Suzhou, Jiangsu, China – Sunday, June 5th, 2011
Suzhou is a popular tourist destination within China. The city is famous for its gardens and canals, earning it the nickname “The Venice of the East.” That popularity has also opened the opportunity for more
modern forms of tourism, such as amusement parks. When I first sketched out what I wanted to do with a full day in Suzhou, I was hopeful that there would be time for both the amusement parks I wanted to visit as well as the gardens and canals. However, the exact details of that plan didn’t come together until the night before, when it became more apparent how ambitious the idea was. Various delays and improvisational planning with trains and busses in the morning meant that I didn’t arrive at my first destination, Suzhou Amusement Land, until 11:30am, nearly two and a half hours after opening. With most of the city’s attractions closing around 5:00pm, I’d have to make cuts to my schedule, and unfortunately, the gardens and canals were the obvious target.
In retrospect, I probably made… the correct choice? As much as that makes me sound like a philistine, the UNESCO-graded cultural heritage sites aren’t going anywhere anytime soon (one certainly hopes), but as time would reveal, both amusement parks were not long for this world. Suzhou Amusement Land permanently closed its gates in 2017, and my second destination, Giant Wheel Park of Suzhou, also shut down one year later. All the major rides were scrapped. Both had unique aspects I wouldn’t find anywhere else. I’ll be back to China many more times in the future with a greater focus on the culture and cuisine. In the year of 2011, I got to focus on the more youthful pursuit of riding as many roller coasters as I could. And Suzhou Amusement Land had several on offer.
How many coasters, exactly? I couldn’t quite remember off the top of my head, but as I entered the park I made my way to the one I could see.
While I wouldn’t be seeing the famed Classical Gardens of Suzhou, this amusement park does have a few of its own, taking on a decidedly more European styling. The amount of gardening and facades throughout this park was more ambitious than I might have expected, even if the execution was somewhat inconsistent.
First coaster of the day. Max Speed may look similar to the Japanese-made Roller Coaster I recently experienced at Jin Jiang Action Park, but this is actually a Chinese-made knock-off by Beijing Shibaolai Amusement Equipment. With the fate of the last Senyo Kogyo “Atomic” model uncertain, it would seem the slightly unconventional plan for this double-dipping, forward-lift, shuttle loop coaster will live on in the few Chinese variants that remain.
One of the more unusual ride informational signs I’ve read, with a whole backstory that sounds lifted from the libretto for the world’s worst space rock opera.
Adding to my time crunch for the day, the queue was fairly full. It would take nearly 45 minutes to board.
Finally got to ride. Can’t say I remember much specifically from the coaster, although I may have enjoyed the Japanese version at Jin Jiang a bit more. Not having to queue for that one certainly helped.
What I do remember was after exiting the coaster and getting a few photos, a Chinese family whom had been waiting near me in the queue for the past hour, finally decided before we dispersed to ask for a photo with the foreigner. There wasn’t much said besides “photo, photo!” but before I could decline I found myself posing like a character mascot with the family patriarch for a one-on-one photo op. It wasn’t the first time this happened, and they quickly switched it up so now the rest of the family could get a shot with me too.
They eventually left to excitedly review their photos without much of a thank you… but by that point a small impromptu queue had started forming nearby! Maybe people thought I must have been a visiting celebrity, or maybe it was just the dam-breaking effect: everyone secretly wants a photo with a foreigner but doesn’t want to be the first to ask. Either way, I hastily waved them away and made a break from the crowds.
My unexpected celebrity didn’t stick for long and I very quickly went back to being an anonymous stranger. Good thing too, as my next coaster was very close by, a Golden Horse Space Car model kiddie coaster called Small Whirlwind Coaster. It wasn’t my first of this model to ride, but it was unique in that it was located entirely under a large platform next to Max Speed, and even included a tight fabric tube tunnel along the layout. The wait was about than 10 minutes, not terrible all things considered, but not ideal for a kiddie credit either.
I was tempted to finish the park’s collection of coasters as quickly as possible, but this facade for a “Small World” style attraction called Fairytale World caught my eye. With zero wait, I opted to quickly hop on and see what it was about.
The ride was one of the more blatant copies of the Mary Blair attraction design. At times you could almost convince yourself you were at a Disney park, but the dim lighting, echoing music, dead-eyed dolls, flashing strip lights, and random absurdities (wait, were those the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles??) all made it feel like a drug-fueled horror excursion.
It even has a random Mattel logo. It’s a Small World used to be sponsored by Mattel from 1991 to 1998, so it seems the makers of this ride just copied everything they could see from their reference research when they built this version in the mid-90’s, without any consideration for why it was that way in the first place.
I’m actually very glad I took the time to ride it, because out of all the weird knock-off Disney attractions I’ve ever encountered, this one far and away takes the cake for being the most unsettling. A worthy accomplishment!
While these first three attractions were all clustered next to each other, I’d have to explore the other corners of the park to find my next destination.
A Waikiki Wave and a Flying Island of unknown provenance are among the rides at Suzhou Amusement Land.
Do I want to go to the Suspended Looping Roller Coaster or the Uphill Footpath? Both sound about equally fun!
A large lake sits at the middle of the park.
There it is.
Situated between the water and Lion Mountain, their Suspended Looping Coaster is one of the more spectacular-looking versions ever built.
It’s also no ordinary SLC. While it has the same sequence of elements as the standard model plus the helix extension, a slight change to the curvature around the first rollover inversions and the following banked turn allows the rest of the layout to be mirrored, creating a more sprawling and very different looking layout. Only two were ever built; you can see how it works in this aerial photo from its twin in Thailand.
Once again there was a long wait. While passing the time, why not pose for a picture before wandering off into the low clearance zones beneath the coaster?
Nearly 45 minutes later I was about to board.
Again, all the same elements but in slightly different positions. The difference was less noticeable from on the ride, which still felt very much like a standard Vekoma SLC.
There is one good surprise at the end, though. The final helix actually cuts into an underground tunnel at the base of the mountain. It’s a pretty narrow, dark tunnel too, unusual to find on an inverted coaster.
When Suzhou Amusement Land closed in 2017, rather than sell and relocate this relatively new coaster to a different park it made plans to creatively adapt the steel structure into the frame for an aviary. I’m glad to see that even if the amusement park couldn’t stay, it’s still found use for the history of the site and will maintain this landscape’s use as an urban natural recreation space.
The project was supposed to be finished by 2020, but I haven’t seen any further evidence of completion since the plans were shared with numerous design blogs a couple years ago.
With a couple of long waits I needed to get a move on to my second destination. On my way back to the front gate I passed through the park’s kitschy European village section.
Write your own caption for this one. I’m not touching it.
British and American Street. I’m sure somewhere in the west there’s a combined Chinese and Japanese garden or something, so I guess it’s only fair…
Final note: the large cathedral-like structure at the end of this street was actually home to the park’s fourth roller coaster, an indoor Zyklon model called Space Adventure (with matching theming, despite the exterior of the building). It had been a while since I checked the RCDb listing for this park and for some reason had it in my head that it had only three coasters. So I missed what could have been a perfectly viable coaster credit.
However, while I had to slap my forehead after checking RCDb later, in retrospect my forgetfulness may have turned out for the best. Presumably I would have encountered another slow-moving queue which almost certainly would have put my already-tight schedule at Giant Wheel Park of Suzhou in further jeopardy. Whether intentional or not, it was rightfully time to move on…
bummer that small world is gone. so i’m going to make one froum srach