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Guiyang and Anshun: Part 2 - Probably Not Worth Clicking

gavin

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This wasn’t a great weekend, but anyone with an enhanced sense of schadenfreude should enjoy it immensely. I suppose there are some decent pictures as well.

The logistics then. I had a long weekend, so got a Friday evening flight to Guiyang. Flight times are good (leaves Hong Kong around 9pm) and don’t require having to have an early finish at work, so that’s something to keep in mind when I inevitably make this trip again.

The next morning was an early one to take a train to a smaller city about an hour away, Anshun. Both Guiyang and Anshun have high-speed stations, but it made more sense to just take a regular, peasant-filled train since the high-speed stations were a bit further out of both places, making the 30 minutes saved on the train itself quite pointless.

Guizhou Colorful Culture Vientiane Tourist City

The above name from RCDB wasn’t appearing on DiDi (Chinese Uber), which wasn’t a good start, but a taxi driver knew it immediately. Unfortunately, that’s not the name of the park at all, but of a weird housing estate with a couple of coffee shops. The park was sort of close by, so I headed in the right general direction, walking for half an hour along roads that weren’t appearing on any maps.

None of this was looking very promising:

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I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to go in by walking through a building site, but the park was open though.

Shen Jun Ecological Culture Town

That’s what it’s actually called then. See?

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The half-hour walk was a good thing really since I’d arrived way too early anyway. I got there just after 10 and they were starting to test stuff. I thought this was going to be more of a proper park, but it was just a pay-per-ride effort.

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The jungle mouse coaster here was massively unique in that it was called Jungle Rat.

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Off near there was a “street” with shops and restaurants and what is clearly the main entrance.

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The whole surrounding area is still a construction site, just empty shells of buildings and roads which, while open, weren’t showing up on maps yet.

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Who cares though since the rides were all open? Everything was Chinese tat though, including this “Condor” from Zhipao. I think a lot of stuff here was from them, and they’re f**king s**te.

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I’ll just throw some pictures in. The drop tower theming was amazing, as was the spelling on the Tagada sign.

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Second cred was a powered dragon. This and a jungle mouse in the same park? Imagine.

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The main coaster is this lovely thing from Zhipao:

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I’d only done one of their loopers before, and hated it, so I was half hoping it would be closed. Unfortunately, it was open.

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They’re just so s**t, and they’re a very new company as well. There’s just no need.

So, the park was crap then, and was a mission to find, but it was a +3 when nobody was really sure if the place was even open yet, and I got to be first, so, ya know.

Since none of the roads were actually appearing on the map for DiDi, I had to walk another 20 minutes to one that actually was so that I could get out of there. Then it was onto the main reason for this trip.

Great Xingdong Tourist World

Guizhou Province has a reputation for being constantly grey, cloudy and miserable, so at least I wasn’t disappointed in that regard.

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A bit of background. This place is very, very new, but I booked this trip after seeing pictures of the coasters being open, people riding them etc. After I’d booked it, I asked someone to check with the park if they were expecting any problems. At that time, after phone calls to the park, “the 11-inversion coaster still won’t be ready, and the dive machine is looking like it will be down for a while, but everything else will be open when you’re there”. Crap. Oh well, at least there are seven other creds.

Look at all this stuff!

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At the entrance, there’s the usual ticket scanners and metal detectors, but there was nobody staffing them. There aren’t the usual ticket windows, but a large ticket building which was complexly locked. That’s all f**king great then. There was a big gate off to the side of the ticket scanners which was open, with a few people wandering in and out, so I just wandered in.

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Golden Horse Motocoaster. Closed.

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You’ve guessed by now, but everything was f**king closed. Pretty much every ride had this sign out front:

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This was despite most rides having ride ops sitting around in the control booths or on the platforms. Also, they had music pumping out through speakers all over the park and a bunch of drinks kiosks open. Loads of other staff were sitting around in groups at tables in (closed) restaurants, or around other seating areas. It wasn’t just the coasters either; it was every single ride, right down to little kiddy stuff.

