AustralAsia - Part 8: Crappy Valley Shenzhen

[HeartlineCoaster]

Well at least I've experienced it through video now. That counts for most people. Cheers.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Time to put the Asia back into the title.
Nobody wins the prize, the next stop of course is China.

I like how the steam train is riding on coaster track, poorly.

Xiamen isn't really on route to anything to be part of one of my big trips, but it was a necessary step in my quest to knock out everything 'decent' in 2 years worth of visa.
Started with another dirt cheap Scoot to Shenzhen. They weren't so hot this time, losing their gate by getting in the way of other airlines, being very late to take off and then somehow losing another hour on approach in a straight line.

‘you get what you pay for’.

First day was very familiar territory. It was raining. Phoned the relevant parks. All closed.
This isn't my first time in Shenzhen so I just laughed and went Kpop shopping instead.

Day 7 - Oriental Heritage Xiamen

It was a nervous 4 hour train ride due to the possibility of more weather spite, but we had committed. It turned out to be a beautiful day.

Fantawild adversity begins (though not quite at Zhengzhou levels) with a massive spiteful walk over a big rainbow bridge to get to another typically huge entrance plaza. I swear I took a picture, but can't find any.

Exhausting.

The shape of this resort gives the parks a long, thin layout, so it felt like another half hour walk, greatly exaggerated by cred anxiety, to Jungle Trailblazer.

Damn @gavin for being right. It certainly doesn't keep up its pace like other Gravitys.
On paper it looked fantastic, but after a strong start it loses all momentum and was crawling by the end.

The weather might play a bigger part than how much it gets run in the day. I've never done any of these that werent ghost town parks and walk on rides that hardly ever get dispatched, but it was about 20 degrees colder here.
That or they just plain f*cked up the maths on this one.
Glad I got it at least, only 1 more layout to complete the set.

Another Orkanen/Galaxy Express. Also not running very well.

Oriental Heritage being its usual glamourous self.

Water park is getting an upgrade. If the entrance plaza is anything to go by, it's actually the centrepiece of this resort.

Skip.

Got a strong lineup of their dark rides here, but hiding under different names. I know this one as Dragon King's Tale. The pre-show and spinning water tunnel were off here, but it's a very good ride.
They love to copy paste and so I shall do the same.

Actual ride is a big boat taking you around various scenes.
Oh no, the city is flooded and the (supposedly meant to be a boy, but i'll maintain it's a girl) has to ask the Dragon King to fix things. Dragon King is a bit of a dick and refuses for a while, but after a bit of persuasion through few action sequences, including real FIRE, he sorts it in the end.

Also goes by Devil's Peak/Better than Forbidden Journey.

It’s the Harry Potter arm system, but all slowed down a good 10x so there’s no ridiculous rushing through an incoherent amount of scenes, but it feels a lot more awkward in the movements.

It has more of an actual story, being about the Monkey King scaling a big mountain, fighting that golden dragon and a big ass lava bloke (part of Journey to the West).

Same name. Still good.

Spiderman technology with another Chinese tale.
There’s a hole in the sky and you’re helping out some magic woman with the key to fix it, but big red bloke, big blue bloke and a couple of dragons are out to stop you.

Staff here weren't particularly nice compared to some other locations. They clearly weren't happy to have to deal with people and made a bit of an arse out of rerides.

Due to some lazy resarch on my part (only knowing the coaster lineup), I had assumed that next door was an Adventure park, which I despise.
As we weren't as enthralled as we might have hoped with this place, decided we might as well suffer the creds.
Yes, I was fully prepared to skip them. Shoot me.

On closer inspection...

it's a Dreamland with the same coaster lineup as my last Adventure.
My last Dreamland had the same coaster lineup as this Oriental Heritage.
:emoji_frog:

Fantawild Dreamland Xiamen

The front and back halves of the park felt very Adventure but they've padded out the middle with some good dark rides. It was another ghost town thankfully, as a 2 hour queue for a Skyloop would have ended the day, and operations were surprisingly decent.

Mount Tanggula was f*cking hilarious. Very weird vibrations going on that brought new experience to such a well traversed layout.

Ugh.

'Fantawild so big, I'd like to hire a car.' Yes, but outside the park.
Also 'Christ, that Boomerang is about to do the inversion from the outside, call an engineer!'

