A New Chapter in China #3 - Part 5: Fantawild Dreamland Qingdao

[HeartlineCoaster]

Ah, China. The bane of my life, but I can't get enough. It's been two-and-a-half long months since I could visit and they've built and closed a hundred more things I want to try in that time.

The plan was to go to Europe around this time, but as no one can open anything in a timely fashion, might as well have another crack.

Nothing exciting in terms of travel. Landed in Shanghai. Picked up a SIM card. Phoned Suzhou Amusement Land.
Is Beyond the Cloud running?
Yes.

Unintelligible noises.

Jumped straight on the world's fastest Maglev for maximum efficiency, but was once again treated to the 'slow cycle' capped at a mere 300km/h. Regular high speed trains would regularly outstrip this for the rest of the trip again but it beats the metro equivalent of that particular journey a hundredfold at least.
From the end of that it was metro anyway to Shanghai Railway Station. High speed train to Suzhou. Dump bags at the hotel. Didi to the park. Breathe.

Day 1 - Suzhou Amusement Land Forest World again

Even when you do get positive confirmation it's never a guarantee in this game. The nerves were high as I powered over to the ticket office, gazing distractedly at the magnificent blue top hat all the while. A train crested it. A scream.

And thus, Beyond the Cloud only manages to tie with Wood Coaster for the honour of my worst spite. Third time's the charm. The queue was just about trailing to the bottom of the station stairs and took around 30 minutes, so, 4 trains.

I'd never actually seen the trains, but here they are. Non-headlight editions. Noticed some fun details while waiting like the fact the LSMs have little cooling fans and tubes mounted underneath them, which fire up just for the launch sequence. Must get pretty hot those things.

Talking of pretty hot, god damn, this ride. After so much more anticipation than I usually allow myself, mainly circumstantial of course, it was everything I wanted, and more.

The launch is nothing overly special, beyond being the fastest Mack and all that. A smooth acceleration into an interestingly rough transition - there's quite an intense judder as it heads up into the top hat, but a characterful one that added to the experience on this occasion. A reminder that this thing is gonna kick my ass.

Top hat happens in no time at all, with a bit more kick at the top than your average accelerator one of these and then a full on, wild, first drop type experience on the way down with some legitimately scary airtime, especially for a Mack I must say. And herein lies the strengths of this ride, something I perhaps didn't expect. Violent ejector punctuates proceedings on multiple occasions.

As such, the super fast inversion almost manages to be the most pedestrian part of the layout. Sadly this didn't ride like a Blue Fire roll, which would have amped the whole intensity even more, but you're soon up into the big twisty turnaround.

Which reminded me a bit of Zadra, with another fantastic lurch downwards. Then it goes straight into another ejector hill, which was pretty obscene.

Before what, on paper, seemed like a questionable choice of inversion sequence. Cobra roll? They're never good. Vertical loopings? Yawn.
Not so, the cobra is profiled in a rather uninterrupted way when it comes to forces, which, leading directly into the loop at such high speed and being, unusually, the last inversion of the layout, gave a ridiculously strong amount of sustained positives. After a few laps I was getting pins and needles in my feet from this, badly. A feeling I haven't felt since... 2018 Batman La Fuga. And I loved it.

Then just to wake you up again, bam, brutal ejection into the brakes.

I'm still in the processing stage for this ride, it certainly took my breath away in multiple ways. It's a tad short, it's not perfect, but a Mack launch having more and better airtime than Helix and RtH, as the world's biggest fan of those rides, scares me. Multi-launch this and you're looking at a list breaker. The year of the Mack just got even more exciting.

For now, it's the best steel coaster in China by quite a margin and, given the way their woodies are deteriorating, probably not far off the best they have to offer full stop.
For me, I'll keep you posted. At least top 25.

Something that somewhat shocked me in the planning stages of this trip is that the park has added another cred since I was last in the country. They couldn't even open the ones they already had, but they could build more in no time at all.

Anyway this Goose Coaster had stopped itself on the lift hill and, to their credit, they were actually doing something about it. Am I going to remain forever spited by this park though?

