I’ve had this place on my radar for ages, but never managed to make it work before now. It’s pretty out of the way, close to the borders with Myanmar and Laos, with no direct flight options from around here.
There are plenty of flights from Kunming though, which is a MUCH more major city. I’d always planned to tie the two in together, but caved and did Kunming as a weekend trip by itself a while ago, not having time for Xishuangbanna as well. Regular weekends just don’t work from here because of flight times, and even a long weekend would be a bit rushed if I wanted to actually see anything of the area. Prices have always been ridiculous as well.
Anyway, everything finally lined up last weekend. I could finish work early on Thursday, being able to make a 5pm flight, then had Friday off, meaning that I had all day Friday and Saturday there before flying back on Sunday morning. No idea how it happened, but I managed to bag a flight for around 130 quid return (they’d been running between 400 – 700 when I’d looked at other times).
I got there quite late on the Thursday night, checked into my “International” hotel which was nothing of the kind (still very decent rooms, but VERY local), and headed straight out to the park the following morning.
Xishuangbanna Sunac Land
This used to be a Wanda Park, but they sold their theme park division to Sunac a while ago, so most of them have now been renamed. Nothing has really changed other than that, though I can’t see new parks being thrown up at the same rate anymore.
Despite being a public holiday, the place was dead (the whole of Xishuanbanna was ridiculously quiet – theories later…), but everything was open.
I went straight for the B&M, Harpy, half expecting it to not be open so early in the day - I was in the park by 10am – but it was. There was no sitting and waiting around either; they sent it straight off with just me on it. Have a bunch of repetitive pictures with no trains going around:
I liked this. With this one, I’ve now done every B&M flyer (who wants to touch me?), and it sits fairly comfortably in the middle. It’s better than the Superman clones in that it seems to do a bit more and be an overall much more pleasant experience, but isn’t as unique or large-scale as the ones that sit at the top of my list (Flying Dinosaur, Tatsu, Sky Ripper…)
I walked past this at first, and then forgot about and didn’t do it later. Oh well, it was probably s**t.
Hydro Racer was a new coaster type for me. I’d done that thing that they used to have at Holiday World, which had the same lift, but was basically just a water chute after that.
Again, I was the only person there, but they sent me off by myself with no faff.
Meh. The elevator lift is a bit freaky I guess, but the rest of it was a bit s**t. I don’t know how the others work (and can’t be arsed to get on YouTube to check), but there’s no splashdown at all after the first drop; it just skims across the top of the water and into the coaster section. There is a splashdown after that, before it gets back to the station, but it was minimal. The boat was, admittedly, empty though, so it might have more of a splash if there are more people in it. Anyway, I prefer the Mack water coasters to this.
Did the rapids. Look: another person!
The final coaster was a Zamperla Motocoaster thing with horse theming. I think it was pretty much a clone of Pony Express at Knott’s, but I can’t be f**ked to check.
Some other general stuff. There were a couple of shows that I didn’t see. One I missed as I was at the other end of the park, but could kind of hear from across the lake and sounded like some “cultural” thing, and the other seemed to be a fairly major ice skating thing, but it wasn’t on until hours later (and it seemed to be an upcharge). I did the awful inverting thing (Zamperla?) for something to do and since I hadn’t done one for years, and the shot tower as well. No idea who made that, but it felt very S&S at least.
There were a couple of small groups in the park by now, so I stuck around to get these amazing action shots of the coasters and decided to call it a day after getting another ride in each on the two bigger ones, leaving at around half twelve I guess.
The park then. I really liked it. Obviously, it was empty, so it lacked a lot of atmosphere, but it was a really pleasant place to be. It’s all very green and lush and feels very tropical, which obviously it is thanks to the location.
Operations were great. I’ve got no idea how things work if it’s busy, but I was pleased that they had everything open and had no issues running stuff with just me, and without making me sit there for ages waiting for non-existent other people. Staff were very smiley and friendly, which you rarely get in Chinese parks, with ride ops trying to call me over to ride their stuff, no doubt because they were just bored.
The ride selection was decent if not very big. There’s also a huge water park next door, and while the entrance area was still very quiet as I was leaving, the few people who were around seemed to be heading in there.
