7 years ago I arrived at the ticket desk of Washuzan Highland to be helpfully informed that all three rollercoasters were not operating that day.
Time for revenge.
Day 3 – Washuzan Highland
Arrived to a reasonably long queue to get in. As with Rusutsu last year I had intentionally aimed for what was expected to be a busy or ‘peak’ weekend in order to prioritise attraction availability over crowd comfort.
The history of why this place has an obsession with Brazil eludes me, but it seems to be toned down these days. The only time it kicked off was for a weird bingo event in the middle of the day (everyone got a card with their entry ticket) that had a couple of folks in carnival attire trying to rile up a mostly mute Japanese audience, while of course shouting numbers and giving out prizes.
We’re not here for that though. It is with immense satisfaction and sadness that I have now ridden every existing version of my namesake coaster.
Despite the queue to get in, the fact that it’s front and centre as the first ride you see upon entry, and the horrendous capacity of this running a single 6-person car, #1 Ultra Twister hadn’t drawn too much of a wait.
Turns out the restraint system I described for the dive loop version in Rusutsu is entirely unique (amongst those that remain at least). Here the first thing I noticed is a much chonkier shoulder restraint and lack of weird little lap bar.
It all amounts to a similar amount of fear factor however, I can never say enough how much these things are fascinatingly over and under engineered, for the era.
It delivered the appropriate amounts of glory. Two terrifying out of seat moments, one thriling hurl of a heartline, a car crash of a brake run at the far end, and a graceful backwards descent through two more inversions that no one else sees coming. Seems obvious now, but I was surprised at the speed difference of these vs the dive loop edition, which carries an insane amount of momentum and intensity in comparison to that which comes to a dead stop at less than half the height.
This park is quite the athletic workout, as it’s built on a massive hill. Also at ground level, but with views here not even halfway up, is the other major coaster.
For the morning #2 Pink Typhoon Standing Coaster was running its backwards, not standing, train, which I found to be extremely potent in the back (front) row.
I’ve experienced the layout before, but not for a long time and never in this manner, so the sheer element of surprise in each of the surprisingly sharp hills led to some surprisingly strong airtime surprises. Loved it.
At the summit of the park is the final, family friendly coaster. Old mate #3 Chupy Coaster.
It’s great not only for the setting, but the very open cars with no restraint beyond a seatbelt, and of course the train decoration.
Did a nearby cycle railway, also for the views.
An interesting touch was that they added a little trick track to it, for a bit of scary illusion.
They’ve also got this ferris wheel with open air seats. Seemed to be a few downsides however, in that it’s upcharge, your view is restricted by restraint and there were a lot of scary bugs flying around.
Opted for the regular of course.
Can’t beat a good vantage point.
This looks far more impressive than it rides.
Around lunchtime they were due to swap the trains on this over to the standup version, as proclaimed on a sandwich board on the path to the ride.
This also coincided with the bingo, so doubled up as being dead quiet and avoiding that.
Now in this mode, it’s the same as the Togo stand-up in Italy, which I absolutely adored. Didn’t ride quite as potently in feet-off-the-floor airtime for whatever reason, be it weather, front row or me related.
Still terrifying though, and definitely reinforced for me that, whilst B&M have finally come a bit closer to replicating the fear through actually standing up, and having a restraint that moves with you, Togo have been doing that and better since the ’70s. Insane.
Closing lap on that closed out the visit, which was lovely to finally tick off after so long of a tease. Great setting, great rides, a gem of a Japanese park. Having now ridden all the Heartlines, I can officially retire from the hobby.
The drive for the afternoon took us over a set of bridges through the inland sea and over to Shikoku. Not to be confused with the bridges over the inland sea to Shikoku we’ve just seen from the park. That’s the other way.
Who needs coasters when you can have bridges?
Let’s count.
At the end there’s a rest stop where you can look back at some of the view.
Finished up in the city of Matsuyama, our base for the night, and took a wander over to some touristy place.
Old train and new tram.
A pretty clock tower that does a show every hour – the top rises up, doors open out from the sides with little dioramas and music plays. It got dark, so no pictures, you can probably find it on the gram.
Reminded me of a few other places, up in the hills in the middle of nowhere, by a lake.
Initial pathway is somewhat blocko-inspired, though this particular theme soon dies out as you reach the amusements proper.
Wait, is that a bonus coaster in the distance?
First things first was the Meisho, very similar hardware to the previous day.
Name here is far less apt however, #1 Hill Billy Coaster Texas Bronco? Not much of that makes sense.
Was a fair bit heftier in duration, picked up a fair bit of speed over time and the near misses with the rockwork in the end felt rather scary.
While nothing special in any particular way, I came off far happier about it than I had any right to be. A delayed culmination of emotions about being back at this nonsense again, still a spark for it somewhere deep down I guess.
This also Meisho shuttle loop is long gone, just an eye-catcher from a time gone by.
