster. More terrifying sculptures. This was the weirdest ride I saw all day. The flowers pop up and down and spin randomly it seems. Epcot style dome. Whatever was inside was also closed. The park entrance. The shuttle loop was closed and appeared to be SBNO Dinner tonight involved spiced Octopus. It was lovely. Next up is Happy Valley Tianjin

Hello All. This October I embarked on my latest trip to China. I've been to China on many occasions before but this was the first time I went almost exclusively for theme park purposes. Driving in China is only really for the suicidal so I decided to attempt as many parks as possible using Public Transport alone. Chinese public transport is actually excellent and almost all major cities are connected by incredibly efficient bullet trains. Where the buses and trains let me down a taxi had to suffice but they are crazily cheap if you can convince a driver to go on the meter. Where possible I will explain how I got to each park for anyone wishing to do the same one day. Anyway on to the parks. I flew into Beijing from Helsinki at 6am and caught the airport express to the city center, from there i caught the metro to my hostel and checked in. Since the day was still young I quickly downed a couple of cups of tea and headed for my first park. Sun Park Sun Park is an easy park to get to if you don't mind a little walking. Accessible from Tuanjiehu Station on Line 10 of the metro (light blue) it is a short walk (about 20mins) to the park gate. I arrived at the station and just checked the maps in the ticket hall which showed which exit i needed for the correct road east. The walk takes you past a large stadium and when you reach the park entrance you'll know. Its a massive yellow arch. Sun Park operates a pay by ride system. You have to pay a small charge to get into the park itself and then each ride costs extra. The park itself is actually quite nice and a lot of families appear to go for a picnic and to enjoy the parts of the park without rides. All the rides themselves are knock offs but there wasn't anything that bad about any of them. If you have the time the park is certainly worth a visit especially as it has 10 credits for the credit whores among you. Upon arriving I found the park rammed, Turns out the whole week was a National Holiday. Parachute drop towers are everywhere in China. The parks newest attractions was this knock off motorbike. Taking its layout from the Vekoma versions it is a clone of Booster Bike at Toverland. The ride was open when I arrived so I went and bought a ticket. The ride itself was as expected. A bit rough but not too bad and an OK launch. The rides a lot more sluggish than the Vekoma version. It does have some nice curves though and the transitions rode well enough The ride is called Flying Coaster in English but the Chinese translates as Motorbike Coaster The park also has a standard loopscrew. This wasn't too bad roughness wise. It ended up being one of the better ones on the trip. Although still not great. I do however love the crazy colour scheme. Some iffy transitions right there. The park had a standard mouse ride which was as standard as standard can be. I gave this a miss. Whatever this was it's gone now. But apparently Happiness can be found in a mask. First one of these of the trip. These are like the Chinese Starbucks. They are everywhere and a bit rubbish but you go anyway. This is another fairly recent ride. A spinning coaster. It offers a decent ride but a little rough It was originally thought that this was an original layout but it was taken from a Morgan design shown at IAAPA almost 10 years ago. This park has 2 starbucks coasters. The mine train was tough to take pictures of. But its not a bad ride. It gets quicker and quicker along the course and gives a nice lateral or two. If powered coasters are the Starbucks these are the Dennys, They make me feel queasy and they are all over the place. Classic Golden Horse mouse face. I headed back to the motorbike to find it broken down and shut for the day. Seems the ride wouldn't launch properly and the car would roll to the first hill and back to the station over and over. Still have to work out some kinks then it seems. And maybe make their own layouts for once... but hey... maybe thats just my view. The low to the ground turns provided a nice moment. It looks nice if nothing else. Launch Track. Or Non Launching track as the case was at this point. It lies. A quick second ride on the looper and I headed off too see some flats. This thing look horrible. So i gave it a miss. It really was busy but most of the ride queues were short. Most people had just bought picnics to the park. This looked kind of fun. Like a cheap diggerland. I couldn't figure out if this was an Official store... I'm going to go with no though. The entrance is actually pretty impressive. And easy to spot from the road. Next up Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park.

