I had an early finish last Friday, and Monday was a Hong Kong public holiday, so obviously that was a cred weekend. I decided to head back to Beijing, not having been there since 2007. Since I spent about 5 days there last time, I did all the cultural s**t back then, so I won’t be boring you with any of that nonsense; this was just cred whoring.
In 2007, only Happy Valley, Sun Park, Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park and Beijing Amusement Park (now gone) were listed on RCDB. Back then, I took the RCDB listings as a definitive guide and didn’t think to look for anything else, but a bunch of other +1 crap has long since popped up on there, most of which probably existed when I was there before.
Anyway, I got to the hotel at a decent time on Friday evening, but didn’t bother heading back out again until the next morning.
Happy Valley Beijing
I had debated leaving this place until the Monday since I had pretty much a full day then and it was only a holiday in Hong Kong, not mainland China. However, I’ve done enough Chinese parks to know that the best chance of not getting spited by anything is to go at weekends. Yes, the parks are obviously busier, but the chances of stuff being “closed for maintenance” are much, much smaller. Happy Valley parks especially seem to like to do “maintenance” (close things for no real reason) on Mondays.
It wasn’t a great start, and I thought at first that I might have made a mistake by going on that day, but it was actually completely fine. All information had been pointing to the park opening at 10, but when I got there, it had already been open an hour and a half, with Extreme Rusher having opened at 9. Ugh.
This meant that the waiting time for Extreme Rusher, which is right at the entrance, was posted at 2 hours. Not good. I joined the queue though since this was the coaster I most wanted out of the whole weekend. Shortly after joining it, the waiting time on the board dropped down to 90 minutes, and I actually got on it in a tiny bit over an hour. They were running two trains and were getting them out fairly quickly (for an OCT park) at a train every 3 minutes or so. Plus, once you were in the station, the ride ops were calling people forward to fill seats, which I've NEVER seen before, meaning that I skipped a train or two to get on.
It was fab – the launches on these things are obscene – but I think I just slightly prefer Bullet Coaster in Shenzhen. The big drop on that into the tunnel seems a bit more substantial, and the trims on it don’t seem to grab as much. Plus, there’s decent theming while Extreme Rusher has nothing. There’s not a lot in it though to be fair, and since operations here were MUCH better, I’m tempted to say that the overall experience is better in Beijing.
Sorry, this is getting a bit wordy. I had the Crystal Wings cred, so was expecting to skip it. More later.
Same with Golden Wings in Snowfield.
Didn’t go in this:
I needed the B&M kiddy cred though, and waited about half an hour for it. Same as the Shanghai one: fine, but don’t see the point.
It was the new B&M hyper being announced a while back that had put me off revisiting Beijing earlier, but once it was testing, I booked this weekend.
Two trains on this as well, with only a 15-minute wait for the first ride. The queue line is beautiful.
It’s pretty good, especially given the small size, but it’s one of the weaker B&M hypers in terms of airtime. The layout is more interesting than most, especially with those sideways hills, and it interacts with the area well, but it felt like it never really quite hit the mark. It was definitely better later in the day though.
With any other place, a brand new coaster would bring a wealth of merchandise, but this is China. Happy Valley like to follow the Western model of putting gift shops at the exits to rides, but they’re just filled with generic tat.
More pictures. Need to speed this up since I’m supposed to be in the school hall in 15 minutes.
You might have noticed the rapids in the same area. These were new, and looked very good with two decent drops, but they went and ruined it with the usual water cannons/guns all over the thing, so I skipped it.
The SLC was actually a walk-on, so I did it despite not needing the cred. It’s not great, but doesn’t seem to have aged too badly since last time.
Jungle Racing, the Vekoma mine train, was closed on my last visit, so that was a +1.
Walking around the lake to Crystal Wings then:
Turns out Crystal Wings was a walk-on. I’d waited 2 hours last time.
Yeah, it’s just a Superman clone, but the theming and overwater section make it so much better.
I watched some stunt show, which was mind-numbingly s**t until the final 3 minutes.
Then this thing, which I’m sure I watched last time, though there’s a very similar thing at Knight Valley, too.
I can’t remember if this was here before, but I’m almost certain I didn’t do it if it was. It’s a kind of “Small World” thing, but focusing on holidays/festivals rather than just countries. It’s pretty impressive to be fair.