Huge, in what is very much a park aimed at young families these days, I question whether it would have lasted no matter the circumstances.
And missing the rest of the layout, albeit just a straight line. It’s been exactly this way for at least 20 years and the park has added precisely 0 coasters in that period, an apt summary of the state of the scene out here.
Mooched around and killed some time as there was a staggered opening on the other, smaller cred.
#2 Waku Waku Coaster opened a little earlier than posted, which was welcome. A functional +1 if ever there was one.
Didn’t hang around much longer, took a drive down to Okayama, specifically a touristy bit dubbed the ‘Venice of Japan’ for the afternoon.
Not entirely convinced, but here we are.
Was quiet and pleasant for that time of day at least.
Content warning – this trip contains whole days without rollercoasters. I would say it’s me slowing down, but choose to blame the industry doing so instead.
It’s been far too long since my last visit to Japan at just over 6 years months. The simple FOMO of the previous trip carried over once again, inspired by some longstanding unfinished business with a particular couple of places, and a continued desire to explore new parts of the country by means of their fading amusement parks.
Day 0
Nothing much to report on the travel front, thankfully. Flew into Osaka via Beijing because it was offensively cheap, but too short of a layover to get up to anything cheeky. Oh, they did try and cancel the Japan leg earlier in the year when the two countries fell out politically again, because the airline anticipated not making any money on flights between them, but it was rebooked with relative ease and only ended up being a minor inconvenience.
Hit the ground half-running with some shopping shenanigans before near-passing out in a Mcdonalds once sitting down and travel fatigue could set in. Time for a reset.
Day 1
Picked up a hire car the next morning, a loyal and faithful cubular Suzuki that served us faultlessly and provided a quintessential local driving experience. Didn’t have much in Osaka to hang around for so immediately busted out of the city in search of a new genre entirely.
Why ride coasters when you can look at horse courses?
This is Hanshin Racecourse.
It’s free to enter on non-race days.
Good place for a picnic.
And generally very pretty.
Can’t help but think of Thunder Dolphin when I see the hole in that roof.
Not sold? Coasters it is then.
Kobe Fruit & Flower Park
The flower bit of the name is up through there.
But turn left before that for the real deal.
Started strong, as always, on the #1 Hurry Coaster, a mini Meisho with some inspired shaping.
Both coasters here came from a defunct park in Osaka in the ’90s, so that’s fun.
The other, bigger #2 Jet Coaster also has a bee(?) on it.
It’s somewhat jet coaster inspired, as the name would suggest, but also a bit jankier and wilder than usual with the stumpy two-car trains.
In a mine-cart-esque kinda way, was a rather fun experience to kick off the obscure coaster hunting.
Had some local strawberry sorbet to fulfil the fruit part of the equation, then hit the road, simple.
Final day was a welcome change of pace. All of our ticket validity, and general enthusiasm, had run dry and there was a sizeable hole to fill before an evening flight home.
Day 9 – Kennedy Space Center
Which felt like a good opportunity to come here.
After some poor communication at the Houston equivalent, we made sure our first priority was getting on one of the coach tours that drives around to various points of interest. There was almost no queue in the end so, following a brief green screen photo opportunity, we were quickly on board.
First stop on the tour was a viewing platform with a couple of exhibits built into it.
From here you could see the launch pad that Artemis II was sitting at. Having now seen several of the amazing photos we got from that mission, makes this feel even more special.
If you’re into anything space, go check them out. I think it’s a shame how little I’ve heard the whole thing talked about since.
Here’s the ridiculously huge building in which they put rockets together, and the chunky vehicle that moves them to the launch pads.
And a pretend engine that simulated being vaporised by the loudest thing on earth, by means of some light misting.
Back on the coach again, next stop was a place that contained a standing cinema pre-show about the history of launches, into a seated cinema bit about what launch days are like, complete with old-fashioned mission control setup.
Exiting that led to the classic big warehouse with rocket, lengthways. Also at Houston.
Coach took us back to base, where it was dark ride time, ish.
This building contains one of the attractions. Spaceport KSC is a collection of 4 small flying theatres with only two rows stacked vertically, but they were only running one deck of each on this occasion.
Each one has a different film, a simple choice of destination – they all simulate getting on a shuttle and visiting somewhere in space.
Due to the limited capacity it took about half an hour just to do the one, the Mars one, which we got the general gist from and called it a day. It was alright.
Foolishly we had completely walked past the building that contains the OG simulator here, so backtracked to that, right next to the coach drop off.
From seeing a ‘POV’ of the Shuttle Launch Experience, many moons ago, this ride held the most anticipation. It’s several minutes of people screaming and slightly jiggling in a box, which seemed like entertainment of the highest form to me.
Anyway the pre-show was very good, recorded by real astronaut folk on robot arm screens with a good sense of humour. Then we moved to a loading area much like a giant star tours. Again there were multiple simulators but they were running a limited capacity so had quite a wait here.
