Richard Bannister

The Chance Rides Toboggan is an interesting looking coaster that can be extremely unpleasant to ride, due to uneven track fabrication and a cramped car design. I've ridden six versions as of this writing, and feel no desire whatsoever to add to that number. Those who read my ramblings regularly will be aware that in my experience Chinese copies of western rides do not generally improve upon the build quality of the originals, to put things mildly, and as such you can imagine my enthusiasm on discovering that the Toboggan had been cloned.

All that one needs to know about Outer Space Flying Car (#1825) can be inferred from the fact that passengers are issued with protective head gear before riding. This doesn't seem to serve any practical function other than to increase the trepidation of those waiting to board, but it certainly looks interesting for spectators. On reaching the apex of the ride, the two-seater car stops for a while so that a block brake in the station can be cleared, before it is released into a vertical loop. This hurts, as does the brake and turnaround following it. Once was more than enough.

We took a quick lap on the powered Gliding Dragon before heading for the bizarrely named Pine Forest Flying Mouse (#1826). This was definitely the highlight of the park, being a fairly decent ride – albeit one surrounded by beach and sand, with no pine trees (or indeed forest) anywhere in sight.

Vekoma sold four versions of their Giant Inverted Boomerang design at the turn of the millennium. Three of them went to parks in the United States, with the fourth turning up in Spain. Though extremely thrilling, all of these installations suffered from extensive downtime due to repeated mechanical issues, and one has to assume that this had a detrimental effect on sales. Mountain Peak (#1827) is the first new model in almost a decade, and I'm delighted to report that it is absolutely top notch, providing a forceful yet smooth ride.

Beyond the new coaster, the rest of my visit was to all intents and purposes a duplicate of my first three years ago, as I rode exactly the same set of rides and came away with the same basic impressions. The one major change that I did notice was that serious work has been done to improve the overall appearance of the park, both in landscaping and in fresh paint. The change makes the park feel like a proper amusement park rather than a semi-permanent carnival. Jin Jiang Action Park may be small, but it's well formed and worth the effort required to get there.

During the afternoon, we made stops at three small junior coasters in the Shanghai area. Chang Feng Park was the first and arguably the nicest of the three, with a good set of family rides and the Sliding Dragon (#1828), a locally built clone of the Cavazza Diego Super Nessi and a surprisingly fun ride.

The ubiquitous Wacky Worm is actually a relative rarity in China, with less than twenty examples known as of this writing. Big Worm Inertia Train (#1829) is rides exactly as all the other versions do, and may even have novelty value for the local market.

Ticket sales had stopped for the day by the time we arrived at Shanghai Zoo, but our tour organisers managed to buy entrance coupons anyway so the whole group could ride Sliding Dragon (#1830). The ride was identical to that we'd ridden earlier in the day at Chang Feng Park, but for all that it was still an unexpected bonus credit. An engineer was working on the braking system even as we rode, which would never be allowed in the western world.