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A First Timer In China (China Megatrip) - Pt 9: Epilogue

NemesisRider

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Intro: A Family Affair

My Japan 2023 trip had been a blast – I’d seen some amazing sights, had plenty of fantastic food, and ridden some great coasters. At the start of the year, I knew I would have some time off between finishing my degree and starting full-time work in the Autumn, so doing some travel in this period was a no-brainer. I wanted to tick off another bucket list country and ideally ride some cool coasters in the process, so where better to do this than China?

As luck would have it, my brother Josh was also interested. Unlike myself, he’d been to China once before during Sixth Form, but saw very little beyond Beijing. He was looking to revisit the country in more depth, as well as practice some of the Mandarin he had spent nearly 2 years learning on-and-off.

Despite being siblings, I am distinctly a Type A man whereas Josh is much more Type B, so I took on the vast majority of itinerary and logistics planning. Most most of our time would be spent experiencing the country and visiting cultural sites together, but I also planned several days apart for me to go and ride some coasters whilst he did whatever he fancied. I ultimately settled on a mostly standard first-timer itinerary of Beijing, Xian and then Shanghai, albeit adding an extended stop in Suzhou so I could use it as a base for regional theme parks. As with my Japan TRs, I'm going to just focus on the coaster stuff for the sake of brevity.

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As a first timer in China, planning this trip was not the easiest and required an above-average amount of research. Sure, some parts are just like visiting any other country, like booking hotels with Expedia. However, China’s isolated digital ecosystem means that Westerners can’t use many of the services they’d typically rely on abroad like Google Maps. For me, necessary apps included LetsVPN to avoid the Great Firewall, Alipay and WeChat for payments, Didi for taxis, Amaps and Metroman for general navigation, and trip.com for attraction tickets. I particularly cannot stress the importance of Alipay and WeChat – China is basically a cashless society nowadays, debit/credit card alone is not widely accepted, and seemingly half of ticket sales are via WeChat/Alipay mini-apps. Once you get inside the ecosystem, it gets easier to find information too, as most useful websites are in Mandarin and harder to find via Google. With that said, if you do your homework, the vast majority of stuff should work as you’d hope and expect.

Time rolled by, as it does. Come September, I and my brother were fully equipped with tourist visas and ready to go East once again.

Day 1: Existential Crisis! At Sun Park

Our flight touched down in drizzly Beijing more or less on-time around 10am. Me and my brother very quickly became acquainted with the glories of Chinese bureaucracy, as we walked off the plane and straight into an hour-long queue to get through immigration at Daxing. This, naturally, also involved filling in an additional paper form demanding information which we’d definitely already given the Chinese government when we applied for our visas. The subsequent SIM card purchase setup process was mercifully quicker, albeit made more cumbersome by China Unicom’s requirement to register the SIM to a specific person and passport (to pre-empt the question, no, eSIM was not an option for us). In a final gut punch of faff, my brother revealed that he had not in fact pre-installed Alipay, further slowing down our journey towards the city centre. By the time we had dropped bags at the hotel and eaten some lunch, it was 3pm. My brother was exhausted, and the weather was still sufficiently uninspiring to visit one of the famous tourist spots, so I hopped on the metro and headed for some creds.

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Chaoyang Park is a large public park in Eastern Beijing. On the Sunday I visited, there were plenty of families enjoying time together, as well as community stuff happening and even couples doing what looked like pre-wedding photos? Anyways, Sun Park is a set of mostly permanent rides looking within Chaoyang Park. They’re run by individual vendors so you will pay per ride.

Sun Park’s largest and most notable coaster is Flying Coaster, a Beijing Jiuhua Amusement Rides (catchy company name) knock-off of Toverland’s Booster Bike. I remember seeing a POV of this a good half-decade back and thinking it looked at least a decent laugh; it was time to put this hypothesis to the test.

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Talk about a baptism in fire for Chinese coasters. After much hand-waving on my part, I paid the 50 RMB to ride and boarded the coaster. The restraints are surprisingly similar to those on Vekoma’s version, albeit with an extra seatbelt. Our train gradually thunked its way onto the launch track, where it proceeded to inexplicably wait for a good 30 seconds (maybe the bloke running it went for a cigarette). Eventually, an alarm sounded, then we were abruptly launched. The rest of the course is a hilariously brutal, Bizarro version of the Booster Bike layout, seemingly precisely misprofiled to induce just enough pain to be funny. Sure, it’s got no airtime or whatever, but it left me with a stupid grin on my face.

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Unfortunately, it’s all very much downhill from here. Crazy Skateboard, a Beijing Jiuhua Amusement Rides knock-off spinner, rode like it was ready to fall apart at any moment. The restraints were awkward, it tracked poorly, and it just wasn’t much fun.

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I also did a very bad powered coaster-esque, “shooting ride” thing. It was not worth my time or money.

The remaining coasters at Sun Park were all either shut or indisputably kiddie coasters, which I find more of an obligation than a pleasure of this hobby. In the face of such shamefulness, my typically impenetrable enthusiast code finally broke down. There was seemingly not another soul queuing for these coasters for literal children, so I couldn’t just slot myself innocuously onto an existing train. This was made worse by the fact I was still adjusting to the occasional stares that being a tall-ish white guy attracts in China and only just beginning to learn how to best handle the sizable language barrier for non-Mandarin speakers. So, I decided to go back to the hotel with 5/7 creds unridden. Even now, I wake up in cold sweats thinking about it – did I, in that moment of weakness, bring shame to the name of coaster nerds everywhere? Or did I make the right call to save my money and my dignity?

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As I sat debating this with myself on the metro home, I realised I was very jet lagged, slightly delirious, and should probably just go to bed.

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Next time: Sam visits his 2nd Universal park.
 
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Day 2: Universal Studios Beijing

Two full days into the trip, it was time to visit the only international brand park I had on the trip. Universal Beijing opened in 2021, but few Westerners were able to visit until 2023 when COVID restrictions began to relax. The park has very good and inexpensive public transit connections, requiring about an hour’s journey from central Beijing on the metro. As of 2024 it’s currently the terminus of one end of Line 1 which serves Tianamen Square – you can’t miss it.

Upon arrival, you are treated to the quintessential mandatory Chinese security check before you can access CityWalk. From the moment I reached the square with the iconic globe, I was struck by how massive the place felt – one can only imagine that Universal management has tried to learn from the mistakes of Universal Studios Japan, which is perpetually completely overwhelmed by the crowd level it has to sustain. The entrance plaza feels almost inhuman in scale, somewhat like certain places in the city centre, but the park interior feels much more personable.

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Universal Beijing felt much more focused on its themed lands than individual attractions, so I’ll group my reviews by area in this report. I want to preface this review with two notes. First off, Universal sometimes proves a challenge for me as mostly screen-based or motion simulator dark rides have a habit of making me feel nauseaous. Whilst I got through the day without any chunning incidents, this definitely does impact which ones I end up enjoying most. Secondly, I’m not a total completion so there were a non-zero number of rides I did end up skipping. Usually I’d rather focus on reriding my favourites and attractions I can’t find elsewhere, or give any initially middling rides a second chance to prove themselves.

From the moment of arrival, I could see a huge number of Harry Potter robes, so I decided to start around the Wizarding World to beat the queues. First up was Flight of the Hippogriff, a Mack Youngstar coaster. The ride queue and layout are standard, though it seemed to track smoother than its Vekoma cousin in Japan. It goes without saying that it does nothing much beyond offer a couple of decent views of Hogwarts.

