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Kunming PTR - Part 2: Cred Whoring

gavin

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Yes, it’s another one. Before the school term properly kicked in, I had a long weekend, so flew out to Kunming.

The weather forecast was for rain and thunderstorms for the whole three days, which is obviously less than ideal. On the first day, it was cloudy in the morning, so I headed to the major park first, thinking that if everything else went tits-up, at least I had a chance while it was relatively ok.

Colourful Yunnan Paradise

This is brand new park that just opened during the summer. It’s pretty far outside the city, but is part of a bigger overall resort – Colourful Yunnan – that is still undergoing some construction. I can’t remember the exact price now, but it was expensive at over £30. I walked past/through a couple of areas to get to the B&M in the back corner of the park.

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Save this one for later:

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There was nobody around at this point, especially not in this area, but everything was open. In typical Chinese fashion, the English signage just calls it Wing Coaster, but the Chinese name is Snow Eagle.

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They got me to wait around 5 minutes, but when it was clear that nobody else was coming, set me off by myself. See:

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It was really good. On paper, it’s pretty much X-Flight, which I thought was s**t, but this just seemed so much better. I only rode at or near the front though, whereas I did X-Flight at the back. Plus, this is obviously newer and theming was loads better. Common sense was telling me to run and get the other creds in case it started raining, but I did a quick reride anyway.

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Some other bits and pieces on the way to the next coaster:

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Back to this in a bit:

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The Blue Fire clone – called “Launch Coaster” in English but with a Chinese name that translates as “Elephant Play Dragon” – was next. Again, there were no people, so, again, I got a ride to myself.

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There was some kind of manager hanging around who asked me if I wanted to “play again”, so I did.

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This was no different to any other Blue Fire model, and I’m fine with that since I actually like them more than most people seem to.

There was a huge theatre with what I’m guessing was some kind of stunt show, but there was no information regarding times anywhere, so I guess it maybe wasn’t open.

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Moving on then, this time to a Mack supersplash thing. There’s clearly a “Walrus Splash” influence going on with this in terms of the theming. The tigers are even more impressive from the top of the drop.

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Some other stuff including a flying theatre (Ughhhhhhh, so f**king sick of them and shouldn’t have bothered) and a big indoor kiddy area.

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And onto the final cred, which I’d walked right past earlier.

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I did another couple of rides on Snow Eagle before it started raining.

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Predictably, with the rain everything closed. I thought I could at least do the Ferris wheel, but they even shut that down. Thinking about it, I guess it could be a lightning risk. The rain didn’t last long though, and they opened everything back up pretty much immediately, which I thought was pretty impressive given that a. the park was dead and b. CHYAINA.

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Ferris wheel for the views then.

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After that it started raining again, only this time a properly pissing down thunderstorm which didn’t look likely to stop anytime soon, so I called it a day. This was fine though since the weather had held off long enough for me to get everything done, with rerides, so I couldn’t complain. There was some show in a large theatre a couple of hours later, and some nighttime show on the lake, but I didn’t really want to hang around that long.

Overall, this was a great park. It’s hard to comment on operations when it was completely dead, but the way that they were happy to send empty trains with no wait and get stuff open quickly after the rain stopped is a good sign. No bulls**t station warm-up exercises either. Ride operating hours seemed excellent as well. Signs out front of each ride had everything operating from park opening until at least 8pm.

The rest of this report is just crappy cred whoring.
 

Hixee

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Random thoughts as they came to me scrolling through.
  • The ferris wheel is rather pretty, isn't it? Quite like the embellishment on the arms.
  • Love the ORP, obviously.
  • Holy hell, those theming statues! My favourite is the tigers on the supersplash (obviously), but fair play to the elephants and wolves too!
  • Good to hear you got everything done before the weather turned, especially with re-opening bit, that sounds new. :p
Good stuff!
 

gavin

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This next park was originally on the cards to grab on the way back from Colourful Yunnan Paradise, but the weather put a stop to that. I considered skipping it since it was the total wrong direction to everything else, but figured I had plenty of time given that I had two whole days left.

Haigeng Park

The weather wasn’t great, but not awful. I got dropped off at one side of the park though, which is really long and runs parallel to a lake. I thought maybe the cred had gone seeing as there were a few boarded-off areas, but I found it in the end.

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That was that then.

The next place was another I was in two minds about. Apparently, there was an alpine coaster in there, but RCDB had nothing listed. Only one way to find out.

Jindian Park

This place was lovely. “Park” isn’t really a good description of it. It’s more of a mountain with temples and stuff scattered around.

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Just a few steps up the mountain, though, and you get to this:

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This had a very weird system. Well, it may not be that weird in China since I’ve ridden very few alpine coasters there, but it was the first time I’d seen it. You had an option of a “single” or “return” ticket. The single ticket only got you up the lift hill, but not the ride down. Since all of the stuff people want to see is up on the hill, it’s used as a means to get people up there if they don’t want to walk.