Meanwhile I did their flying theatre because I hadn't done it yet, I guess. It was, ok, I guess. Done soooooo many that they're like the Vekoma juniors of the dark ride world now. There's like 10 more this trip alone, so stay tuned for that fun. Most memorable thing about it was that it flew over the old Suzhou Amusement Land, which used to be elsewhere in the city. Was a nice touch.

Back over at the goose things were looking slow. Endless test laps and an ambiguous response from the staff. Oh well, Beyond the Cloud had reduced itself to being basically walk on, so rode that a bunch more while keeping one eye on the potential +1.

The ride was injuring me in multiple ways before I finally stopped, would have stayed longer but had been up for well over 24 hours at this point. And the goose had reopened.

A magnificent specimen and close out to the day.
Redemption.

Up next - spite

 

[Hutch]

Nice job. Sounds like the best outcome you could've hoped for in terms of ride quality? Would've been a bummer if the Mack hadn't been all that special, especially with how hard it was to maintain hype after multiple spites.

 

[NemesisRider]

Glad to hear the Mack is indeed as good as it looks - Beyond The Cloud is top of my list for my China trip this September, though I'm pretty worried about it spiting after your experiences...

 

[gavin]

Glad you finally got the Mack. It's the best one of theirs that I've done so far and is definitely one of the best Chinese steel coasters currently. I'm trying to think what I might put higher, and off the top of my head can only really think of Dinoconda.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Off to a new city the next morning, by the name of Huai'an. Why?

Day 2 - Xiyou World of Adventures Resort

More of a dark ride park for me this one, I remember looking online and exclaiming damn this stupid hobby because, by visiting, I'd be obliged to ride Chinese Goudurix. We definitely peaked with coasters on the first day here, so feel free to check out any time you like.

There's a big tourist centre and what could loosely be described as a citywalk with restaurants a significant walk away from the main gate, where tickets were purchased.

I didn't do much further research beyond the above, so headed in with relative excitement to see what we could discover.

First stumbled across their cookie cutter mine train, save for the monkey face on the front. The park is predominantly themed to Journey to the West, so Monkey King and his gang. Nothing new there on the Chinese park scene anyway.

It had a few trains wait and was slow as hell, but above average rockwork I guess. Even a few peaches to decorate the final brakes.

Round the corner in some more rocks was the first dark ride of the day. Loosely billed as the origin story of old mate Sun Wukong, it seemed we were going around the park in chronological order at least.

The ride was a Peter Pan style suspended boat type thing, which I must admit I hadn't expected as I can't think of another one like this in the whole of China.

It was built by Jiuhua Rides (who?). Wonder if they have more. Anyway it had some good stuff and some not so good stuff.

Physical sets weren't bad in places, a few need some tlc.

The media based bits were poor, with a company logo or DEMO plastered all over them (made it easier to identify them for the database at least), sometimes not working, sometimes not synced up etc. Story was confusing too and not usually how it goes down. Eh, different.

From there, stumbled blindly into this flying theatre. This one told the story of when he got mad one day and kicked off, started some fights in heaven and then got stomped on by a big Buddha. Fantawild have a revolving theatre about it.

Another weird one, it just didn't flow that well, although was different for a flying theatre at least. Ended hilariously by just fading to black on said stomping though. Where do we go from here?

Next building had a show in it, said to come back later. Wish we hadn't.

Next building looked rather impressive and unique. Story was a new one too, something about spiders in the Pansi cave.

Monkey's mate Piggy likes the ladies and some spider ladies had lured him into some cave and webbed him up good. The result was a motion-based trackless dark ride from a company I hadn't come across before now - Playfun.

It lacked the motion part somewhat and it's interesting to see the 'inspirations' being passed down throughout these ride systems now. From Transformers, to the Fantawild ones, now onto these more obscure Chinese brands, they all like to riff off of these same specific moments. Same framework, different story. Fun though. We got out of the cave.

