Snakes and Ladders (China Megatrip) - Pt4: Happy Valley Wuhan

[NemesisRider]

Intro: OK, But This Is The Last Time

The story of this trip begins in August 2024, during my heady period of freedom between finishing my degree and starting full time work. In advance of my first ever trip to China the following month, I had come into Manchester to collect my passport from the Chinese visa centre after successfully being deemed mostly harmless by the relevant authorities. However, my pre-travel excitement was immediately dampened when an email from my soon-to-be employer dropped into my inbox. My start date was being pushed back by a month to November 2024, meaning I now had to wait an extra month before I could finally get stuck into corporate life and begin earning a proper paycheck. What was I going to do with myself during that time?

September came, and with it did my planned China trip. As I’ve documented already in excruciating detail, I had a truly fantastic time, and was looking forward to hopefully returning someday.



When the October finally arrived, I was still without a plan of how to best use the month. My rudderless funk was worsened when another email from my to-be-employer landed in my inbox, discussing an update to internal rules that meant that I would likely be unable to return to China once I had started full-time. I had loved my first time trip, and I had nearly two years left on my visa, and there was so much of the country I still had left to see, and-

“Hold on, you’re telling me I can get return flights from London to Changsha for under £400 at about a weeks’ notice?”

So, I took the plunge and began preparing for a spontaneous solo return to China. I had planned to spend the week pre-travel catching up on sleep and hastily trip planning. However, these were unexpectedly derailed by possibly the most insane week of my life, as I went viral on Twitter and ignited a sizable backlash against one of the UK’s largest train operators. Luckily, between the calls with journalists and media appearances, I managed to successfully cobble together a decent itinerary for solo travelling through central China. I would fly into Changsha (the capital of Hunan province), visit two more provincial capitals in Nanchang and Wuhan, then head to the beautiful Zhangjiajie scenic area before returning to Changsha to conclude the trip.



As with my first China TR, I’m going to focus primarily on the coaster stuff, but I will tell a few other stories about the trip.

Day 1/2: Welcome To The Jungle (Trailblazer)

Upon landing in Changsha, I had the immediate realisation that I was now firmly off the beaten track for Western tourists. Despite being randomly pulled aside for a throat swab by border staff, my experience of getting through immigration was simple enough and notably quick than in Beijing. However, unlike Beijing or Shanghai, Changsha airport is fairly small and does not have any form of mobile SIM sales for foreigners. Without any mobile data, I was left at the mercy of very limited and patchy public WiFi until I reached my hotel. This was a bit scary as Alipay (my only way of paying for things), Gaode Maps (my only way of finding my hotel) and Google Translate (my only way to communicate with people) were mostly unusable, so finding my hotel a bit of a stressful game. By the time I was settled at the Holiday Inn Changsha South Station, most of the China Mobile shops in the city had already shut, so I gave up for the night and grabbed a decent if unspectacular dinner nearby.



I was due to head to Nanchang around lunchtime the next day, but before that I still needed to complete my SIM quest. Turns out this is easier said than done, as most China Mobile shops are apparently unable to sell SIM cards to foreigners without a National ID. After experiencing disappointment at stores nearer to my hotel, I ended up schlepping halfway across the city to the one China Mobile* that was willing to take my money. Naturally, the process of getting the SIM was a 45-minute-long bureaucratic nightmare, which culminated in me having to read the SIM terms of use on camera hostage-style to the lady serving me. China gonna China. Anyway, whilst this whole process was a massive faff and did reduce my time in Nanchang a little, I was mostly relieved to be successfully back online. If you're arriving in Changsha, for the sake of your sanity, get an eSIM if you can.



Next time: Nanchang Sunac raises the snakes.

*For future travellers, this was China Mobile Fenglin First Road near Yingwanzhen Metro Station in Changsha. Try here first and don’t waste your time elsewhere if you're a foreigner needing a SIM. But, seriously, get an eSIM if you can.

