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Happy Valley Nanjing | Nanjing China | Theme Park

roomraider

Best Topic Starter
Another new Happy Valley is coming and with another smattering of coasters. The plan is to open this park in 2019.
The currently known coaster list is as follows.

Intamin Triple Launched Coaster
B&M Wing Coaster (Rear seats reversed)
Vekoma Suspended Family Coaster (Orkanen model)
Golden Horse Mine Train

its unknown if the triple launched coaster will feature 3 separate launches like say Cheetah Hunt or one launch used 3 times like Soaring With Dragon. It does however appear the B&M wing coaster will be a clone of Flying Wing Coaster at Happy Valley Chongqing however it will feature reverse seats at the back of the train, something Chongqing does not.

A snippet of the park plan can be seen here.
Nanjing1.jpg
The Vekoma, Golden Horse and B&M are all visible.

Some early renders here
Nanjing2.png
Nanjing3.png

Larger render of the park
Nanjing5.jpeg

Happy Valleys are always solid parks and a decent B&M wing coaster with an Intamin launched is a solid start for a new park. The Golden Horse and Vekoma support coasters aren't anything to write home about but i do like the way the water ride and mine train are positioned together.

Interestingly the park is just a couple of blocks north of the under construction indoor Wanda park which will open later in 2018. Making quite a nice double hit for the intrepid enthusiast.

More as it appears.
 
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Pear

Strata Poster
I'm really excited to see how the Intamin turns out.

Also the theming on the mine looks just like how they themed the Intamin minetrains.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Will the backwards seats on the wing coaster be sort of like Swarm: Brave it Backwards in terms of how they are arranged (i.e. last two rows of the train)?
 

Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Quite solid starting line-up indeed. Although it can be frustrating to see these parks not getting anything for a while after their opening, there's no denying Happy Valley's good taste in coasters!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I liked Tianjin. I want it to do well and get an expansion.

Shenzhen is a plie of crap now and Pulsar won't help that.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
We really need to get this thread back on topic, but out of interest, how does Shanghai rank in comparison to other Happy Valleys, for those who have visited? Only asking because Shawn Sanbrooke didn't seem overly keen on Happy Valley Shanghai when he visited because of the operations and due to how many rides were closed.

Anyway, this park looks decent. Interestingly, Happy Valley don't seem to opt for Chinese knock-off coasters as often as some other Chinese parks do.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
I didn't like Shanghai for similar reasons, but I'm used to that.
Even the Chinese get pissed off with operations at that park, which is the only place I've ever seen that. Staff were dicks as well.
I would have said it was the worst until a Shenzhen revisit, even though the lineup should make it one of the best.

If you want to get back on topic, interesting that they're getting a Vekoma. Thought I read a while back that the chain didn't deal with them any more, hence the B&M SFCs and Golden Horse mine trains.
 

roomraider

Best Topic Starter
I didn't like Shanghai for similar reasons, but I'm used to that.
Even the Chinese get pissed off with operations at that park, which is the only place I've ever seen that. Staff were dicks as well.
I would have said it was the worst until a Shenzhen revisit, even though the lineup should make it one of the best.

If you want to get back on topic, interesting that they're getting a Vekoma. Thought I read a while back that the chain didn't deal with them any more, hence the B&M SFCs and Golden Horse mine trains.

That was mostly speculation and mostly by me. Since the only Vekoma SLCs with the Kumali layout in the country were at Happy Valley parks when Golden Horse suddenly came out with an identical product. But it seems to not be true since Happy Valley Chongqing also opened a Vekoma last year.

As for Shanghai I've been twice and found it good both times. All rides open first time and only 1 coaster was closed (Dive coaster) on my second visit. Shenzhen is a bit of a dump but Bullet Coaster is so good it saves it for me :) Maybe the sheer amount of tosh ive been to in China makes me see the HV parks in rose tinted specs but I do enjoy them
 

gavin

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Shawn Sanbrooke didn't seem overly keen on Happy Valley Shanghai
That's one of the only vlogs of his I've watched, and he came across very badly: idiotic, bad-mannered and borderline racist to be honest. I wouldn't pay any attention to his opinions since he doesn't know what the f**k he's talking about.

I must've got lucky with Shanghai since everything was open (well, the woodie only opened around lunch time and the mine train was closed for most of the day, but still), so no cred spite at all. I found it to be the strongest of the parks, but I need to revisit Beijing to call it really.

I really liked Beijing, but it was ages ago when I had far fewer parks under my belt, so I might see it differently now. By the time I get back, they will have added loads though.

Wuhan is decent for the ride line-up, but lacked theming and atmosphere.

Chongqing was a great park and felt very different from the others thanks to ride selection and location.

Chengdu was fine, but was lacking in rides really. The two additions this year should do the place a lot of good.

I've never had the problem with Shenzhen that most seem to, but I haven't been for a while. I've always found it to be quite pleasant really, with Bullet Coaster being amazing.

Tianjin was a s**thole though. One good coaster followed by a load of crap and run down to hell.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
but Bullet Coaster is so good it saves it for me
That all fell apart on a revisit.
Resting your expectations on a single attraction in a park, cos there really isn't anything else there, doesn't do much for the place.

