Hot Go Park Happy Jungle World 30th April 2019

Our final day in Shenyang ended up as a spare due to a combination of circumstances, and we decided that we'd use it to mop up some of the rides that we'd missed earlier in the week. Though it was tempting to forget about Hot Go Park Happy Jungle World after a miserable day there we decided that we'd go back for a few hours in the hope of ticking off our missing rides and getting another lap or two on the wood coaster. We used a DiDi for the hour long journey from our hotel that cost us 90 RMB (~€11.51), and managed to arrive five minutes before the posted opening time.

We knew that none of the coasters would open with the park, and as such we decided to begin our visit with Bloody Manor, a walkthrough featuring a mirror maze and a few vaguely haunted scenes. The experience was quite short, though what was there was worthwhile and varied; a room full of skeletons was followed by another with a few alien bodies in stasis behind a glass window with lighting vaguely reminiscent of something from the X-Files.

It was 9:30am when we arrived at the Forest Slide alpine coaster. Staff told us that they were not ready to operate yet, and that we should come back at 10:00am. We made our way over to the adjacent Jungle Walk, which clearly was ready as four cars were in the station and the lift wheels were spinning. The lone operator told us that his ride would open at 9:40am, and we decided that we might as well wait. He spent the next ten minutes doing something with his mobile phone before eventually wandering back to the gate and letting us in. The layout could have done with being a little faster, but it was a respectable experience nonetheless and it was nice to have the chance to do it a second time.

We returned to the alpine coaster, only to learn that the start time had now changed to 10:30am. We decided to hang around on the grounds that any further disappearance would probably push the time out further. Our presence seemed to galvanize the staff into action, and against all expectation we began the boarding process at 10:16am. Anita and I were required to share a car, as apparently Bruno was too tall to share. Having taken our seat we discovered that the seatbelt was jammed; moments later we disembarked and waited for another ten minutes while they swapped one of the four sleds on track for another. I counted at least ten additional sleds in the storage cabinet on the station wall that are presumably kept there primarily for decorative purposes.

Seemingly hours later we were secured in our seat, but before we could set off the we were required to fully understand the safety instructions. The staff decided that the best way for us to do this was to enter each rule individually into translation software. This took quite a while to do, but in due course the process was complete and we were allowed on our merry way. Forest Slide proved to be reasonably worthwhile, though very short; it took less than thirty seconds from dispatch to the brake at the end of the ride, which was a poor return on investment after so much time faffing about. We were at the top of the first of two lifts before Bruno was dispatched behind us, and we arrived back at the station five minutes before he did. The maximum capacity was a thoroughly embarrassing twenty-four guests per hour, assuming two per sled, though on the positive side this was a full sixty percent faster than what it had been a few days earlier.

We tried to take the ropeway to the wood coaster, and though we made it through the first segment the second was still being tested at 10:50am, almost two hours after park opening, leaving us no choice but to walk the rest of the way. As things turned out we were the first guests of the morning at Time Travel. The blue train was parked on the transfer track, but I was able to claim the front seat of the red train. The ride experience was excellent, and allowed me to leave the park with at least one happy memory.