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I’ve already reviewed Forbidden Journey in Japan once, where I found it technologically impressive but quite nausea inducing. After two rides, I found I felt similarly about the Beijing version, which has only minor differences from its Japanese cousin. The quality of theming is undoubtedly world class, but the ride experience just doesn’t quite land for me. It also doesn’t help I’m already bored of seeing the exact same Harry Potter rides again and again after a mere two Wizarding Worlds. Can we finally move onto a new IP, please?

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Universal Beijing’s Illumination themed section “Minion Land” is, however, more unique to this park. The centrepiece of the area is the indoor Silly Fun Land, a mini amusement park which houses a couple of rides inspired by the funfair in the first Despicable Me film. Most notable of these is Universal’s second cred Loop-Dee-Doop-Dee, a Jinma rides Kiddie Coaster. It tracks very smoothly, and they've done a pretty good job with the neon-y carnival aesthetic. That said, I can't help but feel a 1 train coaster was not the best choice for a park this popular, even if queues were tolerable for me.

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It wouldn’t be a Minion Land without Minion Mayhem. This ride is, once again, a clone with only minor differences from what I rode in Japan. Whilst I understand Beijing’s uses an older (and probably more outdated) ride system, I found it less sickly than the more contained pods at USJ. Not for me, but sure to please little kids.

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Continuing anticlockwise, the Hollywood section of the park has no true rides, acting primarily as a gateway to the park with shops and restaurants. They did a stunning job framing the Jurassic Park Isla Nublar mountain from here, but we’ll get to that later.

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Hollywood does house several shows, most of which I skipped as I only have so much desire to sit around when there are rides to be ridden. The exception was How To Train Your Dragon’s Untrainable, which currently runs in the Majestic Theatre. I am a shameless fan of the first HTTYD film and I had heard this was great, so I was super excited. I was not disappointed – the puppetry here is astounding, with the giant flying Toothless being unquestionably the highlight. The performing and music was perfectly good, but honestly it all took a back seat to the dragons for me. The Americans are in for a treat if/when this comes to Orlando with Epic Universe.

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Beijing’s high-octane thrill area, Transformers Metrobase, is sleek and futuristic looking. Whilst the area has plenty going on in the daytime, it is best at night, with vibrant neon signage and pulsing lights.

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In 2015, Universal revealed that their brand spanking new Chinese resort's headlining coaster would be a reprofiled and rethemed version of Florida's Incredible Hulk. Whilst I still find it was an odd choice for a headlining coaster in Beijing, I reckon the design team were playing it safe by cloning an existing success story. The result, the Transformers Decepticoaster, is currently the park’s signature roller coaster.

Decepticoaster does an alright job by Universal standards with its theming and presentation. The station and indoor queue are themed as an Energon research facility but end up feeling a little austere compared to other richly themed rides in the park. I loved the launch sequence though, which uses light and sound to show the Driller starting up before the train fires out of the cannon.

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Onride, Decepticoaster combines the fluidity of 2010s B&M design with a more traditional (and arguably intense) looping layout from the 90s. The obvious highlight is the pleasantly punchy launch and floaty first inversion, but the downwards twist before the MCBR is notably fab in the back. Unfortunately, the forces Decepticoaster offers are a little homogeneous by 2020s standards, being overwhelmingly positives. It does these very tastefully though, stopping just short of grey out territory with the cobra roll and loop combo as well as the following helix. Even in the high-G valleys, whole coaster is glass smooth, making it really rerideable. Lastly, in a solid indication I am the lowest common denominator guest, I loved the onboard audio. Something about speeding through a coaster layout with guitars ripping out the sick-ass Transformers theme speaks to me on a primal level. Hell yeah.

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I ended up riding Decepticoaster 13 times due to the short queues. It was basically the quietest thing in the park, adding to my theory that the Chinese don’t really love big coasters in the same way some other countries do. Sure, Decepticoaster is far from the great thing in the world, but I feel plenty of affection for it.

Next to Decepticoaster is another famous clone, Transformers: Battle for the Allspark. I was quite excited for this, having absolutely loved Spiderman at USJ. Unfortunately, I was a little let down. Whilst the 3D is well-executed and there’s some really neat moments (shout out to the missile with the heat explosion), I found the story uncompelling and would have liked a bit more in the way of physical set pieces. It mostly felt like a lot of watching big robots fight onscreen, as opposed to being truly involved in the action. It’s still great, but I reckon it’ll take me trying one of the English versions to be convinced this is a top-tier Universal dark ride.

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On the subject of top-tier dark rides, let’s move to Jurassic World’s Isla Nublar. Compared to Universal Japan, Beijing’s Jurassic World is a lot visually cleaner, in no small part because it doesn’t have an enormous B&M flyer dwarfing everything and requiring tons of netting. It’s got a towering central mountain, the classic Jurassic Park pavilion thing, and big fiery entrance gates.

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The area’s headlining dark ride is Jurassic Park Adventure. I knew this was going to be good, but I went in basically blind and had my mind blown. The dinosaur animatronics are amazing. The screens feel well-integrated and well-placed in the ride. The story is clear even to an English speaker; I genuinely got goosebumps the first time when the lights went out near the start. This uses the Jurassic Park IP to perfection; it’s the best ride in the park and quite possibly the best dark ride I’ve ever done. Bravo Universal, you knocked it out of the park with this one. Hell yeah.

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Jurassic Flyers is another solid supporting coaster, if a smidge underwhelming. On the day of my visit, this was the most popular ride in the park. It's visually delightful, being set partly indoors in the "aviary" of Jurassic World (though this part does have some ugly evac walkways), before bursting through the mountain and going outdoors. The outdoor section feels comparable to something like Max & Moritz - glass smooth, with a couple of moments that throw you around a bit, but unquestionably a family coaster. However, the ride is a little on the short side, and I can't help but feel that this ride system hasn't been used to its full potential yet. Still, better than Arthur.

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Also grabbed lunch at the "Birds of Prey" cafe near the Aviary. Food was pretty darn good, albeit expensive for China.

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Universal’s final full area is another Beijing original, indoors and themed to Kung Fu Panda. The lighting and vibe here is absolutely immaculate; if I had more time I could have happily just chilled here for a while and watched the world go by.

The Kung Fu Panda: Dragon Warrior’s Journey boat ride has some cool animatronics and lighting but felt a little too sedate for an action-packed franchise like Kung Fu Panda. It’s basically a recap of the third film and heavily relies on mediocre screen-based action, which is a shame.

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I also watched the Waterworld stunt show. As a non-Mandarin speaker, it’s a little hard to follow precisely what’s going on, but it’s pretty easy to figure out who the goodies and baddies are. Various acts of apocalyptic boat-based violence occur before the good guys strike back and blow up the whole place. Kaboom. Bonus points for the absolutely excessive soaking that guests in the “you will get wet” areas got from the performers during the pre-show warmup.

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Universal Beijing feels far more complete than I initially expected, despite the small-ish coaster line-up. One full day should be fine if the crowds are low, but two more leisurely days here definitely could be justified. The place still feels brand new, and everything is very good quality, though some parts of the park feel a tad sterile compared to USJ. This park is an easy must-do if you’re visiting Beijing, if anything for Jurassic Park Adventure alone. Maybe this Chinese theme park malarkey isn't so bad after all!

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Next time: this Chinese theme park malarkey is, in fact, very bad at times (Happy Valley Beijing)
 
It mostly felt like a lot of watching big robots fight onscreen, as opposed to being truly involved in the action. It’s still great, but I reckon it’ll take me trying one of the English versions to be convinced this is a top-tier Universal dark ride.

Nope, you got it right the first time. Doing it in English makes almost no difference. It really is just watching smashy-smashy robots on big screens.
 
