Korea + Japan 04/17 – Space World

Day 4

Space World

Sadly Space World closed at the end of the 2017 season, apparently from a combination of lack of visitors and the land it was sitting on being worth alot of money. I knew very little of Space World before visiting and I can’t honestly say I grew majorly attached to the park, yet I find it hard to not get upset knowing that this place full of memories and fun days out is gone forever.

Zaturn – This Intamin hydralic launch coaster is an exact clone of Stealth at Thorpe Park and neither coasters do anything for me personally. Zaturn was also our first taste of the sometimes over the top Japanese coaster rules. In this case, you are batched to the air gates, then told to go to a small room full of lockers next to the station, then back to the air gates, then they let you into the train but don’t pull the restraint down, then a man with an information card walks up and down the train reading rules, then they secure the restraints and then you’re off. It was taking about 15 minutes to launch each train, probably a good thing we only needed one go on Zaturn.

Titan MAX – I normally quite like Arrow Hyper coasters, sadly not this one though and it’s all down to the horrible new S&S trains they have added. I left the station with a mild lack of sleep headache and came back literally crying. The already less than perfectly shaped Arrow transitions are amplified 100 times with these awful trains, it quite literally rode like a series of car accidents.

Boogie-woogie Space Coaster – Nothing really special about this little Senyo creation other than the staff operating it being awesome.

Venus GP – The star attraction at Space World is easily Venus GP. This Maurer custom looping coaster whilst perhaps not as good as I was expecting still managed to provide a fast and intense experience. Possibly the best part of the coaster was that on dispatch rock music would blare over the speakers and the operator would get the train to raise their devil horns.

We once again ended a park in Japan with a ride on a giant Ferris wheel, this time however each pod had a notebook in it for you to leave your mark on Space World and personally I think that’s genius.

It really is such a shame that Space World is no more. Sure the coaster line up was lacking quality (certainly unique though) and certain areas of the park looked worse for wear but Space World had a real sense of character that many parks I’ve visited would kill to have. From the excitement of the staff to the little touches like the notebooks on the Ferris wheel and the wall to write your goodbye message to the park on, Space World had heart and I’m sure the park will live on in the memories of everyone who visited.

We had planned to half day Space World and Kijima Kogen but due to over running at Space World the plans had to change. For the record, it would have cost £70 ONE WAY in tolls to go from Space World to Kijima, so maybe it was never going to be worth only having half a day.

A quick look online and we managed to find a park nearby that had a couple of coasters to check out.

Kashiikaen Yuenchi was it’s name and we probably spent 45 minutes trying to find the car park and then the park entrance to this tiny obscure park but it was worth it for another chilled out jet coaster and twin helix for the count.

Thanks for reading, click here for the next part of my Japan trip report, this time featuring Himeji Central Park.