Roller Coaster Square has 5 coasters surrounding it, including the four biggest. Because 11 Ring Roller Coaster still wasn’t ready, there were no staff sitting around it, so I got right up onto the platform. Clearly I wasn’t supposed to, but it’s China and nobody f**king cares.

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It looked very impressive to be fair, and I was surprised to see it had lapbars rather than OTSRs.

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You get a decent view over the other coasters in the area.

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The mine train is clearly nowhere near ready, so the “everything else will be open” was already a dirty lie.

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The Golden Horse dive machine also had no staff around it, presumably because it was known to be closed, so again I got right up into the station. Bunch of pictures:

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Broken Rail Coaster had staff sitting around the station doing nothing. It looks a lot better than the pair at Wanda Hefei.

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Hanging Roller Coaster was, I think, one of the older models of Golden Horse SLCS, which seems stupid since the have a newer, better track design now. Not that it mattered since the c**t was closed anyway.

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Something open. F**k you.

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Spinner:

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Family Coaster:

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Stuff:

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Inverting spinner:

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And that was that. I had a f**king wonderful time.

On the way out, the ticket building was open, so I went in to try and find out what the hell was going on. Through Google translate, some specky little git tried to tell me that it was because of the weather, which was obviously complete and utter bulls**t since the weather was completely fine. When I replied with “don’t lie” (not being deliberately rude, but when you’re dealing with translation software it makes far more sense to be blunt and to the point), he just said that that was the message they had from the ride operators.

He took me to a manager though, who, while very apologetic, was not very forthcoming in giving any explanations. She couldn’t/wouldn’t say when anything would be open, but basically laughed when I asked “this week”. She did offer to show me around their hotel though, which I politely declined.

At this point, I figured that maybe the rides/park hadn’t been signed off by whoever they needed to be signed off by. I just couldn’t see any other explanation for having the place staffed and “open”, but to not have a single thing running.

However, some other coaster geeks were there the following weekend and were first told that because it wasn’t tourist season, that nothing was running. Then they were told that there was a problem with wages not being paid (not sure if park staff or coaster construction/safety). I'm not sure if they even got into the park at first, but they got a manager (probably the same one I spoke to) to show them around, who somehow got them on the tilt coaster and family coaster even though they were "closed".

It’s a total f**king s**tshow in other words.

There was another park in Anshun though.

Ruofei Park

Just a typical small park job. Can’t be arsed to explain much. Jungle Mouse, Fruit Worm (got on it – usually not a problem with pay-per-ride) and stupidly checked out their gross “zoo” section.

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And then it was back to the train station for the s**ty train back to Guiyang.

So, there was a +5 at least, but it nowhere near made up for the SPITE of the century at Great Xingdong, the f**kers.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Through Google translate, some specky little git tried to tell me that it was because of the weather, which was obviously complete and utter bulls**t since the weather was completely fine.
That's probably day #1, lesson #1 of their training course.

Grim stuff. I've also learnt to never trust a phone call (though sometimes what else can you do?), internal communications are always poor so staff never really know/care what's going on and will tell you anything. Unfortunately I'm also familiar with the feeling of standing in the station of a ride while the staff are all there and not bothering to run anything. Made me wonder why I bother, but it becomes funny to look back on a few weeks later.

Good job persisting with the first park though (Chinese Drievliet), the lack of maps sounds like a right pain. Follow that ferris wheel.
 

witchfinder

Hyper Poster
Gutted for you that you were spited by an entire park, but having read some of your previous trip reports I suspect the review wouldn't have been that much better if everything had been open ;)
I find these parks and all their blatant rip-off coasters fascinating, so thanks for putting the effort in.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Sorry for your spite at Great Xingdong Tourist World; a place I must admit I had little knowledge of prior to reading your trip report! The Golden Horse Dive Coaster looks familiar, but I never knew the park had so many other creds! One of the things I always love about your trip reports is that they inform me of places I've mostly never even heard of!