Chinese Goudurix was closed. I didn't know how to feel. Mostly relief of course, but the cred hunter in me obviously wanted the +1 and to a lesser extent the morbidly curious coaster enthusiast in me wanted to at least try the largest coaster ever created by Hebei Zhongye Metallurgical Equipment Manufacturing Co., Ltd. I've pretty much hated everything else they've ever done with a passion.

The cobra roll in particular looks disgusting from off ride.

But, credit to them, for all those places that claim something is closed for 'maintenance', there was actually genuine maintenance going on in the station. I fear it's not enough.

What a pity, never mind.

From there you reach the centrepiece of the park, the massive rock structure with palace bits sticking out of it. I had no idea what it was, but surely it must contain a ride, right?

First attempt to clamber up some stairs led to a huge, but closed, door. And this sign at least. Know your audience.

Then, after a parade had passed through the plaza below, another tunnel further round led to the next dark ride. Not signposted at all from that particular end. Exploration at its finest.

This one is trippy. Billed on the sign (if you enter from another angle) as Monkey goes to India to find a book, there's very little Monkey going on and you visit several different locations. The vehicles are big motion based things again, shaped like a flower or shell, but rather than your usual jerky motions they have a rythmic sway to them. They slowly pitch you around and dance in front of each scene, for much longer than you would expect from most dark rides, it's kinda funky.

Enter Thailand, pass by some stuff, pause, turn round, sway and dance for a while looking at the same scenery, turn, move on.

Enter Fata Morgana, the same.

Enter some projection room with fancy lights on a palace and fireworks, the same.

Enter some British blokes on steam trains, the same.

Then you end up in a Chinese High Speed Railway Station in your big conch and exit on the left.
And we haven't got to the ride where you walk through a woman's body yet.

Well, that's the next one. The guy on the door could only really describe this one as 'a film', so we headed in the massive queue which is more of a 'walkthrough' experience I guess. We're looking for the plantain fan to help us cross the flaming mountains.

You enter the mouth anyway, Monkey's head is sticking out of the wall of the lungs somehow.

Some long, winding pink ramps fill this huge chamber with a big glowing heart in the centre of it. I admire the commitment to theme here, as there's a couple of service/backstage staff doors that also have their own winding pink ramps that are unnecessarily shaped.

I thought this was cool, the statue rotates to form two distinct shadows.

Then mountains. Then disappointment at a tiny room with seats that clearly can't move. Is this not a dark ride. Then excitement at the fact that there's no screen or projections, we're just staring at a wall. Something must move.

And move it did, it's like carousel of progress but facing outwards, a revolving theatre that stops in several scenes. Monkey pretends to be the Bull King and goes to his wife to ask for the fan we wanted. She gives it, then finds out and gets annoyed, Bull King shows up, bit of a fight. Then the backdrop changes and random light show because we've got to show off our projection mapping technology I guess. Need I say, bit of a weird one.

And we're not done yet, around the next corner was yet another dark ride. A robot arm one to be specific.

This guy really didn't wanna ride.

Back to some more action based misadventures this one had a very similar vibe to the Suzhou Amusement park one with the big worm, cos it had a big floppy monster head instead, in a similar location, which wasnt very good. Here's a diagram, woo:

It entered the same revolving projection screens in an obvious fashion too. The system was rather fun though, had some hilariously overstated tip you up on your back moments for seemingly little reason, quite intense in that regard. This one we now know was made by [someone], there's a plaque to prove it, I haven't deciphered it yet.

Behold! Actual maintenance.

And we can't have a trip without a cat photo can we.

Thus concludes the rides at this park. Stuck around for the two shows because I thought they might be impressive. They really weren't.

First one we had come across in the morning was trash, a Stitch Encounter style theatre thing that had the audience interacting with Nezha - the cool kid who usually beats up the dragons in Dragon King's Tale. Many guests just upped and left halfway through, but as is the English way, I put up with it for fear of a slight on my character amongst total strangers.

There was a better, more genuine theatre performance for the other show. It just wasn't that engaging and by this point we were just so done with the damn Monkey King.

