After the summer holiday, I always have to head back to work for a day of nonsense, followed by a week or so of various meetings scattered over the week before the kids go back to school. Often, those meetings will fall in such a way that I get a few days in a row off and can take a mini trip somewhere. Last year, I went to Tokyo, the year before it was to the Wenzhou area of China… This year, the schedule didn’t work in my favour at all. I had a couple of days with nothing scheduled, but not together, so I ended up doing a couple of day trips nearby to do a bit of cred whoring.
The high-speed rail station in Hong Kong is right next to my place, and I also now have a Chinese travel card thing which means I can just use the auto gates for everything rather than fill in forms and stand in immigration queues, so it’s super easy to just pop across the border now. I decided to hit up a park I’ve been to a couple of times before, but the last time was about 10 years ago and there were a potential 8 new creds since then.
Chuanlord Holiday Manor
This place is in Shunde, which is south of Guangzhou and not too far from Chimelong Paradise. Chimelong has a major new coaster since I was last there, but they’re also building another one, so I decided to hold a while for that one. The last time I came to Chuanlord was pre-Didi (Chinese Uber), and it was such a pain in the arse since so many taxi drivers in Guangzhou had no clue where it was. Super easy now.
Since I was here, they’ve replaced a bunch of crappy coasters with another batch of crappy coasters, some like-for-like, but not all. I bought a ticket online (well, a voucher to exchange for a ticket), which was one of the more expensive options, but turned out to also be a fast pass for everything, not that it was really necessary. This place was already a resort before, with rooms/cabins on the water, but they’ve now also built a much larger hotel, with an aquarium next to it. At least I’m pretty sure the aquarium wasn’t there before.
The first new cred was a spinner from Beijing Shibaolai and was actually pretty decent for its size. It was really smooth and some of the more unbalanced cars were getting a lot of spinning.
I don’t know if this dinosaur walkthrough thing had been here before. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. They’ve filled in a lot of space since the last time I was here. It was pretty big, spread across three floors, but nothing special.
There was a jungle mouse in the same area, but there was a sign out front saying that it wasn’t going to open for another hour or so. There was another jingle mouse here previously, but I can’t remember if it was in exactly the same spot or not. I guess it would make sense that it was, but parts of the park look quite different now, so it’s not so easy to place everything.
In the meantime, I did the Ferris wheel, which has those amazing mesh cages over everything, doing its best to destroy the purpose of a Ferris wheel: the view. The only coasters I could get any decent pictures of were the shuttle things.
I’m fairly sure that this powered coaster was a direct replacement for an older powered dragon.
Shenzhou Surfing is a set of four shuttle coasters. Well, technically two sets of two side by side. These are an exact replacement for a set which had previously sat here. Over two visits, I’d managed to get all four of those, but on this day, they were just operating one from each set, the ones in the middle of the four.
It was time for the jungle mouse to open – literally a two-minute walk from Shenzhou Surfing, so I went up to the station for it, but then it started raining.
At this point, I thought the day was possibly done for even though the rain was only a short shower because some parks here can be crap about reopening, but I headed into the zoo area to kill some time and see what would happen.
You can feed a lot of the animals here; there are multiple stations where you can buy food for a couple of quid. It’s something that would probably be frowned upon in many other countries, but my take on it is at least by doing it this way, the animals are getting fed with stuff that’s good for them rather than with whatever snacks are in the guests’ bags, which happens a lot in Chinese zoos.
It also results in less than shy animals:
The rain had long stopped, and they had everything open very quickly. To be honest, I think my “everything closes for the day” mentality is based on one s**t experience ages ago at Happy Valley Shenzhen, where they closed everything in the early afternoon because of the rain but kept everything closed for the rest of the day even though the rain only lasted half an hour or so. I’ve been to quite a few Chinese parks now where they have got everything up and running again.
I rode this Hebei Zhongye looper a few weeks after it first opened, so I had no need to ride it again. Since a lot of the space around it has now been filled in with loads of other stuff, there’s almost nowhere to get decent pictures of it.
I also didn’t need the Beijing Shibaolai sky loop. This was the first od these I’d ever done, and I didn’t think it was too bad at the time, but I’ve done others since and hated them, so had no need to ride this one again.
Those were the two new coasters at the park when I’d first been there, but now they’re the only ones still there from that time.
The jungle mouse is the same model as I’ve done a few times now, but this one was just hitting different with some really good pops of airtime which I’ve rarely had on others of this model.
Some other bits and pieces, including some interesting theming choices right in front of the pirate ship. So jolly!