 

[NemesisRider]

Day 2/3: Nanchang Sunac Land

After the morning’s SIM card psychodrama, the journey from Changsha South to Nanchang West was mercifully easy due to the ever-fantastic Chinese HSR. I’d come to the capital of Jiangxi more or less exclusively to try one of the legendary Chinese wooden coasters which I had missed on my first trip. It was time to get some ticks on the ol’ bucket list.



Nanchang Sunac Land is home to arguably China’s strongest coaster 1-2 punch in Coaster Through The Clouds (AKA: CTTC), an unconventional Intamin hyper, and Python In Bamboo Forest (AKA: the Snake), a gigantic terrain GCI often called the best of its kind. The park is located adjacent to the sizable Sunac Mall, which is themed to look like gigantic pottery pieces (apparently Nanchang’s most famous export). Sunac have created a nice pseudo-resort here, offering several upmarket hotels and a direct metro connection to the HSR station.



I had opted to stay in the Nanchang Sunac Novotel, part of this pseudo-resort. It was 2 minutes’ walk to the park, remarkably cheap (<£45 for 2 nights including breakfast) and basically a perfect choice. Whilst the bed was a little hard, the room was spacious, clean and had views directly over the park. Being able to see Coaster Through The Clouds plunging over that magnificent first drop from my room was very special. The lobby also has its own shop where I could buy snacks and drinks, which was very convenient.



My initial plan for the day had been to head into the centre of Nanchang and go see the sights after dropping off my suitcase at the hotel. However, the sky and short-term weather forecast looked uncertain, so I instantly folded to the cred anxiety and headed straight to Sunac Land.

Sunac Land makes a statement from the moment you arrive, with a big-ass dragon and elaborately themed escalators to bring you to the main entrance. After some brief Google Translate texting, the woman on the ticket desk verified that the Snake and the Intamin were both open, despite her utter bamboozlement that I would choose to pay full price and enter the park with only 2 hours left before close. Having had first-hand experience of the unpredictability of Chinese theme parks and Chinese weather, I was more than happy to pay the ~£20 extra to guarantee bagging the headliners.



Once in the park, I instantly made a beeline for Python In Bamboo Forest. Upon arriving in the ride’s plaza, it was clear that the Snake is already starting to show its age – the entrance has started to be consumed by foliage, the exit shop was dark and vacant, and the paint was peeling from the station walls. Equally, it did make me feel like I was leaving the main park and heading into a deep forest, so points for that I suppose. Alarmingly, the front row of the ride was shut all day on both of my visits; I suspect that this is correlated with the fact that they have decapitated the titular snake by removing the themed zero car shell from both trains, but it may simply be China being China. The mediocre weather had evidently dissuaded most locals from visiting on my first day, so I boarded the train alone and braced myself for whatever came next.



I will confess – my first ride was underwhelming, and it felt like I was on the first train of the day despite it being 4pm. But once this Snake warms up, BOY does it warm up.

Python In Bamboo Forest offers a twist on the standard out-and-back wooden coaster concept, going back and forth multiple times and using the hillside location to its advantage. After a lift hill that feels unnervingly long for a GCI, the ride starts with a twisting first drop. It’s good, but not in the same league as the likes of Wodan. Luckily, this is simply a means to acquire some kinetic energy and really get things going. The train blisters through the subsequent airtime double down with ruthless enthusiasm, before pulling up to give you pause on a high turnaround. The first return lap begins with a respectably sized drop, followed by a sequence of airtime hills which offer respectable floater airtime and some laterals. I found the second outwards run the weakest part of the ride, with the turnaround feeling slightly sluggish and the straight hills offering only weak floater. Luckily, the final turnaround begins to build the momentum back up, before the ride dives down the hill and into a fantastic finale. This section is exactly the kind of thing where GCI most excels, offering violent laterals, sudden airtime pops, and breakneck pacing. After a seriously substantial ride time, the Snake slams its breathless prey into the brakes.