He's on every damn ride (except when he didn't show up in India) and here he's just being a dick. Ruins some woman's tree. Gets his ass kicked by a guy. Restores the tree. Like why are we supposed to like this guy at this point?

And then we left.

I had fun here, mainly because I enjoy all this discovery and new experience business. There's nothing great going on in the park, I probably rated the dancing ride the most for the technology and effort in the early scenes. The place itself looks pretty good, but it feels way more than two or three years old already and there's a marked step down in attraction quality when we compare it to the inevitable baseline that is Fantawild. Ah, my beloved Fantawild...

Up next - Fantawild

 

[Gazza]

Glad you finally got the Mack. It's the best one of theirs that I've done so far and is definitely one of the best Chinese steel coasters currently. I'm trying to think what I might put higher, and off the top of my head can only really think of Dinoconda.

Starry Sky Ripper?

 

[gavin]

Starry Sky Ripper?

As good as it is, probably not.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Starry Sky Ripper?

No.


Elsewhere in Huai'an, but also not really in Huai'an is the newest Glorious Orient park from Fantawild. Like several other of their resorts it's a good hours drive out of the city centre in a bit of a no-mans land, but that also means they have plenty of room to grow I guess.

Case in point, one of their new Boonie Bear Harbour parks is going up over the road. One of these has opened so far and it was a smaller lineup of park aimed more at families - no big cred. Still had a unique dark ride though, so that'll be enough for me one day.

Day 3 - Glorious Orient Huai'an

And so we're here again, sort of. Glorious Orient Ningbo was an experience, a highly competent park that was a bit of a disappointment in terms of tone. Going in knowing this, I think the theme has grown on me.

*Flying Theatre music plays* Skip!
This one isn't hiding in military guise however, spaceships?

Started strong on the cold steel of Sky Track. Other guests hadn't made it into the park yet, which was a bonus.

And it's best to take advantage of this fact to hit Fighter Jet nice and early.

Case in point, I walked on to the first train solo.

Then walked on to the second train with 6 other guests. It ran noticeably quicker with the extra weight, an effect that must be exacerbated by the baby trains. It completely changed the dynamic of the ride, it was significantly more intense with the positive and absolutely hauling.

And then a larger group of guests arrived and the queue was ruined instantly, so I left. It soon posted 90 mins.

I remain impressed, though not blown away by this Vekoma. The launch initiation is still beautifully smooth and the first element airtime inversion thing is glorious. Then it just gets a bit new-gen V in the wrong way for me. Lots of corners, positives, a couple pops of airtime but with nothing particularly characterful about it. It goes through the motions of being a high speed rollercoaster with gallops and vrilles and then you're done. I can say that it's technically great, but it doesn't give me a buzz.

Frontline Charge rounds out the creds. Standard Vekoma Junior here, not a Boomerang.

Next to Railway Guerilla, which went up a lot in my estimation this time.

Beginning with the fact that we got the pre-show this time. It's acted out like a professional drama, but the key takeaway from me is that it entirely resisted having the actors turn to the camera, point and say 'we need you! Jump aboard these high tech all terrain early 20th century war machines and help save the world.'
They do however more cleverly weave an animation of the ride vehicles into the 'plot' which involves blowing up a train to stop munitions and supplies. We're just observers.

The ride itself was always spectacular, a real culmination of a lot of Fantawild creativity and technology. Big impressive sets, an array of clever special effects, immersive screens and the vehicle movements are absolutely on point.

Should have a POV for you in a couple years.

I was less buzzing from new Fantawild and more focused on what was actually going on in the shooting dark ride this time.

This led to noticing that you're shooting the bombs and missiles in this one, so I guess the actual message is stop the war! Which is nicer.

Here's what it looks like when there's nothing to shoot.

I had Amorous Northwest Feelings about one of my favourite Fantawilds over in Taizhou. This one only has Amarons Northwst Feelings.

This confused me, I was expecting the dark ride Hangar Breakout somewhere in this park and the building here looks rather like it. The clue was that it had timeslots, though that can be common for rides on quiet days.

