Who’s ready to read up on some shameless cred whoring of extremely unremarkable kiddy clones in craphole Chinese parks?
You are!
I had Friday off work last week, so wanted to do something with the long weekend. I also, stupidly, had tickets for the ballet on the Sunday night because I’m classy like that, so I wouldn’t have really had much time on the Sunday and couldn’t really risk delays if I went for a flight option. Cue staying relatively local and hoovering up some plus ones.
On the Friday morning, I took a ferry from the terminal just a few-minutes’ walk from my place over to Zhongshan, a completely unremarkable city to the west of here, which took just over an hour. Then began an endless stream of Didis to get me between various parks.
Pony Forest Park
This was listed just as Zimaling Park on RCDB, but the amusement park area within the bigger park was called Pony Forest Park. The listed coaster was “unknown”, but I can now exclusively reveal that it’s called Toucan Roller Coaster and share some previously unseen pictures. You’re welcome!
They also had one of those glass water slide things. I’ve seen pictures and videos of them before, but I don’t think I’d seen one in person, so I gave that a go. Pretty uneventful really.
After a whole 10 minutes, it was back into a Didi.
Happy Coast
This place was a bit more major than I was expecting, but still only had one cred. It’s run by OCT – owners of the Happy Valley parks – but was a free-entry, pay-per-ride, piss-about-with-QR-codes place. There were a few indoor attractions that I didn’t bother with due to time, but seemed to include a 5D cinema, possibly a flying theatre and some typhoon simulator thing.
Again, this was also very much an “unknown” coaster with no pictures, so here’s another, soon-to-go-viral exclusive. The Jinma mine train coaster is called “Mine Train”! Who needs all that crap currently coming out of Epic Universe when you’ve got this?
And that was the biggest coaster of the whole weekend. Awesome. Next!
Shaxi Park
Just another of those city parks with some kiddy rides shoved in a corner.
This is where we get extra shameful…
One “good” thing about the worm train things in this area was that there was no issue riding them. In pay-per-ride places, this is very rarely an issue anyway other than the total confusion of the ride ops, but around here, they all had a “minimum height without an adult” restriction, meaning small kids couldn’t ride alone. In other places (glares at Fantawild), it’s more common to see a “no adults at all” restriction, so not sure why it’s suddenly very different. Anyway…
Those three parks had all been within around 20 minutes of each other, but now it was time to start heading away from Zhongshan towards another area called Jiangmen. I should point out that I went past two shopping malls with an unlisted kiddy cred each outside, but I showed enough restraint not to launch myself from the moving vehicle. Plus, at that time of day they would’ve been very unlikely to have been open. I think it took around 40 minutes to get to the next place.
Changlang Ecological Park
This place was another one that was much bigger than I’d expected, meaning that I ended up spending more time here than I’d planned. It was a pay-one-price place and was actually pretty busy.
The main rides area was quite compact and included a powered dragon thing and a jungle mouse, which would be the first of quite a few on this trip. It was also one of the longest queues I had to wait in as well, at around half an hour, thanks to it not being a pay-per-ride situation and the place being quite busy. Again, no pictures of the jungle mouse and only one of the dragon up on RCDB, so you’re really being treated today.
They were running the mouse pretty well also. They’d fill all five cars at the same time, then send multiple cars out onto the track at once. To be fair, I’ve seen quite a few jungle mouse coasters run pretty well like this. I did the Ferris wheel since I’d paid for everything and there was no queue. Have some more views of the wonderful jungle mouse:
There were three other coasters listed on RCDB, so I went off in search of those, also checking out a small zoo area. China has very much jumped on the capybara bandwagon. Seriously, how is it that people have only just discovered they exist and are making such a huge f**king deal about the things?
The other creds were in a very old playground area in a far corner of the park. Two of them were just those pedal-powered things:
A couple of people had listed them as “ridden” about a month ago, which I guess could be entirely possible if the place was quiet since the area was unstaffed. Being by myself and with a few people already using them, I wasn’t in a position to try, and I think even I would put these as a step too far.
The final coaster was another fruit worm.
Apparently, this had also been ridden about a month ago. It wasn’t completely fenced off I guess, but let’s just say I have my doubts…
I bypassed a listed kiddy cred outside a mall, again assuming that it wouldn’t be open, and headed to another park.
Jianghui Amusement Park
This was part of a much bigger national park kind of area with mountains and lakes and s**t. The amusement park itself was pay-per-ride though, so even though there were quite a lot of people about, there was little to no waiting for the creds.
