Houli Hsiang, Taichung, Taiwan – Saturday, May 14th, 2011
By day nine of my travels in Taiwan I had experienced a lot of things.
I’d felt vertigo from both skyscrapers and national parks.
I’d hiked through nature in both touristic settings and literally off-the-beaten path.
I did theme parks based on tribal culture, ancient Greece, oceans, Chinese landmarks, and, uh, Disneyland.
I had sampled numerous night food markets and felt generally familiar with Taiwanese culture and its people, who without a doubt are among the friendliest and most accommodating people I’ve met in all my travels abroad. (Especially when having a drunken party with them on the side of a highway.)
But there was one thing I hadn’t done yet, which, being me, is kind of an important factor: I hadn’t yet ridden a good roller coaster.
There were coasters that were just fine. A handful of Vekoma Junior Coasters put into dark boxes were basically fun given what they were. A couple of oddly designed or positioned spinning coasters. A couple of basically “meh” water coasters. An SLC with some extra theming. An Impulse coaster with a tunnel. They’re better than just checking another box, especially when the theme park they’re situated within has lots of peculiar charm, as nearly all of them have had.
But it wasn’t until Day Nine that I expected to ride one that would be good enough, or at least different enough, to be worthy of a good old-fashioned ride analysis. Finally, as the bus pulled into Discovery World in Taichung, I had my target in sight…
…But there was just one last challenge. The forecast was rain.
Frankly, it was a lot of rain. Back to the moment when I first stepped off the bus, I was greeted with a very empty and wet theme park gate. And it was getting progressively wetter.
Instead of heading inside, me and many of my bus compatriots made shelter at a nearby convenience store. I found it to be a good place to lay low for a while and get a cheaper breakfast than any meal I was likely to find in the park.
Nearly an hour after park opening, the rains had lifted to a light drizzle and I finally ventured inside.
Discovery World opened in 2001 as part of the Lihpao Land Resort, making it one of the newest of the larger theme parks in Taiwan at only a decade old by the time of my visit. (The other big parks, Leofoo, Formosan, and Janfusun all trace their histories back 12 to 20 years before that.) While every other Taiwanese theme park I visited up to this day had some unique (if sometimes unusual) identity that gave it a reason for being, Discovery World was all rather… generic.
Not that there weren’t some points of interest, but the park felt utilitarian, with bright colors and arbitrary decorative elements slathered over the surfaces on an ad-hoc basis to make up for the intrinsic deficits of design. If this was a park that had slowly evolved over 30 years, I might give it a pass, but as a new-build still mostly the same as opening day, I would have liked a little (okay, a lot) more thought and care given to the idea for this theme park. It feels like nothing more than “having a theme park on a piece of land” WAS the full extent of the idea.
Wherever there might be a piece of creative flair, it would ultimately just blend in with all the other non-sequiturs. The park was technically divided into themed zones but you’d hardly know it by taking a cursory glace within any one area.
Uhh… I’m assuming this is a restaurant of some kind?
Rides were similarly rather randomized in design.
In some places they just don’t even try.
Even my secondary target of the day was down for rain. As the time crept past noon I was wondering if the day would be a total bust?
These first could of hours of overcast skies gave me time to explore the park. The only rides open were either under a roof or water-based, like this “Slow Bumper Cars in a Sad Warehouse.”
The only-slightly-less-sad arcade next to it.
The Energy Storm attraction under a roof caught my eye, and never having tried one before I decided to give it a spin. The amount of time spent held upside down certainly brought a lot of blood to my brain to help me realize that being weird and aggressive are qualities I should only tolerate in flat rides.
I’m not sure if this rusting industrial sphere hanging in the sky was intended for the theme park or originally served some other purpose predating the theme park. I went to investigate.
Beneath it was a… cactus garden. Okay, I started with one mystery and now I’ve got two.
The Wild-Crazy Flume appeared to be one of Discovery World’s more significant attractions, an O.D. Hopkins 8-seater Super Flume that’s a copy of the Wild West Flumes at the Warner Bros. theme parks.
I wasn’t very keen on getting any wetter than the damp weather already caused, but upon spying an overstuffed garbage bin of perfectly good upcharge plastic ponchos going to waste after riders finished their ride, I opted to recycle and sat down on the ride. (Yes, that’s right, I can technically now claim dumpster diving among the list of things I’ve done in a theme park.)