It wasn't, it was a China is so great 3D cinema that amused me somewhat. You're seeing here a race for GDP between countries around the world, punctuated by technological achievements and advancements in China. They were claiming that by 2030 they would be beating the US (a low bar if ever there was one).

Later on there was a vision of a city from the future. It had rollercoasters running through it, which was a plus, but they also misspelled their own company name so... it's just not up to par with the other attractions of this generation.

Construction, get excited.

This contained a show called Heroine.

It told the brave wartime stories of several women using their usual fancy projection and stage tech. It's the first one I've seen that didn't actually end up using any live actors, usually there's a mix. Not enough paying customers. As for the story, not the most engaging but conveyed some good emotion.

This contained a show too, but it was too quiet to run, so that's twice I've missed it now. Ganzhou, you're up.

Apparently the 'Old Summer Palace' was given to the British but, being the bastards we are, we wrecked the joint and are the reason a number of historic artifacts are now missing.

The massive frontage of Zhiyuan Zhiyuan still impresses me, as does the ride.

Shanghai Pirates tech still impresses me too.

The ship sinks because the Emperor likes to party. Or because the British built it.

And from here I noticed a key difference to the Ningbo ride. Instead of passing underneath a big wreckage set of the ship, you drift by this haunting and eerie scene of people and debris sinking to the bottom of the ocean in the darkness. It's very well done.
Until they bang on about their technological advances again, which kinda ends it weird.

Some school trips had been arriving throughout the day, steadily making the queues less manageable. These would start to impact the trip for the foreseeable, must be the season for it I guess.

As such, there wasn't a whole deal of opportunity for rerides, though I was thoroughly enjoying the park itself. Instead we turned sights to a couple of creds in the city before our train that evening and booked a Didi back a little earlier than originally planned in order to grab the +1s.

In the car, it rained, hard. And so that was that.

Imagine being in the 90 minute queue for Fighter Jet when that happens though.

Up next - malls

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

That night we took the train over to Qingdao, another new city for me. Nothing overly exciting going on there in the coaster department but it was a surprisingly nice place, for China anyway.

The place is famous for two things it seems - beer and movie studios. Our closest experience to the latter was having Harry Potter flying above the bed.

And cursing us in the shower.

Day 4 - Qingdao Sunac Land

I use that term loosely because RCDB have combined three parks into one for ease of navigation. In reality this is another Sunac mall that has an indoor Sunac Land park, a Sunac Movie park like the (deceased) ones in malls next to outdoor Sunac parks AND a Sunac Water park. Each of the three are separately entranced, ticketed and contain a cred of some description.

We had arrived too early for the main park anyway so headed over to the movie park which I was most interested in. I found this Jinma interactive dark ride coaster hybrid in research a few years back and the way in which it was described was like it was located in an actual movie studio tour/experience, so had been picturing more of an HB World type affair.

The reality is more pedestrian in that it's just another a Sunac mall Movie park sadly. But is it even that? I was getting a vibe. No entrance sign actually straddling the entrance area, just a bunch of claw machines and, in the distance, darkness. Am I going to be accosted to ride some go-karts?

Taking a wander deeper inside was very familiar. It was dark, there were no signs of life, there were leaflets strewn about the place.
It once again turned into a bit of an abandoned park exploration, all of these pictures being taken with flash.

Spooky dragon heads poking out of the darkness.

This was the beginnings of a horror walkthrough, which I imagine could have been quite the experience to walk through by nothing but torch light.

This was the entrance to the coaster I wanted (and track above). Not looking promising, but I did find some sort of maintenance/cleaners check sheet taped to a wall somewhere that had dates and signatures up til the current month. We'll be back.

Back over at the 'main' park, which was ready to receive, it's free to enter so picked up a cheap deal for 4 'major attractions' - only really wanted the two creds.

They have a crappy 9D experience here, which was promptly skipped.

Laoshan Flying Dragon or 'Suspension Roller Coaster' was the first to open. Apologies for the bad photos in this place, the extremes in lighting were playing havoc and I was on the wrong phone.

