Since I’ve now finished with that Florida nonsense, I can now get back to what really matters: reporting on cloned coasters in terribly-operated Chinese parks that nobody gives a f**k about!
I’d been up to Ningbo before, as part of a longer trip around that area, but they annoyingly opened a Fantawild park (Oriental Heritage) quite soon after. Since then, they’ve added a second park right next door (Glorious Orient), so it’s been on the cards for ages. I finally decided to do it as a “birthday weekend” thing so that I could drag the semi-willing BF with me.
We got a Friday evening flight up to Ningbo, but the parks aren’t really in the city at all. Instead, they’re up in an area called Cixi, which took about an hour and 15 minutes in a taxi. We stayed in a hotel up near the parks since that obviously made the most sense, getting in quite late. It was very cold; this will be important.
I’d decided on the older park first, Oriental Heritage, thinking that the newer park would be more of a step up for the second day. Apologies in advance for dome really piss-poor indoor photos. It was a combination of me just trying to snap things quickly and the camera just not playing ball at all. Honestly, my phone camera takes better "dark" photos, which I really should remember in future.
Oriental Heritage
For the uninitiated, the Oriental Heritage parks are based around Chinese myths and legends and are designed with an “ancient China” aesthetic.
We’d been looking at the park’s website the night before, and saw that the outdoor coasters would only operate if it reached a certain temperature: 7°C for the woodie and 8°C for the Vekoma Boomerang. This wasn’t ideal, but the temperature was due to hit 8°C at around midday and rise up to 9 or 10 for the rest of the afternoon. Signs outside the park had the exact same information.
It’s China though, innit? At the ticket window, they assured us of the temperature thing, but then, at the gate, they said that the coasters wouldn’t open at all. It was a case of “well, we’re here so whatever.”
The park was dead, more dead than I’ve ever seen a Fantawild park, which are always dead. I put it down to the cold weather and the fact that it was right after the Chinese New Year holidays, so anyone thinking of going would’ve gone then.
There was a big show here, Lady Mengjiang, which I’d seen before elsewhere and thought was excellent, but it was the only thing that day which was down for “maintenance”. It’s far more likely due to costs since it was a huge show with lots of performers. Disappointing, but actually understandable and not a priority.
There was also this, though, which was something completely different and had ben removed from the maps completely. No idea what it used to be.
A lot of things were running to a schedule, which is normal and expected at Fantawild since some of the rides have huge capacities. First up was Romance Across the Stars, which is one of Fantawild’s quite old-school attractions with a rotating auditorium that move up into a huge dome screen. I think this film was new to me though; I’m not sure. I’ve definitely done one of these with a Monkey King theme, but this wasn’t that.
Next up was Pear Garden Tour, which I’ve really done too many times and am a bit sick of, but it had been a while. It uses huge vehicles which are very similar to the old Epcot Universe of Energy ride and is based on Chinese opera. You go through different Chinese towns (mostly very good sets), with the different styles of opera (which all sound basically the same) being performed by people in the buildings (screens within the sets), and ending with a huge rotating platform and 360 screen. It’s equal parts impressive and incredibly boring. The sound was f**ked in a few sections as well.
This is just a big 3D theatre with a “history of China” film which is more than slightly nationalistic.
The pagodas in the middle of most (all) Oriental Heritage parks looks like very impressive theming, but actually contain a drop tower. I’ve found them to be a very mixed bag, moving between meh and terrible, with this one being by far the absolute worst.
It was very clearly f**ked, with none of the effects working. The windows at the top, for example, are supposed to open before the main (forceless) drop, but I’ve only seen that actually work on 2 of these rides. This one also, inexplicably, finished its ride cycle at the top of the tower and then took literally 4 minutes to crawl back down. Absolutely awful.
I’d almost forgotten that there was at least an indoor cred here, Night Rescue. It’s Jinma’s direct clone of a Vekoma Mine Train, but in the dark, and is actually pretty decent and at least I managed a +1.
The insides of the buildings were just as cold as outside – colder, actually, in the afternoon – but those rides had no problem operating, just the coasters outside. I guess it could’ve been down to ride type, but it’s probably more down to Fantawild’s bulls**t.
