New Vietnamese Parks.

Hi guys.

 

Spent the day yesterday hunting for a possible park for the rumoured Freestyle Music Park ride relocation.

I opened a bit of a can of worms when it came to new Vietnamese parks so I wrote a bit of an article which I have adapted for Forum consumption here. Thought it might interest people even if I can't draw any definitive conclusions.

 

Over the summer the rides at the failed Hard Rock Park/Freestyle Music Park have been slowly taken down and shipped off. Rumor’s have been strong that they are heading to Vietnam but with no Vietnamese park making an announcement they have disappeared off the map for now.

 

So I decided to start looking into likely places that these rides could end up. Vietnam doesn't have a thriving theme park culture so a park building a B&M coaster should be pretty big news. Once I started looking into it though I discovered a whole raft of planned parks. Some of these have started construction while some are still in the planning stages.

 

Below I shall go through a list of the parks I found in the order of least to most likely destination for the Freestyle Music Park rides.

 

Son Tra Ocean Park

For me this is the least likely place the rides will end up. But for sake of completeness I shall include it. Son Tra Ocean Park is a proposed park in the city of Da Nang on the east coast of Vietnam. The park isn't large and is planned for the small Son Tra Peninsula to the east of the city.

 

There aren't many concrete details on the park and it’s possible the plans have been abandoned already. The main problem with this park is the fact the park is due to be built on reclaimed land that hasn't yet been reclaimed. A lot of Da Nang is already built on reclaimed land, A look at Google Earths timeline feature shows how much the city has expanded out into the ocean over the last 10 years. But unless the rides are going to be put in storage for a few years I can’t see them going here.

 

This is the area the park is supposed to be built.

Apparently it's still water.

The concept art looks nice and there is a coaster there.

But unless Vietnam have perfected the underwater amusement park I don't see it happening.

 

Vinpearl Land Phu Quoc

Vinpearl are a company that own several entertainment venues in Vietnam including a couple of water parks and their main Vinpearl Land in Nha Trang (see below for more on that one). They have recently completed construction of phase one of a new resort on the Southern Island of Phu Quoc.

 

The resort on Phu Quoc appears to have opened with a hotel, water park and a collection of small rides such as a wave swinger. But although the planned park map shows 2 roller coasters there are as of yet none on site. Strangely the resort has been built quickly enough that the latest Google Satellite images of the area don’t even show construction work. (I’ve checked the whole island). But a Google search brings up the location easily enough.

 

The problem here is that the resort appears to be mostly built already and it’s too small to house the rides from Freestyle Music Park. On top of that the rides on the park map are too small to be the same rides. But it’s worth keeping an eye on just in case they have changed their plans for phase 2.

 

The park map for the new park has 2 coasters on it. But I don't believe the ride's part is complete.

Google says it's here but the maps haven't been updated for some time.

However the water park is open along with a hotel.

And at least some rides.

 

Vinpearl Land Nha Trang

As mentioned above Vinpearl already have an existing park in Nha Trang which is currently home to a number of rides including a L&T Systems Compact Coaster model. The park is on an Island to the east of the city and is linked to the mainland by an impressive cable car over the water.

 

It appears the park has plans to expand and Vietnamese news sites have referenced new rides and a hotel. Google Maps shows an area near to the Alpine Coaster which appears to have been cleared but it doesn't appear to be big enough for the rides from Freestyle Music Park. There is also a large area of land cleared for something on the other side of the Island but it is unclear if this is for part of Vinpearl or something completely unrelated. The lack of concrete info doesn't help here but if the rides have already shipped I’d expect there to be some more ground work done. But this is the first one on the list I’d consider a proper possibility.

 

Vinpearl Land with the clearing near the alpine coaster

The park is the only already established one on this list.

A park map of the existing resort (appears to be a couple of years old)

The clearing on the other side of the island next to the Vinpearl Golf Course.

 

Vinpearl Land Quy Nhơn

Yet another Vinpearl Land and this time one that is being built from scratch and looks big enough to house at least some of the Freestyle Music park rides. The park is being built on an Island to the East of the city which will again be linked by a cable car from the mainland. The park has a very active Facebook page which gives a look at the planned site and construction is under way but at a very early stage.

 

The problem is again a lack of concrete info. The resort is certainly happening but there is no indication of a large park with roller coasters. The first Vinpearl land has a park but it’s a small part of the whole resort overall with hotels, a water park and a golf course taking up much of the room. This doesn't mean the ride’s aren't going here but I think it’s less likely that the next two parks.

 

A piece of concept art showing the proposed site.

Land clearing already under way.

But not that far gone yet.

More concept art. Suggests no large park.

 

Happy Land

Happy Land has been a bit of an enigma for years. The park was originally announced in 2011 and was due for a 2014 opening. However after financial trouble the park vanished off the radar. However recent reports suggest the park is now back on track for a 2015 opening. Bing Maps shows the park has already had a lot of the ground work done and they even built the entrance after the original announcement. But the company building the park haven’t updated their page in over a year so it’s pretty tough to track progress.

 

With the previous issues with funding i find it hard to believe Happy Land could afford the rides from Freestyle Music Park. But the park site is certainly large enough to accommodate them and if the park is back on track for a 2015 opening the time frame fits. The problem is without any recent updates beyond a few news articles there is no concrete info to say either way.

 

Bing Maps shows the land clearing. Google maps hasn't been updated since 2006 here.

An aerial view of the site.

The concept art certainly looks big enough.

But the plans show a massive resort that never seems to have got off the ground.

Some of the resorts concept art.

 

Asia Park

For Asia Park we are back in the city of Da Nang where we started. Asia Park is a planned park surrounding the already complete Sun Wheel in central Da Nang. The park has a busy Facebook Page which talks about new rides and even talks about plans to build at least one roller coaster. Different news articles around the web use pictures of Eurofighters, Kumba and Battlestar Galactica which suggests they've just used stock images but at least make me think the coasters will be of decent size.

 

Construction is already under way and the park recently built a monorail around the site. The site is also big enough to accommodate the rides from Freestyle Music Park without too much trouble. Of the 6 parks here I certainly feel this is most likely to house the rides just because it’s already being built and it’s got the space. But again the question is do they have the money to do it and if so where are the rides now?

 

The parks monorail has just finished construction.

The park doesn't have anything else up yet.

But some buildings appear under way.

There some rubbish concept art around.

The site is certainly large enough though.

 

Thoughts

It’s certainly possible (if not actually pretty likely) that none of these parks will get the rides from Freestyle Music Park. But if not at least a couple of them will be getting roller coasters in the next year or so, so it’s worth keeping an eye on them anyway. Before i started looking into this I had no idea there were plans for so many parks in Vietnam. It’s true none of them are massive groundbreaking parks but some of them certainly look worth a visit if I ever make my way to Vietnam.

 

There are also a number of other existing parks in Vietnam which could in theory be the Freestyle Music Park rides destination. However none of them seemed big enough to take on such a project. If there is a brand new park big enough to house the rides and not on this list being built somewhere in Vietnam, I’d expect there to be at least some news articles about it. But I wasn't able to find any news on them. So for now these are my best bets.

 

I’m sure we will find out soon enough as a B&M looper is a fairly difficult thing to keep quiet. Either way I’ll be certain to keep you updated when and if they do show up properly.

 

It's worth mentioning that all the research here was done by myself so any mistakes or issues are my fault alone. There's a couple more pictures in the original article but this post contains the best ones. If you know I've made an error then please let me know It's pretty tough digging up info about Vietnamese parks when you don't know the language.

Very interesting. Vietnam might just be the next hotspot for parks. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you for sharing your research

Thanks for sharing your research! It's exciting that Vietnam has a lot of new parks coming soon.

Thanks for taking the time to make this interesting post.

Cheers guys.

 

It's interesting to see how much is going on in Vietnam. But Vietnam has a history of making announcements and then nothing happening. Mack reported they'd sold a Euro Mir clone to a new park in Vietnam about 10 years ago and nothing ever came of it.

 

I'd like to think these parks will all happen but I'm not that hopeful.

 

The VinPearl ones at least appear to be aiming for small family resorts in already popular holiday areas. Happyland has a history of failing to build anything.

 

Asia Park seems to be going ahead though. But no sign of any track yet.