PTR: Bill's Epic 3 Weeks in China w/TPR!

[SharkTums]

Wow! An actual decent picture of me from a TPR Trip! I think you actually got two so far (the other being the tour flag photo!)!!!

 

 

That dinner was hilarious. I remember thinking; "This is a perfect goodbye dinner for me leaving China!"

Edited December 12, 2012 by SharkTums

[CoasterFEV]

I'm sorry but, to be honest, I think the "country-style dinner" was one of the most entertaining parts of the China trip!!!!

 

Most common quotes heard during this historic TPR dinner?

"What do you think that is?"

"Is that the beak or a foot?"

"Are you going to try that? Really?"

I found Mr. Fish and Mr. Chicken. Any idea what animal that one is?

"Does anyone have any idea where we are?"

"Give it to James. I'll bet he will eat it!"

"If it's not a beak and not a foot. Why is it crunchy? Oh god what am I eating?!?!?!"

"Yes, I live in Asia. No, I have no friggin' clue what this is"

It's some sort of Chinese Flan. But why is a served in a bowl bigger than my head?

"The bug zapper just got a big one! Did you hear it?!?!?!"

"I will pay someone 1000 Yuan for a Big Mac right now"

"Those children bussing tables need to get to sleep. My iPhone 5 needs to be shipped by the time I get home!"

 

 

Anyone else?

[cfc]

^It was a very "entertaining" meal--no argument about that.

[Moose]

Everything I tried was also very tasty, though admittedly I didn't try everything. I just couldn't stomach the duck head soup.

[Nrthwnd]

I just remember our table being very very quiet, and not too sure what to do next, lol.

 

And Elissa? How about this one as a not-too-bad-shot of you, too?

 

"Laughing Ice House"

Here ya are at Floraland, enjoying the cool weather there...

[Nrthwnd]

And so, the following day....

 

Ah yes, the following day.

A Saturday it was.

 

We went to at least two parks, each having three coasters to ride.

And then, Elissa had to leave us to head back home for other scheduled stuff to do...

 

So -To get right to the end of the day - our flight that night was cancelled and from all the tension around the waiting area, I am totally in awe of Robb at how he handled the situation and made sure we were all included in whatever backup plans, the local airline had for us. Which turned out to be a (we heard) "4 Star Hotel" for the night, and an early morning flight to Guangzhou the next day (Sunday). Well, if that was a 4 Star, my house is a 7 Star Hotel itself, LOL! The rooms were adequate at best; small enough to juuust have a bit of walking space between bathroom and beds; atmosphere I won't even touch, as the management never did, either. But we did best with what we had, got some sleep, did the flight, and it actually ended up being a good thing to happen.

 

But before that is told, we went to World Joyland and China Dinosaurs Park for some really good coastering that day.

 

Joyland had the luck of getting rain as we arrived. So we weren't too sure what was going to be opened or closed. Happily, for most of us, we got to ride the flyer (Sky Scrapper); the mine train (Dragon Roaring Heaven); and in a bit of brief luck, the skyloop opened for us (Clouds of Fairyland) in a small window of time, and right before we had to take off for our second park! Sadly, there were a few I believe who didn't make it to the Skyloop in time. Ah well, next China tour, hmm? So we continued on to...

 

China Dinosaur Park, Which had the distinction of owning one of these '4-D coasters' (ie. X-2, Eejanika) most either love or hate. I still remain in the latter category. I have only ridden the Fuji-Q one, and then this one. I was on the outside seat of one, and the inside seat of the other. It rumbled along, I felt like I couldn't see anything going by or coming up. At this point it's just a credit to me.

 

But THIS coaster was where The Age Thing came into question. A ride op approached me, and for a few times (in the best ebglish he could do) kept asking me my age. Now, I had already read The Rules, and the "age limit" for this thing was 60.

I was 59. Too close for that nonsense. So I fibbed a few years down, to 55, and told him that age. And he STILL wasn't sure about it.i was waiting for the inevitable BUST, if and when he asked for ID. But he didn't, I got on, miffed about the whole thing... And didn't ride it a second time when offered. Once was enough.

 

And then... to the airport.....