Out of interest, is the 11 looper a genuine Intamin or a very, very good replica of one? If I hadn't known it was in this park, which seems to have Golden Horse rides in great abundance, I would have guessed it was an Intamin straight away from the pictures!
 

Howie

Donkey in a hat
Had to look up the word 'schadenfreude', and yeah, normally that's me down to a tee but even I started to feel a twinge of sympathy reading that one.
Like... everything was closed? :eek:
Nice pictures though.
 

gavin

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Had to look up the word 'schadenfreude', and yeah, normally that's me down to a tee but even I started to feel a twinge of sympathy reading that one.
Like... everything was closed?

I usually type these up between classes at work, so I'm glad that somebody actually learned something from me yesterday. It makes a nice change. It's not exactly that the rides themselves were closed; it's that the park isn't even functionally open yet. They're just letting people in to wander around for no reason. It's bizarre.

Out of interest, is the 11 looper a genuine Intamin or a very, very good replica of one? If I hadn't known it was in this park, which seems to have Golden Horse rides in great abundance, I would have guessed it was an Intamin straight away from the pictures!

It's not Intamin, or, surprisingly, Golden Horse. It's from Hebei Zhongye, but it's quite a departure for them to offer something so big and so "accurate". They've got a lot of off-the-shelf loopers out there (and a couple of SLCs, but they've never really cracked that market), but they're fairly distinctive as being from Hebei Zhongye; there's been nothing to this scale and so obviously copied before. I've obviously got no idea how it rides, but to look at, I'd have been convinced it was Intamin if I didn't know better.

http://www.mccem.com/product/class/?127.html

It's also strange that everything else there seems to be from Golden Horse, except, perhaps, the mine train, which could also be from Hebei Zhongye since although I've never seen one, they're offering one on their website. This would make sense given that the mine train and 11-looper are officially the unfinished rides at this point. The "people not being paid" comment could very easily refer to that company since no work was being done on either coaster and they're the only two that aren't ready to operate.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
It's not Intamin, or, surprisingly, Golden Horse. It's from Hebei Zhongye, but it's quite a departure for them to offer something so big and so "accurate". They've got a lot of off-the-shelf loopers out there (and a couple of SLCs, but they've never really cracked that market), but they're fairly distinctive as being from Hebei Zhongye; there's been nothing to this scale and so obviously copied before. I've obviously got no idea how it rides, but to look at, I'd have been convinced it was Intamin if I didn't know better.

http://www.mccem.com/product/class/?127.html

It's also strange that everything else there seems to be from Golden Horse, except, perhaps, the mine train, which could also be from Hebei Zhongye since although I've never seen one, they're offering one on their website. This would make sense given that the mine train and 11-looper are officially the unfinished rides at this point. The "people not being paid" comment could very easily refer to that company since no work was being done on either coaster and they're the only two that aren't ready to operate.
Ah right; thanks for the clarification @gavin! Interesting to see that Hebei Zhongye are building this one as opposed to Golden Horse!
 

Imagineer Josh

Mega Poster
That dive coaster track looks creepily similar to B&M. If someone showed me a photo of a small snippet of the track without any prior knowledge of the knockoff, I would've guessed it's from Griffon.
 

gavin

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Staff member
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There’s a bit more to this weekend, though nothing massively exciting. The next day was looking wet and miserable. View from the hotel:

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I took the massive hotel umbrella with me, but it stopped raining immediately and I was stuck carrying the f**king thing all day. Ugh. I walked down to a nearby city park to take in a bit of Guiyang on the way since I’d seen nothing of it by this point.

Nothing wrong with the place, but it’s just a very generic Chinese city.

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It took about 20 minutes from the hotel to get to the park.

Hebin Park

Just your typical Chinese city park with some ride areas. I didn’t find the coasters at first since there are a few different ride areas and they’re not particularly well-connected, despite being close.