Day 3: Happy Valley Beijing

Two-thirds of Happy Valley Beijing’s name is incorrect: it is certainly in Beijing, but it is not identifiably in a valley, and it definitely did not make me happy. This place is a strong contender for the worst run park I’ve had the misfortune of visiting, although a very low crowd level and good weather helped soften the blow a little.

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Spite is an inevitable part of a trip to China. For some reason, at regional parks seemingly both the management and park guests do not care if half of the major rides are acting as glorified paperweights. Happy Valley’s Extreme Rusher, an S&S air-launch coaster and arguably the park’s headlining attraction, has been SBNO ever since Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley Shenzhen experienced a major incident almost a year ago. This was definitely disappointing but at least advertised well in advance. To top this off, the park’s Superman clone Crystal Wings was spontaneously “temporarily unavailable” all day during my visit, testing a handful of times but never actually opening. Having 2/3 of your headlining coasters shut on a Friday with perfect weather is frankly embarrassing, even if the park is fairly quiet. This is on top of various staggered ride openings, which meant that the SLC didn’t open until midday. I mainly find these points relevant to whine about as the entry price of Happy Valley is £33, which is easily comparable to a decent European amusement park. Just… do better OCT, dammit.

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Happy Valley Beijing is at least easy to get to. It is about 35 minutes journey on the subway from Tiananmen Square, having a dedicated stop on Line 7 of the Beijing metro on Line 7 – ironically, this line also terminates at Universal Beijing, so you have ample chance to reconsider your poor choices and go there instead. Tickets can be purchased in advance via trip.com and entry done is via your passport, saving you any faff at the gate.

First impressions of the park are surprisingly competent. It's clean, there’s a bit of an atmosphere with pop music on the speakers, and the skyline is filled with cool looking (if mostly inoperational) coasters.

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The park is divided into several areas with varying levels of theming. As the area around Extreme Rusher had basically nothing of interest to me open, I first headed for the sweet-treat themed Dessert Kingdom and the B&M Family Inverted Coaster. This was probably the best run ride in the park despite having only a single train. Whilst the ride looks great with the slick B&M box track and vibrant pink, it’s a bit of a nothingburger which only offers any force towards the back row. The restraints are a little odd, basically being a B&M vest restraint but without a vest. I’ve not ridden the exact Vekoma equivalent of this layout, but I’d consider it a far inferior product to the Orkanen clones like Dragon at Energylandia.

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Continuing your journey around the central lake, I next reached the Shangri-La area. This is easily the best part of the park, with some thoroughly decent efforts on the aesthetics, despite lacking some of the finer details like themed music.

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Shangri-La’s headliner and the park’s shiniest new toy, “Flight of the Himalayan Eagle Music Roller Coaster” (AKA: The Bird) was the only one of the park’s top 3 coasters that decided it could be arsed opening on the day of my visit. This was until around 1pm when it promptly broke down and didn’t reopen for the rest of the day. The Bird naturally invites comparisons to Universal Japan’s Hollywood Dream: The Ride between the comparatively unimpressive stats, unconventional layout and onboard audio. Unlike Hollywood Dream however, this is a genuine floater airtime machine with a few moments of really good positives. In typical OCT fashion, the music was broken, but luckily the ride was still running glass smooth.

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The ride’s lack of stats results in a first drop which is fine but not exceptional, made more characterful by a strange shaping kink which gives the back row a surprise pop of strong airtime. After a semi-successful floaty banked manoeuvre, the train races through the turnaround with much more vigour than most B&M hypers provide, offering the first big dose of positives. From here the fun stuff continues in the form of a few airtime hills, most of which twist in on the entrance and go straight on the exit or vice versa. Unlike most B&Ms featuring the element, the subsequent splashdown bleeds very little speed, allowing the train to rip through the final elements. The following helix left me on the verge of greying out, before I was fixed well and proper by the final speed hill-esque airtime moment. Whilst the Bird doesn’t look like much on paper, I found it a well-rounded ride which offers surprising forces. It’s a shame that it’s ended up stuck at Crappy Valley instead of somewhere which would actually run it to its full potential.

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Cred number 3, Golden Wings over the Snowfield, offers a beautifully detailed themed queue. Sadly, there is a truly awful roller coaster at the end of it. This Vekoma Shenlin SLC starts off with a tolerable first drop and loop, before destroying any accrued goodwill with a huge pothole on the cobra roll. The rest is grim but acceptable. A second ride confirmed my suspicions that this was very bad, but perhaps marginally preferable to a standard SLC.

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Shangri-La also has some alright if unexceptional supporting attractions. First off, there’s a decently tall pair of S&S shot/drop towers, though I will confess to being somewhat desensitised to these nowadays. Next up, the park’s rapids are adequately themed if somewhat forgettable. Mostly it just amused me that I was seemingly the only rider that day who wasn’t wearing a poncho, despite the ride being on the drier end for a rapids. Lastly, there’s a horror walkthrough thing. Sure, it may be filled with cheap looking theming, but the low light level and near absence of other guests made it at least a bit creepy.

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Continuing on to the Mayan area was the final available cred, Jungle Racing. This Jinma Rides Vekoma (well spotted, Gavin) mine train has possibly the most plastic trains ever invented by a ride manufacturer; these are, accordingly, deeply uncomfortable. The layout tracks badly but isn’t any near awkward or disastrous enough to be funny.

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Let’s take a moment of pause post-cred-run to discuss Happy Valley’s operations. Impressively, they were not the worst I’ve seen, falling well short of the unbelievable density of nonsense I witnessed at Fuji-Q in 2023. The policy is basically “we will send the train once every/almost every seat is full” which leads to slow waits for dispatches on a quiet day like when I visited. I saw this a few times across China and whilst it’s not ideal, I’ll tolerate it for sure. Unlike Fuji-Q, there are no dumb stretching exercises as of right now, but I’m sure they might add some back in just to spite me.

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I went for lunch at the Extreme Rusher café. It was cheap enough, but it wasn’t good. I got a pork/mushroom with rice set, accompanied with a very sad side salad. Possibly one of the worst meals I had in China, sadly.

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After lunch, I stumbled on a show thing with some terrifying characters who looked ready to beat me to death.

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Lunch more of less digested, I realised that most of the non-coasters in the park were not exactly inspiring to me. Shoot-the-chutes? Don’t fancy getting utterly drenched today, thanks. Knock-off top spin? Uh, maybe, but I’d rather not go home with a headache. I ultimately settled on riding the Small World knock-off, Happy World, which was at least amusingly terrifying.

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By 2:30pm I was starting to lose patience. Himalayan Eagle was probably f***ed for the rest of the day at this point and Crystal Wings was totally silent. Stalling for time, I went to see a stunt show which featured various blokes shooting at each other and eventually blowing up a house.

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I did a few more rides on the Family Invert, but at 4pm I finally got bored of waiting for The Bird to reopen and threw in the towel. I went back to the hotel feeling dispirited. Is this what I’m going to be in for across all of these regional parks – spite, filler, and mediocre rides?

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I imagine that on a good day with everything open Happy Valley Beijing is a really fun time. There is some genuinely pretty great hardware and theming here, but they evidently do not care about keeping it running. I'm sure I'll end up at some other OCT parks in future - I will continue to naively hope they don't get much worse than this.

Next time: Sam finds a cred at a mountain?
 
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Day 3: Happy Valley Beijing

Two-thirds of Happy Valley Beijing’s name is incorrect: it is certainly in Beijing, but it is not identifiably in a valley, and it definitely did not make me happy. This place is a strong contender for the worst run park I’ve had the misfortune of visiting, although a very low crowd level and good weather helped soften the blow a little.

