Kebab
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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j12G9KtMs-A[/youtube]
I knew I needed to find some time to let you in on my trip report to this amazingly bizarre - Asian theme park which I visited back in June; so here it is! A little information about the park first.
Siam Park City is located about 45 minutes away from the centre of Bangkok, and is just as easy to get to as say Thorpe from the centre of London. It is home to 3 major rollercoasters, a bundle of common flat rides, a few “safari” rides, a water park and once a log flume which caused a few accidents, some fatal. There isn’t actually a lot known about the park, but I’ve heard about their massive development which is said to be finished next year, but because I’ve only saw pictures of the park it left me wondering. Anyway onto my experience!
The weather was scorching, the roads were busy and the air was as humid as hell! And it was a Saturday! I had bad feelings traveling to the park on such a day like this, expecting it to be extremely busy and unbearable to queue for the rides; I really thought I was going to be disappointed at this one. We arrived around 10:00AM, and the first things that caught my eye was the ancient loop-the-loop rollercoaster which looks a lot like a Togo (but I’m unsure), and a huge 300 foot tower, spiking into the Thai sky. As we got closer towards the entrance, we noticed this really colorful castle (pictured above), I was unsure what to make of it, it was awful in one respect and pretty in the other; it only warmed me up for what’s inside.
The very Asian interior wasn’t the first thing that caught my eye, looking beyond the ticket booths it was as if the park was abandoned or something, I was quite worried just in case it wasn’t open. But they let us through and I never thought anything could be as empty as a school trip to the local library; and it looked such an amazing park; not massive though. The theming was beautiful practically all around the park, the rides on offer were far from bog-standard and it often felt like I escaped to an Asian version of Universal IOA instead. First impressions were priceless.
First up was Vortex! Most enthusiasts would be “oh god, not one of these”, but how could you complain with a queue like this!
For those who are clueless, it’s a Vekoma SLC Standard, you got one in Blackpool Pleasure Beach and about 100 other parks across the globe, except this one is rather special; it has an additional helix to end the ride instead of the boring straights.
For an SLC this was fairly smooth, however noticeably different depending on where you sit, smoothest ride can be found on the front right seat. It also looked a lot better than 99% of other SLC’s out there, the colour scheme, mixed with the tropical scenery really looked the part, and wasn’t too in your face OTT theming.
Like the rest of these SLC’s, they are ferociously forceful, which actually makes me favor these models however common they are, there isn’t many coasters now-a-days that pull over 5G is there? My favorite part of Vortex has to be the double inline where you get some amazing leg-chopper from the supports, and get thrown about rather wildly. I bet a few of you are thinking about the extension and if it works well, and the answer is no it doesn’t. There is a relentlessly rough spot entering the helix, causing you to head bang for a brief second and then suffer a headache through the rest of the helix, it really was a bad move. Either way I give Vortex a solid 6/10, It’s possibly the smoothest SLC out there!
We had a trip back down to the entrance of the park and bumped into “Boomerang”, this is another coaster I’m sure you’ll have heard of… A few times? Yep; another common Vekoma found in the park, however, like Vortex it is one of the best I’ve actually ridden out of the clones! And yes the queue did stun me; again! (If Thorpe could be more like this..)
Despite the horrendously uncomfortable Vekoma trains, everything went great! I hardly had a head bang, managed several rides in a row and still came off with a smile on my face! So it is a bloody good Boomerang at that! Notice all the exclamation marks used here! Shows positive feelings.
Unlike Vortex, this one wasn’t the most attractive clone of this type of coaster. The colour scheme was quite sickening, and it didn’t seem to fit in with the scenery as effective as Vortex did; but bizarrely suited the park: reminds me of Spinball at Alton where it looks out of place but suit’s the park perfectly.
There isn’t much to say about Boomerang due to it being so common and alike many other rides across the globe, but kudos for being smooth and I love the backwards drop! I’d give a solid 6/10 also for Boomerang, simple, fun and very forceful!
There was one rollercoaster that caught my eye the most during my visit. And it was this ancient thing!