Jinshan Temple Showdown! One of my favourite Fantawild rides. Following an epic queue line, it’s a massive boat ride which ends with an effects show, all based on the White Snake legend. It’s such a great attraction.
Legend/Story of Nuwa is also an excellent attraction, a 4D motion-based dark ride.
Only this time, there didn’t seem to be much motion. It’s been a while, so maybe I’m misremembering, but I’m sure it used to move a lot more. This felt much more like being moved from screen to screen without much else.
This “Butterfly Lovers” show is also a staple and is quite impressive, using live actors in a glass box with some very impressive projections/illusions. I didn’t try to take pictures of the show, so here’s the building.
Devil’s Peak is a ride which I admire in its scope of ambition but despise for what a pain in the arse it is to ride. It’s Fantawild’s take on the “Forbidden Journey” ride system, and is surprisingly good for the most part. The dome screen sections fail slightly in that they’re not deep enough, so you can totally see all the edges without even trying, but It’s otherwise quite impressive.
It falls down massively in its operations though. This had a queue – a very small queue of about 30 people, but a queue nonetheless - which from previous experience I knew would take at least half an hour, probably more. Imagine Forbidden Journey. Now imagine Forbidden Journey with one ride vehicle. Now imagine Forbidden Journey with one ride vehicle and having to wait for the occupants of that vehicle to leave the station before a ride op comes into a holding room to let 4 more people in. This time at least, there was a 3-minute preshow video being played on a loop and which I hadn't seen before, so that wasn’t annoying as f**k.
I timed it, it was 5 minutes between each group of four being let into the station (maybe they were two vehicles in that case?), giving a capacity of 48 people per hour. Forbidden Journey probably does that per minute. Yeah, it’s unfair to compare them, and I know that the park was dead, but it’s still horrendously bad.
Have some pictures of theming to break up the text.
By this point, it was well into the afternoon, with the temperature at a steady, tropical 9°C, but, as promised at the gate - though not on the website, sign boards or at the ticket office - the two outdoor coasters remained closed.
There was one outdoor coaster that was running, however, and it was one that was not listed on RCDB!
Bonus cred! Only not because look at it:
It had been a very long time since I’d done a “Boonie Bear Theatre” thing, this one called Storytime Theatre. It’s quite an impressive, though overly-complicated attraction in which the whole theatre rotates to look at different 3D screens.
And then we finished off with Colourful Tour, a “Small World” ride which focuses purely on different parts of China. I’ve tried in the past to put my finger on why this ride is extra creepy/crappy, and I figured out it’s because every single animatronic has the same face, just the same hard, shiny, plastic, unmoving face on every single one. This version had the added bonus of about 75% of the animatronics being on strike.
Despite what it seems, it wasn’t an awful day. I’ve perhaps been overly-critical as I’ve been writing this since we got quite a lot done, including all of the dark rides, and, really, that’s what it’s all about when you come to Fantawild. There was nothing I hadn’t done before, but it had been a few years, and the BF had never been to a Fantawild park, so it was interesting to get another perspective (and some translation/commentary). It's disappointing to see a lack of care though with regards to things clearly needing a bit of maintenance and not getting it. This also seems to be the norm for Fantawild though: build a new park and then ignore the old one.
Since I had someone who speaks fluent Mandarin with me, I thought I’d have a chat with guest services on the way out, not as a complaint necessarily since they really don’t care and nothing would be done, but more for my own curiosity and having no "lost in translation" issues The answers were basically, “Yeah, you should ignore the website. Yeah, you should ignore the signs on the board which are only about 50 meters away from this office. No, the big coaster at the other park probably won’t open tomorrow. If you want to ride the coasters, you should come back in April.”
The temperature the next day was predicted to be quite a lot higher at around 14°C, so the fact that they were seemingly already planning not to open anything really did piss me off. I was pretty much resigned to it at that point, figuring that at least the coasters at Fantawild are pretty much the secondary attractions and that it really was partly my own fault for not considering the weather too much, though, in my defence, that day had dropped to an unexpectedly low temperature. I was with the boyfriend and it was an early birthday thing as well, so it just became a case of making the most of it and not sulking.