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Spite is an inevitable part of a trip to China. For some reason, at regional parks seemingly both the management and park guests do not care if half of the major rides are acting as glorified paperweights. Happy Valley’s Extreme Rusher, an S&S air-launch coaster and arguably the park’s headlining attraction, has been SBNO ever since Bullet Coaster at Happy Valley Shenzhen experienced a major incident almost a year ago. This was definitely disappointing but at least advertised well in advance. To top this off, the park’s Superman clone Crystal Wings was spontaneously “temporarily unavailable” all day during my visit, testing a handful of times but never actually opening. Having 2/3 of your headlining coasters shut on a Friday with perfect weather is frankly embarrassing, even if the park is fairly quiet. This is on top of various staggered ride openings, which meant that the SLC didn’t open until midday. I mainly find these points relevant to whine about as the entry price of Happy Valley is £33, which is easily comparable to a decent European amusement park. Just… do better OCT, dammit.

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Happy Valley Beijing is at least easy to get to. It is about 35 minutes journey on the subway from Tiananmen Square, having a dedicated stop on Line 7 of the Beijing metro on Line 7 – ironically, this line also terminates at Universal Beijing, so you have ample chance to reconsider your poor choices and go there instead. Tickets can be purchased in advance via trip.com and entry done is via your passport, saving you any faff at the gate.

First impressions of the park are surprisingly competent. It's clean, there’s a bit of an atmosphere with pop music on the speakers, and the skyline is filled with cool looking (if mostly inoperational) coasters.

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The park is divided into several areas with varying levels of theming. As the area around Extreme Rusher had basically nothing of interest to me open, I first headed for the sweet-treat themed Dessert Kingdom and the B&M Family Inverted Coaster. This was probably the best run ride in the park despite having only a single train. Whilst the ride looks great with the slick B&M box track and vibrant pink, it’s a bit of a nothingburger which only offers any force towards the back row. The restraints are a little odd, basically being a B&M vest restraint but without a vest. I’ve not ridden the exact Vekoma equivalent of this layout, but I’d consider it a far inferior product to the Orkanen clones like Dragon at Energylandia.

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Continuing your journey around the central lake, I next reached the Shangri-La area. This is easily the best part of the park, with some thoroughly decent efforts on the aesthetics, despite lacking some of the finer details like themed music.

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Shangri-La’s headliner and the park’s shiniest new toy, “Flight of the Himalayan Eagle Music Roller Coaster” (AKA: The Bird) was the only one of the park’s top 3 coasters that decided it could be arsed opening on the day of my visit. This was until around 1pm when it promptly broke down and didn’t reopen for the rest of the day. The Bird naturally invites comparisons to Universal Japan’s Hollywood Dream: The Ride between the comparatively unimpressive stats, unconventional layout and onboard audio. Unlike Hollywood Dream however, this is a genuine floater airtime machine with a few moments of really good positives. In typical OCT fashion, the music was broken, but luckily the ride was still running glass smooth.

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The ride’s lack of stats results in a first drop which is fine but not exceptional, made more characterful by a strange shaping kink which gives the back row a surprise pop of strong airtime. After a semi-successful floaty banked manoeuvre, the train races through the turnaround with much more vigour than most B&M hypers provide, offering the first big dose of positives. From here the fun stuff continues in the form of a few airtime hills, most of which twist in on the entrance and go straight on the exit or vice versa. Unlike most B&Ms featuring the element, the subsequent splashdown bleeds very little speed, allowing the train to rip through the final elements. The following helix left me on the verge of greying out, before I was fixed well and proper by the final speed hill-esque airtime moment. Whilst the Bird doesn’t look like much on paper, I found it a well-rounded ride which offers surprising forces. It’s a shame that it’s ended up stuck at Crappy Valley instead of somewhere which would actually run it to its full potential.

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Cred number 3, Golden Wings over the Snowfield, offers a beautifully detailed themed queue. Sadly, there is a truly awful roller coaster at the end of it. This Vekoma Shenlin SLC starts off with a tolerable first drop and loop, before destroying any accrued goodwill with a huge pothole on the cobra roll. The rest is grim but acceptable. A second ride confirmed my suspicions that this was very bad, but perhaps marginally preferable to a standard SLC.

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Shangri-La also has some alright if unexceptional supporting attractions. First off, there’s a decently tall pair of S&S shot/drop towers, though I will confess to being somewhat desensitised to these nowadays. Next up, the park’s rapids are adequately themed if somewhat forgettable. Mostly it just amused me that I was seemingly the only rider that day who wasn’t wearing a poncho, despite the ride being on the drier end for a rapids. Lastly, there’s a horror walkthrough thing. Sure, it may be filled with cheap looking theming, but the low light level and near absence of other guests made it at least a bit creepy.

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Continuing on to the Mayan area was the final available cred, Jungle Racing. This Jinma Rides mine train has possibly the most plastic trains ever invented by a ride manufacturer; these are, accordingly, deeply uncomfortable. The layout is more or less a worse tracking version of a Vekoma equivalent but isn’t any near awkward or disastrous enough to be funny.

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Let’s take a moment of pause post-cred-run to discuss Happy Valley’s operations. Impressively, they were not the worst I’ve seen, falling well short of the unbelievable density of nonsense I witnessed at Fuji-Q in 2023. The policy is basically “we will send the train once every/almost every seat is full” which leads to slow waits for dispatches on a quiet day like when I visited. I saw this a few times across China and whilst it’s not ideal, I’ll tolerate it for sure. Unlike Fuji-Q, there are no dumb stretching exercises as of right now, but I’m sure they might add some back in just to spite me.

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I went for lunch at the Extreme Rusher café. It was cheap enough, but it wasn’t good. I got a pork/mushroom with rice set, accompanied with a very sad side salad. Possibly one of the worst meals I had in China, sadly.

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After lunch, I stumbled on a show thing with some terrifying characters who looked ready to beat me to death.

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Lunch more of less digested, I realised that most of the non-coasters in the park were not exactly inspiring to me. Shoot-the-chutes? Don’t fancy getting utterly drenched today, thanks. Knock-off top spin? Uh, maybe, but I’d rather not go home with a headache. I ultimately settled on riding the Small World knock-off, Happy World, which was at least amusingly terrifying.

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By 2:30pm I was starting to lose patience. Himalayan Eagle was probably f***ed for the rest of the day at this point and Crystal Wings was totally silent. Stalling for time, I went to see a stunt show which featured various blokes shooting at each other and eventually blowing up a house.

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I did a few more rides on the Family Invert, but at 4pm I finally got bored of waiting for The Bird to reopen and threw in the towel. I went back to the hotel feeling dispirited. Is this what I’m going to be in for across all of these regional parks – spite, filler, and mediocre rides?

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I imagine that on a good day with everything open Happy Valley Beijing is a really fun time. There is some genuinely pretty great hardware and theming here, but they evidently do not care about keeping it running. I'm sure I'll end up at some other OCT parks in future - I will continue to naively hope they don't get much worse than this.

Next time: Sam finds a cred at a mountain?
Man it sucks you had such a rubbish day.

I've visited the park twice once by myself and once with friends and been very lucky it seems with all major rides open both times. It ranks pretty highly for me in terms of Chinese parks.

The operational faff seems about standard though. Rides opening at random times and waiting for ever to release trains.
 
That awkward moment when you realise that the crappy Jinma mine train knock-off is actually a Vekoma...

The Jinma versions aren't great, but they're copying something that was never great to begin with, but a newer Jinma mine train rides better than an older Vekoma.