Despite its flaws, I have no problem calling Python (Tython?) In Bamboo Forest the best wooden coaster I’ve ridden so far. The beginning and the finale are both peak GCI, the terrain is expertly used, and the ride genuinely feels like it is never going to end. It does unfortunately lose a few points for the poor upkeep (again – why was the front row shut?) and having a few moments where the tracking goes beyond tasteful roughness. For now, I consider it my 3rd favourite ride in China after Dinoconda and Flash. The massive bruises on my hips were more than worth it, come ride this thing ASAP.



One headliner down, one to go. A short sprint brought me Coaster Through The Clouds, the tallest coaster in China. It certainly makes a visual statement, towering above the park with its unconventional support structure... Could Nanchang Sunac go 2 for 2 on top 20 entries?



CTTC has a bit less of a flair for the thematic than the Snake – whilst the plaza has cool traditional Chinese stylings, the queueline is ugly, concrete and so long that rerides start to feel like a chore. Upon entering the functional station, you are greeted by the lap bar trains seen on the likes of Sik at Flamingo Land – they’re a bit more cramped than the most modern trains on Taron and beyond but offer plenty of freedom to enjoy the airtime.

The ride begins with a rapid cable lift up to the top and the iconic panoramic turn, offering fantastic views of the park and nearby high-rise buildings. A small hump leads into the obscene first drop. This is a fantastic moment – whilst the whole train gets some solid airtime, the back gets very close to the “endless falling” sensation I associate with the B&M gigas. Proceedings continue strongly with an overbank navigated at blistering speed, which left me greying out on several rides, followed by a powerful ejector hill under the lift structure. Unfortunately, the ride then loses its way for a few elements – there’s a great sensation of speed, but they don’t deliver forces-wise. The Stengel dive is a bit of a nothingburger, the subsequent airtime hills feel too shallow to offer much more than floater, and the positives are much too gentle to really kick your arse. Luckily, just in time, CTTC remembers how to be amazing. The strangely twisted airtime hill offers some funky airtime, followed by a final punchy ejector hill, then a turn into the brakes.



CTTC appeared much more popular with the Chinese public than the Snake. I get it – the coaster is impressive offride, glossy smooth onride, and has a handful of awesome moments. However, this is not top 20 material, and it is certainly not in the same league as something like Expedition GeForce or Hyperion. It’s a great supporting ride, but I think Energylandia stays unbeaten on the 1-2 punch.


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Returning to the park for day 2, I was ready to reride my favourites and sample some of the other excitement the park had to offer.



Let's start off with the remainder of the creds. Creep Caterpillar is a Jinma kiddie coaster with an angry looking zero car. Perfectly tolerable but doesn’t do much. +1.



Upon wandering over to the Pottery Village at the other end of the park, I was sad to see the Jinma Spinner was shut for maintenance with multiple trains in pieces and at least one bloke actively working on them. No +1 here! Wasn't too saddened about missing out on this one though.



My final credit to tick off was the first Made In China SLC of the trip. Kiln Crasher (or Soaring Dragon and Dancing Phoenix, depending on which map you read) has a custom layout with a promising looking first drop. Closer inspection reveals that it looks about 20 years old than it is, and even closer inspection reveals that it is absolutely atrocious to ride. Whilst the restraints are less bulky and restrictive than some of the Jinma (or even Vekoma) SLCs I have ridden, the track profiling is much worse. Every moment that this ride tries to change banking is excruciating, with the inversions being notably terrible. Whilst it didn’t leave me actively bruised like Dinosaur Spine at Lewa Adventure did, Kiln Crasher is an easy bottom 10 entry for me. Yuck.



We can’t do much worse than that, so onwards and upwards? Next door to Kiln Crasher is a spooky walkthrough thing named Haunted Kiln. It’s definitely haunted, but I didn’t see much pottery around the place. It’s pretty standard stuff for China – next to no light, mostly cheap looking horror theming, and a couple of locals following behind me who absolutely s*** themselves at every jumpscare.



