Attraction Review: China Dinosaur Park


China Dinosaur Park was one of my most anticipated parks of the entire trip. I was more intrigued than anything I think. Like here's this city, with a theme park in the middle, with a fucking S&S 4D coaster of all things, with extremely elaborate theming themed to...dinosaurs? On paper it just seems like the randomest, most insane thing. And well...it kind of is exactly that yh. And I loved it!








The origianl plan for this day was to hit China Dino first and then head down to World Joyland in the afternoon. As things would transpire we actually ended up spending a lot of our day here with the Chinese Coaster Club which was absolutely amazing! I've always said it but one of the things I love the most about this crazy hobby is that you end up with friends literally all over the world, and I think that's truly amazing.









So the park then. We got a cab from the train station to the area where the park is. And when I say taxi I mean...the back of some dude's car. It's a thing in China, just go with it you'll be fine. Also worth nothing, the train station didn't actually have any left luggage area of note, so we ended up lugging ours with us and leaving it at the park concierge instead which was not bad at all (especially as we had the help of the CCC members translating for us!).


The area the park is in is...frankly it's bizarre. In the middle of a built up city centre, there's this crazy leisure spot themed to dinosaurs (apparently the city, Changzhou, is famous for having a lot of dino fossil discoveries or something?). But it's like, not just the theme park - you have that, plus a shopping area, hotel and water park (amongst other things) ALL THEMED TO DINOSAURS! Just...what the hell. One of the fabulous things about China and leisure areas like this is that things don't always make sense, so you just kind of have to go with it.

So first up, ERT on Dinoconda! We were sooooo grateful for this - I'd heard absolute horror stories about the painful operations of this coasters so was so glad that we didn't have to spend hours of our day agonisingly queuing. It even took a while when we were with the CCC so god knows how long the poor souls in the actual queue ends up waiting. And damn. What a coaster! New entry to the top ten for me for sure. Where X2 is just brutal and Eejanaika I ended up punching myself in the face and giving myself a black eye, so they weren't exactly high up on my list to compare to.








But Dinoconda somehow manages to find that fine balance between horrendous brutality and amazing fun to just give one hell of a punch. I think we rode two or three times in the end and every single time I found myself just getting to the point where I'd have tapped out before spinning in another direction and experiencing a whole different set of forces on my body. It was bloody fantastic, I truly wish the ops weren't so dire so we could have reridden a couple more times (and managed to nab a few more photos of it in operation booo!)

The other coaster at this park is an indoor motorbike coaster (without a launch much to our surprise!) What was really cool is it's actually pretty well themed inside and you end up riding around the bones of a huge dead dino. Neat!



The theming in general in the park is absolutely obscene. It's kind of...Dinotopia meets Islands of Adventure's Lost City. Honestly it was just so, so immersive. I love a park where I feel like I could spend all day just wandering around and looking at the amazing theming surrounding me. So, so perfect and little dino details everywhere you look. One of my favourite parts was their Main Street USA meets Dino entrance area theming - it had that old early Americana style for all the architecture but...dinofied. Really weird and kitsch, I loved it!







The rest of the rides at the park were kind of...meh? Like, obviously Dinoconda was really fab but everything else was just boring, off the shelf flat rides and bland water rides. The centre of the park is a giant dinosaur museum with a big log flume running through it, but tragically this wasn't operating when we visited which I was pretty gutted about. Weirdly, I hate getting wet but I do really love a log flume?






We spent the majority of our day mooching and wandering around tbh. It was a strange day, the ride count was pretty low but honestly it was one of my favourite park visits of the entire trip. If you're every anywhere near Shanghai I really would recommend travelling out to try out China Dinosaur Park for yourself, it's an absolute gem!

Talk later xoxo,

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