That sounds like a s**t day, but is unfortunately going to happen at some point (many points) in Chinese parks. They really seem to try their best to make it a miserable experience.

Both of my visits to Happy Valley Beijing were fortunately very good, and I'd have said that, along with Shanghai, it's the strongest in the chain, but if I'd had a day like that I'd be viewing it very differently.

It's counterintuitive, but often busy days are better in Chinese parks since there's more stuff likely to be open. The trade-off is overly-long wait times thanks to the s**ty operations.

If you're missing the pointless exercising before riding, get yourself to more Happy Valley parks! For some reason, Beijing doesn't do it, but others in the chain do. In fact, I'm fairly sure OCT invented that bulls**t and Fuji Q caught on later.
 
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That sounds like a s**t day, but is unfortunately going to happen at some point (many points) in Chinese parks. They really seem to try their best to make it a miserable experience.

Both of my visits to Happy Valley Beijing were fortunately very good, and I'd have said that, along with Shanghai, it's the strongest in the chain, but if I'd had a day like that I'd be viewing it very differently.

It's counterintuitive, but often busy days are better in Chinese parks since there's more stuff likely to be open. The trade-off is overly-long wait times thanks to the s**ty operations.

Again, I'll definitely concede I just got unlucky here. I got 4 rides in on the Bird before it shut at least, which was enough to get a proper sense for it, even if I would have happily lapped the thing most of the day.

The next three proper regional parks I visited were on public holidays and weekends respectively, but the biggest coasters still rarely had any queue (<15 minutes). Notably, Beyond The Cloud on a sunny Sunday ended up stalling dispatches to wait for the train to fill, even though the kiddie coaster next door was on a solid 30 minutes queue. This all adds to my theory that the Chinese public don't actually love the gigantic thrill machines quite as much as the Europeans/Americans do.

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Stumbled across some miscellaneous rides around Xian which I thought I'd cover whilst I was writing:

Day 4: Jank Dark Rides

After nearly a week in Beijing, it was time to head onwards to Xian. The actual train journey was speedy, comfortable, and disconcertingly smooth. However, a combination of bad metro luck and a minor logistical cock-up by myself meant that we arrived breathless at our platform gate in Beijing West a mere 5 minutes before our train departed. Woops.

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Xian was mainly planned to serve as a base for various cultural day trips. We stayed at a Holiday Inn in the centre, very near the Muslim Quarter - this area is home to a snack street where we had some absolutely fantastic food. In general, Xian was the sleeper hit of this trip, and I would happily go back someday.

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It's basically illegal to visit this part of the country without seeing the Terracotta Warriors, so we did. Whilst it's certainly impressive, I don't think it's as compelling as some of the other history in China - the Palace Museum/Forbidden City remains my clear highlight on that front.

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Our tour guide was very insistent on us experiencing on what was poorly communicated to be an interactive museum about the first Qin Emperor's mausoleum. Later research revealed this to be the "Mausoleum Museum of the First Emperor of Qin", we discovered was home to the flying theatre "Flying over Daqin". Do not be mistaken - this is 100% a tourist trap, albeit for domestic tourists. Entry was nearly £20 or something equally unreasonable for locals, all for a 35 minute experience. A guide speaking Mandarin leads you through various halls with lighting and sound, before you arrive at the flying theatre.

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"Flying over Daqin" was a sadly pile of trash that gave Fuji-Q's really rubbish flying theatre a run for it's money. Primarily the ride system just sucks - the motion is jerky and the seats only push slightly forward instead of having any real floor tilt. This meant that my feet were still frequently tapping against the floor throughout the entire experience, which was a bit of an immersion killer. At least the film was decent enough.

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Day 5: Mount Hua Has A Cred?

The next day we got up early and took a short high speed train journey to Huashan North from Xian. This is a short drive away from Mount Hua (or Huashan), which is a stunningly beautiful mountain. Honestly, the pictures don't do the place justice, it was incredible. It did feel really busy though in classic China fashion, with nearly an hour queue necessary for the cable car back down.

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As we were leaving, we happened upon Hua-Wiecoaster, a Wiegand alpine coaster I previously had no idea existed. Sadly, both my brother and the Dutch girl we had made friends with earlier in the day vetoed me squeezing in a ride as they wanted to try and catch an earlier train home. We subsequently missed this train anyway due to the long bus ride necessary to get back to the visitor centre, but easy come easy go I guess.

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Next time: the best Flash since Gordon (Lewa Adventure)
 
Day 6: Lewa Adventure

After Huashan the day prior and Terracotta Warriors the day before that, my brother was feeling fatigued and wanted a day around the hotel and local areas in Xian. This provided a perfect opportunity for me to squeeze in Lewa Adventure, a park originally omitted from my plans.

Lewa World can be found to the North of Xian, outside of the third ring road. I got here by getting the Metro Line 1 to Xian North Station, avoiding some of the worst traffic in the centre, then using a Didi for the remaining 20 minutes or so drive.

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Like many things in China, seemingly the main way to buy tickets for Lewa World is through an Alipay/WeChat mini app, which is usually poorly optimised or straight up broken for foreigners. I turned up at the ticket office, perhaps naively hoping someone could sell me a paper ticket to get in. This process became a minor ordeal. The first 5 minutes were spent with a member of staff battling Alipay to buy a ticket on my phone, which of course required about 20 different pieces of personal information from me. Said ticket then had to be activated via WeChat… which didn’t work. For 10 minutes I stood at the desk like a lemon, as my phone was passed around between 3 members of staff trying and failing to get the ticket activated. Finally, someone caved and got me to add them on WeChat so they could activate the ticket for me and send a screenshot. I think the magic of Chinese bureaucracy is that, despite having seen me pay, not a single person had considered the possibility of simply walking me to the man 20 metres away checking tickets and getting him to buzz me through. Would have been much less hassle for all involved, honestly.

As a sidenote, despite being the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival the park felt like a bit of a ghost town, with queues usually varying from 0-20 minutes. Maybe this is standard for a weekday? I struggle to see how the park would have been turning a profit that day…

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First stop, of course, was the Mack Hyper Flash. This is not my first run in with this layout – I rode its clone, Hyper Coaster at Lands of Legends, back in 2022 and absolutely loved it. Review is here, for those interested. Equally, in the years since, I started to doubt how highly I rated this layout. Turkey was my first trip abroad post-COVID and, to be honest, the first really good coaster I'd ridden in some time. Was it really that fantastic, or was I just excited to be back riding cool coasters abroad?

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Nope, turns out I was right. Mack’s first hyper is the definition of rerideable, offering strong and varied forces with glossy smooth tracking. Flash seemed to run faster than I recall Hyper Coaster did, despite riding both under similarly hot and sunny conditions. Where I previously described Hyper Coaster as offering spectacular hangtime on the gigantic vertical loop, Flash tears through with almost grey-out inducing positives by the end. The airtime is fantastic, with the first big hill offering the single best moment on the ride - several seconds of pure, sustained ejector bliss. I also love the zero-g roll, which offers a very whippy rotation and feels perfectly placed. Sure, the ride is not without lulls - the big, banked hill following the first airtime hill offers only mild floatiness - but crucially every element is great fun and the layout flows fantastically. Unlike its British cousin, Flash feels a very complete ride, offering both a substantial ride time and strong pacing until the end. It perfectly plays to what I enjoy in a coaster - glass smooth and very rerideable, but with enough bite to satisfy me. Clear top 10 material for me, even if some here might find it a bit mild for their tastes. That said, the ops are definitely nonsense, so expect slow queues.

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OK, that’s the good ride here over and done with. Let’s go ride some trash of varying levels.

