Japan 08/25 – Rusutsu Resort + Hokkaido Greenland

The main event on Hokkaido is Rusutsu Resort, which we arrived at the following morning after navigating this mountain.

Day 4 – Rusutsu Resort

I had specifically saved this visit for a weekend day, in what the park themselves designated as peak season, in the hopes of minimal spite, so it was time to see if that worked out. Interestingly they charge you for the car park on a peak day, but not off-peak.

The entrance is like a hotel lobby, weirdly, and contains this tree near the ticket desk.

Bit of a European vibe all round in the indoor bit.

Which then leads outside to a long walk up a big hill. Very pretty though.

I was, semi-tactically heading to the top of the hill first, past this area which was unfortunately all closed. Think that might have been the last in the set of first generation Intamin drop towers for me.

What wasn’t closed, and hidden round the corner in some trees, was the reason I came.

Yes, it’s the legendary #1 Ultra Twister with the dive loop instead of the mid-course reversal. Beautiful.

What I had never considered in knowing about this one is how it does take care of the direction change. Immediately after leaving the station there’s a little turntable that spins you round and backs you out in preparation for the vertical lift. It’s so over-complicated and unnerving and ahead of its time and it makes me happy.

I also don’t remember, or it’s more exaggerated here, but the restraint system is terrifying in itself. The shoulder part is super wide, so a more narrow human, such as their target audience, could easily just turn a bit and slip out if they so wished. Then there’s a ‘lap’ bar which is barely the width of one leg, so made no contact with my legs at all and, again, you could just sort of straddle yourself past it if you so wished.

Anyway, this made it all the more exciting with the layout, which starts with two moments of legitimate, scary airtime. Then the entry to the famed dive loop is super sustained, providing hangtime into the restraint that barely functions.

Then, because there’s no braking in this configuration, it absolutely flies through the heartline rolls at the end, which is super intense and a little painful on the shoulders as it hurls you around. Worth it though.

Got my fill of this fabulous thing before moving on, suddenly feeling a bit emotional about it as the reality hit me that any lap on one of these could be the very last, particularly with this being the only unique layout. My namesake rides don’t feel long for this world, with another slated for removal and this one tucked away up in the trees at the back of the park with almost zero footfall. Sad.

Moving further down the hill we hit this Jungle Mouse type thing in #2 Go Go Sneaker.

Was alright, single file seating for that extra poke and reasonably efficiently operated.

Then off to the right was the park’s signature Jet Coaster in #3 Mountain Jet Coaster.

Bit smaller than Hokkaido Greenland’s finest and back to the more usual affair of having a lack of any real forces, which is fine. Lovely views.

Not sure what this was from, old trains of a still existing coaster here.

This coaster is gone though.

Down in the back corner is another terrific Togo. Standard #4 Standing Coaster with the one loop, the only one left now since Yomiuriland got rid of theirs. Sad.

Still the best standups in the genre for actually standing you up, and instilling the fear of that into you.
I should probably reserve judgment on that until I try the new B&M version I guess, but it’s B&M so I’m confident in the statement.

Park has a serious issue with guest flow it seems. All of these rides that are slightly out of the way were getting no guests at all.

And then I queued over an hour for this stupid #5 Loop the Loop, which is bang in the middle of the park, on the main path. One of the infinite reasons it took so long is that they weren’t filling all the rows for some reason. Maybe speed / heat?

First time I’ve managed to do one of this model at least, the Meisho reverse shuttle loop. Was quite forceful even without the full train, but rode pretty poorly for a straight line. A step below the Togos for sure.

The other ride bang in the middle of the park, on the main path, directly opposite, was the Vekoma SLC. This was originally slated as down for maintenance, which I was happy about, but then it opened, to my dismay. Regardless, the queue was pure unshaded misery, non-moving with 7-10 minute train dispatches and I’m overdue on moaning about how hot it was again, so I didn’t want to be dealing with that.

Instead walked straight into the train of the Arrow #6 Corkscrew directly behind it. There’s such a serious bottleneck in this park, and it’s nothing to do with the quality of the rides, just physical location, sightlines and guests being sheep.

The ride was absolute trash and gave me a disgusting headache. I’ve already said it once in the past few months, but I’ll say it again. Some old coasters should be treasured and saved, we’ve just seen a handful of them.
These should not. These aren’t it.

So to clear that, we jumped on the cable car which you can add as an extra to your park ticket for a few quid.

It takes you up the mountain to look at the other mountain.

And a lake.

Headache cleared.

I had a different kind of headache brewing though, driven purely by my unhealthy obsessions. Hokkaido Greenland. Didn’t finish it. Last day in Hokkaido. We can still make it.

The sacrifice to be made here was skipping the hour+ queue and heatstroke for the SLC in order to revisit the other park, thus not finishing this park. So it was all a bit daft, but an easy decision to make.

So that was Rusutsu. Beautiful place, great value, very chill. Worth it for Ultra Twister and some other rare oddities, but needs a dark ride and, like all these Japanese parks these days, something actually new and good.
Hit the shuttle loop and SLC first seems to be the best play if you come, and care.

The other advantage of leaving early was the opportunity to drive round this lake.

Hokkaido Greenland, again

Same drill as before, rocked up with just enough time for the parking attendant to be concerned, and then let us in for free.

Knew exactly what I was doing with entry and ride tickets this time though.

Started out on the other kiddie cred, Torokko Coaster. Would have been set complete for the only known Takahashi Kikai Sangyo coaster in the world, but disaster struck.

It rounded the corner and hit the lift hill, then at the literal second I was contemplating and remarking about how the lift was a conveyor belt, it broke. E-stopped dead.

The operator came running over, shouting, and immediately pulled a piece of said conveyor belt from straight underneath us and the train. It was gone.

He then whipped a ladder out and row by row we evacuated through the ride area, climbing over the track in the process. Quite the experience, but not the one I came for.

Severely spited, headed up the hill to the last cred, #7 Dragon King. Another horrible corkscrew coaster but this time a local one from Senyo.

It was also awful, in a different way. No headaches, but a nasty self tightening restraint that just got worse and worse as the course and forces went on, to the point that I was extremely pinned and uncomfortable by the final brakes, in a half-panicked claustrophobic kinda way. Not good.

The Great Haunted House might have my new favourite façade, but it delivered nothing on what it promised.

Just an underwhelming ghost train in a hot box.

Obviously the broken coaster wasn’t back, though I checked their website for a laugh where they had it listed as ‘closed for special circumstances.’ Nice.

So that was that for the day. In the end I traded 1 awful coaster for another awful coaster, and failed to complete both parks, with an extra few hours driving on top. But at least the trade was locally built. We’ve got Vekoma at home.

Got what I came for though, Ultra Twister, Crazy Mouse and GO-ON are the real deal. And seals. That’s it from Hokkaido, off to the mainland.