Skipped the ridiculous water ride, which I’d done before. I tend to just avoid them now anyway.
This big indoor area was new though, with a bunch of flat rides, a 4D cinema, flying theatre and a kiosk selling live jellyfish (also available at Knight Valley).
I had originally planned to try and leave the park by around 3 or 4 to go and mop up some crappy creds elsewhere, but I’d been given a ticket for a big show for free at 5:30. Not sure how that worked, but other people didn’t seem to have this. As I was going through the turnstiles that morning, the staff pointed out that my ticket had the show included, which they weren’t doing with anyone else.
I had been thinking of buying a ticket for it for the 7:30 show and coming back, or even doing it the next night, since it seems to have good reviews, so since I’d got this freebie for something I was about to spend 40-50 quid on, and I was really enjoying the park, I decided to stick around, doing some rerides on the B&M (walk-on) and S&S (20 minute wait).
The show situation was weird. The main entrance to the theatre is outside the park, with a small, quite hidden entrance from inside. Everyone (bunch of tour groups, coach trips etc.) was using the main entrance, so had obviously paid for this show. I was the only person that I saw using the park entrance. I’d assumed that loads of people must have it with their park ticket as well, but no.
Then getting into the theatre, it turns out that I was in some VIP box with it’s own private waiting area and bathroom:
It was off to the side though, so the view wasn’t great:
However, from there, I could see that ALL of the other VIP boxes were empty. I was literally the only person on that entire level. Even the staff, after showing me where I was supposed to be, had disappeared. So, I waited until the show started and ended up sneaking out of my box and into another one which was right in the middle, head-on to the stage.
All very, very bizarre.
The show was cool. No idea what was going on, but it was technically very impressive and had live peacocks worn as hats, which then flew off, and a fab “flood” at the end. Bunch of pictures:
Glad I didn’t pay for it, but also glad I stuck around.
It was a pretty fab day then. Despite thinking it was going to be a s**t day when I saw that first 2-hour queue (totally should have gone back later, but, ya know, cred), the day ended up being great. As you could see from the pictures, the weather was lovely, everything was running (missed out on the flying island for the second visit after it seemed to go down in the afternoon and not reopen) and operations were really good.
Cred whoring next.
In 2007, only Happy Valley, Sun Park, Beijing Shijingshan Amusement Park and Beijing Amusement Park (now gone) were listed on RCDB. Back then, I took the RCDB listings as a definitive guide and didn’t think to look for anything else, but a bunch of other +1 crap has long since popped up on there, most of which probably existed when I was there before.
Anyway, I got to the hotel at a decent time on Friday evening, but didn’t bother heading back out again until the next morning.
Happy Valley Beijing
I had debated leaving this place until the Monday since I had pretty much a full day then and it was only a holiday in Hong Kong, not mainland China. However, I’ve done enough Chinese parks to know that the best chance of not getting spited by anything is to go at weekends. Yes, the parks are obviously busier, but the chances of stuff being “closed for maintenance” are much, much smaller. Happy Valley parks especially seem to like to do “maintenance” (close things for no real reason) on Mondays.
It wasn’t a great start, and I thought at first that I might have made a mistake by going on that day, but it was actually completely fine. All information had been pointing to the park opening at 10, but when I got there, it had already been open an hour and a half, with Extreme Rusher having opened at 9. Ugh.
This meant that the waiting time for Extreme Rusher, which is right at the entrance, was posted at 2 hours. Not good. I joined the queue though since this was the coaster I most wanted out of the whole weekend. Shortly after joining it, the waiting time on the board dropped down to 90 minutes, and I actually got on it in a tiny bit over an hour. They were running two trains and were getting them out fairly quickly (for an OCT park) at a train every 3 minutes or so. Plus, once you were in the station, the ride ops were calling people forward to fill seats, which I've NEVER seen before, meaning that I skipped a train or two to get on.
It was fab – the launches on these things are obscene – but I think I just slightly prefer Bullet Coaster in Shenzhen. The big drop on that into the tunnel seems a bit more substantial, and the trims on it don’t seem to grab as much. Plus, there’s decent theming while Extreme Rusher has nothing. There’s not a lot in it though to be fair, and since operations here were MUCH better, I’m tempted to say that the overall experience is better in Beijing.
