gerstlaueringvar Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 (edited) After a year of Purdue Engineering it's finally time to shut my brain down and make some dumb decisions a.k.a. allowing myself on Chinese knock-off coasters. So my mom, my grandma and I flew to Xi'an for a short vacation and did some culture here and there because guess what? I'm not an uncultured piece of sh*t even though I'd rather ride T3 5 times in a row than going to a museum unless it's dinosaur exhibition. Xi'an was the capital of China for god knows how many dynasties and we felt like we were in another world because Canton, where we live, really doesn't have many things from 3000 years ago. The famous Terra Cotta (thousands of broken clay warriors inside of a Soarin' over California building) is an hour from downtown Xi'an and Huaqing Pond, another tourist place that’s actually nice, is 10 minutes away from Terra Cotta. That area is full of ancient stuff, which also includes a god awful dark ride with "ancient" technologies that tells the story of a bunch of tomb robbers entering the tomb of the emperor of the Qing dynasty and trying to escape. If any of you are the kind of tourist that feels like your life is more complete after you see Terra Cotta, definitely go check out that dark ride for shits and giggles. They only have information in Chinese though. Link Now let's talk about Lewa. Here's the thing, when they first announced the park, they said they were building something like 15 coasters and they posted photos of them signing contracts with Intamin, Mack, Maurer, Vekoma etc. Plus leaked photos showed an Expedition GeForce clone so of course I got so excited about it and posted a ton of stupid stuff on the forum. And as usual, the final project including a Mack and like a hundred knock-off rides. The location of the park is absolutely awful, it's an hour from the city, you need to drive through a huge market, some rather sketchy area of the city, and some 2-lane underground tunnel from the 80 and worst of all, there's no Uber around! The park itself is surprisingly decent, theming is not at Happy Valley level but the staffs are all very nice and friendly instead of talking to you like they want to scoop out your eye balls with their ice cream scoop. Flash, or Lightning, or Miley Cyrus, whatever that tall red and yellow loopy twisty coaster is called, is the only rideable (SURVIVABLE) coaster at the park. It’s the only Mack hyper coaster with the tallest inverting loop in the world. It is not the most incredible thing evahhhhh, but I feel like Mack is on the right track aside from installing THREE trim brakes. Temperature really makes a huge difference to the ride, in the morning it is Diamondback level floater air and in the late afternoon it is hauling through the course giving some pretty sweet ejector air. One thing I’d like to mention, that Zero G roll at back row right seat is something else! Not “who’s your daddy” intense like Kumba’s Zero G Roll but definitely nice to see Mack getting adventurous once in a while. As for the big a$$ loop, the train goes through it much faster than I thought so there’s no hang time at the top like YOLO’s “I wanna get married with you” loop. It feels like a taller version of a standard B&M loop. Not that it’s a bad thing (are you facing kidding me I wanted to tear that loop down) but I was really expecting some sweet hang time at the top. Well guess Mack is playing it safe over here. Operation wise, the whole park is as bad as Ben Affleck on Dare Devil. Which is still better than Magic Mountain. Merchandise wise, I didn’t see fake Micky Mouse around so that’s a good start. Food wise, I’m from Canton and I grew up with Chimelong’s amazing food so Lewa’s food taste like when you mix raw garlic with blueberry ice cream and guacamole. Plus they only sell Pepsi products. About other rides at the park, why would you think I want to waste my time on them? Anyway, that’s my Lewa Adventure (official name according to RCDB) and Xi’an experience. It’s definitely an interesting experience that I would love to do again some other time. But for now I can’t wait to hop on a plane and fly back home for some real food. Thank you Lewa for a very nice day, I tend to crap about everything but this park is definitely one of the best in China. This is the view from the park's entrance. World's first knock-off Boomerang, like the real one isn't bad enough. Thank god this thing isn't open Now let's go to the real star of the park, or the only thing I actually care about. It's huge! (That's what he/she says, we don't discriminate) Wheee Look at the end of the launch track, look! HUSS booster knock-off. This is actually the most intense ride at the park. So they have a loop and screw and you have to be UNDER 5'7" to ride it. I mean who the face designed this thing? TPED at Purdue! Um... bitch say what? Of course I took a picture like this. Edited July 9, 2017 by gerstlaueringvar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viking86 Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 That was pretty cool, thanks for sharing! Shame the knock-off boomerang wasn't open yet, I was really curious to hear about that one. Although I'm sure you are more than pleased with not having to ride it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RyanTPM Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Thanks for the review and pictures, made a good read and nice that it's at a park where we haven't seen too many trip reports of it as well! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cavs Fan Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Great read right there fam. Thanks for sharing. I didn't even know that a Mack Hyper was a thing that existed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted May 19, 2016 Share Posted May 19, 2016 Nice report! The mack really looks interesting. It's a matter of taste, of course, but I really like huge B&M style loops as opposed to the ones that provide a lot of hangtime so I'm happy to hear this one is like that. There is something about being upside down on the top of a tall loop while still with positive Gs that I find really cool as you almost get the feeling that the rest of the world is upside down and not you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbalvey Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 Added the POV video to the report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nrthwnd Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 omg That loop takes - for - e - ver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoinItForTheFame Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 Flash, or Lightning, or Miley Cyrus, whatever that tall red and yellow loopy twisty coaster is called... Awesome trip report! Thanks for sharing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_koppen Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 That looks like a mighty nice ride! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willh51 Posted May 20, 2016 Share Posted May 20, 2016 Hell no on that boomerang knock-off, huss imitation death trap and transition of doom and despair. It unnecessarily bothers me that a park would buy a nice Mack ride then surround it with BS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azza29 Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Thanks for the trip report, Yin! Not sure I'll visit this one anytime soon but the Mack coaster looks alright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matteocrepaldi Posted May 21, 2016 Share Posted May 21, 2016 Did you ride the INTAMIN monorail at Xi'An??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted May 21, 2016 Author Share Posted May 21, 2016 ^Oops I didn't, sorry. I'll definitely check it out next time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XII Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 Nice Photo TR. I enjoy seeing all the cool new stuff that China is building and that Mack Looper certainly seems interesting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry M Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 Are all the coasters new, or are some taken from other parks and added in there? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thesman Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 Doesn't Vekoma have their boomerang design copyrighted? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
viking86 Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 ^The word 'copyright' doesn't seem to mean much in China... except maybe 'right to copy'?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingRCT3 Posted May 22, 2016 Share Posted May 22, 2016 I enjoyed the pictures as much as the text. Thank you for the report! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted May 23, 2016 Author Share Posted May 23, 2016 Doesn't Vekoma have their boomerang design copyrighted? Yes, here's the story behind the knock-off Boomerang: The park bought the Vekoma Boomerang from Qingdao International Beer City for ShiBaoLai(the knock-off manufacturer) and ShiBaoLai offered to give Lewa this knock-off Boomerang for free after they were done "researching" the Vekoma one. Vekoma was stabbed in the back by Lewa and ShiBaoLai. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcjp Posted May 23, 2016 Share Posted May 23, 2016 ^Poor boomerang..... I wonder what kind of awful things ShiBaoLai did to it while in their hands... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
King Posted June 9, 2016 Share Posted June 9, 2016 Didn't Vekoma stab Arrow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LeoBruz199 Posted June 23, 2016 Share Posted June 23, 2016 Wow! This report is great! Hey, Yin, did you manage to ride the Knock-off S&S towers there? If so, how do they compare to the real ones? (I'm kind of a drop tower fanatic) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted June 23, 2016 Author Share Posted June 23, 2016 Surprisingly lots of airtime and very close to the real ones quality wise. But no matter how well they made it, it is still a knock-off and I only respect real things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Angry Darren Mullins Posted July 9, 2017 Share Posted July 9, 2017 ^Poor boomerang..... I wonder what kind of awful things ShiBaoLai did to it while in their hands... They molested that poor thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gerstlaueringvar Posted July 9, 2017 Author Share Posted July 9, 2017 Oh thanks for popping this thread up. Here's an interesting update for those of you that cares, the Boomerang has been removed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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