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Photo TR: Taiwan


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In any case, Screaming Condor scared the crap out of me because it seemed to go very close to the very end of the available track in each direction and kept its speed up through the cycle. And I imagined, during the ride, something going wrong with the LIMs and shooting the train off the end of the spike. This over-active imagination makes me a bad flyer too.

 

I remember you asking me as we stopped on the hold brake for Steel Venom, "Is it supposed to do that?"

 

Plus, I'm shocked that Busch Gardens never had one of these.

 

 

Great report, Martin--I'm glad you and Cheryl had a good time.

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Day 3: Day 3 was a mixed bag. It started with a scary drive into the mountains. I don't mind driving in general, but twisty roads with steep drop offs make me nervous, and Taiwan is pretty mountainous. Then we found the credit down after that harrowing journey. But all was not lost as we then discovered Discovery World at Yamay Resort.

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I know, it doesn't look too bad, but the photo doesn't do it justice and sheer drops make me nervous. Plus it was a bit misty and steep and we lost count of how many switchbacks we went through.

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We arrive at the strange, mysterious, and remote Atayal Resort. Throw these coordinates into Google Earth if you want to see where it is: 24.06692,120.941212

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Using the roller coaster t-shirt to communicate again, we were directed to this strange scene.

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We couldn't devise the purpose of the ropes on the tower, and we could only speculate about the statue and structure on the mountainside. But we couldn't dawdle: We had a credit to get and I was anxious about driving to the next, bigger park.

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There was this flat...

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...on top of this food counter.

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There was this "Little Train".

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This large pavillion...

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...with large aboriginal displays. I mentioned the aboriginal thing before. I read that Taiwanese society celebrates the diversity of the inhabitants of the island before the Chinese came. But it also seemed to me like the amusement park industry had been ceded to the aboriginese in much the same way casino businesses are ceded to Native Americans in the states. Of course, I honestly don't know what I'm talking about, but this was my observation as we saw it in park after park.

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Some interesting sculpture. I was vaguely certain that getting the boob credit would be inappropriate.

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Some other flats about. What are these things called? I think we saw these at three different parks in Taiwan. This park called it "Universe Spider".

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"Musical Merry Go Round" and dragon sculpture. Here's another park that has a content use agreement with Disney (wink wink).

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The powered Dragon Roller Coaster.

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As you can see...

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...it was actually quite beautiful.

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Dammit, not beautiful.

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Credit was down.

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"Rapidly Train" is a Barbieri Grand Canyon. It looks like a giant Butterfly coaster. The only other two are in Beirut and South Korea. Yellow tape, special sign. This did not look like a closure for an hour or two.

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We couldn't communicate with the staff about the coaster so we threw in the towel and got back on the road.

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Discovery World at Yamay Resort was a very different experience!

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Greeted by goofy theme park characters! Yes!

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Major unique Vekoma credit down! No! But we knew about this one, down for all of April. We'll show you the pics.

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Gravity Max isn't the only ride that's down. ;-)

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The park is called Discovery World, but this section sign was on the outside. The only other English name for the park we saw was "Yamay", the name for the resort (used to be a big sugar plantation, apparently).

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At the top is the Yamay logo that we saw on the t-shirts.

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We did see some some major rehab as we entered the resort facilities.

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Anyway, welcome to Discovery World!

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There is some nice theming here.

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And some nice landscaping. Dumbo ride is called...

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...Fly to Sky!

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Swings. We saw a lot of school groups at the parks. We noted that all Taiwanese school uniforms consist of some variation on the classic 1970's adidas polyester track suit in various garish colors.

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Mine Express credit open with no wait.

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It's a Vekoma Junior!

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Ferris Wheel. That globe thing was the park's only eyesore. It was rusting and had no visible purpose or theming.

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Nice signage for Wild River Canyon...

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...the river rapids ride.

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There was even an opportunity to do the on-ride photo without anyone getting wet!

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Unique gift shop item for riders of...

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Gravity Max! Which was, as you saw earlier, closed. The only one of it's kind, this is the famous Vekoma tilt-coaster, where the train rides to the end of the track, then tilts down and is released. We'll be back for this one.

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For you flat lovers, they had a Moser Energy Storm.

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A Huss Top Spin.

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Swinging Ship, any number of possible manufacturers.

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Yet another snazzy looking flume.

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Another look at the weird eyesore globe.

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I love these little boat rides. We've seen these only in Europe and Asia. Anyone know who makes this model?

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Cheryl found both Luck and Love at Discovery World.

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Not sure what these are called.

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We missed the teen stunt show...and the boob credit.

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Looks like a Gerstlauer Dancing Pavillion.

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Sonic Circle is a Music Express/Himalaya type ride.

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Here's another look at Gravity Max.

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One last look at this lovely park, Discovery World at Yamay Resort. It was on to our new hotel.

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We're at the Janfusun Prince Hotel. We have fond memories of the Shinagawa Prince Hotel from TPR in Tokyo 2008.

