Abandoned Theme Park has been on my top Urban Exploring sites to-do list ever since I saw the pictures of the Abandoned Theme Parks in Japan years ago. Luckily this week I saw one photographer had a few pictures of one in Shenzhen where I'm living. After an email chat with the guy I had the location and some advice so this morning I was off.
History
Honey Lake Theme Park was opened in 1985 and closed in July 2011. It closed becuse of a number of reasons, first the park was cut in half by a new Dual Carriageway separating the Disneyland style Sleeping beauty castle from the main part of the park. Another reason is that a newer park had opened with better rides and a direct Metro station at the entrance. Shenzhen could not support two Theme parks, especially when one of them was old and run down as this review from 2009 describes;
Re: Robb Alvey's Theme Parks of Asia Tour! Day Seven - Happy Valley Shenzhen, Ho
"Next we visited Honey Lake Park. This was a strange, STRANGE place. When researching all these parks we were told that Honey Lake is basically on death row. Half of the park now has a new highway running right through it and you can see the old entrance on one side of the road and a defunct old roller coaster on the other.
Across the park they have one roller coaster that looked barely operating and a couple other flats that kind of, sort of worked. If you didn't see rides running you would think that this whole park had already been abandoned years ago."
The parks claim to fame were it's lakeside position, a large "over the water" Rollercoaster and onetime largest Big Wheel in Asia. A spurious claim at best if you includes the height as the base and building the wheel was built on I think. Sometime later the biggest new attraction was added of a Double Loop Roller coaster.
Right now I guess the owners are keeping hold of the site as it's in a prime central location in the city and are hoping that the Government or a developer will buy the land for redevelopment and the owners will become very very rich.
On with the pics, had to rush a lot of these as secca were still active onsite and my photographer contact got busted within 20 minutes of gaining access. I had a couple of close calls also, so I could not get up close and detailed as I'd have liked to with the bigger rides.
On with the pics.
The new somewhat Less impressive replacement main entrance. I may go back and find the original entrance.
More on my Flickr
Flickr: dcmaster's Photostream
History
Honey Lake Theme Park was opened in 1985 and closed in July 2011. It closed becuse of a number of reasons, first the park was cut in half by a new Dual Carriageway separating the Disneyland style Sleeping beauty castle from the main part of the park. Another reason is that a newer park had opened with better rides and a direct Metro station at the entrance. Shenzhen could not support two Theme parks, especially when one of them was old and run down as this review from 2009 describes;
Re: Robb Alvey's Theme Parks of Asia Tour! Day Seven - Happy Valley Shenzhen, Ho
"Next we visited Honey Lake Park. This was a strange, STRANGE place. When researching all these parks we were told that Honey Lake is basically on death row. Half of the park now has a new highway running right through it and you can see the old entrance on one side of the road and a defunct old roller coaster on the other.
Across the park they have one roller coaster that looked barely operating and a couple other flats that kind of, sort of worked. If you didn't see rides running you would think that this whole park had already been abandoned years ago."
The parks claim to fame were it's lakeside position, a large "over the water" Rollercoaster and onetime largest Big Wheel in Asia. A spurious claim at best if you includes the height as the base and building the wheel was built on I think. Sometime later the biggest new attraction was added of a Double Loop Roller coaster.
Right now I guess the owners are keeping hold of the site as it's in a prime central location in the city and are hoping that the Government or a developer will buy the land for redevelopment and the owners will become very very rich.
On with the pics, had to rush a lot of these as secca were still active onsite and my photographer contact got busted within 20 minutes of gaining access. I had a couple of close calls also, so I could not get up close and detailed as I'd have liked to with the bigger rides.
On with the pics.
The new somewhat Less impressive replacement main entrance. I may go back and find the original entrance.
More on my Flickr
Flickr: dcmaster's Photostream
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