Park-wise, that’s it for this weekend, but I did some general sightseeing s**t that afternoon and on the next day, so I’ll chuck that in later.
There are plenty of flights from Kunming though, which is a MUCH more major city. I’d always planned to tie the two in together, but caved and did Kunming as a weekend trip by itself a while ago, not having time for Xishuangbanna as well. Regular weekends just don’t work from here because of flight times, and even a long weekend would be a bit rushed if I wanted to actually see anything of the area. Prices have always been ridiculous as well.
Anyway, everything finally lined up last weekend. I could finish work early on Thursday, being able to make a 5pm flight, then had Friday off, meaning that I had all day Friday and Saturday there before flying back on Sunday morning. No idea how it happened, but I managed to bag a flight for around 130 quid return (they’d been running between 400 – 700 when I’d looked at other times).
I got there quite late on the Thursday night, checked into my “International” hotel which was nothing of the kind (still very decent rooms, but VERY local), and headed straight out to the park the following morning.
Xishuangbanna Sunac Land
This used to be a Wanda Park, but they sold their theme park division to Sunac a while ago, so most of them have now been renamed. Nothing has really changed other than that, though I can’t see new parks being thrown up at the same rate anymore.
Despite being a public holiday, the place was dead (the whole of Xishuanbanna was ridiculously quiet – theories later…), but everything was open.
I went straight for the B&M, Harpy, half expecting it to not be open so early in the day - I was in the park by 10am – but it was. There was no sitting and waiting around either; they sent it straight off with just me on it. Have a bunch of repetitive pictures with no trains going around:
I liked this. With this one, I’ve now done every B&M flyer (who wants to touch me?), and it sits fairly comfortably in the middle. It’s better than the Superman clones in that it seems to do a bit more and be an overall much more pleasant experience, but isn’t as unique or large-scale as the ones that sit at the top of my list (Flying Dinosaur, Tatsu, Sky Ripper…)
I walked past this at first, and then forgot about and didn’t do it later. Oh well, it was probably s**t.
Hydro Racer was a new coaster type for me. I’d done that thing that they used to have at Holiday World, which had the same lift, but was basically just a water chute after that.
Again, I was the only person there, but they sent me off by myself with no faff.
Meh. The elevator lift is a bit freaky I guess, but the rest of it was a bit s**t. I don’t know how the others work (and can’t be arsed to get on YouTube to check), but there’s no splashdown at all after the first drop; it just skims across the top of the water and into the coaster section. There is a splashdown after that, before it gets back to the station, but it was minimal. The boat was, admittedly, empty though, so it might have more of a splash if there are more people in it. Anyway, I prefer the Mack water coasters to this.
Did the rapids. Look: another person!
The final coaster was a Zamperla Motocoaster thing with horse theming. I think it was pretty much a clone of Pony Express at Knott’s, but I can’t be f**ked to check.
Some other general stuff. There were a couple of shows that I didn’t see. One I missed as I was at the other end of the park, but could kind of hear from across the lake and sounded like some “cultural” thing, and the other seemed to be a fairly major ice skating thing, but it wasn’t on until hours later (and it seemed to be an upcharge). I did the awful inverting thing (Zamperla?) for something to do and since I hadn’t done one for years, and the shot tower as well. No idea who made that, but it felt very S&S at least.
There were a couple of small groups in the park by now, so I stuck around to get these amazing action shots of the coasters and decided to call it a day after getting another ride in each on the two bigger ones, leaving at around half twelve I guess.
The park then. I really liked it. Obviously, it was empty, so it lacked a lot of atmosphere, but it was a really pleasant place to be. It’s all very green and lush and feels very tropical, which obviously it is thanks to the location.
Operations were great. I’ve got no idea how things work if it’s busy, but I was pleased that they had everything open and had no issues running stuff with just me, and without making me sit there for ages waiting for non-existent other people. Staff were very smiley and friendly, which you rarely get in Chinese parks, with ride ops trying to call me over to ride their stuff, no doubt because they were just bored.
The ride selection was decent if not very big. There’s also a huge water park next door, and while the entrance area was still very quiet as I was leaving, the few people who were around seemed to be heading in there.
Park-wise, that’s it for this weekend, but I did some general sightseeing s**t that afternoon and on the next day, so I’ll chuck that in later.