Next up is Motor Rider, a Jinma Rides Motocoaster. This knock-off version of the Zamperla product has a deceptively punchy and hilariously dodgy-feeling flywheel launch, before gradually twisting and turning back to Earth. Maybe worth a reride, but equally... Flash is just there...

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The second Jinma Rides product at Lewa Adventure is anything but fun, however. Dinosaur Spine is a knock-off version of the Vekoma Shenlin SLC model I rode a few days earlier at Happy Valley. This ride is truly godawful, offering terrible restraints, shaky tracking and questionable shaping. It slammed me into the restraint so hard that my collarbone was bruised for a few days after, which is a first. Clear bottom 10 material for me.

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Also from Jinma Rides is the park’s mine train. It’s fine, tracking better than Happy Valley Beijing’s. It is however totally unmemorable and unthemed. There's at least some amusing yet totally irrelevant copyright infringement in the queueline.

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The kiddie coaster here had a height limit of 1.4m for people riding alone, so I couldn’t get the cred. Oh no, whatever will I do without another wacky worm on the count, etc etc.

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Finally, the park has a Beijing SMBHE family coaster which is a knock-off of the Mack Youngstar. It tracks worse than the mine train but not in a particularly amusing way. It's also weirdly tucked away so I forgot to take any photos.

The Jinma family duelling coasters Tortoise & the Hare are still under construction for now. They’ve made good progress, with what seems to be all of the trackwork now in place. Looking at the state of the thing, I’d have my bets on an early 2025 opening.

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None of the other supporting attractions I tried were especially notable. The shot tower is decent, the chairswing has some nice views, and the pirate ship is a pirate ship. Frankly, Flash and maybe the Motocoaster are the only things here worth much of your time and attention.

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After about 5 hours in the park, I was ready to call it quits. I could have happily ridden Flash for the rest of the evening, but operations were glacial, and 5 rides felt like plenty to refresh my memory.

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Despite questionable operations and most of their lineup being c**p, Lewa Adventure restored my faith in Chinese regional parks after the disaster of Happy Valley Beijing. Sure, the atmosphere is a little sterile, but I had a fun time there. In Flash, they have a fantastic headliner that is a serious contender for best steel coaster in China; that alone justifies the half-day to explore the place. Anything else is just a bonus as far as I’m concerned.

Next time: can we get a rain check?
 
Day 7: Rained Off (ft. Jinjiang Action Park)

After a brilliant time in Xian, me and my brother packed up our bags and headed to Suzhou. This rapidly developing water town was to be my base for the next several days. As well as being a tourist town in its own right, it was perfectly situated for ticking off several key parks in the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor. Our first day and a half was spent visiting several beautiful gardens and wandering canals.

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The weather for our in Suzhou had been oppressively humid and generally quite touch-and-go since we arrived. Typhoon Bebinca had made landfall in Shanghai whilst we were in Xian, causing massive disruption and, most relevant to this report, forcing many theme parks to close temporarily. Whilst the worst was over, this stormy weather system was evidently still hanging around. The forecast for my first planned day of theme parking had slowly but surely morphed into ceaseless rain around Taihu Lake; I checked trip.com and WeChat the night before to see parks dropping like flies.

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Suzhou Amusement Land? Shut all day. Wuxi Sunac Land? Also shut. China Dinosaur Land? Technically open, but there was no chance that Dinoconda would run in these conditions. Even possible backup options like HB World were shut. In fairness, at least they'd had the decency to announce this in advance, saving me turning up at various entrances only to be met with disappointment.

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(FYI, If you don't speak Mandarin, this roughly translates to - "Beyond The Cloud is not gonna run tomorrow, no matter how much you complain on Twitter about it boy".)

So, I admitted defeat for the day. It was annoying to have my plans screwed up, to lose money on last-minute train cancellations and to have to cut a park from the itinerary, but this is simply the game we play as enthusiasts. Sadly, Wuxi Sunac Land became a casualty of the storm, as completing the set of 4Ds and riding Beyond The Cloud took priority. Definitely will get the Falcon cred someday, though. Equally all things considered I can’t complain too much, as I did I get through Japan with basically no weather f***ery despite it being December.

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Instead, I went to Shanghai with my brother for the day. We ended up going to an Art Museum and had lunch with a mutual friend, which was good fun albeit a departure from the original plan. Before heading back to Suzhou, I thought the weather was easing, so I went to see if Jinjiang Action Park had got any creds running I could nab. Alas, I got to the entrance and found out that, predictably, every single coaster was shut.

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Bad luck boys, we'll get 'em next time.

Next time: ♫ Open the door, get on the floor, everybody ride the dinosaur ♫
 
Day 8: China Dinosaur Land

After the prior day’s disaster of cancellations and replanning, the weather had mercifully improved. A quick half hour blast of Chinese HSR goodness took me to Changzhou station, after which a 20-minute Didi took me directly to the park.

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China Dinosaur Land is found fairly central in Changzhou, surrounded by major roads and apartment blocks. The theme park is just one section of a wider themed attraction, with restaurants, a dino themed cinema (I think?) and more. I think this was probably the most Western style theme park I visited in China beyond Universal, notably being the first regional theme park I found offering a substantial selection of custom merch to waste my money on. Despite the grey weather, the place looked fantastic, being filled to the brim with wonderfully camp yet detailed dinosaur theming. Ride availability was also broadly good across the day, although the park seems to be doing a major refurbishment on their flume right now.

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After buying a paper ticket at the gate, I more or less sprinted straight to Dinoconda. After all the absolute f***ery of the last 48 hours, I needed to get my ass on that coaster ASAP in case the weather turned. Lo and behold, I arrived at the entrance to see a smiling ride host waving me in.

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Whilst the Arrow/S&S 4D coasters have something of a legendary status amongst enthusiasts, I’ve previously found them to be a little underwhelming. Way back in 2015, I much preferred Twisted Colossus to X2 during my disastrous day at Six Flags Tragic Mountain - although nowadays I better remember being scared s***less on the coaster’s lift hill than the actual ride's course. More recently, in Japan last year, I found myself preferring both Hakugei and the Flying Dinosaur to Eejanaika. Whilst I loved the sheer scale and power of Eejanaika, I found it too uncomfortable for my tastes due to the insane aggression and unforgiving restraints.

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Turns out, the third time is the charm. Dinoconda is a phenomenal ride and an above-average overall package.

Dinoconda’s layout is genuinely insane, offering a stronger layout than X2 but steering clear of Eejanaika’s car-crash level of roughness. Improvements from Eejanaika are subtle but clear: the brilliant first drop has a less jarring pullout rotation, the overbank offers more interesting rotation, and the raven turn is less crushingly uncomfortable. The coaster is similarly aggressive to its Japanese sibling, ragdolling you through the course, but is sufficiently smooth that reriding didn’t feel like a chore. I found that the front row inside seats were my favourite, with the outside seats towards the back being noticeably rougher (though unlike Eejanaika I still had a good time on the outside seats).

After a few rides, I found myself questioning: is this the best first drop of any coaster I've ridden? Quite possibly, yeah.

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Perhaps less discussed is the fact that Dinoconda is surprisingly well-presented. The coaster structure alone has immense presence, but I also love the snake at the entrance and the jungle theming which continues into the station. Sure, it’s not exactly Phantasialand, but it’s a much better attempt than Eejanaika’s neon box.

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Queues for Dinoconda turned out to be small to non-existent for the whole day. Whilst throughputs weren’t great due to one train operations and the Chinese public’s seemingly total lack of urgency, the loading processes were at least slightly less nonsensical than Eejanaika’s. After 7 rides across the day, I was both thoroughly impressed and a bit physically broken, in no small part as my arm thwacked into and broke off a small tree branch during my 2nd ride. Taller riders – keep your hands down, you’ve been warned.