Then we strapped in to feel the Gs. It was funny, quite impressive and somewhat intense. Obviously nowhere near the real deal but enough to give the average person a sense of ‘this isn’t for the average person’.
Closed the day out in the ‘worlds largest nasa gift shop’, such an American thing to say. Had a great day here overall, would recommend it over the Houston equivalent and to break up the travesty that is Orlando these days.
Apologies for the delays and negativity overall, as you can probably tell I wasn’t particularly thrilled by Florida this time around and I do quickly burn out on reporting revisits when there’s no new experiences to talk about. Stardust Racers is amazing when it works, very glad to have ‘done’ Epic Universe, but it wasn’t all that. Excited for the future of B&M stand-ups. Not excited for the future of Busch Gardens.
A quiet trip to Orlando now seems impossible, the baseline entry price to simply ‘suffer’ through it is very high and you have to up-charge well over the odds to actually make a half decent attempt. I dread to think how difficult it would have been had we needed to experience every attraction this time around, though I do recognise that most often the challenge in that is the fun for me, the true driving force that was lacking here immediately after the very first day. That’s about everything I learnt!
Not much to report here, had a lazy morning as we’d pretty much run out of things to do that didn’t include standing in a 2 hour queue for something already done.
Afternoon rolled around and we went back to
Epic Universe
to see the dragon show, Untrainable. I’d seen it before in Beijing so knew what to expect. And it was what was expected, very good, but then they skipped Toothless at the end for technical reasons or something.
Can’t remember exactly what happened next, more procrastinating out of silent protest to the park and then left again most likely. $30 parking just to see an old show.
The weather had gone really weird once more, with another massive drop in temperature expected overnight and some pretty high winds, so general consensus was that everything outdoors was going to close for the next 24 hours or so.
Epic Universe
Expecting this to quieten things down substantially, and maybe steal our final lap on a broken stardust racers, went back in again to find it closed for weather instead of course.
The park was deadening however, as guests had suffered the 3 attractions available and then decided to run for shelter. Battle at the Ministry had hit an all time low and I had had a few days to recover from the potential fever dream. Probably still took about 90 minutes in the end, but it was worth it for the comedy.
My fear that I had misinterpreted any of the moments that split my sides was extinguished. If anything it elevated the experience even further by having them affirmed. I must not tell lies.
The park wasn’t far off closing, but threw a random curveball in Hiccup’s Wing Gliders reopening as a walk-on for the final 30 minutes. We grabbed a cheeky lap in the now bitter cold, but it had great vibes in the dark and is a fantastic family attraction, when you can walk on it.
Then, wanting to spice life up a little and pretend we’d got our moneys worth, we power-walked to Mario Kart with 5 mins left on the clock. Not because it was good, but because it was open.
Again the true walk-on experience enhanced the pacing, and I opted not to shoot this time, just soak up the vibes. S’alright that way, less chaotic but a little lacking in cohesive stimulation.
And then we left.
Day 8
Failed logic had dictated we leave this park until the final day. Most chance of the Mummy reopening earlier than stated. Most ‘indoor’ park for the day when everything outdoors was expected to be closed.
This park simply sucks right now.
Universal Studios
Sadly couldn’t resist walking into the Minions Villain Con travelator thing immediately before it got any queue, as it was a new ‘experience’. You collect a hefty gun and then stand on a spot, moving slowly past some shooty scene screens.
They managed to break a moving floor about a minute in, so we had a good 10 minutes looping the same sequence over and over again while everyone’s arms got tired from the heavy guns and bored because it’s simply not an engaging attraction.
Started back up again, no one cared, waited for it to end and left. Ew.
Then headed to the back of the park to try and double down on the Harry Potter humour. I had almost entirely forgotten what Escape from Gringotts was like beyond a bad story and the sentiment of ‘I’d quite like to try the ‘coaster’ again though’.
Shouldn’t have bothered, the comedy was gone. Queue is such a drag, so I guess Forbidden Journey is the best at that. Bill Weasley gives an unconvincing performance in a pre-show, then on-board the audio was really quiet so we couldn’t even hear the stellar dialogue. It makes no sense for big V to show up in this one, say something funny, then that same problem again – ‘I’m going to kill you with my wand now’. Could have done it in an instant, fluffs it up by licking the air and being creepy instead.
Harry intervenes out of character and power scaling, then what happened to the ‘coaster’? On my one previous attempt it had managed to lull me into a false sense of the technology being quite cool at least. Nothing happened at all that gave me that impression this time around, it failed on every level. Then the lockers are bad.
Oh yeah, the lockers are bad in this park, we were reminded again at Men in Black, immediately needing to use them again. It broke down for about 10 minutes while we queued. Then we rode it. I like it, couldn’t seem to score very well, but I like it. The spinning is pretty intense if you get hit in a duelling section. A technology that needs bringing back to a modern dark ride for sure, this thing is old now. And as soon as we left it went down for the day.