It was a decently long flume ride that even included a reversing section. But like much else in this park lacking in personality (if the non-committal Wild-Crazy Flume name was any indication). I had already experienced three unexpectedly good flume rides at Leofoo Village, Farglory Ocean Park, and Formosan Aboriginal Village, and this one just didn’t stack up in comparison. The ride has since gotten a volcano re-theme and re-name with some paint touch-ups on the mountain; I’m not sure if the experience inside the tunnels or outdoor channels has been improved.
They had quite a few of the spacecraft-themed boats not in service today.
A bank of hair dryers by the ride exit were popular today.
My borrowed poncho also made good use on the Wild River Canyon, an otherwise totally forgettable rapids ride past various bushes and concrete walls, also by O.D. Hopkins.
The skies were beginning to clear and more of the park was gradually coming to life. Lo and behold… a coaster credit was finally open!
Mine Express is a Vekoma 335m Junior Coaster, appearing quite familiar to me as a clone of Woodstock Express at Cedar Point, including the same trains. This was also my sixth Vekoma Junior Coaster I’d encounter in Taiwan. (Although only the fifth I’d actually get to ride. (Although still the sixth if I count the MK-700 I rode yesterday as a variant of Vekoma’s family coaster line.))
To be honest, if I were to rank the Junior Coasters, this would probably be second-to-last on the list, only surpassing the tiny oval layout of the Mini Mine Train at Window on China. Even the identically designed Little Rattler at Leofoo Village at least had a slightly more clever theme and setting to put it in. Mine Express left virtually no impression on me.
Actually I take that back, the one impression it did leave was slight confusion at the apparent use of xkcd characters to model the queue theming. When you’ve only left an hour in the budget for an illustrator…
With the park explored and the junior coaster checked off, I really only had one piece of unfinished business left at Discovery World…
Gravity Max opened in 2002 as the world’s first (and still only) Vekoma Tilt Coaster. To say that this is the main reason to visit Discovery World would be putting it mildly. With nothing else for me to do, I opted to sit next to the entrance and wait for it to open, even if it took the rest of the day.
As the sky continued to clear, I saw other larger outdoor attractions begin to cycle in preparation of reopening.
A bit later I spotted some maintenance personnel enter the ride area. A promising development.
Finally, it happened… a test run! Getting to see that glorious tilt-track in action with my own eyes…
After watching it cycle, I quickly made my way to the entrance to position myself as the first in line.
I was soon joined by others. There was still a bit more waiting as they ran more cycles. I’m assuming with the rainy morning that they were running through the entire daily start-up procedure.
Finally the moment came: the queue was opened and I proceeded triumphantly to the station. Given my prime first position in line, I went directly for the front row, unsure if I’d have the option to try that seat again without a much longer wait later in the afternoon. There was a bit more waiting in the station, but nearly a half hour after witnessing that first test run I finally got to climb into the train.
The lift is only 114 feet tall. At the top, the train very slowly pushes across the long level plateau, inching closer to the unobstructed precipice before locking in place. Then we start to tilt forward. It’s such a huge piece of track, the effect is somewhat like watching the slow-motion ballet of a docking spaceship in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey… only here, gravity is very much still part of the equation. We hold there for several seconds, giving plenty of time to feel the pressure build against the restraints and wonder if the rails are properly aligned or if the restraints will hold.
The train is finally released into a vertical freefall, the pressure against the harness instantly transforming into a gentle weightlessness. From the front row there’s not very much distance to fall, less than a hundred feet, before pushing into an underground tunnel for a heavily banked, high G-force curve in the dark. The ride is quite smooth as we surge back into the light for a full vertical loop. After that it surges up into a banked elevated helix to burn off some excess energy before sliding into the brakes.
My first ride was certainly quite an experience, although the glow I felt as I returned to the station was more from the knowledge that I had finally gotten this difficult-to-obtain coaster. I’m usually a front-row person when it comes to coaster seating preference, but Gravity Max is the rare case where it was absolutely clear that it was a back row ride. The view of the tilt mechanism from the front row is great, but because you’re tilting down lower into the connecting track it mutes the impact quite significantly. Clouds and fog was beginning to roll in, so I quickly hurried to my second ride, this time aiming for the back row. Operations were relatively efficient (I’ve heard that’s no longer the case in recent years), so within a few minutes I was ready for round two.