Had mild intrigue about this ride, it's a Jinma suspended with the new style track, custom layout, inversion. Think Vekoma STC.
I got the old Wanda classic of staff woman being very happy to have an actual customer, leading me down the queue and setting everything in motion. She got as far as pushing dispatch before being shouted at by some bloke and was then never seen again while he proceeding to run the ride. Hope she wasn't fired.

Think Vekoma STC, but poor. It rode like ass, barely gaining any momentum throughout the layout against all the shaking and then clunked itself through the inline in four countable and uncomfortable stages. I've seen signs that their products have been improving in modern times. This was not one of them.

We then sat on a bench for an hour because there was nothing else to do and they wouldnt open the other cred yet.

And then they did. Told you they had a thing about beer here.

Custom spinner? Or at least a layout I haven't come across before. It was different, it weren't great.

Thus ends the park. Headed up to the water park, hoping they'd be lenient about outfit requirements should we want just 'the cred'. All the ticket desks were lit up, but no one was home. The actual entrance was semi-permanently fenced off. I can only assume the place only opens in peak periods.

From the limited photos on rcdb, one of which, amusingly, is a duplicate that's zoomed in and mirrored, along with a brief promotional video that was playing outside the main park, I have my doubts about whether 'Air Sea Battle' is a cred at all. It's powered, has water guns, I'm yet to see an elevation change, so in my head canon, this was no loss.

Headed over to the movie park again and they had actually turned a few lights on. A lone woman was running a desk and offering up some crappy 7D experience, two less Ds than the main park sadly, in what had already become a repurposed area.

The park is clearly in decline like several of the others, though it was claimed that the coaster would reopen for the school holidays, further backing up my theory about the water park.

No use to me, so RIP.

Time to get jiggy with some +1s

Beer City Neverland Theme Park

To use a Gavin line, there were no pictures of these places online, so you're welcome.

There's a bunch of tents set up around the perimeter of the place, all about beer, it appears they host some form of festival here but clearly that wasnt going on at this moment in time. Nevertheless, after some corralling of staff, this pumpkin provided tickets for the lone cred and lone reason we set foot in the joint.

We already knew it was made by Qin Long, the biggest of theirs I've ridden so far! We still don't have a name.

Two laps and it vibrated hilariously throughout. Job done.

There's a 'beer culture museum' across the road, but I had a date with destiny.

Qingdao Rio Car(no)val Theme Park

Elsewhere along the coast, lies a rather pleasant shopping district with a rather unpleasant rollercoaster.

Thankfully it was closed for refurbishment. That guy in shot was snooping around too, even peeking in one of the locked doors. Maybe he'll have the revolutionary information out there before me.

So, done for the day, we took a pleasant stroll around the area.

And the perimeter of the park of course. There is/was an indoor/outdoor log flume thing.

And a Beijing Shibaolai built Volare. Yet to experience one of these, I was fairly confident that I didn't want to. It had no station or cars, so it won't be hurting anyone any time soon.

Jumped on the Qindao Eye (yes, spelt wrong) for some views.

Nice.

Up next - more discoveries

 

[roomraider]

Great report from some less visited parks. Shame about the invert. It was their first ever new style invert. Seems the new ones are much better at least. Small steps.

I'm fairly sure that Volare has never opened. Been there for years and never seen anything to suggest it worked.

If anyone is wondering why theres so much beer themed stuff around. Qingdao was once occupied by the Germans. Who wasted no time setting up a brewery there, as Germans are wont to do.

That brewery (now nationalised) is Tsingtao (anglicized version of Qingdao) which can be found everywhere today.

So technically Tsingtao is a German beer I guess.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

Qingdao is a weird layout, set around a big bay but they use some massive bridges to just cut right through it. And I mean massive, if you get driven from one section to another along these and the air is slightly murky, so, in China, always, you can see nothing but road and sea on all sides, quite eerie.

Not my picture.

I wanted to get to the Fantawild here obviously, so we did just that.

Day 5 - Fantawild Dreamland Qingdao

'Bit' of an extended entrance to this one and a slightly different to usual Dreamland vibe.