Something there in the distance - looks like Joyland...

Definitely Joyland! (o:

The park is partially based on World of Warcraft characters, I believe!

But first, getting ready to fly! On...Sky Scrapper! With an extra 'p' !

Lovely loopy thing it was. Very nice (although a bit short, IMhO ) layout.

I mean, I'm talkin' Big Themeing, lol!

And then, what did I just "happen" to notice while standing around Clouds of Fairyland? Testing!!! And I/we got the credit.

Here's That Coaster at Dinosaur park. Just before The Age Question is asked of me. Grrrrr....

And Thankyou Chuck, for taking a pic with me on it (2nd row, inner seat, hands clasped), still PO'd by the recent discussion I had with the ride op, lol.

And after that one ride, I was out of the station and got an "action shot" of Dinoconda. heh heh. Now, to the airport and more "adventure"....

[Nrthwnd]

"Later that evening..."

 

Well I said it in my last post, our plane trip that evening got cancelled on us, and eventually the airline put us all up in what they called a "4 Star Hotel", although I am sure several of us, once we arrived there by bus, would beg to differ. A lot.

 

No matter, we got some sleep in, got up early (as usual), got the bus back to the airport and flew on, after enjoying a somewhat questionable "breakfast pak" handed out at the waiting area. It was Cup 'o Noodles, large size! Yum.

 

Robb in the meantime, decided that because of what had happend, it might be best in reversing two touring days, once we got to Gangzhou. So Sunday was more sad-and-pathetic credit whoring and the next day (Monday) we took on the two parks we were going to hit originally on Sunday. Simple? Yes! And it worked too!

 

So here's a few of the smaller coasters we rode that day. This will be followed by (in my next post) an all-out Extravanganza of Dragons, Mousies and Worms, oh my!

And here's Neil thinking to himself, "Will this mouse stay on track?" And...it did. Whew!

I think this was supposed to be a fancy shot of a loading station and such. Uh.... ok.

I am still not quite sure why this shot was taken, lol! I think this was a refreshment stop. Before riding another sad-and-pathetic coaster!

Later in the day, we headed to a partially indoor park. And there's two credits in there, somewhere...

You can sort of see it now, and it does a bit of an outdoor run, besides being inside the building.

Loading station found!

And...a second coaster found! And yeah, it's a spinner, too. And slightly different setup, with the cars attached as a mini-train. It was different.

On the way out, and off to dinner, I tried to get an "action shot" of this. Eh, I'll try to do better.

SURPRISE! It's a blurry shot, but we did a group dinner that evening at The Hut for a change. Woo hoo!

Edited December 29, 2012 by Nrthwnd

[larrygator]

No matter, we got some sleep in, got up early (as usual), got the bus back to the airport and flew on, after enjoying a somewhat questionable "breakfast pak" handed out at the waiting area. It was Cup 'o Noodles, large size! Yum.

 

I actually enjoyed the noodles, just not as much as the 400 Yuan they gave me for the inconvenience of a cancelled flight.

[Nrthwnd]

^ Yeah, there was that too.

 

The money helped.

 

I also remember feeling sorry for all

those poor people trying to get hot water

out of that small standup dispenser

for their noodles. Of course with so

many wanting the hot water, it ran out.

 

I think there was another dispenser

available but it was down the long hallway,

at the other end of the waiting areas.

And nobody wanted to go that far for

their hot water.

[Nrthwnd]

And now....

 

Sad-And-Pathetic Credits (s-a-p) time!

 

By now, if you've been reading this trip report regularly, you "might" have noticed that I had taken very few photos of all the small kids' coasters, be it Wacky Worms or Dragon-type. Add to that, the multitude ( = LOTS!) of spinning and non-spinning mouse coasters we rode in parks one wouldn't think to find any coasters at all... well, it was a lot of parks, with a lot of coasters, lol!

 

So here's the photos of as many as we rode, a few more interesting than others, due to how they were set up, "themed" (ha), or operated. Sometimes, we found the coaster in question wasn't being run at all that day, so it was with a bit of "Alvey Finesse" (and at times with a bit of $) that we got the opportunity to ride and get The Creditm heh heh.

