Richard Bannister

This park was known as Genting Theme Park at the time this trip report was written.

Genting Theme Park is one of several attractions making up the Genting Highlands Resort, a large facility high in the mountains near Kuala Lumpur. The easiest way for tourists to make the sixty kilometer journey is via the bus, which leaves from Titiwangsa monorail station. There are trips every twenty minutes for much of the day, but be warned; it is not possible to book these before arriving at the terminus; we bought the first available tickets which left us standing around for a full hour. The vehicle in question looked like it had seen better years, and after a few minutes on the road it was immediately clear why; our driver appeared to have been a pizza delivery driver in a past life. I've never seen a bus overtake several cars while driving in the slow lane, on a steep descending turn, at speeds of more than one hundred kilometers per hour. The forces in the corners were stronger than those experienced on any of the park coasters!

The newest attraction at the park is actually located outside the park gate. The Flying Coaster (#1318) is an up-charge attraction, and it seems that this is as much for crowd management as anything else. It's not easy for any enthusiast to pay money to ride a Zamperla Volare, but on the plus side it did at least ensure a wait time of less than two minutes. Better yet, this model was considerably less uncomfortable than the other five installations, though that is of course a relative statement. Having escaped relatively unscathed there was absolutely no way I was going to risk a second lap!

The powered Flying Dragon ride had a layout largely reminiscent of the worlds only diesel powered coaster, thanks to a long scenic tour of the park leading to a few helixes. The latter were very much the downfall of the ride, as some of the turns were far too sharp for the train to negotiate without severely bruising its occupants. It was interesting to see two stations for the ride, the second located in the indoor park next door, giving management the ability to run the ride from either location. Fortunately the Rolling Thunder Mine Train (#1319) proved a much better ride. The only slight oddity was the presence of a shoulder belt in addition to the lap bar, all the stranger because mine fell off at the first high speed turn. The lap bar on its own seemed perfectly adequate to me, but what do I know?

The final two credits were as much a right of passage as anything else; a classic Corkscrew (#1320) and a carnival Pinfari in the guise of Cyclone (#1321). We decided to call it a day at this stage due to poor weather conditions, but on the way out we made a brief stop for the Pirate Train dark ride. This proved to be utterly embarrassing, a definite candidate for the worst dark ride I've ever had the misfortune to try. Coloured wallpaper and broken animatronics do not a haunted house make, and the tedium wasn't rescued by sheer silliness (as seen on Funtown Pier's amazing Sponge Bob Ride).

This park was known as First World Indoor Theme Park when this trip report was written.

First World Indoor Theme Park is part of the First World Plaza shopping mall, which is located directly next door to the main Genting Theme Park. Rides within required a more expensive wristband or pay-per-ride tickets, and we elected to go for the latter. Our only hit was a relatively dull powered coaster named Euro Express, memorable only due to the piercing screams from the locals elsewhere in the train. Given suitable ear protection it might have been amusing to watch them on a genuinely thrilling ride, which, to be frank, this wasn't.

We did spend a bit of time looking around the park, and while we tried nothing else it would be remiss of me not to mention the awesome looking Venice Gondola attraction, a boat ride with larger than life model gondoliers balanced on board. If the facial expressions of riders were anything to go by the experience must have been dull in the extreme, but it certainly looked cool!