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Cred. Pay-per-ride, so no issues getting it. I don’t even try at the corporate parks now, despite bagging a couple ages ago, since they’re all kids only these days.

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Second cred was a Golden Horse spinner. Despite these being a bit of a joke by now, a lot of them are getting removed while none are really being built anymore.

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There was an alpine coaster listed at a huge park to the north of the city, so I headed there.

Qianlingshan Park

This place was massive. It’s basically just a big mountain (shan) which covers a very large area. I couldn’t see the alpine coaster on any signs or maps, so just headed off in the same direction as the crowds up into the park.

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Some cave.

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There were a lot of monkeys around, one of the two species that we get in Hong Kong, so I wasn’t that bothered. These were a bit less wary than ours though since it’s China and people were obviously ignoring all signs to the contrary and feeding them.

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There was a free zoo about halfway up, which was actually pretty decent considering the size and location of it.

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It was just up and up and up. There was a lake was way down below and difficult to access from that position. I thought about heading around to it after I got back down, but never did in the end because of time.

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It wasn’t hot, but was quite gross and humid, as evidenced by a few examples of the “Beijing Tuxedo” being worn.

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Some temple. Didn’t pay to go in. Seen enough of them.

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And the view from a platform right at the top:

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Obviously, I’ve just plowed through this, but the whole thing had taken a couple of hours by this point. I was delighted to discover that around the corner from the peak of the mountain was a cable car that I’d totally missed on my way in. For f**k’s sake!

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Obviously, it would have been slightly better to have got the cable car up and walked down, but it is what it is.

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Having spent WAY longer at the place than I’d intended, and having decided that the alpine coaster just wasn’t there – it was built over twenty years ago and other rides that used to be in the park have since been removed - I decided to leave.

Oh, you know that lake I skipped because it was way off the main area of the park and inaccessible from most of it?

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Ugh.

There was another, “proper” park to hit. I got there around 3ish I think.

Guiyang Happy World

It looked ok from the entrance area/plaza, but it was all very bland further inside.

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There were just 3 creds here, all crap, starting with a Golden Horse SLC. Hate these things.

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Some other stuff:

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I’m guessing this thing used to be some kind of 3D/4D/12D cinema, but it looked long since abandoned.

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Next cred:

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And final cred. Hate these things, too. I liked the first couple I did, but can’t stand them now. The loops are just too small for the drop, so they’re stupidly intense, followed by awful corkscrews.

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Have some more of the glorious SLC.

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The massive Ferris wheel was a bit out of place in such a small, inconsequential park. Did it for something to do.

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I had most of the next day to kill. I’d given myself a long weekend since it was a totally new area and I thought I’d find more to do to be honest. I ended up having a lie in and then checking out another enormous park around a lake, hoping to maybe find a secret cred or two, but no such luck. It was nice, and had a “Children’s Playground” area, but it was really s**te given the size of the place. It infuriates me when they get all snobby and rely on plants, lakes, statuary and nice pathways instead of chucking a Jungle Mouse in.

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I headed to the airport after that, only remembering right as I was checking in that I’d got a flight back to Shenzhen and not Hong Kong, adding another layer of faff to an already s**t weekend.

Why is this my hobby again?

So, yeah, all a bit s**te. One good thing, I guess, is that I know I could go back to Great Xingdong Tourist World (and probably get that bloody alpine coaster as well) on any regular weekend in the future, without having to use up a day off work/long weekend.

The flight from Hong Kong on a Friday is late enough that I could just go on a normal work day, do the park on the Saturday, and then get a train back to Hong Kong around Sunday lunch time. At the moment, there’s just one direct train a day to Hong Kong (around 5 hours), but it could also be done by transferring in Guangzhou. Anyway, I definitely wouldn’t need to spend three days there again.

Hopefully, my next trip report will be back to being full of the usual joie de vivre…
 
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