Photo TR: Fantawild Adventure Taian (Sept. 1, 2012)

Today I made my first visit to a Fantawild Adventure. I visited the Fantawild Adventure in Taian, which is in Shandong province. This park is a very nice park. The castle and main street area seem to copy Disney with a few modifications. There are two Vekoma knock offs here. Vesuvius Volcano is a mine train made that copies the Vekoma mine trains at the Happy Valley parks here in China, but it is made by a company called Golden Horse. Flare Meteor is an SLC by Golden Horse. It is a mirror image of the Vekoma SLCs at the Happy Valley parks. Flare Meteor was rough, but I still enjoyed it. Vesuvius Volcano is a very good mine train. I love mine trains and I love this layout. There is a smaller coaster called Climbing Train. I was denied the credit for this one as I am too tall. Climbing Train is not on the RCDB or ACE Coaster Census. This is the 123rd coaster I have found before ACE or RCDB. I tried to get on this coaster and the exchange of words went like this:

Darren: I want to ride this.

Ride Op: You are too tall.

Darren: ...but I'm a manboy.

Ride Op: Your brain has a problem.

Needless to say I was all heartbroken at being denied the credit.

Another ride at Fantawild in Taian is Mystical River. It is a combination of a chutes ride and a coaster that features gravity propelled drops and sections of dry track-complete with two chain lifts. Other rides include a wave swinger that is enclosed by some odd structure and a handful of 3-D attractions and simulators.

In all, I was impressed by my first visit to a Fantawild park. The park clearly tries to be Disney with a few thrill rides added in, but it has a unique atmosphere of its own.

I have arrived at Fantawild Adventure in Taian.

This huge castle is inside the gate.

Here is my obligatory carousel shot for this TR.

This is Conch Bay. It hosts a 3-D film that is a lot of fun.

This is one of the more popular rides at Fantawild.

Here are a couple of other rides.

The wave swinger here is covered by an odd structure.

This restaurant serves up yummy food.

This houses a dinosaur attraction. I like how this building is upside down.

This kiddie coaster is called Climbing Train.

It is a cute little coaster.

Climbing Train packs a lot of fun into a small space.

Too bad adults are not allowed to ride.

Here is the entrance to Vesuvius Volcano.

Here is Vesuvius Volcano in action.

The large drop on Mystical River was covered. It was a dry drop(no water on the drop) with a wet splashdown.

This is Flare Meteor as seen from across the lake.

Here is another look at Flare Meteor.

Flying through the loop.

Here is an action shot.

Here is one final action shot of Flare Meteor to close out the TR.

thank you for continuing to provide these PTRs. I'm finally catching up and adding them to the Park Index.

Something that I've noticed is that a lot of the parks you report on seem to have a few rides and buildings that look really nice and well themed, but most of the other rides just kinda sit out on the midway with no real effort to theme them. Also looks like they might have been inspired by the swings in the orange that once stood at DCA.

Lol they copied the failed DCA wave swinger in an orange! I guess they put it in a lime though.

Another Chinese park that looks fantastic in photos.

This park not only looks great in photos, it is a great park. Most parks in China are part of larger city parks. In these parks, the buildings are kept in good condition while the rides rust away. In parks like OTC parks or Fantawild, the rides are kept in good condition. Modern parks in China are really awesome even if they tend to copy coasters from other parks.

The castle here looks like Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland and that "ice cream building" at Six Flags Great Adventure had a baby.

Looks like they copied a few other parks along the way too!

Just wanted to thank you for your reports. I do read them but haven't posted responses before.

Here's an odd question. Since you've experienced quite a few Golden Horse knockoffs is there anything they do that you would consider as decent rides?" I know we tend to pick on Vekoma's rides for head banging but I'd hate to experience what a knockoff ride is like.

It looks like Fantawild definitely drew some inspiration from Disney California Adventure's former Orange Stinger (now the Silly Symphony Swings) with that design.

It might actually be the same exact structure, it looks like they pulled it out of a dumpster.

I didn't know Wonderworks existed in China!

http://www.wonderworksonline.com/

The Golden Horse rides are very faithful copies of the rides they copy. The mine trains and SLCs both provide an identical ride experience to the Vekomas.