 

Now as to naming them all and listing them in their respective parks... Well, I really wasn't set up to make good notes on that. As you can see by my "notes" below, on the tours' schedules, its was hit and miss with me, keepign track of what # coaster (in my credit c ount) it was, where it was, what kind it was..and that's about it. Names were sometimes so unusual and just wierd, I couldn't keep track of them all, in my head or on paper.

 

For a good listing of all of them, you can check Larry's List I believe in the main TPR China Report for the names of them and which park they were in. Chuck's TR on the tours also makes good notes on all of these credits. Thanks for doing that guys, and anybody else who did the right thing, unlike myself.

 

But first, here's how I kept track (hah) of all them things....

All the s-a-p credits are there in pencil on the tours' schedule. Somewhere...

See how this all made sense to me (not).

A closer look at the Beijing Tours' extra credits.

And this is the set of the Shanghai Tour schedules.

All neatly organized, ha ha.

The rest of it, from the Shanghai part.

Edited December 21, 2012 by Nrthwnd

[Nrthwnd]

So here's (most of) all the extra credits we picked up in both tours (Beijing and Shanghai).

 

They are not in the order we rode them. I went nuts trying to put them all in order

and decided to just post them, and get it done and over with, LOL.

 

I will make comments on a few, from what I remember.

Here we go...

Just your basic mouse, yes? A bit old, but still running.

I think this is the Dragon that went with the above mouse. At the Youth Park?

Got a kick out of this next pair of pix. First mousie in yellow. And then, on a totally different mouse....

Shazam! The mousie is now RED! (And the trees disappeared too, lol.)

Another Dragon. Re-themed to 'somethimg spacy'. With a pretty good Star Flyer behind it, I remember riding.

A spinning mouse taking off. Hi guys!

Look! It's another Worm! Creepy face, too.

Are we keeping count, yet? Your basic Dragon.

Ooooooo, another one! But this one wasn't powered! Actually we found a good number of them non-powered, to our surprise.

Sometimes it was nice having actual trees nearby, wherever the credit was located.

Yeah, they're a happy bunch. Soooo sad.

Another one. A good number of them were themed to space vehicles with crazy long names to them.

I think i was trying to get some kind of artsy fartsy shot here. Fail.

And then, sometimes....nature wins. Hi Richard!

And it goes on and on and...

I believe this one was one of our first mousies. And it had a wasps' nest in the final braking area of the thing. Nice touch.

Actually, I got a kick out of this shot, cause I caught Big Mike there (red shirt), posing for/with a few of his Asian Fans. Good going Mike!

Another spinny mouse. Same layout as per usual.

What else? It's Powered Dragon time!

And another spinner. I think I had the layout of it memorized by now,...

Here's a Dragon that circled around other kids' rides. So sad...

I actually really liked this mouse. With all the trees surrounding it. Scarily close, but great to ride.

This is me in front of the (then) closed Mad Rats at Happy Valley Chengdu. Grousing in my Dippin' Dots, lol. A spinning mouse, which later opened, but a few of us were then outside the park, eating lunch,. We all decided not to go back in for it. "Next China tour", heh heh.

This is the mouse at the Fishermens Warf, which also had that insane looping toboggan we rode.

And another Worm to ride...

Another Dragon. And that's all I got!

[cfc]

I spy with my little eye. . . Ultraman!

[Nrthwnd]

^ Ha ha, didn't even notice him, Chuck. Was trying the get 'the shot right" etc etc.

 

But I mean, once you've posed with one of V these V guys....... then Ultraman might be easy to miss, lol.

Now THIS I noticed! At the entrance to Happy Valley Shanghai.

[gisco]

The little things like your flight getting cancelled make the trip even more memorable. I'm amazed at how cool Robb & Elissa are when things don't go as planned. They always seem to pull a rabbit out of the hat and make the trip even better.

[cfc]

^Exactly. It's called knowing what the he'll you're doing. They are the savviest travelers I've ever met.

[Nrthwnd]

This was the second flight cancellation I had ever experienced,

with an overnight hotel stay involved. First one was in 2007, coming

back home from Amsterdam. Did not want to repeat that one, ever.