Another jungle mouse! Yay!
There was a kiddy spinner thing and a powered “coaster” which really didn’t coast at all. Sure there was a brief elevation change, but it really just dragged itself along the track. It’s rather ironically called “High-Speed Rail Paradise”. I was to see quite a few kiddy/powered coasters retrofitted with these high-speed rail trains.
There was also another glass water slide thing. I had no intention of doing another one, but it was more substantial than the one I’d tried earlier, so that was annoying.
One more park in this general area then:
East Lake Park
It’s another city park with a rides area, only the rides area was completely fenced off and looking very much SBNO. Booooooooo to no jungle mouse cred!
I needed to get quite far north from this area for the next day. I could’ve looked into train options, but I couldn’t be arsed and Didi is pretty cheap, so I just used that but broke up the fairly long drive into two 40-minute(ish) chunks by doing a quick stopover at another park.
Heshan Park
Yes, it’s another city park with a rides area. This rides area seemed closed at first – a stationary Ferris wheel is never a good sign – but it was just dead and required hunting down some staff to operate stuff. The manufacturer of this isn’t listed, but I’m fairly sure it’s a Jinma. Their old-school spinners, once an absolute staple of these kinds of places, are becoming increasingly rare.
The final stop for this day was going to be a park with three creds listed, but it was already getting a bit late, and online info had it as closed after 5pm. There are no creds visible on Google Maps either, but sometimes the kiddy crap can be obscured by trees, and there’s always a chance of newer stuff anyway. I thought I’d still head there and get a hotel in the area, booking one in the car on the way, with the possibility of checking out the park the following morning.
Yep, the place was closed, but not just for the day. The whole place is closed for a big overhaul.
I called it a day there. The hotel I’d booked was just around the corner. I wasn’t expecting much considering it cost me about a tenner, and the staff seemed utterly confused that someone had shown up to stay there, but it was actually very decent.
9 creds then out of an absolute maximum of 16, which was realistically more like 11 since those pedal-powered things were never under serious consideration and I was already pretty sure that the 3 creds at the last, closed park had been removed. Not bad going really.
More of the same coming up on the next day.
You are!
I had Friday off work last week, so wanted to do something with the long weekend. I also, stupidly, had tickets for the ballet on the Sunday night because I’m classy like that, so I wouldn’t have really had much time on the Sunday and couldn’t really risk delays if I went for a flight option. Cue staying relatively local and hoovering up some plus ones.
On the Friday morning, I took a ferry from the terminal just a few-minutes’ walk from my place over to Zhongshan, a completely unremarkable city to the west of here, which took just over an hour. Then began an endless stream of Didis to get me between various parks.
Pony Forest Park
This was listed just as Zimaling Park on RCDB, but the amusement park area within the bigger park was called Pony Forest Park. The listed coaster was “unknown”, but I can now exclusively reveal that it’s called Toucan Roller Coaster and share some previously unseen pictures. You’re welcome!
They also had one of those glass water slide things. I’ve seen pictures and videos of them before, but I don’t think I’d seen one in person, so I gave that a go. Pretty uneventful really.
After a whole 10 minutes, it was back into a Didi.
Happy Coast
This place was a bit more major than I was expecting, but still only had one cred. It’s run by OCT – owners of the Happy Valley parks – but was a free-entry, pay-per-ride, piss-about-with-QR-codes place. There were a few indoor attractions that I didn’t bother with due to time, but seemed to include a 5D cinema, possibly a flying theatre and some typhoon simulator thing.
Again, this was also very much an “unknown” coaster with no pictures, so here’s another, soon-to-go-viral exclusive. The Jinma mine train coaster is called “Mine Train”! Who needs all that crap currently coming out of Epic Universe when you’ve got this?
And that was the biggest coaster of the whole weekend. Awesome. Next!
Shaxi Park
Just another of those city parks with some kiddy rides shoved in a corner.
This is where we get extra shameful…
One “good” thing about the worm train things in this area was that there was no issue riding them. In pay-per-ride places, this is very rarely an issue anyway other than the total confusion of the ride ops, but around here, they all had a “minimum height without an adult” restriction, meaning small kids couldn’t ride alone. In other places (glares at Fantawild), it’s more common to see a “no adults at all” restriction, so not sure why it’s suddenly very different. Anyway…
Those three parks had all been within around 20 minutes of each other, but now it was time to start heading away from Zhongshan towards another area called Jiangmen. I should point out that I went past two shopping malls with an unlisted kiddy cred each outside, but I showed enough restraint not to launch myself from the moving vehicle. Plus, at that time of day they would’ve been very unlikely to have been open. I think it took around 40 minutes to get to the next place.