If I sit down to pee, is this a cred?
Again, I can’t remember if their old spinning coaster was in the same place, but it would make sense that it was. I’m not sure that the old one was even a proper Jinma spinner though, unlike this one.
I did the flying theatre which I’m also pretty sure was new since last time. I’m not a fan of them at the best of times, but this one was absolute s**t. It wasn’t helped by the ridiculously unnecessary restraints either.
I also rode this, guessing (correctly) that it’d probably be listed on Coaster-Count. I absolutely have not included it in my personal count, but I hate leaving boxes unticked.
6 creds then, which was pretty good considering it wasn’t a new park for me. Anyone coming here for the first time, and lucky enough to get all four shuttle coasters running, could get a +10 to the count. Too bad it’s all s**te then. The coasters I mean; I actually quite like this place as a whole.
I left around 3pm and was debating what to do with the rest of the afternoon. There were a couple of +1 parks nearby, but one of those is supposedly getting something new soon. At least, there’s been something listed on RCDB for ages, so I decided to leave those for another time and made the much more sensible decision to take a taxi for over an hour to the complete opposite side of Guangzhou to a new-but-not-really park.
Astroland
RCDB has this place listed as “Star World”, but signs all over the place have it as Astroland. It used to operate as Nanhu Amusement Park, but closed years ago for a big overhaul. Nanhu was one of the very first parks I ever visited in China, back in 2007. Back then, the only parks listed on RCDB for the Guangzhou area were Nanhu and Chimelong Paradise. There absolutely would’ve been more places, probably including Chuanlord, but back then I was still very new to this whole thing so wouldn’t have thought to scout out anything else, not that I’d have had time anyway since I only had a day. Anyway, back then I’d headed up to Nanhu after getting Chimelong done fairly quickly.
It was notable back then for having one of Arrow’s last coasters, a looper that was started by them, but finished by Vekoma when Arrow went bankrupt. It’s probably one of the coasters that made me get more into the geeky side of this hobby since there were no pictures of it and nobody from the usual coaster sites had ridden it. Here’s the RCDB link: https://rcdb.com/1795.htm.
I should’ve sent in loads more pictures really; not sure why I only sent a handful. If anyone’s interested, I’ve quite a lot more.
Anyway, it’s no longer the same place at all. It opened in January this year and there’s pretty much nothing left of the old park. It was raining again but, again, was only a brief shower. On the gate, a guy warned me that the outdoor attractions were closed and might not reopen, a useless warning given that I’d already paid for the ticket, but also turned out to be nothing to worry about. The old place had a space shuttle in roughly the same place, so that was a nice nod to the old park.
The boomerang, the only coaster here, was in fact closed, but the woman outside kept repeating “five” which could’ve either meant 5 minutes or five o’clock since it was around quarter to at that point. They tested it as soon as the rain stopped, so that was a good sign,
In the meantime, I checked out what else they had, starting with this simulator ride which was pretty decent.
Then it was back to the boomerang, Quantum Trek. This is a boomerang from Jinma, a surprisingly late addition to their catalogue given that a couple of other Chinese manufacturers have had a crack at it, with the first one, out of three so far, opening just a couple of years ago. Unlike their previous Vekoma “inspired” coasters though, they haven’t just reverse engineered the existing model, and the result is easily the best boomerang I’ve ever done. It has vest restraints, which are very welcome, but even if it had OTSRs they would not be a problem since it’s extremely smooth. There’s a bit of a jolt as it connects to the second lift, but that’s it. I don’t know if it’s the track itself or the shaping of the cobra roll, but it rides really smoothly while also being very forceful, especially through the vertical loop. It’s the first boomerang I’ve ever reridden.
Next to the previous simulator ride was another “what’s in here” attraction, which turned out to be another simulator, but something quite different to anything I’ve seen before. It was basically like the domed screen sections of the Forbidden Journey rides, only the screen doesn’t move and the cars weren’t on a track, they just moved forwards into the ride area. I’m not sure if the seats were on a robot arm or something else, but they had a fair bit of movement, especially during a couple of “drop” effects. Again, it was pretty decent.
There was a monorail sort of thing which had a track circling a pretty large area, but they were only running it as a shuttle between two stations, probably using a bit less than half of the track length. No idea if they ever use the whole track at the moment; the park was very quiet. Quick photo dump to finish:
I saw something else from the monorail that could potentially have been another ride, but I had a train booked and didn’t want to risk missing it. It was from Guangzhou East Station (I’d arrived via Guangzhou South), and the trains from there to Hong Kong are far less regular.
Not a bad day then. Seven new creds (six s**t, one excellent) from two parks which I’ve been to before, though Astroland/Nanhu is essentially a whole new place now.
The high-speed rail station in Hong Kong is right next to my place, and I also now have a Chinese travel card thing which means I can just use the auto gates for everything rather than fill in forms and stand in immigration queues, so it’s super easy to just pop across the border now. I decided to hit up a park I’ve been to a couple of times before, but the last time was about 10 years ago and there were a potential 8 new creds since then.
Chuanlord Holiday Manor
This place is in Shunde, which is south of Guangzhou and not too far from Chimelong Paradise. Chimelong has a major new coaster since I was last there, but they’re also building another one, so I decided to hold a while for that one. The last time I came to Chuanlord was pre-Didi (Chinese Uber), and it was such a pain in the arse since so many taxi drivers in Guangzhou had no clue where it was. Super easy now.
Since I was here, they’ve replaced a bunch of crappy coasters with another batch of crappy coasters, some like-for-like, but not all. I bought a ticket online (well, a voucher to exchange for a ticket), which was one of the more expensive options, but turned out to also be a fast pass for everything, not that it was really necessary. This place was already a resort before, with rooms/cabins on the water, but they’ve now also built a much larger hotel, with an aquarium next to it. At least I’m pretty sure the aquarium wasn’t there before.
The first new cred was a spinner from Beijing Shibaolai and was actually pretty decent for its size. It was really smooth and some of the more unbalanced cars were getting a lot of spinning.
I don’t know if this dinosaur walkthrough thing had been here before. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. They’ve filled in a lot of space since the last time I was here. It was pretty big, spread across three floors, but nothing special.
There was a jungle mouse in the same area, but there was a sign out front saying that it wasn’t going to open for another hour or so. There was another jingle mouse here previously, but I can’t remember if it was in exactly the same spot or not. I guess it would make sense that it was, but parts of the park look quite different now, so it’s not so easy to place everything.
In the meantime, I did the Ferris wheel, which has those amazing mesh cages over everything, doing its best to destroy the purpose of a Ferris wheel: the view. The only coasters I could get any decent pictures of were the shuttle things.
I’m fairly sure that this powered coaster was a direct replacement for an older powered dragon.
Shenzhou Surfing is a set of four shuttle coasters. Well, technically two sets of two side by side. These are an exact replacement for a set which had previously sat here. Over two visits, I’d managed to get all four of those, but on this day, they were just operating one from each set, the ones in the middle of the four.
It was time for the jungle mouse to open – literally a two-minute walk from Shenzhou Surfing, so I went up to the station for it, but then it started raining.
At this point, I thought the day was possibly done for even though the rain was only a short shower because some parks here can be crap about reopening, but I headed into the zoo area to kill some time and see what would happen.
You can feed a lot of the animals here; there are multiple stations where you can buy food for a couple of quid. It’s something that would probably be frowned upon in many other countries, but my take on it is at least by doing it this way, the animals are getting fed with stuff that’s good for them rather than with whatever snacks are in the guests’ bags, which happens a lot in Chinese zoos.
It also results in less than shy animals:
The rain had long stopped, and they had everything open very quickly. To be honest, I think my “everything closes for the day” mentality is based on one s**t experience ages ago at Happy Valley Shenzhen, where they closed everything in the early afternoon because of the rain but kept everything closed for the rest of the day even though the rain only lasted half an hour or so. I’ve been to quite a few Chinese parks now where they have got everything up and running again.
I rode this Hebei Zhongye looper a few weeks after it first opened, so I had no need to ride it again. Since a lot of the space around it has now been filled in with loads of other stuff, there’s almost nowhere to get decent pictures of it.
I also didn’t need the Beijing Shibaolai sky loop. This was the first od these I’d ever done, and I didn’t think it was too bad at the time, but I’ve done others since and hated them, so had no need to ride this one again.
Those were the two new coasters at the park when I’d first been there, but now they’re the only ones still there from that time.
The jungle mouse is the same model as I’ve done a few times now, but this one was just hitting different with some really good pops of airtime which I’ve rarely had on others of this model.
Some other bits and pieces, including some interesting theming choices right in front of the pirate ship. So jolly!
If I sit down to pee, is this a cred?
Again, I can’t remember if their old spinning coaster was in the same place, but it would make sense that it was. I’m not sure that the old one was even a proper Jinma spinner though, unlike this one.
I did the flying theatre which I’m also pretty sure was new since last time. I’m not a fan of them at the best of times, but this one was absolute s**t. It wasn’t helped by the ridiculously unnecessary restraints either.
I also rode this, guessing (correctly) that it’d probably be listed on Coaster-Count. I absolutely have not included it in my personal count, but I hate leaving boxes unticked.
6 creds then, which was pretty good considering it wasn’t a new park for me. Anyone coming here for the first time, and lucky enough to get all four shuttle coasters running, could get a +10 to the count. Too bad it’s all s**te then. The coasters I mean; I actually quite like this place as a whole.
I left around 3pm and was debating what to do with the rest of the afternoon. There were a couple of +1 parks nearby, but one of those is supposedly getting something new soon. At least, there’s been something listed on RCDB for ages, so I decided to leave those for another time and made the much more sensible decision to take a taxi for over an hour to the complete opposite side of Guangzhou to a new-but-not-really park.
Astroland
RCDB has this place listed as “Star World”, but signs all over the place have it as Astroland. It used to operate as Nanhu Amusement Park, but closed years ago for a big overhaul. Nanhu was one of the very first parks I ever visited in China, back in 2007. Back then, the only parks listed on RCDB for the Guangzhou area were Nanhu and Chimelong Paradise. There absolutely would’ve been more places, probably including Chuanlord, but back then I was still very new to this whole thing so wouldn’t have thought to scout out anything else, not that I’d have had time anyway since I only had a day. Anyway, back then I’d headed up to Nanhu after getting Chimelong done fairly quickly.
It was notable back then for having one of Arrow’s last coasters, a looper that was started by them, but finished by Vekoma when Arrow went bankrupt. It’s probably one of the coasters that made me get more into the geeky side of this hobby since there were no pictures of it and nobody from the usual coaster sites had ridden it. Here’s the RCDB link: https://rcdb.com/1795.htm.
I should’ve sent in loads more pictures really; not sure why I only sent a handful. If anyone’s interested, I’ve quite a lot more.
Anyway, it’s no longer the same place at all. It opened in January this year and there’s pretty much nothing left of the old park. It was raining again but, again, was only a brief shower. On the gate, a guy warned me that the outdoor attractions were closed and might not reopen, a useless warning given that I’d already paid for the ticket, but also turned out to be nothing to worry about. The old place had a space shuttle in roughly the same place, so that was a nice nod to the old park.
The boomerang, the only coaster here, was in fact closed, but the woman outside kept repeating “five” which could’ve either meant 5 minutes or five o’clock since it was around quarter to at that point. They tested it as soon as the rain stopped, so that was a good sign,
In the meantime, I checked out what else they had, starting with this simulator ride which was pretty decent.
Then it was back to the boomerang, Quantum Trek. This is a boomerang from Jinma, a surprisingly late addition to their catalogue given that a couple of other Chinese manufacturers have had a crack at it, with the first one, out of three so far, opening just a couple of years ago. Unlike their previous Vekoma “inspired” coasters though, they haven’t just reverse engineered the existing model, and the result is easily the best boomerang I’ve ever done. It has vest restraints, which are very welcome, but even if it had OTSRs they would not be a problem since it’s extremely smooth. There’s a bit of a jolt as it connects to the second lift, but that’s it. I don’t know if it’s the track itself or the shaping of the cobra roll, but it rides really smoothly while also being very forceful, especially through the vertical loop. It’s the first boomerang I’ve ever reridden.
Next to the previous simulator ride was another “what’s in here” attraction, which turned out to be another simulator, but something quite different to anything I’ve seen before. It was basically like the domed screen sections of the Forbidden Journey rides, only the screen doesn’t move and the cars weren’t on a track, they just moved forwards into the ride area. I’m not sure if the seats were on a robot arm or something else, but they had a fair bit of movement, especially during a couple of “drop” effects. Again, it was pretty decent.
There was a monorail sort of thing which had a track circling a pretty large area, but they were only running it as a shuttle between two stations, probably using a bit less than half of the track length. No idea if they ever use the whole track at the moment; the park was very quiet. Quick photo dump to finish:
I saw something else from the monorail that could potentially have been another ride, but I had a train booked and didn’t want to risk missing it. It was from Guangzhou East Station (I’d arrived via Guangzhou South), and the trains from there to Hong Kong are far less regular.
Not a bad day then. Seven new creds (six s**t, one excellent) from two parks which I’ve been to before, though Astroland/Nanhu is essentially a whole new place now.