It looked like a Togo ready to kick the bucket but it was the one coaster I came here the most for; just to be disappointed that it was closed, and I have heard it has been closed for a good while now. It was by far the most impressive piece at the park, with a massive spike towering around 140 feet high reaching around 80 degrees maximum, it looked a stunner for a rust-bucket, and personally I’m a bigger fan of the golden-oldies as they are the ones that have inspired the majority of coasters today. I can’t see this staying here any longer, they have Boomerang which does a similar thing, and with the massive park development for next year onwards I can see this torn down and replaced with something much more modern; Intamin Impulse?
The flats at the park are fairly standard, with plenty of Huss and Mack around, including an Enterprise and a Top Spin (under construction), and an average sized drop tower. But lets move onto the drop tower and here my story…
This has to be the most intimidating tower I have ever ridden, despite it only being around 200 feet high, it managed to get about 1/3 up and drop into the brakes.
We were left there for about 2 minutes until the ride op managed to get it started again; once it kick-started, it moved slower than crawling speed, and managed to waste another 2 minutes just climbing to the top. It gave us a nice view around the park and Bangkok, but when rides take this long to reach the top, you start regretting things. Once it reached the top we had 20 seconds to have a nice look around before plummeting back to the Earth. It was quite a powerful drop tower, reminded me of a larger Detonator the way it just shot down and pulled some heavy G’s, it was; in fact - a lot scarier than both Apocalypse and Hurakan Condor, also gave a better ride than Apocalypse although I still think Hurakan Condor is the best Intamin “style” tower out there. I give this shocker an 8/10!
I’ll end it with a few miscellaneous pictures of the park.
Overall, Siam Park City is a gorgeous park with plenty of bizarre theming and typical Thai scenery. The lack of non-cloned rides can disappoint enthusiasts, but regular visitors should have a blast here! I can see huge potential in Siam Park City over the coming years, if it can manage to suck in more guests and some extra dough then we’ll be seeing a world class theme park! For families this is a fantastic day-out, for thrill-seekers it’s great fun and for Vekoma haters it’s a theme park nightmare; either way - a brilliant trip into the unknown, I loved every second, from the rides to the food!
6/10
Questions and comments are appreciated
I knew I needed to find some time to let you in on my trip report to this amazingly bizarre - Asian theme park which I visited back in June; so here it is! A little information about the park first.
Siam Park City is located about 45 minutes away from the centre of Bangkok, and is just as easy to get to as say Thorpe from the centre of London. It is home to 3 major rollercoasters, a bundle of common flat rides, a few “safari” rides, a water park and once a log flume which caused a few accidents, some fatal. There isn’t actually a lot known about the park, but I’ve heard about their massive development which is said to be finished next year, but because I’ve only saw pictures of the park it left me wondering. Anyway onto my experience!
The weather was scorching, the roads were busy and the air was as humid as hell! And it was a Saturday! I had bad feelings traveling to the park on such a day like this, expecting it to be extremely busy and unbearable to queue for the rides; I really thought I was going to be disappointed at this one. We arrived around 10:00AM, and the first things that caught my eye was the ancient loop-the-loop rollercoaster which looks a lot like a Togo (but I’m unsure), and a huge 300 foot tower, spiking into the Thai sky. As we got closer towards the entrance, we noticed this really colorful castle (pictured above), I was unsure what to make of it, it was awful in one respect and pretty in the other; it only warmed me up for what’s inside.
The very Asian interior wasn’t the first thing that caught my eye, looking beyond the ticket booths it was as if the park was abandoned or something, I was quite worried just in case it wasn’t open. But they let us through and I never thought anything could be as empty as a school trip to the local library; and it looked such an amazing park; not massive though. The theming was beautiful practically all around the park, the rides on offer were far from bog-standard and it often felt like I escaped to an Asian version of Universal IOA instead. First impressions were priceless.
First up was Vortex! Most enthusiasts would be “oh god, not one of these”, but how could you complain with a queue like this!
For those who are clueless, it’s a Vekoma SLC Standard, you got one in Blackpool Pleasure Beach and about 100 other parks across the globe, except this one is rather special; it has an additional helix to end the ride instead of the boring straights.