I rode that last month.. It's weird as it doesn't look anything like that image. So I have no idea whats going on with those pictures anymore. While it wasn't anywhere near as bad as that image. It wasn't a good ride by any means.

Not trying to flog a dead horse but dug up some better pics of the new Zhipao ride with the terrible banking. Source: VHCoasters

Wanda's relentless march shows know sign of stopping as they have also announced another theme park in Guangzhou. Including an indoor ski center, water park, hotel and theme park. The whole complex is due to open in 2018. This is the groundbreaking ceremony. Building in Guangzhou puts it in direct competition with Chimelong and within easy distance of Hong Kong so it will be interesting to see how they fare. All their other parks seem to be in cities without major parks. Sources: Baidu -------------------------------------- And for those following things. Wanda Nanchang is coming along nicely. They seem to have kept the ferris wheel from the old park that was on the site. But no sign of the GCI or Intamin's yet.

I've so far visited one Fantawild and Five Happy Valley's In my experience Happy Valley parks tend to lack atmosphere. Fantawild in Zhengzhou was a really pleasant and nice park, I'd say the overall atmosphere was much better than all of the Happy Valley parks except Tianjin. Which is by far and away the nicest Happy Valley park. (Although I've not been to the Chengdu park) However Happy Valley wins hands down on the coaster front. The Boomerang and Sky Loop at Fantawild were nice enough but compared to rides like Bullet Coaster and Fireball they don't hold a candle. Having said that Fantawild just bought a ton of Gravity Group Woodies. (At least 4 possibly as many as 6) So things are looking up there too.

Hey Just had a quick look back at what i missed in this thread while I was away and there's a bit of misinformation a few pages back. The coaster with the crazy corkscrew exit is not the triple corkscrew coaster. It is a separate coaster with only 4 inversions Triple Corkscrew Coaster is at Elm Creek Park in Yulin And the crazy corkscrew exit is at Taolin Happy World Both are built by Zhipao though.

2 new Fantawilds added to the list. The delayed park in Datong already has a thread. But there is a new one under construction in Jiayuguan which is well known as the city where the west end of the Great Wall Of China terminates. The park is coming along nicely but there is no sign of any coasters yet, Artwork suggests an SLC and Mine Train combo but the artworks been wrong in the past. Source: VHCoasters

That's the B&M flyer complete. The construction pictures below show the completion of the ride but unfortunately don’t show off the ride layout too well. The water splash down element (Manta style) is behind the Pretzel just before the turn being completed here. Source: VHCoasters

There is another Pax shuttle in Saudi Arabia which is also mental. It has a train split half forwards and half backwards an 2 loops with an airtime hill. I think Pax have stopped making coasters now. So unlikely to see any more

Came across this weird musical lift hill at Victory Kingdom on my recent trip to China. None of the other GH spinners did this so no idea whats going on.

It appears Eejanaika at Fuji Q in Japan is getting a new paint job. While the colour scheme is a nice change it does make it look extremely similar in colour to Takabisha. The image below was posted to Chinese Weibo so It's not official news. But worth keeping an eye on. Source

The train for Xishuangbanna Theme Park's version of Zampearla's Pony Express is looking really quite excellent.

Keeps it speed better than I thought it would and looks like a really solid ride. I do like the terrain elements a lot. The park is a bit out the way but may be able to shoe horn it into a trip next year myself. Slightly annoying as I start a trip to China next week and was planning to complete my Chinese Woodie set only for this to open the week before. Oh well means I'll have to go back

They are really awful. The 2nd half of the woodie is filmed sideways... but mainly in PORTRAIT... just no. The park looks a lot more unfinished than I'd hoped. The 2nd phase is due to include the 3 Vekomas (Launched, Mine and Junior Suspended) so it's fill out over time.