I haven’t got any new creds for AGES, and even then it was just a few crappy things at Rainbow’s End. I had a long weekend thanks to some crappy festival on Monday, so decided to do a revisit to Chengdu, mostly to pick up the major new rides at Happy Valley there. I’d been before, just over 4 years ago, and generally liked the place, and there are regular direct flights from Hong Kong. It was the usual evening flight and straight to the hotel job on the Friday, staying in the same area I stayed before (Tianfu Sqaure – well-located for anyone planning on going), but in a nicer hotel this time.
Happy Valley Chengdu
It was opening at 9, but I decided to arrive around 10, figuring that rides wouldn’t be opening that early. Wrong,; they’d been open from around half nine, but never mind. Didi (Chinese Uber) have very recently added English as an option to their app, which is amazing. When Uber was still a thing in China, before it was banned and they made their own version, it was impossible to use. Didi works in basically the same way, and was excellent. It was also even cheaper than regular taxis – I reckon around half price – which are already cheap enough. Problems with taxis in the past always revolve around drivers not knowing where things are – especially smaller, more obscure parks – or trying to get out of those out-of-the-way places later. Didi solves all those issues; it’s fab! Sorry, picture:
It seemed quite busy – not surprising given that it was the weekend of a public holiday – but it wasn’t too bad once I was in. The two coaster near the front of the park – a Mega-Lite and SLC – already had pretty long queues, but I had those creds already, so they weren’t a priority.
Instead, it was straight to the new area at the back of the park where the two new coasters were. This is always the best way to deal with a park, but especially in China. People there haven’t worked out yet that joining a huge line at the front of the park is a stupid idea.
This was a good sign:
As was this:
The new area was really nice, with a Moroccan theme. The front of the park was pretty tatty in comparison. They’ve rethemed their old Golden Horse spinner, but I didn’t need the cred, so didn’t bother. This end of the park was empty, so I didn’t have to wait more than one train on the dive machine or GCI woodie. I’m going to just thrown in a bunch of disorganised pictures and break them up with words which may or may not match the pictures above and below since I’m not checking.
Operations were typically crappy, but at this stage it didn’t matter since there was nobody around. On both the dive machine and woodie, I timed the trains going out every 8-10 minutes, taking 5 minutes between one set of riders getting off the train and the train leaving the station again. S**ty, but usual. They were employing all the usual Happy Valley tactics: holding people on the exit platform until everybody had picked up bags, bulls**t warm-up exercises before opening the gates (yes, even on the dive machine), overzealous restraint checking etc.
The bag storage thing on the dive machine added an extra level of f**kwittery since it confused every pleb entering the station and had to be explained at least 5 times to every trainload. Obviously, this couldn’t be done while the train was out, only after it was back and the riders had all left the station. It would be a decent system if there was multiple trains going out frequently, but Happy Valley is never going to do that (they had three trains, but were using one), so it’s just pointless. Their whole way of running things means they can NEVER use multiple trains, so a simple storage bin at the exit would be fine. But no because Happy Valley
Anyway, I really liked the dive machine, but I like the ride type anyway. I had it in my head that it was one of the smaller Krake/Black Hole models, but it was quite a bit bigger, sitting between those and the 200-footers. I did an immediate (as immediate as Happy Valley allows) reride while there was nobody there.
The woodie was good, but not great. GCI did a great job with the new woodie at Happy Valley Chongqing, but this one just didn’t stack up. The Chongqing woodie had terrain to play with while this one was built on flat land, so I’m sure that had something to do with it. The pluses are that it felt really fast and didn’t really let up until it hit the brakes, but the downside was that other than a few small pops, it lacked airtime. Next time I rank GCI woodies, it’ll likely sit somewhere in the middle.
It was three rides each on those two coasters before going back into the older areas of the park that I’d done before. Not much had changed. I didn’t do the rapids since I remembered them being stupidly wet, but gave the mine train a go since it only had a short line.
I don’t think I did the Butterfly House or Flying Island last time, so did those.
Stuff I didn’t do:
Panda Warrior (nothing to do with Kung Fu Panda obviously) had been down last time, and was walk-on this time. It’s a 4D dark ride, and is f**king abysmal. Fantawild do these so well, but OCT end up with s**te from f**k-knows where.
Back to the front of the park, which was still really busy. Well, the queues were busy; it wasn't bad outside of those.
I had no intention of riding the SLC, one of the worst I’ve ever done, and that was 4 years ago, so Christ knows what it’s like now. I’d planned on whoring the Mega-Lite a bit, which I’d easily done on my first visit, but the queue was at around an hour, so I made do with one ride. They’ve added ridiculous shoulder straps now, which are easy enough to shrug off once you’re out of the station, but add an extra layer of faff.
It was just weird how the front of the park – these two coasters and a bunch of generic flat rides – was heaving while the back end , including two major coasters, was dead. Weirdos. Anyway, Mega-Lite goodness. Still a great ride once you shrug off the bulls**t shoulder straps.
I LOVE this picture:
The girl near the back is just f**king loving life and riding a Mega-Lite the way it should be ridden, while the various expressions of abject terror on the faces of her co-riders are amazing.
