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Happy Valley

Chaoyang District, Beijing, China

“Great lineup, but beware of operations and unexpected ride closures”

If you are somewhat familiar with the Chinese amusement park industry, names as Fantawild, Chimelong, and Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises may ring a bell. Although Western giants such as Disney, Universal and Legoland are present in China, the market is dominated by local companies. Overseas Chinese Town Enterprises — often abbreviated to simply OCT — in particular has built up an impressive portfolio over the past decades. Their best-known brand is perhaps Happy Valley, a name that’s used for their largest theme parks. Happy Valley now has branches in numerous major Chinese cities, including Shenzhen, Chongqing and Shanghai. In this article, however, I’d like to take you to the second oldest Happy Valley park, located near the Chinese capital. Welcome to Happy Valley Beijing.

Happy Valley Beijing is located southeast of the city center, adjacent to the third ring road. This makes it easy to drive to this amusement park, but Happy Valley is also easily accessible by public transport. There is a Beijing Subway stop right in front of the park’s entrance. Trains run every few minutes and tickets are very cheap, so there’s no reason not to take the subway, if you ask me. By the way: the Happy Valley Station is on line 7 and amusement park enthusiasts will probably use that line more than once during their stay in Beijing. Twelve stops further is the Universal Resort station, the gateway to Universal Studios Beijing and the accompanying CityWalk. You can read more about China’s Universal resort in this article.

ROLLER COASTERS

Just moments after we entered the park, we noticed a statue of a smiling orange with legs. He looked cute, but Mr. Orange had bad news for us: we shouldn’t expect to ride the red roller coaster we saw in the background. Since its completion in 2011, Extreme Rusher has had quite a lot of downtime and that wasn’t any different during our trip. It turned out that this wasn’t a temporary closure, as this S&S launch coaster has now been out of service for two years. This is due to an accident that occurred in 2023 on a similar roller coaster at Happy Valley Shenzhen. The investigation appears to be ongoing, and in the meantime, Extreme Rusher remains standing but not operating. That’s a shame, because S&S’s air pressure accelerations usually provide a fantastic thrill.

The area surrounding the park entrance is called Happy Hour, but the closure of Extreme Rusher didn’t exactly make us happy. Fortunately, that was about to change thanks to Crystal Wing, a B&M Flying Coaster with a striking appearance. The layout was partly integrated into a gigantic Atlantis palace. This colossus can be considered as the park’s icon, but it didn’t seem to be in its best condition during our visit. Nevertheless, we thoroughly enjoyed the roller coaster that races through it. Crystal Wing is the standard model of the B&M Flying Coaster, identical to the ones you find in several American Six Flags parks. The ride is smooth and the pretzel loop creates some of the craziest g-forces I’ve ever felt.

Some Chinese amusement park owners aren’t very good at coming up with original names for their attractions. In the children’s area, we found a B&M Family Inverted Coaster, which was given the wonderful name of… Family Inverted Coaster. The ride is a copy of the slightly older version at Happy Valley Shanghai. It’s 65 feet (20 metres) tall, 1,320 feet (400 metres) long, and looks suspiciously similar to Kvasten at Tivoli Gröna Lund. I assume that Family Inverted Coaster’s trains run just as smoothly as they do on other versions, but I can’t confirm this with certainty. The ride remained closed during our day at Happy Valley and that’s a shame.

It seemed particularly difficult to ride inverted coasters on a Monday in November. When approaching Golden Wings over the Snowfield, we unfortunately once again noticed a ‘closed’ sign. Usually I wouldn’t mind skipping a Vekoma SLC. Here at Happy Valley, however, I would’ve loved to ride it, since the layout differs from the standard models you find at Walibi Belgium and so many other parks. How does an SLC feel like when the track consists of a vertical loop, a cobra roll and a zero-g roll? Feel free to ask the Happy Valley fan club, but I’m afraid I don’t have the answer. What I can say is that Golden Wings has been integrated quite nicely. The queue and station look great, and the ride has been given a photogenic location on the shores of a lake.

And last but not least, there are the musical roller coaster thrills of Flight of the Himalayan Eagle – Music Roller Coaster. I’m not sure what to think of that name, but I’m just glad that this roller coaster was operational during our trip. This is a 160-feet-tall (48 metres) and 4,000-feet-long (1.2 kilometres) B&M that shows striking similarities to Hollywood Dream – The Ride at Universal Studios Japan. This means that it’s slightly smaller than most other Hyper Coasters and passengers are treated to a loud soundtrack while riding. Despite the modest statistics, Flight of the Himalayan Eagle turned out to be an excellent ride. We enjoyed a good dose of airtime in the back seats and the final helix even made me greyout for a moment. Flight of the Himalayan Eagle is without a doubt the best attraction that Happy Valley has to offer.