Meandering back to the traditional Chinese area around CTTC, one can find a decent sized Intamin gyro tower. Whilst this is on the shorter and less forceful end for the model, it’s still good fun and worth dropping by (heh) on your way between coasters.



Also next door to CTTC is the park’s ferris wheel, which they have decided to ruin by installing a silly view-ruining-thing on the glass sides. Complete waste of an otherwise decent ferris wheel in my books.



On the subject of decent, the rapids is just that - not too wet, not too dry. Bonus points for the very large crab fairly near the entrance.





The last unique attraction I bothered to ride was a zip-line thing that ran across the artificial lake in the centre of the park. Sadly, the capacity was pitiful, resulting in a 30-minute queue for it when I’d been more or less walking on everything else that day. The main chunk of the zipline was rather tame, basically just offering nice views over the lake. However, hitting the brakes at the end was incredibly sudden and extremely violent, causing me to nearly s*** myself 10x harder than any other ride in the park. Worth it.



Despite already having written a veritable essay about this place, there's still plenty of other miscellaneous weird s*** and oddities I've not covered in depth. These included knock-off Olaf sculptures, toilets that analyse your pee, a horse petting zoo, and this dude who might get this post reported. China is truly undefeated in this category of entertainment.








Predictably, I ended my time at Sunac on both days lapping the Snake, being uncontrollably tossed around as day turned to dusk.



Nanchang Sunac Land is kind of a mess – it already feels like it’s starting to degrade under a decade since opening, and I fear particularly for how they’ll look after the Snake in the coming years. However, I really enjoyed my visit here. It’s got two fantastic headliners (unlike most parks in China with one good coaster and a bunch of filler) and a solid supporting cast to make it a full day park. It’s an awkward detour from more touristy cities like Shanghai, but I think it’s worth it for die-hard wooden coaster fans.



Next time: Life Could Be A (Wushang) Dream (Park)

 

[Gavin]

If you're arriving in Changsha, for the sake of your sanity, get an eSIM if you can.

It's obviously too late now, but for the benefit of anyone else reading this, just don't get a sim card when you arrive in China, regardless of the city. There may be exceptions in bigger cities with more tourists, but generally they're a massive faff to register and anything Google will be blocked along with most social media apps and countless other sites, meaning you'll also need a VPN. Unfortunately, even the better, paid options like Surfshark are increasingly patchy and can't be guaranteed to work when you most need them. It's sooooooo much better to sort out a sim card before you go. Travel sims which include China don't have any restrictions since they tend to piggy-back off a Hong Kong provider. E-sims, as mentioned, are definitely the way to go if you can't sort out a physical sim beforehand though you tend to pay a fair bit more for data, especially larger amounts, and not all phones support them.

I'm totally jealous of the multiple rides on Python, The park was very busy when I was there, probably down to being very new, so I only got two rides in. The SLC was also down for the day, though I wouldn't say I'm particularly jealous about that one by the sounds of it. It's definitely starting to look run down. I seem to remember the python at the entrance of the woodie having a pretty vibrant colour compared to how it's looking now.

 

[NemesisRider]

Day 4: Wushang Dream Park

On the morning of my departure from Nanchang, I took a quick zip around the perimeter road of Sunac Land on an Alipay rental e-Moped to grab some photos. I didn't run into these again for the rest of the trip, which was a bit of a shame as I found it a great novelty. After that, it was back to the station, and onwards to Wuhan.



Wuhan mostly came on my radar due to its geographical convenience. Regardless of its own merits, being reasonably well-connected to Zhangjiajie via Changsha and directly connected to the slightly out of the way Nanchang made it a sensible final city to add onto my trip. Being the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have given the place a bad rep amongst Westerners, but I ended up finding this my favourite city of the trip. It had tasty food, a slightly more European style of urbanism, and some… uh, hit or miss theme parks.



My journey from Nanchang to Wuhan was smooth enough – about 2 hours on High Speed Rail, plus a sizable amount of metro faff at the Wuhan end. After depositing my luggage and getting some delicious beef noodles from a shop with questionable hygiene standards, I was faced with the existential problem of what to do with my first evening in town.



