Ocean Park - Friday 15th March.
Even easier to get to than Disney this; 10 mins on the train from the city and you are at the gate - I think the train line is reasonably new
as I recall thinking you had to get a bus here in the past, but anyway its dead easy now.
Weather wasn't great today either, pretty overcast all day but I didn't get the downpours of the previous day so that probably worked out OK in
that Disney had a lot more weather-proof stuff going for it than this place.
Was pretty busy getting in as well, which worried me a little
So I didn't hang around and headed straight for the cable-car up the mountain to where the rides are.
Now I knew full well that the park was in two halves ; some animal stuff down by the entrance and then the rides were up on the mountain and
you had to cable-car or train-it from one bit to the other. What I had not quite realised was how much of a huge trek it was between the two
bits, it is a decidedly non-trivial cable-car journey up a hill then alongside a mountain-side for a mile or so. Actually really quite
fantastic that was ; they run two cable-car systems in parallel so the mountainside is just covered in cable cars - really pretty spectacular.
Yay cred in sight!
Being a good goon I had got their early and so had to hang about a little for the coasters to start running ; also what I had not fully
appreciated is how hilly the ride-section of the park was. I mean obviously it was going to be hilly, it being up at the pointy end of a
little mountain, but I think I thought that everything up there would all be kinda in the same area, which it isn't, theres still quite a
large area that it all covers and there are a few different zones you have to walk to to find all the rides.
Anyway the first zone nearest the cable-car station had the powered ride and the B&M so hung about there until they opened, took a quick spin
in the observation tower while I was waiting, this pic is a stitched 360-degree panorama of the place;
Spotted things had started running on the way back down so off we go. First up was the Mack powered coaster
Arctic Blast
Wasn't awful, wasn't great.
But near to that was the main attraction I guess, the B&M floorless
Hair Raiser (daft name that). Small queue and they were batching
pretty well so got on in 10 minutes ; more "must remove your secured glasses" crap though.
It was OK, but not great. Spectacular location of course, but oddly doesn't make that much of the location as its kinda stuck on top of/at the
back of a building up there, so the lift hill takes you up and away from the big views and the drop into the loop is sort of stuck between
the building and the mountainside. The rest of the ride takes place alongside the edge of the mountain but you don't really get time to
appreciate the view really as it does all its zero-g-roll, dive loop stuff in that way floorless B&Ms do.
And obviously the views aren't important, and you can see them all from the cable-car anyway. The ride itself is a bit shaky to be honest,
it rattles its way through the first few elements a bit, bouncing down the drop and loop rather than taking them all fast and smooth. The
second half of the ride is more normal and its fine, but one of the smaller B&Ms I think, or at least it felt that way. Rode it a few times
anyway, better at the front of course (being floorless) but not bad anywhere on it really (being a beemer).
Struggled a bit to find the next coaster, was a bit of a trek down a few hills to get there and as I got near to it it seemed not to be running
which was a bit of a downer.
Whether they mended it or they were just very slow ops I'm not sure as there was a little Q for it which I joined. They were handing out
cards on it to anyone who wanted the VR-option - not really sure why but you took the card and then when you were seated they came along and
too the card off you and installed a silly VR headset on you. The upshot of that was that it took an age to turn around the train ; like nearly
15 minutes - such faff.
Wild West Mine Train - clearly I didn't do the VR option and I can't really understand why you would do because the view on this ride
was just awesome - right along the edge of the mountainside, looking over a huge bay of water and then you turn around and do a little
mine train ride with that as the background - really liked this then.
Queue had built up by the time I'd ridden it - that looks like a good hours wait I reckoned so I didn't ride it again, which was a pity. The
ride itself isn't anything spectacular but it was OK and just elevated hugely by its position on the mountainside.
Had to hang around for a while to get any pics of it "in action";
Ride was all terribly rusty-looking, whether that was Nemesis-style themeing I don't know, but given its position on the sea-edge its probably
all real-rust rather than theme-rust.
Back up some hillsides (escalator-the-ride doing well here)
Last coaster also has a bit of a spectacular hilltop view - not as good as the mine train but still not bad.
Unfortunately the ride itself was a bit bad though,
Dragon is an ageing Arrow looper and is pretty painful.
I did ride this a couple of times though, since there was no line for it at all. Was pretty brutal both times, really not a good coaster at
all and the no-glasses thing didn't really let the view help it at all. Ouch.
There were quite a few animal-things up on the mountain too ; big dolphin-rescue thing that was trying to pretend it was all about dolphin
welfare rather then being some exhibit in an amusement park.
That was near an alternate route to the mine train, they were still dispatching really slowly so the local birds-of-prey would hang out
on the ride between trains.
But look at that when they do cycle, splendid that.
Coaster model thing;
Shark thing was OK there, pretty big pool and presented quite well
Jellyfish thing was OK too
(even if pics are a bit crap)
I did ride their rapids too, which were funny. They were not good rapids at all, fairly tame. But they had several points where they just had
hose-pipes firing water straight at the ride - so not at all subtle and you got quite wet despite not getting splashed at all.
Right, back down the mountain the same way - the train-thing was not running so this was the only way.
Wandered around the animal bits back at ground level for a while. They have pandas;
And Aggretsuko-pandas too
And tyres, shaped into Pandas (???)
And there is a big show-aquarium as well which was pretty good
So I actually think that the place was a bit better than I had thought it was going to be. Really liked the mine train, the beemer was OK and
the animal stuff wasn't too bad either and the place was a lot larger than I had imagined. Had quite a decent time overall but I was done by
early afternoon so headed back to the city.
Met up with Gavin for a few beers that evening Kowloon side (thanks Gavin!) but he wasn't hanging around for a big beer-session (something to
do with having his laundry to do or
something) - ended up having a rubbish pint in a rubbish bar for far too much money before I called it
a day.
That was my last full day of holiday too, flight home the next day, but not until late so have one last quick instalment of faffing around to
come...