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You have to get off at the top. I guess I could have shown my ticket and headed straight back down, but it was early enough and the weather had cleared right up, so I had a bit of a mince around the top. It was all very nice.

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If anything sums up China, it’s this gift stall, located at the base of an ancient bell tower, selling absolute s**te.

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And this inexplicable camel.

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And then it was time to use my return ticket to actually ride the coaster. This was the first time I’d seen one being run with a guide at the front who controls the speed. There was another guy in the station who spoke really good English who was explaining stuff to me, so I asked him to tell the guide not to brake at all, which he was happy to do since I was the only rider, so I still got a decent ride out of it.

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There was a large botanical garden kind of place nearby, and satellite images showed a rapids ride there, but I couldn’t see any coasters, so I decided to skip it. There’s a chance there might be a small cred hidden away in there I guess, but I just went on to the next place.

Yueyatan Park

Typical Chinese park with a couple of rides.

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Not a cred:

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Cred:

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I’d planned on making this next place the last for the day since I figured I’d need more time than the others and it was walking distance back to the hotel.

Kunming Zoo

There was some officially licensed Frozen shenanigans going on, plus some kind of small indoor kiddy park outside the entrance, so I had a look just in case.

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Hmmmmmm….Nah.

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Most of this zoo was ok, with decent-sized enclosures and lacking in gross cages with concrete floors.

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Then there was this really grim little upcharge section with a hippo and sealions in gross, tiny pools.

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There were apparently four creds here, but in this amusement park section, there was only one crappy worm thing.

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It turns out that there’s another, bigger amusement park in a different area though.

Sorry elephants, not here for you when there’s that stuff going on behind you.

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This area had the complete trifecta of crappy Chinese park creds.

Powered dragon:

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Jungle mouse:

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Golden Horse spinner:

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Amazing.

I went out through a different exit via “Peacock Garden”, which was kind of nuts. It was a walkthrough area with, at a guess, about 100 peacocks in it.

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Ignoring that awful area with the hippo, this was actually a pretty decent zoo. Obviously, I was here for the creds, but walking through to get them wasn’t the guilt-inducing experience it often is in Chinese zoos.

Like I said, I was going to make this the last place, but the weather was gorgeous by that point and I didn’t know if it was going to hold, so decided to squeeze one more place in.

Daguan Park

Just your typical Chinese park with an amusement park area. I’m really over these, but they’re usually pretty nice and often have a better atmosphere than “proper” parks since there are always more people around.

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There was a Hebei Zhongye 3-Ring coaster. Yay.

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Followed by a Hebei Zhongye 4-Ring coaster. Double yay.

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And finally a Golden Horse spinner. Triple Ya…

Spite!

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It was still on the maps, and should have been right where this, clearly very new, starflyer now sat.

I watched this fab granny on some VR thing to cheer me up, then finally headed back to the hotel.

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All in all, it was a pretty productive day with getting 5 parks in when I was really looking at only doing three. This would definitely have been the nicer day for doing Colourful Yunnan Paradise, but there was no way of knowing that, so wasn’t worth the gamble.

There’s another day of this, which I usually prefer to keep separate, but there’s not much to report, so I’ll chuck it in now.

I only had two small, crappy +1 parks to polish off, so just had a lie in and left the hotel as late as possible, picking them up on the way(ish) to the airport.

Xihua Park

Just a powered dragon.

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Baohai Park

Just a powered dragon.

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Only not because the f**ker’s been removed.

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It’s always good to end these trips on a high.

The end.
 

Hixee

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This had a very weird system. Well, it may not be that weird in China since I’ve ridden very few alpine coasters there, but it was the first time I’d seen it. You had an option of a “single” or “return” ticket. The single ticket only got you up the lift hill, but not the ride down. Since all of the stuff people want to see is up on the hill, it’s used as a means to get people up there if they don’t want to walk.
How do they get the 'single' trip cars back down? Do they not all accumulate at the top? I quite like the personal brake-man though, that's gotta be pretty unique! :p

Rest looks pretty typical for one of your reports, but always good to read about the lesser visited stuff - even if it is just Jungle Mice. ;)
 

gavin

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How do they get the 'single' trip cars back down? Do they not all accumulate at the top? I quite like the personal brake-man though, that's gotta be pretty unique!

I saw nobody else using it at all, so no idea really. It's not much more to buy the return ticket, so I imagine most people would do that. If not, I guess the brakeman takes a bunch down behind him when necessary. He's the only person controlling anything; the rest of the cars have a "hands-off" approach. From other pictures I've seen, it's not a unique concept unfortunately, but they usually seem to be in "trains" of 5 or 6 cars and it's the first one I've come across myself.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Yeah they can join them all up at the Great Wall one. They all go up the lift individually but are run in big trains on the way down.
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Your one looks nicer though.
 

gavin

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I'm still suicidal over the fact that I skipped the one at The Great Wall. This was back in 2007 and I didn't realise what it was.
 
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