Half the park was closed in fact, including many, many of the indoor attractions that were supposed to be saving the day. The hogwarts train, MIB, ET, fast n furious, villain con, the Mummy of course, most insultingly of all, down. It’s not a good attraction lineup to begin with, particularly with the recent death of RIP Rocket, but this really drove the point home. Gringotts up to 3 hours, 90 for a Transformers clone I’ve done 100 times or a Minions clone I’ve done once. Don’t like Jimmy Fallon or the Simpsons ride. Time to leave already eh?
Had some bad food in city walk while waiting for something, anything to miraculously reopen and somehow save our day. All the Universals were suffering the same fate and salvation never came, so we left again to monitor the depressing situation from the warmth and comfort of a hotel room.
Islands of Adventure
Nighttime came and the coasters of IoA limped back into life. We had one more ‘dying hour’ card to play, so we played it on Velocicoaster.
Picture this, but dark.
This was about the only thing to go better than expected and pretty much saved the day on some levels. What should have been an hour queue for the dying hour ended up around 35 minutes. Then 15 minutes. Then walk on. Finally, after a full week, we had managed one more fill of multiple laps of a kick ass Universal coaster and it was back to kicking ass mode, somehow. Definitely wasn’t warm, maybe I was more disheveled to compensate but the speed and power of the elements that were lacking on our single lap, days before, had returned to what I had been considering their former glory. It’s a firm ‘not quite top 25 for me these days, but I love it anyway’.
Then we tried to push our luck and drove to Epic for their dying hour, hoping for a single side of Stardust to do the same. Sat in the car, staring at where the on-board lights should have been moving. Lightning didn’t strike twice. And now the Stardust situation is even worse! We count our blessings for that first day, every day.
By this day we had pretty much covered everything new in the area that we had needed to, a both satisfying and saddening accomplishment when faced with lots of simple ‘revisit’ time. I don’t do well with that. We had one day worth of Disney left to use up and this was the last date on which we could do so, so decided to cobble together an attempt at a sort of highlight tour of old and new.
Day 6 – Epcot again
Back in dismal Disney, everything was significantly worse than it had been earlier in the week, which was still saying something for the time of year. Logic behind being here was our single go at Guardians being a little lackluster. Wanted to give it another opportunity, but the queue was ruined upon arrival.
Test Track hadn’t fully fleshed out yet, so here we are again. Great ride, love the update.
Not wanting to get too down about Epcot, we took a wander just to soak up the sights more, rather than sweating over attractions.
Here’s England, unconvincingly.
Morocco, maybe.
Spoilers.
Wanted to try some pizza in Italy, so here’s a picture of China, but they weren’t open yet. That was annoying, and then by the time lunchtime rolled around, the park got even more unpleasantly busy to the point that you couldn’t really move effectively along pathways, ruling out another lap around the pavilions.
So, under the guise of a lunchtime lull, here’s Guardians again, with a slower and longer queue.
Pre-show was still broken, we positioned ourselves better for the escape so that wasn’t so bad. Then, 1/6*1/6, we got the same stupid song again.
This time, instead of being distracted by any visuals, I tried to focus solely on the dialogue in an attempt to understand what was happening in the story. It didn’t really help, the clash with the music is pretty obnoxious. You win obviously, something something I am Groot and you’re done.
Nah. Better than Tron, but what isn’t?
Speaking of, here’s Magic Kingdom again
Rather than focusing on the +1, today was an opportunity to focus on the attractions we actually like at this park.
It was still grim as anything, multiple hour queues even for food outlets, difficult to walk anywhere, and the weather had returned just to the cusp of “I’m probably going to get sunburnt and slightly ill now if we do this much longer.”
Haunted Mansion looked worse than it was, stretching way beyond the entrance and alongside some construction walls where the steamboat used to be. They provided shade.
Got to play with an interactive thing in the queue, so that was new. Then the pre-show is great because of course it is. Then the bottleneck to the station sucks. Then the ride is great because of course it is. It’s not Christmas.
Pirates of the Caribbean. I love all the Pirates. Often forget the key differences between them, but Florida ain’t one of the better ones. Ends on a travelator so that’s a bonus.
And Space Mountain, after it spited us the other day. Nearly did again as we got to the gates and it decided to go all ’70s temperamental on us. A million staff were on hand and got it going again to a round of applause.
Best coaster on resort.
1 wild lap on that left us happy, happy enough to leave immediately after and never look back.
Then the monorail was broken, so we had to take a bus. 6 rides in 12 hours, what a time to be alive.
With Epic not being epic, it was time to use our Universal passes to revisit some old classics, and rope drop
Day 5 – Islands of Adventure
Walked straight to Hagrid’s to fall over at the fact that it already had a 3 hour queue for the day, and that it was contained entirely within its own entrance. Flashback to our previous visit where a 2 hour queue left Harry Potter land entirely, something ain’t right.
