Siam Park City

Time now for the second largest park in Thailand. Siam Park City is 20 minutes away from derelict park and has undergone quite a bit of expansion in the last few years to get it to a decent size. The new rides all seem to have come from Jerudong Park, a state owned park in Brunei.

A rather pretty entrance I'm sure you'll agree! The dude on the portrait in the middle is the King of Thailand, and they're clearly proud of him here as his picture is all over the city, not just on the money like our Queen.

The ticket hall inside the castle. There are gift shops and food stands here. Note that in Thailand the concept of park merchandise does not exist. Instead they sell tat like plastic toys. You won't be able to get a fridge magnet or t-shirt here.

Not very busy at all, huh?

Their take on the Universal Globe. We'd seen quite a few on this trip now.

Argh! No, what's that I can see from the ticket hall?

First coaster was (sigh) the first boomerang of the trip. Given the countries we'd been through it was surprising that we hadn't encountered one sooner but no trip is complete without having one. We braced ourselves as you do on these rides but were surprised when we made it round fairly unscathed. I'd just taken one blow to the jaw.

This tiger themed boat ride was very well done indeed. So good you could say it was grrrrrreat!

Like Dreamworld the park was very well presented.

Not all the rides were running, I guess this part of the year is quiet for the Thai's too. Dreamworld was busy but it was mostly school kids who could have been at this park too; we'd arrived to it quite late.

The observation tower sits in the centre of the park and gives a great overview of the park. 

If observation towers are not your thing then there are alternatives.

Coaster number 2 was the SLC, which this park was claiming was the world's longest. It did seem a slightly odd layout with a double twist where there's usually one and a bit more than just an extra helix at the end. This had a whole dive section under the lift hill. So the claim could be true. Being the worlds longest almost meant you got a longer bashing to the head than you're used to; it's quite rough

As an extra kick in the teeth the coaster is an upcharged attraction. Ha! You have to get tickets from the booth here and you might have to wake the girl up inside to do so.

The new section of the park contains 3 large rides. The Grand Canyon Coaster, Dinotopia (an indoor dinosaur exhibit) and their Jungle River Boat ride, Africa Adventure which contained some very well themed boats and some big King Kong animatronics.

Grand Canyon Express really perplexed us. It's a very large powered coaster that isn't particularly high yet has been built a good 20ft up in the air. Now if you were to build this coaster in Rollercoaster Tycoon the cost of the supports of alone would make this really expensive so we're not sure why this has been done. We know the ride has come from another park, perhaps they had some reason for having it so high up that this park have had no choice but to take on. I should congratulate the park on some wonderful theming around this ride though. It's quite spectacular!

Not many carousels feature wheelying motorbikes!

Tucked away in a back corner of the park is the final coaster, a shuttle loop that has seen better days. There was so much dust in the station that it must have been like this for some time.

Doraemon carousel. I didn't even realise he was popular here.

To escape the sun there's a roofed area with a number of fairground type spinner rides.

Nice photo opportunity except that we were just as big as he was!

So, what was my impression of this park? Not bad at all. I think Dream World has the edge but to be honest if you're going to visit that you'd be daft not to come here too. It's obviously growing the park and investing in new rides, and that can't be a bad thing.

What's on the end of the string?