Guanxi, Hsinchu, Taiwan – Friday, May 6th, 2011
After wrapping up at Window on China Theme Park in a couple of hours, I called a taxi near the front of the park and took a quick drive to the nearby Leofoo Village Theme Park, the largest theme park in the greater Taipei metropolitan area. The ride was quick and cheap; I always figured with my low budget that taxis would be used in exceptional circumstances only, but in China and Taiwan they proved to be very cost effective where buses weren’t available, as was oddly the case traveling between these two parks despite the fact that they even sell a combined ticket. Apparently they expect that ticket only to be used on separate days and don’t account for park-hopping transportation; when I bought mine the sales host insisted I wouldn’t have enough time to do both in a single day. Please. You’re talking to a professional.
I arrived around 1:30 in the afternoon, giving me a few solid hours to explore before the park closed at 5:00pm. It appeared as though a Spongebob-themed water park was on its way in the near future, which I believe would have made this the first example of western IP being licensed in a Taiwanese theme park. (Since then, it appears they’ve let the license lapse and it’s now just “Leofoo Water Park”.)
Leofoo Village is laid out as a hub-and-spoke park with four theme zones. Unlike most hub-and-spoke parks, there’s no themed entry, it just dumps you into a giant empty hub that looks a lot more like it’s part of a public park than a theme park. I’m not sure what purpose this area was expected to serve, as it seemed to have next to zero functionality in terms of food, shopping, entertainment, or even just attractive landscaping to walk among. It’s there because someone once told them a theme park should have a hub, but not the reason why.
Despite the less than impressive arrival statement, turning into the first theme zone, Wild West, quickly revealed a theme park that had some experienced designers behind it. (In this case, it would appear to be Battaglia Inc.) Lose the Chinese text and cutesy mascots and it would almost feel like I’d wandered into a decent regional theme park somewhere in the Midwestern U.S.
I made a beeline to my #1 priority for the entire day: Screaming Condor.
Screaming Condor was the only Intamin Twist & Spike Impulse Coaster to open outside of the United States during the model’s brief heyday in the early 2000’s. (This further further reinforces the park’s feeling of being airlifted out of the Midwest; notwithstanding the non-twisting prototype Linear Gale at Tokyo Dome City.) It was also the only full-sized thrill coaster to be found in the greater Taipei area that I would get to ride today. Unfortunately it also had a reputation for often being out of operation, which made my visit a bit of a gamble.
This particular installation is unique in that it’s partially built on a hillside, with the back spike emerging from the middle of the pathway through an underground tunnel.
The entrance is hidden in the back of an arcade. While an odd setup for a marquee ride, I kind of liked the sense of discovery. If only more arcades could have a large steel coaster in their basement collection you have to ask the clerk to see.
While first signs weren’t encouraging, it turned out to be opening soon, with its current quiet part of a scheduled afternoon maintenance period. (This is a common if not annoying practice among Asian theme parks.)
I wasn’t going to risk it potentially having a breakdown later in the day so I opted to wait it out to ensure I’d be on the first train out of the station. It wasn’t clear how much of the waiting was for maintenance and how much was just part of the standard procedure of waiting 10-15 minutes between cycles to save on energy costs.
Fortunately, I was soon let in and claimed my seat in the front row.
The biggest difference from the US versions was that they never installed the rear spike holding brake. Depending on your preferences, that may have been an improvement. The location was somewhat unique, with the underground station and a green forest surrounding the forward spike. That said, the Impulse coaster is also probably one of the worst production model coasters out there with which to enjoy the surrounding landscape. You’re moving so fast in a straight line, and even the tunnel barely even registered while on the ride.
While I’m not a huge fan of the Impulse coasters, which register more as extreme flat rides than a true aesthetic coaster, the better integration with the setting nudges it ahead to being the best of the single-twist variety. If only the operational procedures were better so I could have gotten more than three rides in an afternoon. (Or any photos of it in motion, for that matter.)
The Wild West section is home to two of the park’s three coasters. Next up on the agenda was Little Rattler.
Little Rattler is a Vekoma Roller Skater, of the larger 335m variety most familiar to theme park fans as Flight of the Hippogriff in Florida.