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Trust me, I was having fun, that's just how my face is.

The second cred in the park is Super Roller Coaster, a Jinma Rides spinning coaster in the Dinotown area. This spinning coaster inverts, which sounds exciting until you realise it’s the only particularly memorable element on the ride. Most of the rest is just a bunch of slightly rattly and somewhat pedestrian turns. It’s also straddled with bulky OSTRs, unlike most spinners. At least it’s better than the Crazy Skateboard type knock-offs.

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Dinosaur Mountain, the third and final cred, is located inside an impressive artificial mountain. This Zamperla Motocoaster surprisingly does not have a launch, instead using a lift hill to start your swooping ride through a big dinosaur skeleton. I enjoyed this more than I expected to – the dino has some bite! Equally, the Zamperla Disko-style restraints suck and try to squash all the air from your lungs. Pretty good for sure, but make this a standard sit-down coaster and you’ve got an unmitigated hit with me.

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Nearby Dinoconda, Dino Tour is a studio tour-esque/Zufari-like affair which takes you on a jeep tour with a few story elements to spice things up. The queue is shockingly ornate, maybe even looking better than some parts of Universal Beijing’s Jurassic World area. You and the rest of your jeep’s crew first take a leisurely ride past various animatronic dinosaurs, all narrated by a semi-enthusiastic member of staff. They then briefly crank up the Jaws factor, as some water dinosaurs try to attack a diver or something and end up going up in flames. Not content to rip off just one Universal Studio tour element, they then drive you into a 3D motion simulator section, where you get to enjoy being rattled around whilst a transformers-esque mecha dude save you from being eaten by dinosaurs. I liked this until the screen section, which just made me feel kinda ill.

They also had some cool roaming actors around this area. Touches like this made me feel like China Dinosaur Land management did actually care about little things in the guest experience, unlike Happy Valley and Lewa Adventure prior.

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China Dinosaur Land has a decent supporting lineup of thrilling flat rides, most notably including a cool looking top spin and a gyro swing. Whilst I have a fairly decent nausea tolerance for coasters, very spinny flat rides often leave me feeling queasy and hence these had to be avoided. I went for a quick ride on their S&S shot tower which was standard stuff, but offered cool views at least. I also went for a lap on their extended Disko “Coaster Brontosaurus” (fight between yourself over that one), which is one of two Diskos in the park. At least it looks decent and swampy.

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The last ride I bothered with was the 4D cinema, running a film about Pterosaur Riders. This film offers plenty of “I hope this isn’t How To Train Your Dragon copyright infringement” energy, as our protagonist learns how to fly his dinosaur and teams up with his friends to fight a big baddy weirdly similarly to that from the 1st HTTYD film. Of course, it’s all in Mandarin, but it’s easy enough to follow.

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It wouldn’t be a trip to Dinosaur Land without going into the instantly recognisable museum. Ironically, this had better provision for English guests than most stand-alone museums I went to in China, which was nice. There are some cool dinosaur skeletons here, a neat little immersive tunnel, and it looks to be a good educational experience for younger guests. With that said, some bits are starting to feel a bit dated/unkempt, and there’s a handful of natural history museums I’ve been to with better dinosaur sections. Good, but not an outstanding attraction for the park.

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Enroute back to Dinoconda I happened to stumble across the park's parade, which of course had plenty of dino-themed floats.

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I could have happily stayed longer at Chinosaur Land to soak up the vibes, but I called it quits about 3pm after around 5 hours on park. Originally, I was planning to try and get to Suzhou Amusement Land to tick off Beyond The Cloud that evening, but the park’s WeChat mini app revealed that it was sadly shut all day due to technical problems. In retrospect, this was no bad thing, as I was in a bit of a sorry state after being beaten up by Dinoconda all day so far.

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Overall, China Dinosaur Land (and Dinoconda, of course) exceeded my expectations. As a place to just spend time, I think this was my favourite regional theme park in China, even if the supporting ride lineup is a little thin. If you’re visiting Shanghai for Disney or something and want to try just one of the regional parks in the Shanghai-Nanjing corridor, I think this would be the one I'd suggest.

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Next time: will Beyond The Cloud actually run for once?
 
Day 9: Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World

It was my last day in Suzhou and, as I hopped in my Didi over to the park, I was feeling optimistic. The storm that had ruined Friday’s plans had thoroughly blown over, and the weather was bright and breezy. A quick WeChat conversation with customer service the night prior seemed to suggest that Beyond The Cloud, arguably the biggest reason I chose Suzhou as a theme park base, would be running after a few days closed. That said, there’s always some nervousness that you’ll turn up and it’ll be shut out of the blue, though – this is China after all.

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Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World is a fairly new park, opening in 2020. For reasons I still don’t quite understand, the original park closed its doors in 2017 and moved to this site, seemingly scrapping or abandoning most of their previous lineup. The location is about 20 minutes’ drive from Suzhou Railway Station; this proved a good Didi pickup point to avoid the small amount of traffic near the older part of town.

Arriving at the park, first impressions are surprisingly good. It’s quite European in design; everything looks clean and modern. The new location is in a really pretty area, framing the rides with huge rolling hills. In addition to this, plenty of greenery and shade is incorporated into the park. I particularly liked the fact they had lots of benches dotted around the place, so you could easily just chill and watch the rides go by for a while. Whilst there are only 4 credits, the park is deceptively expansive with a deep roster of supporting rides.

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After some brief ticket faff, I was through the gates and jogging towards Beyond The Cloud. Visually, Mack really outdid themselves here. The intertwined top hat-cobra roll-loop combo looks amazing, especially with the sleek blue and grey colour scheme. There’s some basic stylisation around the ride going on too, with something of a confused “ancient civilisation” type vibe.

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Beyond The Cloud kicks off with a decent launch – it’s a little weak on the initial punch but feels like it is never going to stop accelerating. The top hat pull-in is sadly detrimentally rough, frustratingly insta-headaching me on multiple rides. Luckily, the crest more than delivers, flinging you skywards with the sustained ejector this ride is known for. Diving down to earth, the famous barrel roll is next – it’s sensationally fast, albeit less whippy than might be expected. The subsequent Immelmann rides like a more pronounced version of that on Hyperia, offering the strongest airtime in the back row, before the first speed hill tries to aggressively eject you. I found the cobra roll acted more as a breather element, toning down the breakneck pace momentarily before the vertical loop turns up the positives again. A couple of extra ejector pops send you careening into the brakes, after a short but very satisfying ride.

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This credit had a lot riding on it, in no small part due to the nonsense necessary to acquire it. The layout met my high expectations, offering exciting and aggressive forces. However, as aforementioned, I found Beyond The Cloud rode unpleasantly rough at a few points, in a way that I wouldn’t expect of a new Mack. We're talking something noticeably more sinister than the Helix or Hyperia rattle, which meant that I struggled to reride it more than twice without getting a headache then needing a breather. It doesn't seem to be a single train issue either, as it was present across trains 1 and 2 (they seemingly swapped train halfway through the day). Anyways, for this reason I can't call Beyond The Cloud my favourite coaster in China – I’d rank Dinoconda and Flash above it. That said, it's still a fab piece of kit, so come out to Suzhou and judge it for yourself.