Until you get to the usual. They were painting the floor here - upkeep!

Doing something inside too.

Had a snoop round the stores as it's a more vintage park than I've been visiting recently. Even took a look in the back here - no fantawild dragon to be found, even in the fantawild dragon boxes.

Sadly this was up first.

There's an obvious problem with most of these Kumali layout ones, all seeming to have two real nasty pumps at the bottom of the curved drop which will take any opportunity to punch you in the head. Many parks have padded the hell out of the restraints in response to complaints I can only assume, but a few are still rock solid and ready to bite. I've managed to develop a technique to counteract it over the years, why do we riiide coasters that cause us pain.

A more pleasant surprise here was this.

Usually called Qin Dynasty Adventure, I hadn't clocked what 'Warrior's Tomb' was going to be from the sign outside the park.

It's been a while since I've been acquainted with their original motion jeep vehicle things. Does it hold up against their latest and greatest attempt?

Well not much can compete with Deep Down right now, but it's still really good. It's a great atmosphere setter, in the dark and brooding mausoleum, though I don't quite remember previous iterations going literal ghost train style with heads on wires type scares. I'm still never sure whether these are all the same or not. Fundamentally, yes, but always with little unique touches. I like that.

The other cred wasn't ready to receive, so back to another old classic. Earlier this year I did Wizard Academy 2.0 so was fun to compare it to the original once more. Should have a pov of both for you to do the same, in about 3 years.

It's amazing the things you forget even when doing these a bunch of times. The big squid thing on the facade of the new one is in the old one too, one of the closest of the actually 'remade' scenes in fact, just without beating the wizard up. And he's just more of a dick here, as I do remember, literally pulling faces and sticking his tongue out at you in between trying to kill you.
But you're all mates at the end, you can visit the Wizard Academy any time. Odd.

Not a cred, or a dark ride, just how we like it. Skip.

The dark ride to end all dark rides. I'll never say no to a Jinshan Temple Showdown.

I love how they describe it here, sets the scene perfectly.

Again these are all subtley different, not least in the fact that you get a variation in live actors. This one heavily featured little sister lady greensnake.

But it never ends well for anyone.

This was a show I've never managed to catch before - Ghost Romance.

I thought this was it, and was ready to get uncomfortable.

Thankfully just a preshow and you move into a proper auditorium. It's a very early version of their standard projection magic stage shows but still a pretty powerful one. An old guy recounts the tale from his youth, of meeting a magic woman in the cherry blossoms here. She's meant to be luring him to get eaten by some demon but the power of love gets in the way.
Eventually the demon shows up and fights ensue, she sacrifices herself to save the guy and the demon just gives the most hilarious sigh like 'ugh, oh well', and off he pops.
Old guy is sad now and has been waiting here ever since. Maybe now is the time to give up. He leaves a walking stick upright in the spotlight, which pauses before falling over on its own. Fade to black.
Damn, Fantawild.

Mount Tanggula was finally ready to receive.

Or was it. The mountain itself was gone. Still the usual shaky mine train clone though, with a different view.

Sadly this was closed, I've somehow still never managed to do a 'Space Expo' (yet).

Music pla.. skip!

Must admit I never knew that Chicken Stew would be a dark ride.

Of the shooting variety, with different cars to anything I've seen them use before. It was based on another of their older animated series - the one with the chickens.

This is/was an on-site hotel. And that was that, good little park that.

What else is in the city?

Power Long Mall XMXQ Panda Planet Dreams and Childhood Super Paradise Something

This was supposed to contain a mall cred or two.

Well damn, that ain't running any time soon. Poor pandas.

This turned into quite the interesting exploration though. They were in the middle of renovation and didn't seem to care if you just walked around.

Laying down carpet around the footers.

Still got a train.

Down the stairs and past the parked car took things closer to the action.

RCDB knows all. It had an unknown one of these listed too.

It ain't running.

POV - exploding pandas.

POV - You just got the human powered cred.

And that was that.

Up next - the worst rollercoaster lineup on the planet