Wenzhou/Taizhou PTR - Part 2: Taizhou +1s

[Gavin]

Here’s a weekend trip I did back in August. I got off work around lunchtime on the Friday which worked well for a direct Hong Kong – Wenzhou flight. I also had the Monday off, so was originally planning to take the full day doing stuff and get a flight back to Shenzhen (loads more flight options), but instead decided to squeeze stuff into a shorter time frame and get the only direct Hong Kong flight back earlier in the day.

Anyway, once I landed, I just headed to a hotel near the first stop of the trip and took a short taxi ride the next morning, getting there for opening.

Wenzhou Zoo

The zoo seemed pretty big, but since I was rushing, I just got the cred and left without having a proper look around. It turns out I would’ve had a bit of time, but I didn’t want to risk it. Just the one kiddy coaster.

From there it was a taxi to the only proper park in the city. It’s labelled as Wenzhou Paradise on RCDB, but on maps and stuff it’s just Wenzhou Amusement Park.

Wenzhou Paradise

Because the zoo had opened about an hour before this place, I made it there for just after opening. The plan was to just hit the coasters quickly and then head to the train station to get to the next city, but I ended up having to hang around a bit, but it was all fine.

First up, I hit the Jinma inverting spinner, figuring a low capacity. They were running it pretty well though, with multiple cars and even getting some of them out onto the track at the same time. These are decent. The last one I’d done of these was hitting the MCBRs pretty hard, but that wasn’t a problem with this one. If any smaller Western parks were to venture into Jinma territory, one of these things would be a decent start.

The skyloop and boomerang looked worryingly quiet, but I hit up another Jinma coaster – just a kiddie thing – on the way over.

The skyloop – an awful Beijing Shibaolai thing – was annoyingly opening a bit later. I’d been hoping to f**k off out of the place before then, but decided to stick it out, quickly grabbing the first train of the day and heading straight out after that. Horrible things.

There was no such “luck” with the boomerang though. This was annoying since it’s the only one built by Nanfang, who usually only do flat rides. The only other coaster of theirs that I’ve seen was also closed, seemingly permanently, so I guess they’re not doing a great job with them.

I’ll just chuck in a bunch of other pictures. The Ferris wheel was, annoyingly, not opening until 12 and I didn’t want to hang around that late. I’m pretty sure the water ride wasn’t a secret cred, but I didn’t ride it to find out. I went through a walkthrough aviary which looked nice enough but was decidedly empty bar a few peacocks. There was some ice house thing which was also closed.

I’m guessing this is for some kind of evening show; it was mildly disturbing.

The horror walkthrough was an upcharge, so I didn’t bother. It’s not like it was expensive, but upcharge attractions annoy me, so I won’t do them on principal. I did go inside the Temu Vogel Rok building however, which housed the absolute crappest simulator I’ve ever been on.

By the time I’d faffed around a bit, the skyloop was about to open, so that was had and then I got a Didi to the train station, booking the train ticket on the way. They were running every 15 minutes or so, so while I’d have liked to get out a bit earlier, there wasn’t a particular train I was rushing for at least.

I’ll end this bit with the single most amazing piece of park theming I’ve ever seen.

 

[HeartlineCoaster]

This was annoying since it’s the only one built by Nanfang, who usually only do flat rides. The only other coaster of theirs that I’ve seen was also closed, seemingly permanently, so I guess they’re not doing a great job with them.

Interesting that they've tried their hand at such different types already - boomerangs, spinners and water coasters. I've done the latter two, apparently, and they're highly indistinguishable and inoffensive (other than water coaster wetness). I'm guessing there's a good few more out there already than RCDB is giving them credit for, particularly in the water category as I've seen a few 'not-a-cred' versions of those too.

Tengmu Vogel Rok - love it.

 

[Gavin]

^Yeah, looking at that water coaster at Oriental Heritage, I wouldn't be surprised if some others have slipped through the listings as Jinma.

When I’d started planning this little jaunt, the idea was to stay overnight in Wenzhou, but since I’d decided to get that earlier flight back on the Monday, this meant heading to the next city, Taizhou, in the afternoon of that first day. This was easy in terms of planning since the cities are fairly close together and have train connections running every 15 minutes or so, meaning it didn’t require any precise planning.

Anyway, there were two smaller parks in Taizhou that I wanted to knock off, the first one not being too far from the train station.

Jiufeng Park

This place was in an absolutely gorgeous area, but was completely dead despite it being a Saturday afternoon. I should point out that the weather was extremely uncomfortable though, so hiking in the mountains was unlikely to be on anyone’s list of things to do that weekend.

RCDB had three coasters listed here, but the biggest one as SBNO. The location for it was gorgeous.

It was definitely SBNO unfortunately. The station was being used to store a bunch of crap. This thing really interested me though. It’s a unique suspended coaster from a very small company called Qin Long, who have otherwise only built a handful of family coasters. It had two trains (very optimistic for this park) with 3-across seating.

There were another 2 creds to be had, the first being one of the aforementioned Qin Long family coasters.

There was also a very old-school powered dragon. I haven’t seen one with this layout for a very long time. I felt quite bad about having to wake up the ride op. The staff here were pretty much all just napping since there was nobody here. I say “all”; I think there were only about 4 or 5 of them anyway.

But what is this? Unlisted bonus cred! The best kind of cred. I have no idea how this wasn’t listed since it’s clearly not new. Whoever had visited this park before either missed it (it’s in a slightly different kiddy area, but still within spitting distance of the dragon) or deemed it unworthy of cred status (wrong!) and so didn't report it.

I’ll finish up with this park with more pictures of the SLC in an attempt to cover the shame of the +3 kiddy creds.

Onto the next place then.

Luqiao Paradise

This place had two creds listed - the extremely common jungle mouse and powered dragon combo – but would I discover more? Kind of, but no. It turns out that the place is in the process of a complete ground-up overhaul and will reopen as Squirrel Kingdom, including a new cred.

Annoyingly, no creds for me, but now that I’ve unveiled Squirrel Kingdom to the world, you can all start planning your trips to Taizhou. You’re welcome!