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JoshC.

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Over the past few years, China has very much burst onto the theme park scene, with many parks being built from the ground up and seeing substantial coasters added. It's probably fair to say that some of B&M's, Intamin's and GCI's best-looking coasters over the past few years have ended up in China. And that investment doesn't seem to be slowing down, so here's the thread to discuss all things China! 

 

I'll start with a few good looking things...

(All images sourced from VHCoasters on Facebook/Twitter unless said otherwise)

 

Daxing East / Great Xingdong Tourist World

Guizhou, south-west China

 

Opening in 2018, this park features a tilt coaster, SLC, spinning coaster and dive coaster all from Golden Horse, along with a few other smaller coasters...

 

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Tilt coaster

 

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Dive coaster

 

On top of that, they've got an 11 inversion coaster (basically same as the standard 10 inversion coaster, but with an extra vertical loop) that will be opening soon...

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Guangzhou Wanda

Guangzhou, south China (near Hong Kong)

For those that don't know, the Wanda name is one of the biggest in Chinese theme parks, and indeed in Chinese entertainment in general. They're a massive thing in cinema, hotels, shopping centres, etc - if you visit China, chances are you'll come across / use something owned by the Wanda group.

 

Fun fact though - Wanda sold all 7 of their open theme parks, plus 5 others under construction / development, to another Chinese group - Sunac - in October last year. So there could be some name changes afoot soon..

 

Anyways, the thing that makes Guangzhou Wanda so special is their duelling Intamin semi-shuttle launch coasters, Dual Dragons. One track is inverted, the other a standard sit down, and they share the same vertical loop...

 

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Definitely one of the crazier coasters out there!

 

Wanda City

Jiangsu, east China (just next to Shanghai)

Another Wanda park, also scheduled to open this year. This includes a crazy themed B&M wingrider which is almost 200ft tall..

 

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And some concept art, for comparison..

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This park will also feature a Mack Blue Fire clone and a family thrill coaster too.

 

 

I think that's enough to whet the Chinese whistle now, but there's plenty out there which I've probably forgotten about, missed or don't know about.. Look forward to seeing what else comes from the east over the coming years..

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9 hours ago, pluk said:

What I really want to know is what is Golden Horse's safety record like?!

Interesting of you to bring up safety actually...

 

Wanda City have sent back a total of 124 pieces of track back to Mack for the Blue Fire clone, due to it failing an inspection they performed to satisfy their own safety checks..

 

https://news.sina.com.cn/o/2019-01-18/doc-ihqfskcn8346004.shtml

A reasonably good translation, provided by roomraider on CF:

Quote

From October 2016 to January 2018, Wuxi Wanda City Investment Co., Ltd. imported a set of launched roller coaster tracks from Germany in six batches, valued at 2,382,300 euros.
Wuxi Customs carried out safety performance inspection according to law and found that there are many problems of safety performance quality of linear defects in the local base metal of the track. After re-inspection and after treatment by German technology, it still found that there were many safety performance quality problems in the local base material of the track. Wuxi Customs determined that the quality of 124 tracks of the launched roller coaster was unqualified.

 

Obviously a very unusual story, and something which I don't think should be taken at face value. There are of course plenty of incidents of Chinese built rides failing inspections or worse. And it's not the first time that non-Chinese manufacturers have had issues, though admittedly nothing to this scale.

 

Maybe it's a case of China becoming stricter with coasters and rides as a result of the recent boom, and number of accidents, and perhaps going a bit over the top. 

 

To go onto Golden Horse in particular though, they actually have a good safety record, especially in recent years. Golden Horse have built coasters outside of China too and are becoming like an early Vekoma with their rides. I guess with western manufacturers becoming more accessible to Chinese parks, Golden Horse have to up their game to remain competitive, and safe!

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POVs of Dual Dragon, the duelling sit down/inverted Intamin swing launch coasters...

 

And yes, they're in sync!

 

Fair to this this is a complete experience: two very solid looking coasters that look brilliant, along with a fantastic off-ride look too!

 

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The first Pulsar (Walibi Belgium) clone has opened in Happy Valley Shenzhen:

 

 

There's another one of these coming to a Six Flags park too next year.

 

These are genuinely fun ride experiences and look amazing too, so it's great to see them popping up elsewhere. Plus, more Macks is always good.

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Wasn't sure where to mention this but here seems good enough...

 

Due to the Coronavirus outbreak which is majorly affecting China, a large proportion of Chinese theme parks have closed completely. These include:

 

-Disney Shanghai

-All OCT parks (which includes the Happy Valley chain; a total of 15 parks)

-All Fantawild parks (17 total)

-All Chimelong parks (3 total)

-Most of the Sunac parks (14 parks owned)

-and many more.

 

This is of course all happening during the Lunar New Year, which is a Top 3 holiday in China.

 

Most parks in China on in the eastern area of the country, which is also where the greatest spread of the virus is (and, unsurprisingly, the densest part of the country).

 

It's unsurprising that this precaution has happened, but it's good to see it's happened quickly and efficiently all the same.

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https://deadline.com/2020/02/disney-175m-hit-shanghai-hong-kong-parks-closed-1202851646/

 

If you're TLDR, then Shanghai and Hong Kong Disneyland could potentially be closed for two months which is unprecedented in Disney theme park history. In comparison, Disney World has had a total of 9 unscheduled closure day in the last twenty years. 

 

This, if continues for as long as they say could have a huge impact on long term future investment. Hong Kong in particular is in huge trouble with first the protests and now coronavirus. 

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This could certainly be difficult for the parks but I think the Disney parks will be just fine considering Disney is a absolute cash cow.

For other parks like Ocean Park it might be more devastating as those parks don't have the abundance of cash to fall back on like Disney has. I guess January/February is probably a more quiet time of year luckily. It would be much worse if it was like July/August.

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The opposite actually, the Chinese new years is a huge time for any Chinese theme park, to be closed over that period will have hit hard.

 

Hong Kong historically has not been a huge success, hence the huge drive to build and invest, upgrade the castle, throw in the Frozen area. If you have any look at Disney when the parks do not do as well as expected, you see massive cuts across the board. Most of the time its entertainment or resort hotel closures, sometimes its hours, amount of trains available. Now, because HK and Shanghai aren't fully owned by Disney the impact may be lessened, however what with Galaxy's Edge not delivering as expected across the two resorts when it first opened and with Tokyo potentially facing Coronovirus issues if this continues, it leave Paris as the only one that's been doing good numbers for the period.

 

Disney also don't really cross money across sections. Money made on the film side of things doesn't cross over into the theme parks and cover that sector if it makes less.

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9 hours ago, Mark9 said:

Disney also don't really cross money across sections. Money made on the film side of things doesn't cross over into the theme parks and cover that sector if it makes less.

Even just the parks alone are literally the most attended and profitable parks on the earth. I'm sure one park going under for a month or two won't hurt too much in the long run, Disney literally own the monoply board when it comes to attendance and profit. Like the nearest chain is Merlin, which really wouldn't even be relevant if it wasn't for the Legolands..

 

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I mean it's like you read the last sentence and that's it. I know they are the most attended and most profitable parks on the earth, they are still run to maximise sales as much as possible. If two resorts, not one, are closed for two months, that will still hit the company financially and as I said it will affect future investment, not current. Thats based on how Disney have reacted to things previously whenever a resort has done badly or gate figures drop for some reason. 

 

 

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