 

And honestly? If this was EVER going to happen again, I truly, truly hope

that the Alveys are a part of whatever happens, LOL! Not that I ever,

ever want this to happen again, hmm? (and knocks wood)

 

Still, Robb was amazing under all of this pressure - and among all of the locals

yelling and crowding up to the service desk in a very angry mob-like way

- and I would go through this all again, if either Robb or Elissa had to handle

"the situation."

 

Big Bearhugs to Robb!

[Nrthwnd]

On to Sept. 24th, the Monday, where we did the parks we were supposed to do on the previous day, but didn't because of the flight cancellation, and Robb changing things around....... and it worked!

 

This was now the day to be visiting Chimelong Paradise, followed by Chuanlord Manor, with our dinner to be at the second park.

 

Chimelong was a big park, boasting seven coasters to ride there, but it had only five of them up and running. Which was okay. It was getting to be a really hot and humid day that day. Our biggest problem appeared to be finding a place indoors that we could eat a lunch we recognized, understood, and not pay too much for. But we found something, and it worked out okay. There was also a half-pipe coaster in this park, as well as a 10 Inversion coaster called... 10 Inversion Coaster! The motorbike launch coaster was pretty cool too.

 

Now Chuanlord Manor was a really interesting park, as that it was set up as a huge resort for the locals, and everything from the buildings to walkways... all done in BROWNS, all of it mainly wood built. Was fascinating to walk through. There were also 'questionable' animal acts, such as Diving Pigs. It looked more like pigs falling off a high level to me, lol. Two coasters were down here (a mouse and a toboggan NOT with a loop), but that was okay. A newer bigger steel coaster was in the future for this park, so there atleast three credits to come back to, lol.

 

And our group dinner was at this park, in a nice corner of the building, with a view of....outside.

On our way to our first park. And another tower to pass by

I liked the 'pattern' of this at the side of the highway.

The entry map at Chimelong Paradise. It is a big park.

Dive Coaster!

The Half-pipe.

The Motorbike Launch Coaster.

Jon and me in my fave mythical animal - Pegasus! Or as called here... Flying Horse!

Where we ate lunch - and I must apologize here - I had No Idea I had sweat that much, till the photo came back. But it's honest themepark sweat LOL! And at this point.....

Betty SCREAMED, when the soup lid was uncovered! And that's when we found...

Mmmm yes. Freshly boiled chicken's feet. Yum. (not)

And so after that, we left one park (bye bye 10 Inversion coaster)....

And ended up here at Chuanlord manor. See map. And colour of wood.

Oh look, it's an operating mouse.

And a non-operating toboggan!

And this. Which 'apparently' can count as a few credits, if all ridden? Uh huh...

And this. Does that look like a pig diving, to you? Or being thrown off the Group Perch?

Speaking of groups - our dinner meal there at the park.

Edited December 29, 2012 by Nrthwnd

[larrygator]

I found some amazing shrimp dumplings at Chimelong, but it was outdoors. So good I went back for seconds later in the day. Speaking of food, I loved the meal that night at Chuanlord Manor, the tastiest "Mr. Fish" of the trip.

[CoasterFEV]

Chuanlord was also home to the absolute best walk-through haunt of the trip!

 

Who can forget the AMAZING pre-show (was Johnny Depp really in Treasure Island?)....then just when you thought that was it....you were led into an incredibly confusing walk-through haunt operated by a bunch of the craziest job-loving old Chinese women!

Who would have thought a t-shirt tied to a mop handle could be so damn scary!

[larrygator]

That walkthrough was awesome, and that was at an intensity level of 4 (out of eight). Not sure if anyone caught this on the sign. If you contact the park 48 hours ahead of time you can arrange for a higher intensity level.

[Nrthwnd]

^^ Thanks for posting the pic of that bizarre and wild walk-through, Dan.

 

^ And Larry and Dan, it was totally awesome - once you got past the "movie" LOL!

I remember thinking as we were watching.... really? And then we started

leaving the place. And it went on and on and... And the WATER! Total freakout!