Changlang Ecological Park
This place was another one that was much bigger than I’d expected, meaning that I ended up spending more time here than I’d planned. It was a pay-one-price place and was actually pretty busy.
The main rides area was quite compact and included a powered dragon thing and a jungle mouse, which would be the first of quite a few on this trip. It was also one of the longest queues I had to wait in as well, at around half an hour, thanks to it not being a pay-per-ride situation and the place being quite busy. Again, no pictures of the jungle mouse and only one of the dragon up on RCDB, so you’re really being treated today.
They were running the mouse pretty well also. They’d fill all five cars at the same time, then send multiple cars out onto the track at once. To be fair, I’ve seen quite a few jungle mouse coasters run pretty well like this. I did the Ferris wheel since I’d paid for everything and there was no queue. Have some more views of the wonderful jungle mouse:
There were three other coasters listed on RCDB, so I went off in search of those, also checking out a small zoo area. China has very much jumped on the capybara bandwagon. Seriously, how is it that people have only just discovered they exist and are making such a huge f**king deal about the things?
The other creds were in a very old playground area in a far corner of the park. Two of them were just those pedal-powered things:
A couple of people had listed them as “ridden” about a month ago, which I guess could be entirely possible if the place was quiet since the area was unstaffed. Being by myself and with a few people already using them, I wasn’t in a position to try, and I think even I would put these as a step too far.
The final coaster was another fruit worm.
Apparently, this had also been ridden about a month ago. It wasn’t completely fenced off I guess, but let’s just say I have my doubts…
I bypassed a listed kiddy cred outside a mall, again assuming that it wouldn’t be open, and headed to another park.
Jianghui Amusement Park
This was part of a much bigger national park kind of area with mountains and lakes and s**t. The amusement park itself was pay-per-ride though, so even though there were quite a lot of people about, there was little to no waiting for the creds.
Another jungle mouse! Yay!
There was a kiddy spinner thing and a powered “coaster” which really didn’t coast at all. Sure there was a brief elevation change, but it really just dragged itself along the track. It’s rather ironically called “High-Speed Rail Paradise”. I was to see quite a few kiddy/powered coasters retrofitted with these high-speed rail trains.
There was also another glass water slide thing. I had no intention of doing another one, but it was more substantial than the one I’d tried earlier, so that was annoying.
One more park in this general area then:
East Lake Park
It’s another city park with a rides area, only the rides area was completely fenced off and looking very much SBNO. Booooooooo to no jungle mouse cred!
I needed to get quite far north from this area for the next day. I could’ve looked into train options, but I couldn’t be arsed and Didi is pretty cheap, so I just used that but broke up the fairly long drive into two 40-minute(ish) chunks by doing a quick stopover at another park.
Heshan Park
Yes, it’s another city park with a rides area. This rides area seemed closed at first – a stationary Ferris wheel is never a good sign – but it was just dead and required hunting down some staff to operate stuff. The manufacturer of this isn’t listed, but I’m fairly sure it’s a Jinma. Their old-school spinners, once an absolute staple of these kinds of places, are becoming increasingly rare.
The final stop for this day was going to be a park with three creds listed, but it was already getting a bit late, and online info had it as closed after 5pm. There are no creds visible on Google Maps either, but sometimes the kiddy crap can be obscured by trees, and there’s always a chance of newer stuff anyway. I thought I’d still head there and get a hotel in the area, booking one in the car on the way, with the possibility of checking out the park the following morning.
Yep, the place was closed, but not just for the day. The whole place is closed for a big overhaul.
I called it a day there. The hotel I’d booked was just around the corner. I wasn’t expecting much considering it cost me about a tenner, and the staff seemed utterly confused that someone had shown up to stay there, but it was actually very decent.
9 creds then out of an absolute maximum of 16, which was realistically more like 11 since those pedal-powered things were never under serious consideration and I was already pretty sure that the 3 creds at the last, closed park had been removed. Not bad going really.
More of the same coming up on the next day.
It's great seeing these small parks that pretty much can't be seen anywhere other than your trip reports.