Double Ugh.

Seem to be missing half my pictures from this day, or I'm just getting lazy.
Did another 3 dark rides in this park, all ones I've done previously and really enjoyed a lot:

Wizard Academy

We use the term academy loosely here. Yet another spiderman ride.
The wizard is a dick and says you shouldn't have come. He then proceeds to send many large mythical creatures to attack you, chucking in a few of his own spells as well.
Those are the lessons. You survive. You get a certificate from the academy. Well done.

Qin Dynasty Adventure

In my best film trailer voice: "Things take an unexpected turn when an archaelogical dig at the Terracotta army uncovers something more sinister."
I started off liking the vehicles for this as they have quite a punchy acceleration between scenes and they bank the wrong way on corners to exaggerate things. Then it goes up hills and does fake juddery drops and I wish they just called Premier and made it a cred.

Jinshan Temple Showdown

with the big ass boats and big effect scene at the end.
The showdown in question is between a woman who can become a snake and a demon hunter who is a bit of a dick. Has a bit of a cliff hanger ending, which makes a change.

Then the park closed. Could have got a bit more in if I had considered doing this half in the first place, but I'm sure these rides will crop up again.

S'alright.

 

[gavin]

Ugh, that f**king Skyloop has spited me twice. I was convinced/hoping it was SBNO

Sent from my Redmi Note 4 using Tapatalk

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

I see your double Skyloop spite and I raise you a double Wood Coaster spite.

The goons are back.

Back to Shenzhen for the final day and Wood Coaster has decided to evade me for a second time by being under maintenance.

Against better judgment, went for a revisit to Happy Valley.
The gate price has increased significantly and the ride lineup has been slashed since my last visit due to the huge construction site that is swallowing up the park. All for a Pulsar clone.
I forgot at the time but the 1 cred I was missing from this park, the mine train, was in the middle of the construction site. Spite.
The site really takes up a big chunk of the park and is poorly signposted/not advertised outside the park or on maps. To avoid it, a particularly arduous walk around the half of the park with nothing in it is required.

30 mins of walking later, arrived at the entrance of an old friend.

First train had been loaded, but about 19 members of staff were walking up and down the train staring in a befuddled fashion at the back of each row where all the restraint lights are.

This went on for around 15 minutes with them setting and resetting bars before they decided it wasnt going to be a quick fix. The train was emptied and the queue evacuated.

Well that's this park finished for me.
Friend went to do the SLC while I sat on the bench thinking of the million better things I could be doing with my time right now.

Went to go do the worm.
Empty Bullet launch noise.

Went to sit outside Bullet for an hour. Various stories about a quick fix and should be opening soon.

Went to go do the worm.
Did the shooting Santa dark ride. A shell of its former self. Disgusting.

Went to sit outside Bullet for an hour. Eventually opened.

Got 3 laps in in quick succession. Once again wish I hadn't. Riding a bit crap and has now lost the tied spot with OCT Thrust on my list.

Crappy Valley Shenzhen has also become the worst in the chain for me.

Left the park. Leave the memories alone.

Good to end a trip report on a high.

 

[Hixee]

Wow, depressing.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

Ewww is Bullet really running that badly?
There's literally no other reason to go to that park.

First Shambhala and now this?

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

It's still a good ride, just having ridden all 3 of them in the space of a few months it was clearly the weakest.

When I originally rode Bullet I wasn't so battle hardened and it used to kick my arse a lot.
I wouldn't have been able to walk straight back on it like this time, I was having to spread out rides during the day.
The other 2 felt as intense as I had remembered, but I'd built up my immunities and they were just pure joy. This was more like 'eh, that's cool.'

Going back for more has tainted the memory, and I gained nothing else from the visit, so that bugs me.

 

[Mysterious Sue]

I rated it much higher than Beijing's offer (Bullet's airtime over the first hill just seemed really, really intense). Haven't ridden either in a few years though. Plus I've yet to do Thrust.

 

[Coaster Hipster]

Awww that's sad to hear about Bullet. The layout looks really solid How bearable is the rattle though?

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

No rattle, just sluggish and less forceful.
I'm being harsh/fussy with things to compare it to.
On its own it's still brilliant.