Luckily, the Guest Services bint, whose job it should be to know about these very simple things, was talking from the deepest recesses of her arse. I’ll just end this day with some comical signs:
I’d been up to Ningbo before, as part of a longer trip around that area, but they annoyingly opened a Fantawild park (Oriental Heritage) quite soon after. Since then, they’ve added a second park right next door (Glorious Orient), so it’s been on the cards for ages. I finally decided to do it as a “birthday weekend” thing so that I could drag the semi-willing BF with me.
We got a Friday evening flight up to Ningbo, but the parks aren’t really in the city at all. Instead, they’re up in an area called Cixi, which took about an hour and 15 minutes in a taxi. We stayed in a hotel up near the parks since that obviously made the most sense, getting in quite late. It was very cold; this will be important.
I’d decided on the older park first, Oriental Heritage, thinking that the newer park would be more of a step up for the second day. Apologies in advance for dome really piss-poor indoor photos. It was a combination of me just trying to snap things quickly and the camera just not playing ball at all. Honestly, my phone camera takes better "dark" photos, which I really should remember in future.
Oriental Heritage
For the uninitiated, the Oriental Heritage parks are based around Chinese myths and legends and are designed with an “ancient China” aesthetic.
We’d been looking at the park’s website the night before, and saw that the outdoor coasters would only operate if it reached a certain temperature: 7°C for the woodie and 8°C for the Vekoma Boomerang. This wasn’t ideal, but the temperature was due to hit 8°C at around midday and rise up to 9 or 10 for the rest of the afternoon. Signs outside the park had the exact same information.
It’s China though, innit? At the ticket window, they assured us of the temperature thing, but then, at the gate, they said that the coasters wouldn’t open at all. It was a case of “well, we’re here so whatever.”
The park was dead, more dead than I’ve ever seen a Fantawild park, which are always dead. I put it down to the cold weather and the fact that it was right after the Chinese New Year holidays, so anyone thinking of going would’ve gone then.
There was a big show here, Lady Mengjiang, which I’d seen before elsewhere and thought was excellent, but it was the only thing that day which was down for “maintenance”. It’s far more likely due to costs since it was a huge show with lots of performers. Disappointing, but actually understandable and not a priority.
There was also this, though, which was something completely different and had ben removed from the maps completely. No idea what it used to be.
A lot of things were running to a schedule, which is normal and expected at Fantawild since some of the rides have huge capacities. First up was Romance Across the Stars, which is one of Fantawild’s quite old-school attractions with a rotating auditorium that move up into a huge dome screen. I think this film was new to me though; I’m not sure. I’ve definitely done one of these with a Monkey King theme, but this wasn’t that.
Next up was Pear Garden Tour, which I’ve really done too many times and am a bit sick of, but it had been a while. It uses huge vehicles which are very similar to the old Epcot Universe of Energy ride and is based on Chinese opera. You go through different Chinese towns (mostly very good sets), with the different styles of opera (which all sound basically the same) being performed by people in the buildings (screens within the sets), and ending with a huge rotating platform and 360 screen. It’s equal parts impressive and incredibly boring. The sound was f**ked in a few sections as well.
This is just a big 3D theatre with a “history of China” film which is more than slightly nationalistic.
The pagodas in the middle of most (all) Oriental Heritage parks looks like very impressive theming, but actually contain a drop tower. I’ve found them to be a very mixed bag, moving between meh and terrible, with this one being by far the absolute worst.
It was very clearly f**ked, with none of the effects working. The windows at the top, for example, are supposed to open before the main (forceless) drop, but I’ve only seen that actually work on 2 of these rides. This one also, inexplicably, finished its ride cycle at the top of the tower and then took literally 4 minutes to crawl back down. Absolutely awful.
I’d almost forgotten that there was at least an indoor cred here, Night Rescue. It’s Jinma’s direct clone of a Vekoma Mine Train, but in the dark, and is actually pretty decent and at least I managed a +1.
The insides of the buildings were just as cold as outside – colder, actually, in the afternoon – but those rides had no problem operating, just the coasters outside. I guess it could’ve been down to ride type, but it’s probably more down to Fantawild’s bulls**t.
Jinshan Temple Showdown! One of my favourite Fantawild rides. Following an epic queue line, it’s a massive boat ride which ends with an effects show, all based on the White Snake legend. It’s such a great attraction.