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We are introduced to Janfusun Fancyworld's zany cast of characters at check-in. We also learn that we are invited to the "Night Park".

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Night park?

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Some interesting night displays promoting a new walk-through haunted house. The Little Death...anyone get that?

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Time for bed. Tomorrow, Janfusun Fancyworld!

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oh that's such a shame you didn't get to ride Gravity Max yet.. it really is an amazing ride... Front seat is great for the "OMG there's no more track" thrill and the back seat you get to do a vertical freefall face down.. it's a very cool ride and was pretty smooth when I rode it back in 2005 ! It's a cool little park but always seem to be under construction.. and lots of closed rides..

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I love these little boat rides. We've seen these only in Europe and Asia. Anyone know who makes this model?

 

There is one at Gilroy Gardens (aka, Bonfante Gardens) in Gilroy, CA called Rainbow Garden. I believe it was built by Chance Morgan, but I do not have any idea about the make of the one you posted a photo of. It could very well be Chance. If you haven't been to the park before, I strongly suggest you check it out.

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Picture I took of Rainbow Garden from September, 2010!

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Yeah, Gravity Max was down. And Fancy Balls too, can you believe it? It was a bummer when I saw Gravity Max on the website maintenance list before our trip. Ironically, I saw that the Farglory Ocean credit would be up during the same websurfing session, this after seeing it scheduled for maintenance during our trip when I checked several weeks earlier. Half the problem is trying to read the maintenance schedules, if you can find them. The Chinese characters don't exactly translate to the same name as in RCDB so you're not sure which ride they're talking about. Take Gravity Max. The Chinese characters are: 搶救地心 and that translates into "Rescue Center of the Earth" in Google Translate! Fortunately there was a picture in that case, but others were more challenging.

 

Well, that Farglory credit (the characters for which - 小藍鯨歷險記 - translate to Xiaolan Jing Adventures, not Wally Whale's Deep Sea Adventure) required an extra flight, so I guess it all evens out. Like I said, we'll be back. And another very unique Vekoma was up and running (albeit briefly), and that's in a coming update.

 

Great stuff! I love how many places have a licensing agreement with Disney How was the food at the parks?

 

For some reason, we were having big breakfasts and big dinners and just didn't eat much in the parks themselves. Some of it was nasty, as in, this society eats parts of the chicken that you and I might normally throw away (remember Mr. Chicken from the TPR China trip in '08?). We didn't see that specifically, but things like bones in a breaded chicken patty, yuck. Tea and coffee houses in the parks, however, had amazing desserts, and we did have another really nice dinner besides DinTaiFung (see Day One) that I'll report on. But overall we didn't sample a lot of park food.

 

I love the 'Death' guy!!! Did he have any souvenirs?!?!

 

Unfortunately no, but I do have a daytime shot in the next update. You're right, he is very merchandisable.

 

Thanks for following, everyone.

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Great Trip report... You've gone to all the parks I didn't do when I was there. Are you going to Janfusun Fancyworld Or Discovery World ?

 

Gravity max @ discovery world is awesome, I'm shocked they only made the one !

 

Im not all that shocked it just seems like it would be a very problematic ride

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Is this TR complete? Did you make a trip to Janfusun Fancyworld where they have the dive machine and the floorless coaster?

 

You may have noticed from reading the report that we just checked in to the Janfusun Prince Hotel and visited the "Night Park".

 

Work on Day 4 begins tonight.

 

Great TR from another one of those parks that are rarely seen! The theming looked quite decent as well!

 

Thanks for checking it out!

 

Im not all that shocked it just seems like it would be a very problematic ride

 

The complex Vekomas seem to have a lot of issues. RichardB said it was down on two tries.

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I love these little boat rides. We've seen these only in Europe and Asia. Anyone know who makes this model?

 

There is one at Gilroy Gardens (aka, Bonfante Gardens) in Gilroy, CA called Rainbow Garden. I believe it was built by Chance Morgan, but I do not have any idea about the make of the one you posted a photo of. It could very well be Chance. If you haven't been to the park before, I strongly suggest you check it out.

 

Dang, I totally loved Gilroy Gardens! But we somehow missed the boat ride! We may have done CGA, GG, and SCBB in one day. Checking...yep, May 3rd, 2008. We're waiting for something big/new to show up one of at the NorthernCal parks and we'll head out there again.

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The complex Vekomas seem to have a lot of issues. RichardB said it was down on two tries.

 

Erm, no I didn't. It was down on my first visit due to Typhoon Sinlaku (reasonable) but would have been operational otherwise.

 

The ride I've missed twice is Screaming Condor at Leofoo Village.

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The complex Vekomas seem to have a lot of issues. RichardB said it was down on two tries.

 

Erm, no I didn't. It was down on my first visit due to Typhoon Sinlaku (reasonable) but would have been operational otherwise.

 

The ride I've missed twice is Screaming Condor at Leofoo Village.

 

Whoops, got my coasters mixed up. Sorry RB.

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