The most noteworthy thing I can recall about this ride was that it was the only attraction today I’d have to wait for due to the formation of an actual, human-filled queue.
I lucked into the front row seat. Soon I was on my way for a ride I would easily forget if I didn’t record it.
A few other attractions to look at (but not take the time to ride) include the Old Oil Well looping flat ride…
…Pancho Villa’s Crazy Barrels, conspicuously presented by Budweiser (you know, for kids!) and continuing the theme of derpy-looking mascot sculpts in the ride signs…
…and several kiddie rides like the cutely-themed Wild Wagon Round-Up wheel and Two Step Twister, or a parking-lot carnival train ride…
Later in the day I tried the Big Canyon Rapids Ride, presented by nothing!
This ride sort of lives up to its name by featuring a very broad river rapid channel in sections.
It was also one of the most passive rapid rides I’d been on (good if you don’t like getting wet, like me), with relatively little theming in comparison to the standard seen around the rest of the park.
Continuing the globally-themed adventure is the South Pacific land.
The tropical greenery and tiki vibe is cool so far…
There’s a tropical bird-themed family spinning ride, Bird Flight.
The curiously-named but nicely-themed Pagoda’s Revenge Intamin 2nd-Gen drop tower was clearly out of operation today.
And then there’s the land’s centerpiece attraction, the Mighty Mountain Flume Adventure.
This fairly long log flume attraction from Intamin lets you climb in a Pacific Islander canoe and go on a wild water adventure…
…and escape dinosaurs!
Wait, what? Dinosaurs in the South Pacific? And LOTS of them, apparently.
Yes, dinosaurs somehow made it into the South Pacific themed land, because what tropical paradise isn’t complete without being overrun by extinct flesh-eating monsters? I’m guessing someone from the park saw reference from Jurassic Park, Land of the Lost, or King Kong’s Skull Island when searching for tropical reference imagery during the design and figured why not. Two themes at the same time is better than one, right?
Leaving the “why?” of it all aside, this was still a pretty decent log flume, with two drops and a small indoor portion, with pretty extensive landscaping throughout. Only complaint would be the water flows a little slow in sections, and some moving show-action equipment would have been nice to really commit to the absurdity of the theme.
Plus, honestly, the Polynesian dinos might have been the most charming discovery in a park that otherwise focuses on competently reusing well-worn thematic tropes. Apart from Screaming Condor, it’s probably the attraction that most sticks out fresh in my memory nine years later.
Flying off to the next land…
By first appearances, Arabian Kingdom is the park’s most impressive thematically detailed land. The entire area is enclosed on all sides by built structures to control the sightlines and create a sense of “immersion.”
However, the hardscape lacks some of the organic textures and warmth of the other lands, and the large amount of visual stimulus from the ornamentation in all directions gets a bit overwhelming. The cul-de-sac design of the land in the back of the park also seemed to limit the flow of visitors, and as a result Arabian Kingdom felt dead and oppressive. The fact that many of the structures weren’t designed with easy cleaning access in mind meant that this opulent realm had lost some of its luster.
The part I mentioned about western IP at the top of the post obviously only applies to fully licensed and approved IP…
The real disappointment however was that the land’s anchor attraction, Sultan’s Adventure, was closed for refurbishment. This was supposedly an Indiana Jones Adventure-style EMV dark ride. Without that running, this land had little else going for it.
Checking a trip report from the next month, it appears as though I may have taken a trade-off in the refurbishment schedule between this ride and Screaming Condor. While I obviously would have liked to have tried what was probably the most conceptually ambitious and original attraction in the park, given the trade-off I’m still kind of glad I got the coaster credit instead.
With Sultan’s Adventure closed, I found my way over to Arabian Wonders, a self-described “Dynamic Motion Theater” simulating a magic carpet ride to “relieve the princess” inside the palace. Uh huh. Exactly what kind of carpet are we riding?
The pre-show area was fairly well done, with murals that perhaps communicate the story better than any of the actual ride show did.
Then the pre-show itself started, and the result was unintentionally hilarious. Have the audio-animatronics ever been refurbished, or does their Aladdin simply suffer from severe clinical depression?
Things continued to slide downhill as we moved into the boarding area, with a painfully corny safety video from boxy video monitors, into a 4D motion seat show that was all kinds of inexplicable. While I could perhaps grock the intent, this was a clear example of how media-based attractions can be a risky proposition for parks that have no affiliation with media companies.