Legend/Story of Nuwa is also an excellent attraction, a 4D motion-based dark ride.
Only this time, there didn’t seem to be much motion. It’s been a while, so maybe I’m misremembering, but I’m sure it used to move a lot more. This felt much more like being moved from screen to screen without much else.
This “Butterfly Lovers” show is also a staple and is quite impressive, using live actors in a glass box with some very impressive projections/illusions. I didn’t try to take pictures of the show, so here’s the building.
Devil’s Peak is a ride which I admire in its scope of ambition but despise for what a pain in the arse it is to ride. It’s Fantawild’s take on the “Forbidden Journey” ride system, and is surprisingly good for the most part. The dome screen sections fail slightly in that they’re not deep enough, so you can totally see all the edges without even trying, but It’s otherwise quite impressive.
It falls down massively in its operations though. This had a queue – a very small queue of about 30 people, but a queue nonetheless - which from previous experience I knew would take at least half an hour, probably more. Imagine Forbidden Journey. Now imagine Forbidden Journey with one ride vehicle. Now imagine Forbidden Journey with one ride vehicle and having to wait for the occupants of that vehicle to leave the station before a ride op comes into a holding room to let 4 more people in. This time at least, there was a 3-minute preshow video being played on a loop and which I hadn't seen before, so that wasn’t annoying as f**k.
I timed it, it was 5 minutes between each group of four being let into the station (maybe they were two vehicles in that case?), giving a capacity of 48 people per hour. Forbidden Journey probably does that per minute. Yeah, it’s unfair to compare them, and I know that the park was dead, but it’s still horrendously bad.
Have some pictures of theming to break up the text.
By this point, it was well into the afternoon, with the temperature at a steady, tropical 9°C, but, as promised at the gate - though not on the website, sign boards or at the ticket office - the two outdoor coasters remained closed.
There was one outdoor coaster that was running, however, and it was one that was not listed on RCDB!
Bonus cred! Only not because look at it:
It had been a very long time since I’d done a “Boonie Bear Theatre” thing, this one called Storytime Theatre. It’s quite an impressive, though overly-complicated attraction in which the whole theatre rotates to look at different 3D screens.
And then we finished off with Colourful Tour, a “Small World” ride which focuses purely on different parts of China. I’ve tried in the past to put my finger on why this ride is extra creepy/crappy, and I figured out it’s because every single animatronic has the same face, just the same hard, shiny, plastic, unmoving face on every single one. This version had the added bonus of about 75% of the animatronics being on strike.
Despite what it seems, it wasn’t an awful day. I’ve perhaps been overly-critical as I’ve been writing this since we got quite a lot done, including all of the dark rides, and, really, that’s what it’s all about when you come to Fantawild. There was nothing I hadn’t done before, but it had been a few years, and the BF had never been to a Fantawild park, so it was interesting to get another perspective (and some translation/commentary). It's disappointing to see a lack of care though with regards to things clearly needing a bit of maintenance and not getting it. This also seems to be the norm for Fantawild though: build a new park and then ignore the old one.
Since I had someone who speaks fluent Mandarin with me, I thought I’d have a chat with guest services on the way out, not as a complaint necessarily since they really don’t care and nothing would be done, but more for my own curiosity and having no "lost in translation" issues The answers were basically, “Yeah, you should ignore the website. Yeah, you should ignore the signs on the board which are only about 50 meters away from this office. No, the big coaster at the other park probably won’t open tomorrow. If you want to ride the coasters, you should come back in April.”
The temperature the next day was predicted to be quite a lot higher at around 14°C, so the fact that they were seemingly already planning not to open anything really did piss me off. I was pretty much resigned to it at that point, figuring that at least the coasters at Fantawild are pretty much the secondary attractions and that it really was partly my own fault for not considering the weather too much, though, in my defence, that day had dropped to an unexpectedly low temperature. I was with the boyfriend and it was an early birthday thing as well, so it just became a case of making the most of it and not sulking.
Luckily, the Guest Services bint, whose job it should be to know about these very simple things, was talking from the deepest recesses of her arse. I’ll just end this day with some comical signs:
