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by Lim Hui Sin
News that Disney is to build a theme park in Shanghai was confirmed late last year, and this year preparations for construction began. It will be another five to six years before the park is completed, but in the meantime a number of homegrown theme parks have appeared around China, and some old stalwarts have added new attractions to keep up with the competition and market demands.
Here is a roundup of what’s new and up coming in the Middle Kingdom.
World Joyland
World Joyland, located in Changzhou, part of Jiangsu Province in eastern China, is slated to open at the end of this year. The park is located within the Taihu tourism resort district and will be China’s first theme park based on animation art and online digital games.
Built by the theme park arm of Jiazi Company—whose businesses include real estate and web technology—the park aims to meld online and offline interactivity. The attractions are based on the company’s online games platform, www.ccjoy.com.
According to the project manager, Xu Yingjie, the park will be closely integrated with the gaming platform, allowing gamers and park visitors to do both practical errands like purchasing tickets as well as accumulate points both online and at the park for prizes and other rewards.
A children’s attraction based on the online game “Mole World” will also be included within the park. This classic game currently has 7,000 registered users, and all the main features of the game setting—such as the Mushroom Tunnel, the Secret Jam Pathway, and the Mole Castle—will be brought to life.
 Themed zones within the park include Global Legends, Space Legend, Mystery Island, and others; there will be a total of 200 attractions in nine zones, of which a third will be international firsts. A shopping street with cartoon specialty shops like Japan’s Sanrio will also be included. EDAW, EREMCO, and Jack Rouse Associates have all been employed as consultants for the park, and according to Xu, planning and design is already costing 19 million yuan (US$2.8 million).
The developers likened the park experience to “Disney gone digital,” saying the park will feature many virtual game sets brought to life. Phase 1 is slated to open to the public at the end of the year and will include “one park, one center, one hub.” “One park” refers to the theme park, while “one center” refers to a digital animation showcase as well as trading venue, where rights on games and other digital technology products can be bought and sold. “One hub” is an online digital gaming center that will be located on the eastern end of the theme park. This will be a venue for gaming competitions and training.
A flying coaster from Bolliger & Mabillard is set to be the tallest, longest, and fastest of its type in Asia. The coaster features 855 meters (2,805 feet) of track, a drop of 40 meters (131 feet), and a top speed of 88 kilometers per hour (55 miles per hour). The course will include four full loops and three half loops. Joyland has said it would be the flying coaster with the highest number of motion elements in the world.
Another highly anticipated ride is Asia’s only Skyloop XT 150 coaster from Maurer Soehne. The X-Car will have a top speed of 105 kmh (65 mph).
Happy Magic Water Cube
When Beijing hosted the Olympic Games in 2008, the Water Cube drew international attention not just for the number of smashed records during the swimming competitions, but for its stunning architecture, as well. Now the venue, officially known as the National Aquatics Center, is set for a second lease on life as a huge indoor waterpark within the Olympic Green in Beijing.
The developers say this revamp cost some 200 million yuan (US$29.4 million) and resulted in one of the largest waterparks in the world when it reopened in July. They are expecting up to 6,000 visitors a day and forecast first-year attendance of 1.8 million visitors.
The Water Cube closed to the public Oct. 15, 2009; its rebirth this summer, courtesy of Toronto-based firm Forrec, came with new facilities that include the Tornado funnel slide and Bullet Bowl and PIPEline from ProSlide. The company’s first RideHOUSE family waterplay structure also made its international debut at the new waterpark. It features 12 specialty slides as well as water cannons and active water sprays and is suitable for both children and adults. Other rides include the Aqua Loop—the first in China—and the Aqua Tube body slide, both from Whitewater West. Empex Watertoys, meanwhile, contributed a 5,000-square-foot children’s play area featuring a number of interactive water elements and several small slides geared for visitors up to age 12.
In addition to tried-and-true waterpark rides, there will be cafes, shops, and other leisure facilities. Australian waterpark veteran Alan Mahony was brought in to oversee park operations.
Shantou Fantawild Adventure
Costing 800 million yuan (US$117 million) to build, Shantou Fantawild Adventure occupies more than 240,000 square meters (59 acres) in south China’s Guangdong province. The fantasy marine theme park opened in February this year, and all of its rides and attractions were supplied by Chinese firms.
The park, which is jointly developed by Fantawild Holdings and the Jingfeng Group, has 20 main attractions spread over nine zones: the Milky Way Plaza, Space Tour, Mysterious West, Dino Rampage, Conch Bay, Lost Empire, Duludubi Farm, Kid’s Zone, and Water World. Developers say it is designed to accommodate 2 million visitors annually.
Highlights include “Dino Rampage,” which integrates 3- D animation clips, 4-D disaster simulation, and dynamic motion cars that seat six to eight people. The movements of the car include swaying from side to side, pitching up and down, and a falling action that is synchronized with the scenarios.
Another attraction, the “Floating Sphere” 4-D theater, features a hemispherical screen where up to 72 people seated in the auditorium are raised from the ground on a dynamic chair system, with the topmost row of seats suspended 46 feet aboveground and the lowermost seats suspended 23 feet high. The chairs feature movements that include vertical pitching, simulated diving, and climbing.
Rides in the park include a spinning coaster, a looping roller coaster, and a suspended coaster, all supplied by Golden Horse.
Old Parks, New Rides
Knight Valley in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China, is part of the OCT East resort and opened in 2009. It has announced plans to add new rides slated to start operating in 2010 and 2011. Great Coasters International (GCI) is building a 1,468 meter (4,817-foot) wooden coaster for the park. Named “Major Woody,” it will feature a 147-foot lift and a 131-foot triple-down first drop that stunningly cascades down the side of a mountain. The ride starts with a castle fly through and features 80 degrees of banking. Two Millennium Flyer trains will be used for the ride, which has a top speed of 61.2 kmh (38 mph). This will be the first roller coaster at the park.
 Maurer Soehne is also building two coasters for Knight Valley. One is a SkyLoop (X-Car) coaster featuring a 360- degree corkscrew and vertical drop at a speed of 105 kmh (65 mph). The ride uses 150 meters (492 feet) of track and is 52 meters (170.6 feet) at its highest point. The second coaster is an X-Car launcher with 316 meters (1,037 feet) of track that will open in 2011. Passengers can expect to be shot upward at an acceleration of 0 to 70 kmh (43.5 mph) in two seconds.
The third phase of the Changzhou China Dinosaur Park, located in southeastern China’s Jiangsu province, has added several attractions to the park, which has been in operation since 2001. A new dinosaur-themed Zamperla Moto Coaster is one of the attractions that started operating this year. The junior coaster, which is 20.5 meters (67 feet) high, has a top speed of 65 kmh (40.4 mph). There’s a choice of regular or sit-astride ride vehicles, and the ride features a 500-meter (1,640-foot) course with curves, dips, and climbs.
Other rides that opened this year include a King Kong attraction made by Huss, a Huss Sky Tower, and a Combo Tower ride by S&S Worldwide that features both Space Shot and Turbo Drop.
In addition, more rides are coming up. S&S has been commissioned to build its new Fourth Dimension Coaster with a 76-meter (250-foot) lift hill and a vertical plunge at 130 kmh (81 mph), and follows with turns, dives, and half twists. The trains seat 24 passengers each, and the seats go head over heels and spin forward and backward during the ride, creating an added element of surprise over the sequence of turns and twists on the course.
Lim Hui Sin is a writer and translator based in China. Originally from Singapore, she has been living in Shanghai for nine years. She can be reached at sinify@gmail.com.
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