Just outside was yet another flying carpet themed attraction, the creatively named Flying Carpet.
A better use of time, this flying carpet-style flat ride was perched up on a roof for some good views of the land and the enormous show building for Sultan’s Adventure.
Perhaps the best ride operating in this land was the Ring of Fire, a Larson Looper ride.
Does it really fit with the Arabian Kingdom theme? Not really. Does it still serve as a cool-looking kinetic visual anchor in the land and provide some epic hang time around the top? You bet! Props for taking a carnival classic and working it into a heavily themed environment.
Embarking to the final land…
The African Safari zone predates the other three zones as the original attraction at Leofoo, with a much simpler design that has more in common with a zoo than a theme park, although a few updates have been made. This land focuses heavily on animal exhibits and attractions, although there are a couple of rides, including an elevated monorail and a large train ride through the safari environment. I forget if I skipped these attractions because they had already closed for the afternoon, because they were too long and would have precluded re-visiting some of the other zones before park close, or I simply was uninterested or unaware of them. As far as animal exhibits go, I didn’t see anything that seemed particularly rare or exclusive that I hadn’t seen in other zoos, so I’d rather focus my limited time elsewhere.
Flamingos. One of these things is not like the others…
Featuring fake animal scenery in a place where you’re exhibiting real animals? I don’t recommend it.
Are red-eared sliders exotic to Taiwanese? When I was a kid I once kept a pet red-eared slider that was rescued from the side of the road.
There was one other attraction in African Safari I was much more interested in: Sahara Twist.
Sahara Twist (or “Twister,” as the lead car implies) is an Intamin Twist and Turn spinning coaster, one of three built in the world. It’s an odd ride in concept, with a long train and simple layout that feels a bit like an updated Tivoli coaster.
That said, there’s a respectable if not insane amount of spinning, the layout tracks pretty smoothly, and it was by far the most unique coaster that I had ridden today which is worth something for having traveled so far. Deserving of a solid “Hmm!” (with raised intonation) as opposed to a “Hmm…” (with flat intonation).
I even got to ride in the front, behind the weird geode lead car they copied from Lotte World.
And with that, my tour of Leofoo Village Theme Park was complete.
Leofoo Village should be the best theme park in Taiwan. They’re so close to it, and have a huge advantage with an ambitious and still thematically-consistent masterplan and a good location near Taipei with room to grow. Unfortunately, apart from a massive $200 million expansion in the early 90’s that added three of the major themed zones, and an echo period of reinvestment in the early 2000’s, the theme park itself has since spent the next decade-plus mostly stuck in a place that left just enough of an opening for other parks in Taiwan to still compete.
The real challenge comes down to the choice of unique flagship attractions. Perhaps Sultan’s Adventure was meant to be the park’s game-changer (there’s likely a reason they chose
the Arabian Kingdom to feature in the park’s logo), yet where does that leave the park when it’s down for maintenance? Besides, from my experience, heavily themed dark rides at regional theme parks often have a hard time communicating how significant the attraction really is from the outside without any kinetic or visual anchor, or IP to signal importance. I wouldn’t doubt if many guests treat it as an elaborate spook house. Leofoo covers the rest of the bases with a selection of water rides, tower rides, flat rides, and a couple of coasters, but none of these really give them an edge apart from a slightly higher level of theming. The coasters in particular are a weak link. The family coasters have little distinction from any other park in Taiwan, and Screaming Condor in particular is a poor choice to lead the park’s thrill collection, especially when it has
so many maintenance and energy requirements the park seems ill-equipped to deal with. The Impulse coaster is a great compliment to an existing coaster collection, but it’s too weird and limited of an experience to be the park’s only big coaster. This is where Leofoo falls behind Janfusun and Discovery World farther south; a second big coaster with a full layout somewhere in one of the other theme zones would do wonders for this park.
Even without anything new, Leofoo is still probably the park in Taiwan I’d most want to return to if I could only pick one, and not only for the attractions I missed. It was clearly built with a creative vision that is rare for homegrown Asian theme parks, and has just enough eccentricities to reward a well-traveled enthusiast.
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