And here’s an onride photo showing the locals being racist and not wanting to sit next to the white devil:
There’s more to this day which I’ll add later, but I had a decent enough time at Happy Valley, mostly thanks to the locals deciding to ignore the new stuff at the back of the park. If those coasters had had queues the same as the old stuff, it would have been a pretty horrible day. Anyway, it’s a decent park with 3 decent creds now, plus filler. Worth a visit for £23.
Happy Valley Chengdu
It was opening at 9, but I decided to arrive around 10, figuring that rides wouldn’t be opening that early. Wrong,; they’d been open from around half nine, but never mind. Didi (Chinese Uber) have very recently added English as an option to their app, which is amazing. When Uber was still a thing in China, before it was banned and they made their own version, it was impossible to use. Didi works in basically the same way, and was excellent. It was also even cheaper than regular taxis – I reckon around half price – which are already cheap enough. Problems with taxis in the past always revolve around drivers not knowing where things are – especially smaller, more obscure parks – or trying to get out of those out-of-the-way places later. Didi solves all those issues; it’s fab! Sorry, picture:
It seemed quite busy – not surprising given that it was the weekend of a public holiday – but it wasn’t too bad once I was in. The two coaster near the front of the park – a Mega-Lite and SLC – already had pretty long queues, but I had those creds already, so they weren’t a priority.
Instead, it was straight to the new area at the back of the park where the two new coasters were. This is always the best way to deal with a park, but especially in China. People there haven’t worked out yet that joining a huge line at the front of the park is a stupid idea.
This was a good sign:
As was this:
The new area was really nice, with a Moroccan theme. The front of the park was pretty tatty in comparison. They’ve rethemed their old Golden Horse spinner, but I didn’t need the cred, so didn’t bother. This end of the park was empty, so I didn’t have to wait more than one train on the dive machine or GCI woodie. I’m going to just thrown in a bunch of disorganised pictures and break them up with words which may or may not match the pictures above and below since I’m not checking.
Operations were typically crappy, but at this stage it didn’t matter since there was nobody around. On both the dive machine and woodie, I timed the trains going out every 8-10 minutes, taking 5 minutes between one set of riders getting off the train and the train leaving the station again. S**ty, but usual. They were employing all the usual Happy Valley tactics: holding people on the exit platform until everybody had picked up bags, bulls**t warm-up exercises before opening the gates (yes, even on the dive machine), overzealous restraint checking etc.
The bag storage thing on the dive machine added an extra level of f**kwittery since it confused every pleb entering the station and had to be explained at least 5 times to every trainload. Obviously, this couldn’t be done while the train was out, only after it was back and the riders had all left the station. It would be a decent system if there was multiple trains going out frequently, but Happy Valley is never going to do that (they had three trains, but were using one), so it’s just pointless. Their whole way of running things means they can NEVER use multiple trains, so a simple storage bin at the exit would be fine. But no because Happy Valley
Anyway, I really liked the dive machine, but I like the ride type anyway. I had it in my head that it was one of the smaller Krake/Black Hole models, but it was quite a bit bigger, sitting between those and the 200-footers. I did an immediate (as immediate as Happy Valley allows) reride while there was nobody there.
The woodie was good, but not great. GCI did a great job with the new woodie at Happy Valley Chongqing, but this one just didn’t stack up. The Chongqing woodie had terrain to play with while this one was built on flat land, so I’m sure that had something to do with it. The pluses are that it felt really fast and didn’t really let up until it hit the brakes, but the downside was that other than a few small pops, it lacked airtime. Next time I rank GCI woodies, it’ll likely sit somewhere in the middle.
It was three rides each on those two coasters before going back into the older areas of the park that I’d done before. Not much had changed. I didn’t do the rapids since I remembered them being stupidly wet, but gave the mine train a go since it only had a short line.
I don’t think I did the Butterfly House or Flying Island last time, so did those.
Stuff I didn’t do:
Panda Warrior (nothing to do with Kung Fu Panda obviously) had been down last time, and was walk-on this time. It’s a 4D dark ride, and is f**king abysmal. Fantawild do these so well, but OCT end up with s**te from f**k-knows where.
Back to the front of the park, which was still really busy. Well, the queues were busy; it wasn't bad outside of those.
I had no intention of riding the SLC, one of the worst I’ve ever done, and that was 4 years ago, so Christ knows what it’s like now. I’d planned on whoring the Mega-Lite a bit, which I’d easily done on my first visit, but the queue was at around an hour, so I made do with one ride. They’ve added ridiculous shoulder straps now, which are easy enough to shrug off once you’re out of the station, but add an extra layer of faff.
It was just weird how the front of the park – these two coasters and a bunch of generic flat rides – was heaving while the back end , including two major coasters, was dead. Weirdos. Anyway, Mega-Lite goodness. Still a great ride once you shrug off the bulls**t shoulder straps.
I LOVE this picture:
The girl near the back is just f**king loving life and riding a Mega-Lite the way it should be ridden, while the various expressions of abject terror on the faces of her co-riders are amazing.
And here’s an onride photo showing the locals being racist and not wanting to sit next to the white devil:
There’s more to this day which I’ll add later, but I had a decent enough time at Happy Valley, mostly thanks to the locals deciding to ignore the new stuff at the back of the park. If those coasters had had queues the same as the old stuff, it would have been a pretty horrible day. Anyway, it’s a decent park with 3 decent creds now, plus filler. Worth a visit for £23.
Last edited:
