Shantou (China) Weekend Trip: Return to Fantawild

[Gavin]

This is going back to around May, a long weekend where I had a Monday off work. I got the train from Hong Kong to Shantou sometime on the Friday evening, taking about 2 hours. I’d done a similar weekend trip back in, I think, 2015, but there was some other stuff to check out and it was an easy option for a weekend trip.

There were some parks quite far out of the city which I was in two minds about. Well, in a different city entirely: Chaozhou. I usually plan too much time for crappy +1 parks where, more often than not, I’m in and out within half an hour, so I knew that realistically they were very doable if I got my arse in gear early enough.

Fenghuangzhou Park
Just a jungle mouse here, but there’s always a chance of discovering something new in these places. Nothing new would be discovered, and the jungle mouse would not be ridden. The amusement park area was completely closed, and by the looks of it is now SBNO. The surrounding park and temple were nice enough, so I could at least kid myself that this hadn’t been a complete waste of time. Here are too many pictures of a spiteful park:

Taxi to the next place then, which had two coasters listed, but no pictures at all on RCDB. They’re on there now, so massive apologies that my tardiness in getting this report done has resulted in the loss of exclusivity.

Green Sun Amusement Park
I shouldn’t be surprised at the size of some these places anymore. I always see a +1/+2 park and assume something tiny, but quite often they turn out to be a lot more substantial. Only a small section of it was open though, or at least it seemed that way. If you look at the map in one of the coming pictures, just the section in the bottom right corner was open. The bridge leading to the other areas being blocked off. I’ve got no idea if this was permanent, or a time-of-day thing since it was still quite early. It was a Saturday though.

Luckily, the rides area was in the open section. I’d got a cheap entry ticket, so paid individually for the two coasters, the guy in the ticket booth having to then walk over to operate them since there was literally nobody else there. I’d been given a couple of coupons for random crap as well, and one of those was a free ice house ticket. I wouldn’t have bothered with it otherwise.

There was also a small zoo section, which really wasn’t all too pleasant, but far better than a couple of others I’d see later (and probably won’t share to be honest – they were vile). Finding the bridge closed, I obviously didn’t check out that side of the park. I’m assuming/hoping there were no surprise creds over there, but having to walk around the whole thing to check would’ve been quite time consuming. Anyway, it was closed so wasn't an option.

Next! We were moving away from Chaozhou towards another town (Jieyang), still quite far north of Shantou.

Wanzhuyuan Amusement Park
This place had three listed coasters, and there were actually some people here, consisting of a handful of school groups. The park itself was quite nice, but one of the creds was closed – just a powered dragon, so whatever. There was also a small zoo section (didn’t have to pay for it; I won’t pay for those places), but it was one of the grossest things I’ve seen, so we’ll just park that there.

The next place was roughly halfway between this one and Shantou – maybe closer to Shatou – so I pretty much had to go past on the way back into the city.

Shantou Green Dream Wetland Ecological Park
There were three creds listed here, but one of them was just one of those kiddy pedal-powered things, which I don’t ride for numerous reasons and was hidden away inside a paid-entry kiddy playground area. The park had a small cover charge and then pay-per-ride options. Perfect. Again, it was pretty big. This place also had a zoo, which was closed but looked semi-decent; there were a couple of areas where you could see some of the animals. In terms of coasters, there was a jungle mouse (shocking) and a chicken coop.

I’m assuming that this was an old rides area at some point. It’s becoming increasingly common to see this kind of thing now; new ride areas being developed and the old ones left empty rather than reused. If I had to guess, it’s so that they still have rides operational while old stuff is being removed rather than having weeks/months of no rides, which sort of makes sense when it’s a pay-per-ride system.

The original plan had been to hit up this next place the following day, but I just decided to get it done. This place was close to the city centre and new since I was last in Shantou

Children’s Park

The name would usually imply a handful of kiddy rides, but this place was quite a bit more substantial. It was free entry and pay-per-ride, with three coasters to be had. There was a bit of construction happening around the main entrance, which basically cut the park in two. Weirdly, there were people around the looper and Ferris wheel area, but not around the area with the two other coasters. I was worried that they were closed, but they weren’t. It just seemed that people were confused by the construction and didn’t follow the path around it.

Swinging around to the left, around the construction that was confusing everyone, to two of the coasters, both from Jinma. One is a fairly standard family coaster, but the other is a bit rarer, one of their newer, compact invert models. I’d done one of these before and really liked it. Jinma’s older SLCs – direct clones of Vekoma’s “Kumali” layout - are absolutely vile, the worst of the Chinese SLCs honestly despite them being the bigger company. These smaller, newer models are decent though.

Literally no people in this side of the park though. I even waited around for a bit to try and get some action shots, but nobody was coming through at all.

There was, however, a somewhat steady number of riders for the Hebei Zhongye looper at the opposite end of the park (the part that felt actually open), though it was often sent with just a couple of people on it. I got a solo ride on it, taking a seat near the middle. It was f**king vile. I’ve done way too many of these things now, not hating them at first, but I can’t stand them anymore. This one was particularly offensive, and I think I did actual damage since my neck was hurting for the rest of the day. It was the vertical loops that caused the problems here rather than the corkscrews (though they were also not great), snapping my head back and forth. It’s at the point where if I see more of these, they might be getting skipped.

Did the Ferris wheel because I usually tend to do them, especially the rather massive ones that China is shoving everywhere these days.

From there, you can also see another park, which I’d been to on my last visit to Shantou: one of the older Fantawild Adventure parks, which now isn’t a Fantwaild park and had a couple of new creds. It was early evening by this point though, and I’d already done one more park than planned, so I called it a day here.

Another day of this stuff to come.

 

[Gavin]

There was an alpine coaster just across the river from the city centre, which had probably been there on my last visit, but it either hadn’t been listed or I’d skipped it for whatever reason. It’s a whole “scenic area” kind of place, with a bunch of walking trails, but I just got the cable car up, walked up to the nearest viewing point, and got the coaster back down.

I hadn’t seen a lot of Shantou itself last time around, so headed to the kind of old town area and had a bit of a wander. The main touristy square was already getting quite busy, so I imagine it’s pretty unbearable in the evenings.

I walked up/along the river to the city’s main museum, which wasn’t really up to much. This was right next to Zhongshan Park, which, since my last visit had a kiddy pedal-powered thing added and nothing else, so I wasn’t going to bother. From the museum window though, I spotted some yellow track, which was clearly something more substantial. There was a whole new rides area – next to where some of the old stuff had been – with two new, unlisted creds.

I walked up through the rest of the park, which was all very pleasant, made more so by the smug feeling of having just discovered some fresh creds

It was then onto another revisit of a nearby smaller park, which had removed the cred I’d already ridden, an old jungle mouse, and built a crappy fruit worm. No extra surprises here.

It was then back across to the area I’d finished in the previous day, this time to revisit the Fantawild park I’d done on my first visit. This was on of the older Fantawild Adventure parks, with a collection of their 1st gen rides and some generic coasters.

It’s not a Fantawild park anymore though, being listed on RCDB as Blue Mercury Happy World. I’m very certain that this goes beyond just a name change and this place is not longer being operated by Fantawild at all. Fantawild’s model, from what I can work out, is that unlike the other chains (OCT and Chimelong), they don’t buy land and build parks themselves. They sell park packages to local governments – meaning they’re making money by selling/constructing their own products – and then get paid to operate the parks. This is why you rarely see anything get added once the park is built; Fantawild ain’t paying for s**t.

Anyway, there are still some Fantawild clues around, not least the ride buildings which haven’t been touched on the outside. It was all very weird: Fantawild meets Return to Oz.

As with a lot of the earlier Fantawild parks, the original coaster collection here had been crap (a suspended wild mouse, family coaster and fruit worm - all from Jinma), and it was no better now with a Chicken Coop and a different family coaster, which at least was something different and from a manufacturer I’d never come across before (Zhongshan Baichuan blah blah blah too long name). There’s nothing else of theirs listed at the moment. Also no issue getting the chicken coop. I’d managed to get the old fruit worm coaster, but soon after that Fantawild started getting strict on a “no adults” policy for these types of rides.

I don’t remember there being a small water park in the middle before, and I don’t have access to my old photos to check. The slide definitely looked new at any rate. The “western” style entrance used to lead to a show (basically a rip off of Knott’s Mystery Lodge that a bunch of old Fantawild parks had before they developed their own shows using similar technology), but now just had some kind of animal show that I missed.

Conch Bay (the big seashell building) is Fantawild’s version of It’s Tough to be a Bug, but that has now seemingly been removed. Because of general faff, I didn’t get to ride what was now in there, but video screens showed 4D-style moving seats, so it’s not the same thing now.

Dino Rampage! Or not. This was Fantawild’s OG 4D dark ride, which has been developed across multiple themes and stories now, along with better ride tech. The ride has gone. Or, more likely, it’s all sitting abandoned. It’s now being sold as a horror attraction. With the old ride, the entrance area was a large “museum” hall, with the queue line moving through “Jurassic Park” style lab/office space before hitting the ride. The entrance hall and queue line still exist, now lit more spookily and with creepy music, but you just get dumped out of an emergency exit before getting to the ride platforms.

The other very impressive building used to house a show quite heavily “inspired by” Poseidon’s Fury at Islands of Adventure. Now, it’s a horror walkthrough. It uses the old queue line again, but this time also the main show area, with a walkway built around/over it. It was too dark for pictures to show up very well. It was crap anyway.

They still had the simulator ride (think Back to the Future / Simpsons style), but I’m almost certain it was a different film. I’m assuming it’s the same ride tech. This has never been a very good attraction, but it’s now total s**te.

The flying theatre was also still a flying theatre, but, again, I’m sure the film was different. This wasn’t too bad.

Yeah, it’s all very weird really. I can only guess that the city’s contract with Fantawild expired and they chose not to renew it, meaning that they had to find another operator and aren’t allowed to use Fantawild’s intellectual property anymore, which makes me question the ride tech on the simulator and flying theatre. Is the hardware actually owned by whoever orders/owns the park, or could those have been replaced as well?

Anyway, being one of the older Fantawild Adventure parks, this was never a particularly great current example of the chain, but it’s really s**t now. To be fair, I think I only paid about a fiver, so can’t really complain.

That was it. My original plan had been to hit up Return to Fantawild on the Monday morning before an afternoon train back to Hong Kong, but knocking so much off on that first day meant bringing a bunch of stuff forward, so I ended up just changing to a slightly earlier train. I can’t see there being a need to hit up Shantou for a 3rd time anywhere in the near future.