Writing that off immediately, we chucked a left towards some dinosaurs which hadn’t yet managed to reach unbearable status.
Our single lap on Velocicoaster for the morning was similar to Gwazi in that it felt like the ride was underperforming slightly. Be that the weather, the time of day, the mood. It’s great, but suffers from that Taron effect of a lot happening visiually, with little substance to many of the elements backing it up. Until the ending, that backs it up.
From there we decided to ride the High in the Sky Seuss Trolley Train Ride! for its ever questionable ‘is it a rollercoaster?’ status, just in case. Verdict was that it’s no less questionable than a few other things I’ve done, but I’ve left it off for now through lack of care.
Semantics aside, it was a better ride experience than Tron, and I did particularly enjoy the bit of the story that shows the yellow creatures queueing and paying for a machine in an endless cycle. And no one knows why. Self-aware.
While in Seuss land we walked onto The Cat in the Hat dark ride, which is fun, and longer than I remember. At times like these it’s all about these little victories of finding quality enough attractions that you don’t have to actually queue for, to feel like you’re getting your money’s worth from the machine.
Then we sat on a wall, while ambient audio called us a fool, to look at Sea World info again. Outlook was better than it had been the previous day already, but it needed a little more time.
Assessing queues on this park showed that only Spiderman and Kong were interesting and doable, so took a wander through the sun-bleached superhero land that kinda brings the park down on a visual level.
Spiderman queue went by ok and the ride was also ok. It’s still got the moves and, as with Soarin’, for me it’s just cool to ride something that inspired 50 other versions I’ve ridden since.
Upon finishing that, Kong queue had turned into laugh and leave status. So we laughed and left. Not ideal, but an alright start.
Went for a sandwich via a cheeky drive-by of Sea World to see with our own eyes that Pipeline was testing. Not leaving anything to chance.
Ate said sandwich and then headed in to
Sea World
Comedy began at the parking barrier, meeting the general sentiment of this place really not caring about guest impressions as of late. The price to park was pitched slightly above every other establishment in the city, but that was also before including the cheeky ‘+ tax’ slapped on the sign that they love to hit you with. Reading this aloud with an American accent made it bearable, but the reality of the rip-off soon hits when having to walk through a sea of cars on barren tarmac.
At least it seemed reasonably quiet at the entrance, with security clearly bored and trying to make a good time for themselves.
Quickly learned that the shortest way to #1 Pipeline: The Surf Coaster involves walking through a bar, which is novel, and past an obvious sign that shows off their staggered opening times shenanigans, which is less so.
Almost got baited into some paid lockers by the signage, before noticing that everyone else was just winging it with loose articles, so headed in fully equipped. The tunes in the area are rather fun, with some surfing music that gives it some fun character.
One train was a little slow of course, but we were on in about 25 mins, entertained enough by watching a new ride system in action.
So it’s that new B&M stand-up thing of course, and I had mixed excitement and trepidation about it all. Personally love a good stand-up, with Togo being my kings of the game and having not had one for 30 years it’s nice to see a revival in any form. But then it’s B&M, and their actual ‘seating’ never did much for me. Plus they can’t build a smooth ride to save their life any more.
There’s hope. I actually really like the new product and am excited to see where it goes. The standing design is a lot better, with room to breathe around you, much less clunky restraints and a flexibility in floor-to-ass height even while the ride is operating. This all adds up to fear, and fear is where the stand-up always shone for me.
The starting launch is the next in a long line of the latest fashion – one with a hump in the middle of it, which here serves the specific purpose at least of instantly putting the fear in you. The airtime introduces the fact that your feet can just leave the floor at any moment in the next 60 seconds.
You do a big corner while recovering from that, before heading into a twisty hill that does the thing to you again. Then there’s an inversion to break it up a bit, before a suboptimal second half of mostly corners that don’t best play to the strengths of the ride type, or the theme, save from a couple of whippy transitions.
I don’t know if it was better or worse for it, but on re-rides you can lean into the unique sensation more by springing down and ‘jumping’ into the key moments. It adds to the thrill of course, but equally to the discomfort if you land in an anatomically compromised position.
Had a blast anyway, made me realise I don’t get to try much new these days. Layout feels a bit prototype, but positive impression overall.
#2 Penguin Trek was the other new B&M that we needed, and was quite the opposite in every way. Queue took us through some of the rocks that we had explored previously as just the abandoned dark ride, before a bit of a themed room and batching staff having an argument with guests about not being able to take their fanny pack on or something.
Exact same Sea World rubbish from years ago – haphazardly trying to ruin someone’s day over an item that can easily go in the loose item storage available on the platform, to try make $2 + tax off them at a locker.
They had no logical grounds to back their claim beyond sounding like an ass, of course, so after 30 seconds of no clear indication whether we were clear to pass or not, we passed them and their nonsense and walked onto the next arriving train.
Starts indoors with a bit of unconvincing gumpf, rocks and screens of Legoland quality. Then a surprisingly punchy, for what it is, uphill launch into the outdoor layout.
