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When you’re a kid, theme parks are a place where your dream can come to life. Wouldn’t it be great to feel that excitement once again?

In search of that childlike wonder, one of RocketNews24’s reporters recently visited the Lecian Grand Carnaval amusement park in Mandaue City on Cebu Island, in the Philippines. While it doesn’t have the high-tech animatronics and pyrotechnics of Disneyland, it offers plenty of old-fashioned attractions like a tilt-a-whirl and haunted house, plus a life-endangering roller coaster and very lenient napping policy.

“When I saw the gate that welcomes visitors to the park, I felt a little uneasy,” our correspondent told us. “Not just because it looked like it was slapped together from a few bucks’ worth of cheap lumber, but because I didn’t see any other customers, nor attendants for that matter.”

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▼ The gate is decorated with photos of popular children’s characters such as Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Giant Octopus Man. None of them make appearances inside the park, however.

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“Not two seconds after passing through the entrance, I saw what looked like someone’s home,” our reporter continued. “Thinking I must be in the wrong place, I went back and checked the gate again. Nope, no doubt about it: the sign said I was in an amusement park.”

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The park has one of those rides where you sit in chairs that rise up into the air from the centrifugal force. It wasn’t running, and we think it may have been being used as some sort of dryer, judging from the laundry hanging on the fence around it.

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Of course, what’s a theme park without a roller coaster? And the scarier the better, right? Well, by at least one criteria, Lecian Grand Carnaval is the scariest our reporter has ever seen.

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Aside looking like the seat and rails are ready to fall apart at any time, there’s no safety equipment of any kind. Working day in and day out next to the unparalleled terror of the coaster must have desensitized its operator though, who we find napping comfortably underneath one of the cars.

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The park also has a haunted house. At least our reporter thought it did, until he saw, yup, more laundry hanging in and around it. Add in the fact that someone was raising chickens in front of the building, and we have to conclude that this haunted house is, in actuality, just a house.

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▼ But what if the ghosts are inside the clothes?

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▼ Not to mention the bone-chilling possibility that these are, in fact, blood-thirsty GHOST CHICKENS?

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The park’s tilt-a-whirl wasn’t running, and this time we couldn’t even find an attendant sleeping under it.

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Our reporter later came across the surreal scene of a group of kids in the middle off an amusement park chilling in a tent, watching TV.

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There’s also an attraction called the Wall of Death….

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…with people sleeping like the dead inside.

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No, this is not Lecian Grand Carnaval’s adorable mascot. It’s a wild dog that rolled into the park , saw everyone else sleeping, and decided he might as well join in on the lack of action..

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▼ The Ferris wheel, surprisingly without an laundry hanging from it

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▼ Although the netting for the basketball toss game is being put to good use

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▼ One of the few people we found awake: the attendant for the balloon pop game

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As a matter of fact, none of the rides were operating. Aside from the balloon pop game, the only things open were the gift shop and snack bar. Our reporter asked how many visitors the park gets in a day. “About a thousand,” he was told, which seems like it might be just a bit of an exaggeration.

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So, in conclusion…Cebu has great beaches. They’re beautiful, so by all means, make a trip to the island for them. Lecian Grand Carnaval you can probably skip, even if it means you’ll be passing up the delicious temptation of its snack bar’s bags of chicharron Filipino pork rinds. That said, if you’re a big Scooby-Doo fan and like abandoned fairgrounds you might get a big kick out of this place!

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Photos: RocketNews24