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Second on the hit list was the Jinma Rides Tilt Coaster. My expectations for this were basically non-existent – most of the Jinma stuff I’d done on this trip was either horrendously rough or kiddie coasters. You can imagine my shock when this coaster turned out to be a very fun experience, if lacking in force variety. First off, the trains are very decent, offering a good amount of freedom and vest restraints to eliminate headbanging. They feel like a Poundshop version of those used on the modern Vekoma thrill coasters. Even more surprisingly, the ride tracks ridiculously smoothly, being one of the smoother major thrill coasters I’ve done of late. The shaping is still predictably funky, especially on those final two rolls, but it feels quirky rather than uncomfortable here. Finally, the signature tilt element is great fun and a nice offride spectacle, even if the drop doesn’t quite hit 90 degrees. Honestly, don’t sleep on this coaster; it’s nothing incredible, but remains a far better supporting act than it needs to be.

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The last two coasters at the park are obvious one-and-dones. The park’s Jinma spinner is small, jank and just sucks.

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The new for 2024 Jinma kiddie coaster is a little better, if unexceptional. It rides decently and is tricked out with a very nice night lighting package.

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I'll take things that I'd never see at a British theme park for $500, Alex.

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Creds run, it was time to turn my attention to dark rides. Unfortunately, I found Suzhou Amusement Land’s dark rides mostly nauseating – literally. Whilst the Kuka robot arm style ride Crazy Trip (think back to the Harry Potter Forbidden Journey ride system) has some neat physical set work involving evil plants and space monsters, the screen sections are lacking and made me feel even more ill than those on Forbidden Journey.

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Just across the way is a mysterious looking tower with an indoor queueline that stinks of cigarettes. This houses another screen-based 3D motion simulator, which focuses on some bloke and his fox breaking into a temple. I genuinely had to shut my eyes to keep myself from chunning from the nausea… not ideal.

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Thankfully, their last proper dark ride is their best. 31 Degrees is a lovely little flying theatre which takes you over various iconic Chinese landmarks and a handful of other famous sites, before concluding with a wonderful flight through the Suzhou old town attractions I’d seen a few days prior.

Hold on, all these rides are in a Dark Forest... folks... is this an Alton Towers reference? PROJECT HORIZON/SW9 CONFIRMED RMC TILT COASTER??!1

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Sorry, not quite sure what came over me there.

There’s a few more notable rides worth shouting out in the lineup which I ended up riding. Similar to Happy Valley Beijing, SALFW have a shot/drop tower combo, albeit this time not from S&S. I found the shot side a bit better. The name is juuuuuuust about not in bad taste, but it was close.

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The 4D cinema runs a standard Mack Media film. Strange to see Ed Euromaus quite so far from home.

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The rapids ride basically enforces everyone wearing a park-issued raincoat, as shown. They are quite wet and reasonably exciting at least, so this wasn’t totally overkill. The rapids were the most popular ride in the park with nearly an hour’s queue (admittedly, mostly due to terrible ops) - it will always amuse me how much the Chinese love water rides yet hate getting wet.

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On the subject of strange quirks about Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World: either the looping music playlist is really weirdly short around the park, or someone on the staff decided to f*** with me specifically. I think around 11am I heard Coldplay's Yellow come on the speaker in the Owl City/tilt coaster area - I enjoy a bit of Coldplay occasionally, so this was a nice thing. However, across the course of the day, no matter where I went, I kept running into this one song. I think I heard Yellow in full no less than 6 times, conservatively. It was inescapable, like I was being haunted by the revengeful spirit of Chris Martin himself. It was all yellow indeed.

I think there were one or two other flat rides I duly noted but skipped because I wasn't feeling 100%, most notably the Tourbillion. Unsure if this thing is a "knock-off" or what - it looked decent but a bit sickly.

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I stayed til around 7:30pm, getting several dusk and dark rides on Beyond The Cloud as well as the Tilt Coaster. My night rides on the former were particularly fantastic; when fully warmed up this thing utterly hauls. I could definitely have stayed longer into the evening if I had wished to, in particular to take a wander across the park and see the number of cool lit up sculptures (unsure if these were a temporary or permanent thing for Mid-Autumn Festival). However, I'd been there since 10am and was getting fatigued by this point, so I called it a day and went back to my hotel in Suzhou for one last time.

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Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World is a better day out than I expected, between the park's pleasant vibes and the well-rounded supporting cast of rides. Of course, Beyond The Cloud is the obvious highlight, and I'm so glad to finally get this elusive cred under my belt. Beyond that, the Jinma tilt is better than it has any rights to be, the flying theatre is quite good, and the rapids are above average if not exactly mindblowing. The highlights are doable in an afternoon/evening, probably best combined with Wuxi Sunac Land geographically, but I'd probably suggest a whole day if you want to take it more slowly.

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Next time: it’s only China, and it’s more afraid of you than you’re of it.
 
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Epilogue: how I learned to stop worrying and love coastering in China

Coming back to the UK is always a melancholy experience for me. This time it sadly went from melancholy to actual hell, as British Airways decided to cancel our flight with less than 24 hours notice and left us battling obstinate customer service to find a new way home on the same day. But I digress. Luckily, I’d had a blast in China. I’d picked up 22 new credits, visited 6 new parks, and broadly suffered less with spite than I expected to. I’m already eyeing up potential travel plans for a return to China before my visa expires, if work allows.

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Now dear readers, if you will be so kind, allow me to briefly evangelise about my Chinese coasting experience. I’m gonna be straight with y’all – China is a criminally under-visited destination for coasters right now and it should definitely be something you consider before you book that trip back to Orlando for the fifth year running.

First things first – China is cheaper than you expect and definitely cheaper than Japan (the longstanding go-to for coasters in Asia). Entry for parks is similar to Western prices. However, transport (including taxis), food and hotels are all very reasonably priced. In Suzhou, I was paying under £40 a night for a hotel for two including breakfast, and we were eating like kings for under £15 a day. My over 2 weeks in China came in around ~£2.2k all in (including flights, visa, etc), which is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but likely not much dissimilar to doing Orlando for a similar period.

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Second is that China is much less scary than it’s hyped up to be. Even as obvious foreigner who got the odd stare, I felt perfectly safe everywhere I went. The only mild exception was around Forbidden City/Tiananmen, sheerly because there was simply way too much security and police presence for me to feel at ease. The public transport is broadly great, the built environment is almost as good as the West in the major cities, and roads are generally much less chaotic than other Asian countries like Vietnam. Just be prepared to push to get places and you’ll be totally fine.

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Lastly, the Chinese parks are honestly a pretty good time, and their headliners can be fantastic. Dinoconda and Flash are easy top 10 coaster entries for me right now, and Jurassic Park Adventure is probably the best dark ride I’ve ever done. The most annoying thing on this front is probably that the absolute best hardware is spread quite thinly – there’s not many strong 1-2 punches in the country compared to the USA or Europe. Regarding operations, yes, they aren’t great. However, they were mostly tolerable and certainly not bad enough to put me off giving any chains/parks another whirl in future. Crowd level and some luck did doubtless influence this though, so make sure you avoid any public holidays if you have the option to.

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Japan is indisputably the go-to place in Asia for coasters for most Westerners right now. There are practical reasons for this, particularly the decent level of English and that more or less all of their coaster highlights lie on the Tokaido Shinkansen. Admittedly I did prefer Japan as a destination overall, and without that trip I might have lacked the confidence to visit China. However, specifically on the coaster hardware front I think that China deserves the same kind of recognition that Japan already gets. Also, if I don’t get more people out in the field backing me up that Beyond The Cloud is kinda rough then I’m gonna end up getting cancelled on Twitter.

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Hope you enjoyed these reports - not too sure where and when my next international jaunt will be, but hopefully the next adventure won't be too long!
 
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