A Chinese Amusement Park: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

While in Dalian, Chip and I spent a day at Discovery Kingdom.  We both love roller coasters, but in our nine years of dating and marriage, we have never been to an amusement park together.  Some friends of ours recently went to a Chinese amusement park and had a great time, so in spite of some minor hesitations, we decided to experience our first theme park together in China.

 

Why would going to a Chinese amusement park be a bad idea, you ask?  

For two main reasons:

1.  China has 1 billion people.  At an American amusement park you can easily get frustrated with long lines, so you can imagine that being even more true in the most heavily populated country in the world.

2.  China is not known for quality products (they export the good stuff and create cheaper knock-offs to be sold in their own country) thus bringing in the question of safety.  When you are flipping upside down at great heights, you want to know that ride has passed every possible safety check.

Aware of those concerns and with adjusted expectations, we went anyway and experienced the good, the bad and the ugly side of a Chinese amusement park.

 

 The Good

It was a great day.  Sunny but not too hot.  Never rained (contrary to the weather report).  And as soon as I walked in the gate, I got the same excited feeling I had as a kid when I went to Six Flags over Texas.

It was also relatively inexpensive.  We paid for tickets and transportation to the park for much less than the price of one ticket to a big amusement park in the states.

 This was our first ride of the day.  It was a good one to start us off--super high and gave us that airy stomach feeling.  And early in the day, we never waited in line more than 15 or 20 minutes.

 There were some big roller coasters and the pretty typical "what you'd expect at a theme park" kind of rides.  There was even a 4D Ice Age movie-clip complete with 3D glasses, jolting seats, and occasional water in our faces.

The park was pretty clean and well designed.  As we walked to different themed areas, I was impressed with the quality and authenticity of each scene.

The Bad

 We got arrested and locked in the stocks.   ;)

Chip eating star-shaped chicken/seafood nuggets

 The food wasn't great.  Like any amusement park the food was overpriced and junky.  Unfortunately, it was was not American junk food like funnel cakes and lemon ice; it was Chinese hot dogs, dried seafood, and instant noodles.

There were also some lame rides.  On one "ride" we sat in a pitch black room wearing headphones and listening to "scary" computer animated sound effects.

We also rode one called the Fly Trap where we hung upside down for a long time spinning.  It just made us feel sick.

 By the afternoon, the lines for the big rides were LONG.  The sign posting the length of wait from this point says 2.5 hours.  But I really wanted to ride the roller coaster where your legs dangle below. . .so we waited.  It turned out to be almost 3 hours.

The Ugly

There was really just one particularly ugly aspect--something that drove both of us to almost lose our patience.  Chinese people do not know how to wait in line.  It's true anywhere--getting on a bus, buying groceries, purchasing train tickets--if you leave a gap or turn your back or don't push and shove, someone will get in front of you.  It was particularly frustrating in a context where we were all waiting for the same ride for a long time.  Sounds a little trivial?  If it had only been a couple times, then we would not have minded, but it happened time and time again.  Other Chinese people appeared frustrated too, but rules are not regularly enforced in China so, because it is normal, they shrug their shoulders and let people pass. There is genuinely nothing anyone can do--especially us, the foreigners.  Everything in our American minds wants things to be fair, but much of the world is not fair--they do not even expect it to be.

All in all, though, we had a fun day together at Dalian's Discovery Kingdom.