Wushang Dream Park can be found on the 3rd floor of the Wushang Dream Mall, which is conveniently attached to Baotongsi Station on the Line 2 Metro in Wuhan. The mall itself is expansive, with a good selection of eateries as well as the expected array of (mostly luxury) shops. Equally, it’s quite a labyrinth; finding Dream Park took me a good 20 minutes of wandering the place.



On paper, Dream Park looks like nothing special. There’s only one coaster, albeit an unusual one. Unlike some of the other smaller parks I’ve visited in China, you can’t buy tickets to access individual rides, leaving me facing the prospect of having to stump up 200 RMB (~£20) for the +1. Luckily, they were selling half-price entry tickets for after 5pm on the Friday I visited, which was much more reasonable.



It turns out that behind that unassuming entry portal is one of the coolest indoor theme parks I’ve ever seen.

Let’s start off with the obvious – the scale is insane. I reckon the place spans about 6 floors of the mall vertically, with attractions located on three main levels. The ground floor (technically floor 3) is the most expansive, featuring a huge castle, various kiddie/family flat rides, and multiple eateries. The second floor has most of the big-hitting attractions, notably Reversed City (the coaster) and a moderately sized swinging pendulum. Finally, the top floor felt a bit empty but does offer some neat views across the place. The theming and atmospheric lighting throughout the park is well above average, if not exactly Disney quality.



Reversed City is a peculiar ride, being a family-thrill coaster with two dark ride sections and two launches. The ride vehicles look a bit unwieldy, offering some controlled rotation similarly to a Mack Suspended coaster like Arthur but visually being closer to a Kuka robot arm car. Whilst the vest restraints feel a bit overkill – I would prefer a lap bar – they are much more acceptable than a hard OSTR.



The train leaves the station and enters the first dark ride section, which has some projection mapped faces explaining the story in Mandarin. From here, it’s onto the first LSM launch. It’s impressively punchy given the cumbersome feeling trains and feels more exhilarating than some launches on coasters double its size. After this, it’s up a somewhat jarring ramp and down a series of turns. These gradually build momentum, culminating in an awesome twisted moment… which slams directly into the brakes. From here, it’s into dark ride section 2, with vaguely magical projections involving a squirrel. The second LSM launch is equally punchy and surrounded by a tunnel of screens, making for a great visual. Sadly, from here another ramp and a couple of twists lead straight into the final brake run.



Overall, I found Reversed City was a fun, unique and technologically impressive coaster, albeit one fated for mediocrity in my rankings. Despite its flaws, I found it another indicator that Jinma are improving fast. They are the unambiguous leader amongst the Chinese coaster manufacturers and may soon wish to challenge the Western incumbents on their home turf, despite being behind on track layouts and shaping. I have no idea if any recent slowdowns in the Chinese economy will hamper their progress, but I’ll be watching them with interest.



The other ride hardware in the park is less eminent. On the same floor as the coaster is shooting dark ride/simulator thing. The ride system is essentially a set of seats which spin inside a big box of screens. I found the shooting to be good and responsive, but the targets onscreen are a bit too predictable – just find the boss and keep shooting at them forever if you want the best score. No queue though, so can’t complain.



Immediately after I got off the dark ride, the bloke running the pendulum ride basically lead me straight on. The ride itself is pretty standard stuff – it spins, it swings, it makes me feel a bit sick, etc. However, the two operators had to sing a song during the cycle… I still have no idea if this was standard procedure or VIP treatment for my zen ride, but it made a forgettable ride that bit more memorable.



Rides aside, the park also offers some entertainment. I happened to catch the majority of a Monkey King themed show; as it was in Mandarin I understood basically nothing, but the costumes were impressively elaborate.



Wushang Dream Park exceeded my expectations and was easily the best of the smaller parks I visited on this trip. It only takes at max a couple of hours to visit, and there's some good food in the mall to help round it out as a great evening activity, so there's no excuse to miss it! Come for Reversed City, stay for whatever the hell this thing is.



Next time: Can Happy Valley redeem itself?

 

[NemesisRider]

Day 5: Happy Valley Wuhan

During my previous visit to China, I visited my first ever Happy Valley amusement park in Beijing. I had left feeling very much unhappy. This was mostly due to the catastrophic ride availability – two of three top coasters were down all day, and the remaining operational one had given up the ghost by lunchtime. After this calamity, I was dismayed when I realised that Happy Valley Wuhan was by far the most logical big park to hit whilst in the area. However, some other enthusiasts said that my Beijing experience was an anomaly, so I was willing to give them one more chance to impress me.

OK, Happy Valley, I’ll wipe the slate clean. If ride availability is usually better on a weekend, I’ll go on a weekend too. Pleeeeeease get it right this time.

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My day at Happy Valley Wuhan was probably the worst full day I have spent at a theme park in recent memory, taking the cake from the miseryfest that was Six Flags Magic Mountain in 2015.



First off, Happy Valley Wuhan’s S&S air launch coaster OCT Thrust SSC100 was not operational. This was completely expected - OCT seem in no rush to get these reopened, and just a month prior I'd seen its Beijinger sibling acting as a glorified paperweight. However, OCT Thrust is probably the best reviewed of the set, so I was definitely bummed to miss it. Secondly, in typical Happy Valley style, I found that ride operations ranged from bad to straight up diabolical. One train ops across the board, 5 minute dispatches, etc - you know the deal. In Happy Valley Beijing, I got away unscathed by the poor operations because crowd level was so low, but in Wuhan the park was much more crowded due to it being a Saturday. Finally, ride opening hours were definitely inadequate for the crowd level and felt out of sync with the wider park. Key rides like Dauling Dragon (the wood coaster) opened after 10am and were slated to shut at 5pm, despite the park itself closing at 10pm. TLDR; this park was terribly run.



On the surface, Happy Valley Wuhan isn't an unpleasant place to spend time. It felt like more attention was paid to aesthetics here than some of the other parks I visited in China. The place feels quite green, with plenty of tree, and the overall setting around a lake is also nice. It's clean and several rides have received repaints in recent years, meaning the hardware at least looks fresh.



After arriving a little after 11am, I headed straight for Dauling Dragon, which had already amassed a bit of a queue. It’s got two steam trains outside the entrance, so I guess it’s themed to trains? As this is a Happy Valley park, they were only bothering to run the Blue side, so the duelling element was excluded from my experience. My first ride was on the front row, which was at least a decent seat to get allocated. The PTC trains are decent. but are a little more crammed than usual due to extra padding the park seem to have added.



Even as I started drafting this trip report within a few days of riding, I found myself struggling to remember much about the intricacies of how Dauling rode. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it was unmemorable. The first drop feels very steep for a woodie - I imagine back row gets plenty of whip, but on the front it felt a bit dry. The subsequent high five element is the clear highlight of the ride, even with the duelling removed, as it offers a good pop of sideways airtime. This is followed by a fairly fast, but unpleasantly rough, main turnaround. Dauling navigates a series of GCI-esque twists, turns and airtime pops – they’re good, but I can’t pick any particular moment that really wowed me. By the time the coaster reaches its station flypast, the initial breckneck pacing has somewhat died, and the final dive before the brakes feels straight up slow. I left feeling underwhelmed by both the ride's pacing and upkeep, as it had exceeded my threshold for characterful roughness at a few points in the layout.



We’ll come back to Dauling later.

I did not have high hopes for Hidden Anaconda, my second Maurer Skyloop. I found Skyline Park's version of this coaster to be a chore, offering unpleasant hangtime and a clunky final stop. Hidden Anaconda looks and tracks better than its German cousin, but I still think the ride concept is just fundamentally not for me. Rode it once and that was enough.



Star Trek, the park's reskinned Jinma mine train, is a little better than its Beijing counterpart (still no idea what went wrong with that one, particularly as it was a genuine Vekoma). The theming on Star Trek is a mismash of rocks and sci-fi stuff, which at least looks shiny and new despite behind totally incohesive. It’s not exactly comfortable, but it’s smooth enough. In an emerging theme for the park, I found Star Trek was more or less totally unmemorable as a ride experience, offering little more than a +1.



Crazy Car, a clone of Drievliet's Formule X, was the last credit open for me to bag at the park. I've always thought this looks like one of the better X-Car layouts, and I’m pleased to say this is 100% true. Crazy Car firmly exceeded my expectations; this supporting thrill coaster would be a perfect fit in any mid-sized family park. The launch is surprisingly punchy, the inversions feel well-placed, and it offers a couple of decent pops of airtime. Nothing mind-blowing, but a positive surprise amidst a tough day.



It was now about 3pm and my cred run was complete so I went to grab lunch near Hidden Anaconda. It was decent enough – certainly better than the food at Happy Valley Beijing – but nothing to rave about.



By this stage, it was 4pm, and I was about to receive yet another reminder of how “inconvenient” foreigners are to systems designed solely for the local Chinese. The Dauling queue looked like Hell on Earth, so I attempted to snag a fastpass, which had to be bought through a Weixin mini app. Unfortunately, this which wouldn't accept Weixin Pay from a foreign debit card like mine, and to pay for a fastpass I would need to get Weixin to verify my identity via a passport scan and a facial scan. Some days previous I had run into the same problem at Nanchang Sunac, where identity verification was needed to purchase onride photos. Unfortunately, in both instances I could not get the stupid app to verify me and hence couldn’t buy a Fastpass. By the time I gave up, the final few Dauling Fastpasses had sold out anyway. I appreciate that the Chinese government doesn’t really care about optimising any of these things for foreign tourists, but it left me feeling excluded and annoyed.



After my fastpass failure, I went on the observation tower as I couldn't quite face the Dauling queue yet. It was OK.



I returned to Dauling at 16:35, 25 mins before it was set to close, now determined to bite the bullet and deal with whatever queue was there. Unfortunately, the b******s had already closed the queue, and there was a ride host outside waving people away. One last firm kick in the teeth from “Happy” Valley.



F*** this place, I'm out.

I will concede that my poor experience at Dauling Dragon is probably not the ride’s fault and is mostly due to circumstance. Equally, I have to rank a ride off how much I enjoyed it, not how good I think it could be in the right circumstances. My first and only ride was underwhelming, one side was closed, and I don't think Happy Valley are maintaining it especially well. Sadly, this ended up being the biggest coaster letdown of the trip.



So, what went wrong on this day?

Tactically speaking, I made two errors. Firstly, I only arrived at 11:15am, when evidently crowds were bad enough to justify being there at rope drop. In hindsight, I should have turned up earlier and banged out the worst capacity creds before the masses descended. Secondly, I probably should have visited on another day of the week, as they don’t bother running both sides of Dauling on even theoretically their busiest day of the week (part of my reasoning for going on a Saturday).

However, the fundamental problem is that, from what I’ve seen, Happy Valley do not have a clue how to run an amusement park. Other Chinese chains like Sunac and Fantawild have their quirks but at least run their parks acceptably. Frankly, the sooner OCT goes under and gets bought out by someone competent, the better. Such a waste of some decent hardware...



I went back to my hotel, then called my parents and complained extensively. Happy Valley my arse.

Next time: Sam gets destroyed by a knock-off in a public park.

 

[Matt N]

The Happy Valley parks (and a lot of other Chinese parks aside from Disney and Universal, to be honest...) look like parks of strange contrast in that the hardware looks really quite decent, but the operations look absolutely terrible.

It is a shame to hear of experiences like yours, as the parks look like they have a lot of potential in terms of hardware, aesthetics and the like; the hardware looks decent, as said, and some of Happy Valley's theming actually looks excellent in places!