Tuesday 30 July 2013

Chimelong Paradise


Time for another of the big parks now and today it was Chimelong Paradise. These are the guys that are currently taking their time to build Ocean Kingdom near Macau, a park that was on our initial itinerary but then had to be dropped as the park was nowhere near ready. Chimelong Paradise on the other hand was more than ready for us having been open for seven year.



Not only were open for us, they also provided us with an excellent start to the day with a one hour exclusive ride session on their rather excellent B&M dive coaster.


Which is called "Dive Coaster". It should have been sponsored by Ronseal.





The ERS went extremely well with 2 trains and sizeable capacity ensuring we could keep riding over and over without leaving the station platform, and with the trains wider than they were longer it was much easier to get a front row seat. The exception was with the last train where having been told we'd have to exit via the other side of the station, I'd run over to drop off my stuff only to find another of the club had run off and taken my seat. No point in confronting them or calling them up on it; they probably weren't even aware of what they'd done.



Selfishness aside the ride was a great way to start the day, and with a decent number of other coasters to keep us entertained the day was looking to be a good one.




The second coaster, just a short walk away from the dive machine was the Young Star Coaster (which for some odd reason rcdb still has listed under another name). Having weaved our way through the queue line we'd then be called out by a member of staff to queue jump up the exit path. The park's hospitality had run for more than the dive machine; nice!


The coaster is a copy of one in Europa Park in Germany but without the galloping sound effects. As kiddy coasters go however, this is a pretty decent one, and a step-change improvement on the dragons that parks usually go for here..


China is notorious for smog, not here! What beautiful skies, its just a shame you can't tell how humid it was.


But it still wasn't hot enough that I was going to ride the big soak splash downpour boat attraction


The park itself was immaculate and the local GP were friendly. We even had a group of young school kids come over and practice their English with us, and it was scary how good it was. Apparently it's now on their syllabus. When then generation graduate and get into business, we're screwed :)




Some of the theming was a little, let's say, unique.


Coaster numero trio was a half-pipe coaster which we thought would have a really bad queue, but it was being run really well and it didn't take us long to get through it at all. In fact we were so quick I didn't take many photos of it. I was lucky I got this one. Perhaps it was the good company I had today that was making the day go so swiftly.


British photo opportunity.



The next coaster was unfortunately down for an overhaul. It's a clone of Colossus at Thorpe Park, which prior to Smiler at Alton Towers held the record for most inversions. We heard that the park is going to attempt to reclaim the record by adding more twists to the ending. As a precursor they'd removed the "10" from the entrance, as this likely explains why the ride was down.


Colossus is pretty open to photographers but here they've gone one better having a raised platform that looks straight down the center of the washing machine section of the ride. It's such a shame the trains weren't coming through there today.


It's certainly a reason to come back here though, along with lots of smaller parks that we overlooked on this occasion.



The final coaster of the day was the launched bike coaster. These look better than they ride (there's a joke in that somewhere that I can't quite eek out right now)



This probably had the longest queue of the main rides, probably because each seat has to be checked before launch, but as elsewhere the crowd were in good spirits and fun to be around.



Adorning the main entrance are these white tiger statues. I suspect they have something to do with safari park close by. Within the Chimelong resort complex there's this theme park, a huge water park, and a safari park, along with accommodations. For the cre-hos there's another coaster in the safari park, which some others did go and visit. However they were enforcing a height restriction that stopped the adults from riding.


A copy of the firefighting ride that can be found at some Legoland parks. This one did not seem to offer the same physical challenge as those with a much easier to use pumping system.




Kidsland is a new indoor section of the park that houses a decent number of rides for toddlers. Of course we had to check if there was a coaster in there; there wasn't.


Plant vs Zombies theming. Some parks are starting to invest in Angry Birds theming for their parks. I suspect this one invested very little here.


Despite a great selection of rides the one thing standing out as an omission (a paradox there) is a decent tower ride. Currently the largest similar thing is this, and they should consider replacing it with a monster tower drop or skyflyer, which I think would work really well.


Splash Battles have appeared in China since my last trip and we saw quite a few on this occasion. A good way to get wet if that's your thing.




 For those a bit braver you can run alongside the water splash on the dive coaster...



..or stand in the splash zone. Some of the group found out the hard way that one of the trains seemed to displace more water than the other.


The dive coaster is such a monster looking ride, and having done 6 of the 7 around the world (2 in China, Germany, 2 in USA and the UK) I just need to get myself to Taiwan to complete the set.




Earlier in the trip I commented on one park that failed to roll out their re carpet. Here they did it, as we were invited to enjoy a rather amazing Chinese banquet for lunch.


With a decent enough selection of dishes to appease the pickiest of eaters, the meal was one of the best we enjoyed on the trip.


Funny sign translation of the day. This wasn't on the dodgems.



More of the white tiger statuettes.


and here's the proper entrance. It turns out we'd snuck in the back.

I really liked Chimelong Paradise and if this is how good their 7 year-old parks look I can't wait to see what Ocean Kingdom looks like.

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