Psychologically, the strength of these vertical or beyond-vertical drop coasters is that they emphasize the procedure to get to that perilous moment. Everyone is familiar with the slow-building tension of climbing a lift hill, and a vertical drop with a holding brake only further heightens the stakes and delays the payoff. Each step of the procedure inexorably pushes you closer to the edge, yet you’re not allowed to simply get it over with.
The Tilt Coaster is possibly the ultimate form of this, adding not only several new levels of the procedure leading up to the drop, but making that procedure itself a source of thrills. From the back row, you’re instead pushed up into the sky, away from the structure to give you at least some sense of grounding. The rotation of the tilt also works against you; in the front half as the tilting stops you’re pushed down into your seat, but from the back half you’re on the other side of the rotation, being gently forced out of your seat as the rotation reaches its maximum angle. Every factor that subdues the thrill in the front row has an equal and opposite effect on what’s going on in the back of the train. With the full length of a 6-car 24-passenger train added to the length of the vertical drop, the payoff is much more dramatic, with several seconds of weightless freefall before being sucked into the tunnel.
From this point on there’s less of a difference between the front and the back, but the loop and helix still serve an important function in the overall experience of the ride. Vertical loops, like a weightless freefall, are one of those “pure” elements in a coaster that I appreciate the sensation of. Unlike many of the more complicated modern inversions where the sense of motion is influenced by some dynamic rotation for part or all of the maneuver, a vertical loop maintains an even application of force around the circumference, which allows me to focus on and appreciate the inversion sensation itself. It’s a perfect counterpart to the equally pure yet powerful vertical freefall.
Even the helix has its purpose, signaling the conclusion of the ride while still giving some extra time to enjoy the sustained speed. The result is a ride that feels much more complete than the early B&M Dive Machines that preceded it, yet Gravity Max avoids the challenge of later vertical drop coasters that over-complicate their premise, always focusing on the simple sensations and forms of pleasure derived from gravity itself.
If it wasn’t already clear, Gravity Max is the best coaster in Taiwan, and certainly the most unique. It’s a shame Vekoma never sold another one, as the ride experience is absolutely top-notch. The tilt track may be a novelty element, but from the back seats it was one of the greatest novelties I’ve ever encountered on a coaster. With the weather looking threatening, I was able to quickly score a third lap where an empty row was still available near the front of the coaster which wasn’t nearly as memorable. Just as I returned to the station to try another ride near the back of the train, the heavens finally re-opened and the coaster was once again shut down for rain after barely 45 minutes of operation.
I followed the crowds away from the rains into a large theater that was just letting in for a show. The timing was impeccable, even if the show itself felt a bit random. There was no discernible theme beyond whatever type of dancing the performers they booked were already trained. Once again Russian expats figured heavily into the show’s composition.
There was a part of me that still hoped by the time I got out of the theater the rain would have subsided and I could have gotten a couple more rides on Gravity Max within the last hour. It was quickly clear that was not the case; if anything the rain was even pouring harder. I decided to call it quits and head back early. By this point of the trip I was pretty exhausted and would appreciate a bit of extra downtime in the evening. A bit disappointing, but given the circumstances I’d have to say the day was surprisingly successful. While I’d prefer 10 to 20 laps instead of only three, as I might have imagined on a day with less rain, I’d much, much, much, more strongly prefer to have three rides instead of none, as I could easily have imagined on a day with more rain.
The great irony of Discovery World is that it’s Taiwan’s worst overall theme park with the best overall single attraction. If I wasn’t reliant on public transportation I’d recommend trying to combine Discovery World with another park to make more efficient use of time, although if I myself had followed that advice myself it’s likely I would have missed Gravity Max entirely.
I caught the next bus back to the Taichung city center, where I’d dry off at my hostel and then hang out at a nearby internet cafe, doing more research on my final theme park for the next day. The degree to which I had to wing it with my travel arrangements each day is not something I would recommend anyone try emulating.
Comments