Sorry, this is getting a bit wordy. I had the Crystal Wings cred, so was expecting to skip it. More later.
Same with Golden Wings in Snowfield.
Didn’t go in this:
I needed the B&M kiddy cred though, and waited about half an hour for it. Same as the Shanghai one: fine, but don’t see the point.
It was the new B&M hyper being announced a while back that had put me off revisiting Beijing earlier, but once it was testing, I booked this weekend.
Two trains on this as well, with only a 15-minute wait for the first ride. The queue line is beautiful.
It’s pretty good, especially given the small size, but it’s one of the weaker B&M hypers in terms of airtime. The layout is more interesting than most, especially with those sideways hills, and it interacts with the area well, but it felt like it never really quite hit the mark. It was definitely better later in the day though.
With any other place, a brand new coaster would bring a wealth of merchandise, but this is China. Happy Valley like to follow the Western model of putting gift shops at the exits to rides, but they’re just filled with generic tat.
More pictures. Need to speed this up since I’m supposed to be in the school hall in 15 minutes.
You might have noticed the rapids in the same area. These were new, and looked very good with two decent drops, but they went and ruined it with the usual water cannons/guns all over the thing, so I skipped it.
The SLC was actually a walk-on, so I did it despite not needing the cred. It’s not great, but doesn’t seem to have aged too badly since last time.
Jungle Racing, the Vekoma mine train, was closed on my last visit, so that was a +1.
Walking around the lake to Crystal Wings then:
Turns out Crystal Wings was a walk-on. I’d waited 2 hours last time.
Yeah, it’s just a Superman clone, but the theming and overwater section make it so much better.
I watched some stunt show, which was mind-numbingly s**t until the final 3 minutes.
Then this thing, which I’m sure I watched last time, though there’s a very similar thing at Knight Valley, too.
I can’t remember if this was here before, but I’m almost certain I didn’t do it if it was. It’s a kind of “Small World” thing, but focusing on holidays/festivals rather than just countries. It’s pretty impressive to be fair.
Skipped the ridiculous water ride, which I’d done before. I tend to just avoid them now anyway.
This big indoor area was new though, with a bunch of flat rides, a 4D cinema, flying theatre and a kiosk selling live jellyfish (also available at Knight Valley).
I had originally planned to try and leave the park by around 3 or 4 to go and mop up some crappy creds elsewhere, but I’d been given a ticket for a big show for free at 5:30. Not sure how that worked, but other people didn’t seem to have this. As I was going through the turnstiles that morning, the staff pointed out that my ticket had the show included, which they weren’t doing with anyone else.
I had been thinking of buying a ticket for it for the 7:30 show and coming back, or even doing it the next night, since it seems to have good reviews, so since I’d got this freebie for something I was about to spend 40-50 quid on, and I was really enjoying the park, I decided to stick around, doing some rerides on the B&M (walk-on) and S&S (20 minute wait).
The show situation was weird. The main entrance to the theatre is outside the park, with a small, quite hidden entrance from inside. Everyone (bunch of tour groups, coach trips etc.) was using the main entrance, so had obviously paid for this show. I was the only person that I saw using the park entrance. I’d assumed that loads of people must have it with their park ticket as well, but no.
Then getting into the theatre, it turns out that I was in some VIP box with it’s own private waiting area and bathroom:
It was off to the side though, so the view wasn’t great:
However, from there, I could see that ALL of the other VIP boxes were empty. I was literally the only person on that entire level. Even the staff, after showing me where I was supposed to be, had disappeared. So, I waited until the show started and ended up sneaking out of my box and into another one which was right in the middle, head-on to the stage.
All very, very bizarre.
The show was cool. No idea what was going on, but it was technically very impressive and had live peacocks worn as hats, which then flew off, and a fab “flood” at the end. Bunch of pictures:
Glad I didn’t pay for it, but also glad I stuck around.
It was a pretty fab day then. Despite thinking it was going to be a s**t day when I saw that first 2-hour queue (totally should have gone back later, but, ya know, cred), the day ended up being great. As you could see from the pictures, the weather was lovely, everything was running (missed out on the flying island for the second visit after it seemed to go down in the afternoon and not reopen) and operations were really good.
Cred whoring next.