Which immediately rattled around and rode hilariously at low speed, making the mockery of this once fine rollercoaster company that we’ve all become so used to by now. It doesn’t even look pretty, and that’s like their only thing left.
There’s a poxy second launch in there somewhere, which just happened, and the rumble continued awkwardly into the brakes. So for the competition it’s up against in the ‘family multi-launch’ category – awful. +1
Round the corner is one of their finest creations at least, it was finally time for a Mako marathon. I had been looking forward to reuniting with Florida’s third best coaster for some time and on a trip that made it very hard to come by any unadulterated coasting experiences the laps didn’t disappoint.
It perfects the essence of the B&M hyper for me, the ridiculously sustained float into a satisfying crunch that lands perfectly, on Mako alone, on every single hill. In the golden 2nd row, even the trimmed hill adds to the experience with a delightful third tier of float-brake-crunch, but it’s the first camelback that’s just on another level and has you actively counting the seconds out of seat. Love it.
Wanted to give Ice Breaker another shot after kinda liking it, but hating life while riding it because comfort collars and the fabled ‘best place for your ‘loose’ item is loosely in your hand on a jerky ride you may want to hold on to, rather than bent round your face or just, I’ll take them from you and put them somewhere’ policy.
Both of these issues were rectified on this occasion, with the collars being a thing of the past, many congratulations to all involved.
Thus it’s a solid ride. The multi-pass two stage humps are silly and awkward in a good way and then there’s a decent punch to the top hat, twists and turns that follow. Feels too short after the faff.
With operating hours closing in faster than expected we took a couple more laps on the best boys and then headed out, satisfied with success at Sea World. It weren’t pretty, but it got the job done.
After another food break the plan was to head back to
Islands of Adventure
and suck up the wait for Hagrid’s, no matter the cost. For all the Universal attractions with perpetual 3 hour waits this trip, it seemed to be the only play to dedicate your dying hours to a single lap on one of them, as the fastrack stops serving not long before closing. Then, like it should do all the time, operationally it motors through the remaining guests.
Aside from thinking we were in the wrong queue for the first five minutes, for how big the fastrack one was at an hour before park close, the tactic worked. A combination of moving faster, eventually, and the simple resignation to ‘this is our lot for the night’ makes it somewhat more bearable. And in my lack of general excitement I’d forgotten just how damn good this ride was.
It’s so long, with so much going for it. One of very few attractions with a wait like that that actually lets you feel like it was worth it for the ride time. Particularly at night, with the headlights and sound effects and other trains zipping around it’s such an adventure in both layout and technological goonery.
While never truly kicking your ass, the ride is just pure joy from start to finish. As established I love a multi-launch and you can’t get more multi than this, nor help but think back to Penguin Trek and snort. My only real criticism is that the very final, most potent acceleration of them all, leads to a disappointingly short section before the final brakes. Just when you feel it’s peaking. In Falcon’s Flight terms, because everything for me going forward is likely to be in Falcon’s terms, it would be ending after the top hat.
There was still a cred to be had in mine cart misery, so we decided our best bet was to just rope drop the 3 hour queue and suck it up.
It was the first time we made it past the Donkey Kong Country sign, but barely, as the queue was snaking straight into the tunnel between areas. After much sufferance under a criminally short music loop of Jungle Japes, turned out the ride had broken down during ERT.
Usual spiel was given about don’t know how long this will be, but we opted for the ‘fine, we can wait it out, then be one of the first back in line’ logic. After much sufferance under a criminally short music loop of Jungle Japes, they changed their tune and forcibly dispersed anyone attempting to queue, saying go away, it will reopen at 1pm.
So that was a waste of everything. What else is there to do on a revisit to Epic?
Since our initial visit, Stardust Racers had been running a single side only, with a miserable queue to match the rest of the park. Logic dictated it wasn’t worth queueing much, much longer than we already had for an inferior non-racing experience.
The rest of the park was in it’s usual ruined state of multiple hour queues for attractions not worth the effort for a reride.
Except Monsters Unchained. So we rode that again. Amazing.
Only other ‘new’ thing we actually needed was the Dragons show, but they’d reduced the timeslots on it since the weekend, so that was still multiple hours away, annoyingly. Figured instead we’d just lurk and get back in the mine cart queue as early as they’d let us again before it ‘reopened at 1pm’.
Oh wait, it had already reopened and was on a 4 hour queue.
So we left. Epic my ass.
In case you couldn’t tell, we weren’t having the best of luck at this point, and this was exacerbated by factors beyond just the new park. This day had been specifically allocated to Sea World but, armed with the knowledge that they’re operating pretty terribly these days, had been checking the app regularly for signs of life. With only a single day ticket, it was too much of a risk to visit without guaranteed ticks against the 2 new coasters and Mako rerides.
All three of those had been closed all morning as well.