 

We came out of it going omgomgomgomg, and immediately told anybody we came

upon to Do It! "Get past the first part and then..." and left it at that.

 

Great walk-through. Wish there were more like this in the world.

And yes, still use that movie to throw everybody off, lol. Perfect.

 

And that number system makes me wonder what is #1 Level like - total bland or...?

And then #8 Level. Could - not - imagine what they do there. But maybe we can get to

come here again (in 2016?), have somebody contact the park for our Level 8 Tour, LOL!

[cfc]

I found some amazing shrimp dumplings at Chimelong, but it was outdoors. So good I went back for seconds later in the day. Speaking of food, I loved the meal that night at Chuanlord Manor, the tastiest "Mr. Fish" of the trip.

 

That restaurant was a bit slow, but the food was great--nice atmosphere, too.

[Nrthwnd]

^ And speaking of meals - but in a big group - together....

 

Here's an assortment of photos of some of The Group Meals we had together

on the tour. I didn't take photos of all of them. And frankly, like a lot of

those kids' coaster credits, I can't remember everywhere we ate at.

 

We were usually driven to some spot where we'd either park, or get out in

the street and play frog hopper with the traffic. Extra fun! Then, we would

sometimes go upstairs to a meal, or downstairs "somewhere in the building."

 

Some meals came with hot tea and later for dessert, watermelon.

And sometimes, not.

 

It was an experience not to be forgotten, and definitely a unique part of

what is touring in China.

 

Here we go.... and these are in pretty much the right order, as we ate.

 

Bon apetit!

Thsi was the first group meal for those of us who arrived a day early of the tour starting. A sign of many more to come.

So there's this place we ate.

Another kind of "group meal." The ceiling chandelier was nice to see too. And this is where a rather unsavory liquor was put on our tables - awful stuff, but Ben apparently wanted another bottle. Go figure.

So this was an early dinner, I suspect. And Holger is ahead of the rest of us...

Another group meal. 'Nough said.

Doesn't matter which dinner or lunch it was. My plate usually always turned out looking like this. And I probably still didn't recognize half of what was on it.

So for this meal, they put us in sectioned rooms of the place....

Complete with sliding glass deviders around us! Fun. And wierd-feeling at the same time.

I think this meal was in the vicinity of the Pearl Tower, in Shanghai. I think.

A look at the table I sat with. Good looking bunch, hmm?

And surprise! It's french fries! Betty is happy.

This was on the neon-lit floating Dragon restaurant. Close to the water level.

And this is my last group meal shot. Hey you guys! A HAPPY NEW YEAR and see some of you in 2013!

[David H]

A few random notes:

 

Apparently that tower in the first pic on this page is one of the tallest in the world and has the highest viewing deck in the world. (I think it's supposedly a couple of feet higher than the one at the Tokyo Skytree.) If I'd known, I might have tried to get out there to visit, but I suspect that we didn't get back in time to go before it closed. I recognized it when looking up some info on the Skytree for my Asia post when I was talking about the Skytree. I snapped a pic or two of it, too.

 

Yeah, the Gothenburg Ghost Ship at Chuanlord was AWESOME! One of the best I've done anywhere. Now I wish we'd been able to schedule a level 8 scare! And I love the fines they have on the sign. Has any other park threatened to asses a specific fine for breaking the rules on an attraction before?

 

I'm confused about the looping toboggans we visited on the trip. Was the closed one at Chuanlord looping? I remember there was the one at the Fisnerman's Pier. Where was the second one, if not here? They're less memorable for me, becuase I didn't fit on them. But I don't want to accidentally have one on my list if I didn't ride it!

 

The glass-walled-off group meal was the place where we saw all the appetizing mold on the ceiling!

[Nrthwnd]

^ David, the toboggan at Chuanlord didn't have any loop with it. Just a basic toboggan. But remember it being down, and Robb tried and tried and tried to get it open for us...but couldn't? It was a valiant effort on his part I must say.

 

Yeah, if TPR goes back to Chuanlord Holiday Manor in say, a few years, maybe there's some way they could be contacted and have the Ghost Ship re-programmed to "Level 8" for the group. That would be awesome!