Korea + Japan 08/18 – Lagunasia + Hamanako Pal Pal
With the toll bill racking up nicely, we managed to beat the system on this particular day.
The sat nav always lets you opt for the ‘free’ option, but it’s usually a couple of hours of extra journey time.
Most of the routes on this particular leg were only 20-30 minutes longer to save £20-£30, the time was usually an overestimate and easy to make up and we were on a (relatively) relaxed schedule for the day anyway.
Day 7 – Lagunasia
First port of call was here. Japan’s sexy waterpark featuring rides.
It was another blisteringly hot day and it appeared rather busy at opening time, but absolutely everyone was there to cool down, leaving the amusements to the fools.
While they all staked out a shady spot to dump their towels and bags for the day, for us it was straight to the first cred of the day.
Aqua Wind is an ever so slightly custom Gerstlauer Bobsled. These are always a decent family ride – smooth and with some good forces chucked in, the laterals of a wild mouse and at least one classic air time hill.
This one had a nice aesthetic as well with its half indoor, half outdoor layout, complete with scenery.
Legend of Labyrinth is a mostly indoor log flume with some fantastically impressive theming and a few surprises on the way out to an anticlimactic final drop, which I suppose is more for the benefit of offride viewing.
Pirates’ Blast is next door. Opted for the non-Virtual Reality version, no justification required.
Again there’s some great theming inside here, mostly skeletons and pirates shooting at you, which you could skip for the pleasure of strapping screens to your eyeballs.
There’s a whole indoor section of the layout first followed by a pause in front of this window to the outside world (which looks great from the outside). The big drop throws you into the darkness before taking the outdoor portion of the coaster which rides rather poorly and again is a bit of an anticlimax.
Final cred of the park in the form of Stellar Coaster. She hasn’t yet had her revenge in this part of the world.
Had to camp out a while and take it easy due to staggered openings, but it was worth the wait.
The wait being for Magical Powder, which is a very ‘out there’ dark ride.
The factory makes different colour powders that have varying effects on objects and some stuff goes down. Can’t quite remember what.
Well worth a read.
The ride system was rather interesting, a much larger omnimover style rotating car but with the ability to put a curtain up to obscure the views and sets where necessary as it travels around.
Bit disappointed that the 4D cinema was all upcharge. It had some J-Pop show that would have been great to stumble into.
They’ve got a refreshingly different shooting dark ride to all the others here, Fire Fire Next. Scissor lift style elevation is involved and it was pretty decent, though shooting generic monsters was getting old fast.
Seemed like a good time for the Ferris Wheel in the mall opposite the park. It was completely empty and there were warning signs everywhere about the temperature, but it had a fan inside. I’ve done worse.
Had more ice cream to balance things out, then moved on.
Hamanako Pal Pal
Similar to Parque Espana, the approach to this park had us spotting creds on the far side of a lake/the sea long before actually reaching it. Anxiety was also somewhat present again, as it looked like storm clouds were rolling in.
Straight in to grapple with another token machine then. Star attraction first.
I thought this ride looked rather good with it’s funky dive loop and heartline inversion knock off.
I’m a defender of Togo but eh, it didn’t ride particularly well. Interesting but not great, sadly.
Passed through some tasty mist to find Mini Coaster. At least the +1s all have a bit of variety around here as opposed to being 100 powered dragons.
Over to the other nicer looking side of the park.
The storm clouds seemed to pass by so now that we were safe from spite, went for yet another of the same shooting dark rides – Dragon Fighter. Something about dragons.
Which left us with the Jungle Mouse to finish. Not nearly sketchy enough for my liking, and the 2 across seating is far too impersonal. China have made these their own.
So that all went well. Off to another mall where we managed to catch a perfectly timed showing of Ant Man & The Wasp, something we had been searching for all week. International cinema cred +1.
Day 8