And, for final insult to injury, whilst checking the general mess that was all of the Orlando parks, we also learnt on this morning that Mummy, the one ride we actually needed at Universal Studios, was now listed for unplanned maintenance until the day after we flew home.
It was time to get creative, and we’d also been laughing at Busch, because they were currently in their phase of only opening 3 out of 15 rides every day. Only thing that mattered to us was ‘which rides?’ though, and ‘Gwazi – 5 mins, new cred – open’ was all the convincing we needed to jump in the car and drive out.
Busch Gardens Tampa
Arrived in a very quiet looking car park for mid afternoon and took the land train with 2 other people on it (there they are). Compared to the hell on earth crowding of Orlando, it all seemed pretty blissful. With a spring back in our step, we forfeited our single day ticket and headed straight to the one, the only, the legendary god damn, Iron Gwazi.
It was broken.
After several minutes with several staff members giving unclear signals about how temporary this was, whether we could still enter the queue, what we were supposed to do about the new(?) paid lockers and new(!) security scanner if we were to join the queue, we bailed and went to ride the only other ride on park.
I say that with no exaggeration as we walked past a Cheetah Hunt that had been down for months and chuckled at the audacity of their upcharge cable car. Not that we cared about the rest, but Sheikra – closed, Kumba – closed, Cobra’s Curse – closed, Falcon’s Flight – closed. Maybe the stupid sky rocket was open, I honestly couldn’t care less, but it was a laughably miserable time for most people to be at Busch Gardens.
Walked onto Montu, it was decent and remains one of the better inverts for me, having done them all and no longer being excited by them. A reminder of a time when B&M were respected, though perhaps elevated by the fact that it was the second attraction we’d actually managed in about seven hours of prime Florida time.
Speaking of a time when B&M were respected, we needed to ride Phoenix Rising, the walk to which began with a sightline of Gwazi running again – good, and ended with a sightline of the new coaster running, but empty, with a sign out front that said it was closed all day.
****
Guess we’ll drown our sorrows by finishing the night on Gwazi then. Walked back. Broken again.
This honestly felt like the new lowest point in my coasting career and I was just about ready to be done with it all. The diminishing returns on my time and money invested at this point are reaching a stage where it simply isn’t worth it. You try so hard and come so far and in the end it doesn’t even matter.
30 minutes on a bench staring down the staff however managed to convince me that America is the problem, not the wider hobby. I’ve still had great times recently in other countries, regardless of the quality of the attractions. I was planning to head west later in the year, but given the absolute state of the trip to the states last year, and now this, I think it’s ultimately for the best to say that’s parked until something properly excites me again.
Anyway, enough complaining, Iron Gwazi did eventually reopen and we managed a respectable 7 laps on it. The most suprising part of it all was the fact they were running two trains, for no one in particular, and far more efficiently than they had in opening year.
As for how the ride was, it didn’t quite stack up to previous memory. I think it’s measurable though, the stupidly cold weather was hampering it to the point that the train was barely moving through the final third. This became more and more noticeable with each lap, to the point that it felt like the ride was warming down rather than up, very surreal.
The earlier elements still kicked ass, even with the buzz-kill Shambhala start. A very positive heavy drop, crazy overbanks and ridiculous inversions all add up to RMCs most unhinged package, pre-Arieforce. Just a shame that the hills at the end, which are meant to punctuate the layout as the only true sequence of airtime and round off the variety of forces that tear you apart, didn’t.
We left, somewhat reinvigorated, with new questions in our head about whether there had been any changes to what the best coaster in Florida is now. Then on the drive back I had a crazy idea about finding out, just ride all 3 contenders in one day, simple. Not simple of course, IoA didn’t stay open late enough to make this actually happen, or at the very least their queues were so ridiculous that they had taken to closing them early. Oh and Stardust is cooked.
Epic Universe
Were still open, but we decided to go for #1 Mine-Cart Madness instead as we had literally ridden nothing new all day and that felt like a terrible waste. With the steely, I don’t care any more, let’s just get this done attitude of a wacky worm, the wait wasn’t so bad.
The queue itself is more pleasant than being stuck in the area outside, even if there’s far less to look at. Once again, the single rider queue looked absolutely distraught with misery by comparison as we entered into the final stages of anticipation, hoping for a front row because I’ve heard it rides like ass.
Worryingly, several front rows had been taped off, not helping any part of the situation, but we lucked out and away it went.
S’alright. Interesting, has it’s charm in a clunky, custom wild mouse kind of way. Rough yes, but in a way that adds a bit of entertainment rather than detracting from the experience. Main thing that stuck in my head, though the overall theming was great, was the fact that the track ‘jumps’ just aren’t that convincing. As clever as they’re trying to be, the visuals don’t match the actual sensation, regardless of where you look.