Apologies for turning this into the Rank the Happy Valley parks topic.
It's not spites that made any of them a bad park for me.

Wuhan spited, but for me it has the strongest lineup, everything was running well and the staff were great.

Beijing has great theming, a weaker lineup for now, everything was running well and the staff were great.

Tianjin was fine for me, spite or no spite, but I suspect it would suffer a similar situation to Shenzhen on a revisit.
All hopes would be resting on 1 coaster, it might not deliver as much and then I'd probably feel the same as Gavin.
The fact you'd already done the woodie layout must have played at least a small part in that opinion.

Shanghai had everything running badly, the staff were terrible. Spite or no spite, I wouldn't have liked it as much.

Shenzhen is currently 90% construction site and totally unapologetic for it. What little they had was running badly and the staff were terrible.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
That's one of the only vlogs of his I've watched, and he came across very badly: idiotic, bad-mannered and borderline racist to be honest. I wouldn't pay any attention to his opinions since he doesn't know what the f**k he's talking about.
While I am an avid fan of TPW and I love Shawn's videos, I will admit that Shawn should not expect signs to be in English and for people to speak English in a regional Chinese theme park. In Shanghai Disney, maybe, but considering British guests are probably a virtually non-existent part of their customer base, then I don't think Happy Valley needs English signs as a priority. I did find that Vlog very interesting overall, though. Do all Happy Valley theme parks make guests do exercises prior to boarding the coasters, like Shawn showed us that they did on Fireball?

Anyway, on an on-topic note, do the Golden Horse mine trains ride that differently to their Vekoma counterparts? Or do they basically feel the same?
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Do all Happy Valley theme parks make guests do exercises prior to boarding the coasters
Nope, only a few rides that they think will be the most strenuous or something.
Bullet Coaster, Extreme Rusher, Dauling Dragon and Megalite are the ones I recall having that on.

do the Golden Horse mine trains ride that differently to their Vekoma counterparts?
Not particularly. Those Vekomas were never great themselves.
 

gavin

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While I am an avid fan of TPW and I love Shawn's videos, I will admit that Shawn should not expect signs to be in English and for people to speak English in a regional Chinese theme park. In Shanghai Disney, maybe, but considering British guests are probably a virtually non-existent part of their customer base, then I don't think Happy Valley needs English signs as a priority.

That's the thing though, the Happy Valley parks have a lot of English signage. Apart from Disney, they're among the most "Westernised" parks in the country and are very easy to deal with. There are usually English speaking staff at customer services, or they can get hold of an English-speaking manager if there's any real need to talk to someone, which there really isn't 99% of the time. Asking some teenage ride op where to find chicken nuggets isn't going to work out very well for you, but if there's a genuine issue, you'd be able to sort it. His whole "Oh, this place is so weird" schtick was bulls**t. Apart from the customer base, you could be be in a Six Flags park. The whole thing was just about "look how crazy/zany we are to be here". Their behaviour with other park guests was f**king disgraceful quite frankly.

The exercise thing is a pet peeve. Happy Valley started that bollocks and some other parks have followed suit. It seems to be very inconsistent across the parks though. For example, they've done it every time I've ridden Bullet Coaster, but weren't doing it for the exact same ride in Wuhan. They weren't doing it on any rides in Shanghai when I was there, yet others have reported that they do. It's a stalling tactic to run trains less frequently - that's it - and it's f**king stupid.

The Golden Horse mine trains are just as uneventful as the Vekoma model, and, like the Vekomas, run the range of being pretty smooth to a bit bumpy. Honestly, if people didn't know any better, they'd never know they were copies.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
The exercise thing is a pet peeve. Happy Valley started that bollocks and some other parks have followed suit. It seems to be very inconsistent across the parks though. For example, they've done it every time I've ridden Bullet Coaster, but weren't doing it for the exact same ride in Wuhan. They weren't doing it on any rides in Shanghai when I was there, yet others have reported that they do. It's a stalling tactic to run trains less frequently - that's it - and it's f**king stupid.
I thought the exercises were done to help Chinese people control their upper bodies better on roller coasters or something like that. At least that's what someone in the TPW comments section said, anyway. Don't know whether it's true or not.
 

Mysterious Sue

Strata Poster
Maybe that's the official line...

I've seen the Shenzhen video. I don't think it's that bad but equally I find it hard to watch without feeling squeemish. For example, there's a bit where they're talking about how weird the place is (i.e. different to back home) while pointing the camera at a KFC. As gavin says, Shenzhen is hardly the arse end of nowhere, lots of people speak English and the parks are fairly 'Western'. I try to look back to my first visit to Asia when I was wide-eyed and and thought everything was strange but...yeah...I still didn't act like that.

I suggest watching some of those cringy videos about Americans going to British supermarkets and getting excited because it's 'different'. That's the tone I think they've followed.
 

gavin

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I thought the exercises were done to help Chinese people control their upper bodies better on roller coasters or something like that. At least that's what someone in the TPW comments section said, anyway. Don't know whether it's true or not.

Absolute bollocks.
 
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