For an SLC this was fairly smooth, however noticeably different depending on where you sit, smoothest ride can be found on the front right seat. It also looked a lot better than 99% of other SLC’s out there, the colour scheme, mixed with the tropical scenery really looked the part, and wasn’t too in your face OTT theming.
Like the rest of these SLC’s, they are ferociously forceful, which actually makes me favor these models however common they are, there isn’t many coasters now-a-days that pull over 5G is there? My favorite part of Vortex has to be the double inline where you get some amazing leg-chopper from the supports, and get thrown about rather wildly. I bet a few of you are thinking about the extension and if it works well, and the answer is no it doesn’t. There is a relentlessly rough spot entering the helix, causing you to head bang for a brief second and then suffer a headache through the rest of the helix, it really was a bad move. Either way I give Vortex a solid 6/10, It’s possibly the smoothest SLC out there!
We had a trip back down to the entrance of the park and bumped into “Boomerang”, this is another coaster I’m sure you’ll have heard of… A few times? Yep; another common Vekoma found in the park, however, like Vortex it is one of the best I’ve actually ridden out of the clones! And yes the queue did stun me; again! (If Thorpe could be more like this..)
Despite the horrendously uncomfortable Vekoma trains, everything went great! I hardly had a head bang, managed several rides in a row and still came off with a smile on my face! So it is a bloody good Boomerang at that! Notice all the exclamation marks used here! Shows positive feelings.
Unlike Vortex, this one wasn’t the most attractive clone of this type of coaster. The colour scheme was quite sickening, and it didn’t seem to fit in with the scenery as effective as Vortex did; but bizarrely suited the park: reminds me of Spinball at Alton where it looks out of place but suit’s the park perfectly.
There isn’t much to say about Boomerang due to it being so common and alike many other rides across the globe, but kudos for being smooth and I love the backwards drop! I’d give a solid 6/10 also for Boomerang, simple, fun and very forceful!
There was one rollercoaster that caught my eye the most during my visit. And it was this ancient thing!
It looked like a Togo ready to kick the bucket but it was the one coaster I came here the most for; just to be disappointed that it was closed, and I have heard it has been closed for a good while now. It was by far the most impressive piece at the park, with a massive spike towering around 140 feet high reaching around 80 degrees maximum, it looked a stunner for a rust-bucket, and personally I’m a bigger fan of the golden-oldies as they are the ones that have inspired the majority of coasters today. I can’t see this staying here any longer, they have Boomerang which does a similar thing, and with the massive park development for next year onwards I can see this torn down and replaced with something much more modern; Intamin Impulse?
The flats at the park are fairly standard, with plenty of Huss and Mack around, including an Enterprise and a Top Spin (under construction), and an average sized drop tower. But lets move onto the drop tower and here my story…
This has to be the most intimidating tower I have ever ridden, despite it only being around 200 feet high, it managed to get about 1/3 up and drop into the brakes.
We were left there for about 2 minutes until the ride op managed to get it started again; once it kick-started, it moved slower than crawling speed, and managed to waste another 2 minutes just climbing to the top. It gave us a nice view around the park and Bangkok, but when rides take this long to reach the top, you start regretting things. Once it reached the top we had 20 seconds to have a nice look around before plummeting back to the Earth. It was quite a powerful drop tower, reminded me of a larger Detonator the way it just shot down and pulled some heavy G’s, it was; in fact - a lot scarier than both Apocalypse and Hurakan Condor, also gave a better ride than Apocalypse although I still think Hurakan Condor is the best Intamin “style” tower out there. I give this shocker an 8/10!
I’ll end it with a few miscellaneous pictures of the park.
Overall, Siam Park City is a gorgeous park with plenty of bizarre theming and typical Thai scenery. The lack of non-cloned rides can disappoint enthusiasts, but regular visitors should have a blast here! I can see huge potential in Siam Park City over the coming years, if it can manage to suck in more guests and some extra dough then we’ll be seeing a world class theme park! For families this is a fantastic day-out, for thrill-seekers it’s great fun and for Vekoma haters it’s a theme park nightmare; either way - a brilliant trip into the unknown, I loved every second, from the rides to the food!
6/10
Questions and comments are appreciated