DARK RIDES

Happy Valley Beijing’s largest dark ride isn’t afraid to highlight clichés about nationalities. We are talking about Happy World, a Chinese knock-off version of Disney’s It’s a Small World. Visitors take their seats in a colourful boat and they sail past scenes with simple animatronics, while cheerful music can be heard throughout the ride. It’s nothing new, but Happy World does exude a certain charm. Still, you shouldn’t expect Disney quality while riding The Happiest Knock-Off Cruise That Ever Sailed. Behind the impressive façade lies an extremely boring queue and most scenes have clearly seen better days.

And then there’s Otherworldly Demon Cave. Many thanks to Google Chrome for the literal translation of the Chinese name… and many thanks to Happy Valley for creating a surprisingly long, spooky walk-through. I admit that I would have preferred a classic haunted house, but this demon cave certainly isn’t bad. The dark corridors are filled with simple audio-animatronics, predictable scare effects and a (rather disorienting) rotating tunnel. A few wandering actors would have made the experience more complete, but Happy Valley seems to save those actors for the Halloween-specific haunted houses, which come with an additional cost.

WATER RIDES

Shangri-La is a fictional place that is considered a paradise. According to the stories, it is located somewhere in the Himalayas, which explains why the architectural style in the corresponding themed land reminds me of the Asian area of Disney’s Animal Kingdom. There are similarities in the attraction lineup as well, as both areas feature a rapid river. In Florida, it’s Kali River Rapids, and here in Happy Valley it’s Yarlung Tsangpo River. The winding river has been beautifully integrated into the landscape and the ride itself is also pretty impressive. Wearing a poncho or raincoat is recommended, though, as you can get very wet on this attraction. There are some decent rapids and Yarlung Tsangpo River even features two (well-hidden) drops along its course.

Water ride number two can be found in Aegean Port, a little piece of Greece near Beijing. The area is dominated by a Santorini-like mountain landscape, which forms the backdrop for a giant shoot-the-chutes. Odyssey Tour consists of two descents and one of them creates a tidal wave of immense proportions. Our Chinese fellow visitors clearly seem to adore this ride, but we decided to stay on the shore due to cool temperatures.

OTHER EXPERIENCES

Aegean Port is also a haven for flat ride lovers. We noticed an old-fashioned Huss Condor, but most of the spinning/swinging rides can be found in FantaSea. This is a large indoor area with an underwater theme. It’s the place to be for rides on Deep-Sea Vortex (a small Frisbee), Diving Fish (a carousel with colorful fish), Magical Drift (a Rockin’ Tug), and Flying Sharks (one of Zamperla’s impressive Air Race rides). Further on in the park, we also spotted a Power Surge, an inverted swinging ship and a Giant Frisbee manufactured by Huss Rides. Personally I wouldn’t consider such attractions as must dos, but these are the rides that make an amusement park more complete and dynamic.

We can’t talk about a theme park without mentioning entertainment. At Happy Valley, we met several roaming artists, but their tricks or dance moves were far from earth-shattering. In the Mexican zone, however, we were quite amazed by the grandeur of Maya Catastrophe, an outdoor theatre with huge theming elements. I was quite impressed with the overall theming at Happy Valley, and this arena turned out to be one of the most beautiful parts of the park. We experienced a second – slightly less positive – surprise just a few metres further. There we watched an amateurish play in a simple, small-scale setting. We obviously didn’t understand what was being said in Mandarin, but we got the impression that it involved a certain political incorrectness (at least by our Western standards).

WORTH A VISIT?

Happy Valley Beijing is a theme park that caught my attention many years ago. I’ve known about this place since I saw the first construction photos of Crystal Wings appear online, and since then I had been eagerly awaiting the day when I would visit this park myself. That day came in November 2025. And to be honest, we left the park feeling slightly disappointed. This wasn’t due to the theming (which is surprisingly good in many places) or the lineup of attractions (which is quite extensive and spectacular), but rather to the way the park is operated. Happy Valley apparently has a habit of keeping many rides closed on weekdays during the low season. We found ourselves standing in front of closed gates at several roller coasters, which is a real shame. The park’s website does show which attractions are operational today, but that’s obviously useless when you’re planning a trip to China weeks or even months in advance.

I’m not sure what to recommend… Visit Happy Valley during the week and risk missing out on a lot of major attractions? Or travel to the park on a weekend day and end up in long, slow-moving queues? I don’t have an ideal strategy, but one thing is certain: enter this park with moderate expectations.

This article reflects my personal experience at Happy Valley Beijing during a visit in November 2025.