I found a lot of the time, out of fascination, I was watching the secret track underneath to see what was coming, and likely try and brace a bit. Then if you watch the fake track which suddenly ends in a ramp or a mangled mess of steel, you don’t then lurch or crunch over this in a way that makes you feel you’re actually on those rails, or that you’d make the other side. Instead you just effortlessly glide towards it as if nothing happened and this does detract from the spectacle.
As with most rides on park now, I wouldn’t be averse to experiencing it again, but never with the queues it gets.
Main motivator for returning to the resort was the +1 here. Not just any +1 of course, Expedition Everest had been closed for maintenance on our previous visit and was one of the biggest names still out there that I was yet to tick off.
A significant chill was in the air as we headed in, the unseasonably cold weather seemingly settling in for the long haul. Good for the coaster theme I guess.
Took a detour on route however to pay homage to old mate Dinosaur. Secondary factor in coming back and at this time of year was aiming mere days before the retirement of this top tier Disney dark ride.
It didn’t disappoint, as I remember really liking it before, and god damn, it still kicked ass. The theme had a quaint retro vibe to it, amongst it’s dying hours, but the movements of the vehicle are where the attraction really shines. In a corner seat it feels downright dangerous the amount it manages to toss you about which, combined with the chaotic darkness of much of the layout, was simply joyous to sit back and endure.
Took a few laps in the end just to be sure and got a little emotional about it in the closing moments of the sequence, when the reality hits. Won’t ever be experiencing that again. RIP one of Florida’s finest.
Hello, new friend.
Flashbacks to the state of Tron’s queue when walking through the wonders of #1 Expedition Everest. So much care and attention went into this one, what with all the lore of designers living out in-situ and bringing back all these artifacts as evidence.
With all that distraction we were on in what felt like a flash, while I wasn’t sure I was even ready for it. This this is meant to be good, right?
Well it’s gorgeous, even simple things like the stone steps leading to retractable evacuation stairs give it that magical touch as you head up the big lift hill.
Shenanigans in the dark led us to learn that all that time down for maintenance didn’t even bring back bird on a stick before a bit of backwards. The cave wasn’t quite as atmospheric as I would have liked and then the coaster is simply decent.
For the step up in thrill I don’t think it quite landed where I wanted it to after so many years of expectation, what with the rate at which things happen vs the more chilled pacing and simple joys of a Big Thunder. Then the yeti is obviously ruined. But who can blame them, new parks can’t get that right either.
Glad to have done it, wouldn’t rush back.
Speaking of, the Avatar ride queues were already ruined for the day, so headed off to one last new thing. Sort of.
The rethemed 3D cinema, now Zootopia: Better Together flavour. As a fan of the film it was good fun, but lacked the signature ‘scares all the children out of the room’ moments that Tough to be a Bug was legendary for. Liked the joke in particular that acknowledged we couldn’t have the official vocal performance because they hadn’t paid Shakira for it. Battle at the Ministry.
And that was Animal Kingdom. Still far too few rides, and they just closed their best.
Headed out to Five Guys for a meal, before hopping over to
Hollywood Studios
This park was the bane of our existence on the previous visit. Though many of the attractions were undoubtably top notch, they were the new hotness and multiple queues of multiple hours managed to destroy our legs and vibes.
Returning without the pressure of needing to do anything was lovely in comparison.
Hello, old friend.
Technically one thing we needed were some A-mode effects on the beast that is Rise of the Resistance. Alas, animatronic Kylo was still hiding behind a piece of metal and gimping around in his ship outside instead. And the turrets still didn’t move. It remains a mind-bogglingly addictive attraction that I can never find the words to review however.
Walked into what turned out to be Aerosmith themselves while exiting the ride. Didn’t know them to look at, just made a glancing remark that some old blokes looked very rockstar and were probably famous. Later found out they were on park to say goodbye to a ride we certainly wouldn’t miss.
Speaking of, something was clearly up with Smuggler’s Run as it consistently had double the queue of Rise. In no universe can that be justified, so I look forward to being disappointed by the planned overhaul.
Here’s Mickey & Minnie’s Runaway Railway, one that never disappoints.
Pure Disney magic.
There’s a new Villains show out the back of a bad coaster that’s getting Muppeted, replacing some poxy Cars one and in anticipation of a future themed land. 3 baddies come out and plead that they ain’t so bad, before the audience picks a winner. Was cheesy and enjoyable in a good musical kind of way, with a very catchy overarching tune from the magic mirror. Better than Tron.
Here’s Tower of Terror, one that never disappoints, and the fact that this one just has a forwards dark ride section entertains me to no end. So elaborately engineered while being the absolute best thrill machine on resort. Just need to amp up the scariness by 20% like Paris has now.
Did some more Star Wars stuff, including the only walk-on attraction in the state, Star Tours, a couple times because I love seeing all the different combinations. Have now reached the point where I’ve landed on a couple of repeats over recent years, but it’s still highly entertaining even as just a piece of hardware, until it references Episode 9, my personal death of the franchise. But then I can laugh about it, like Harry Potter.
Ended the night on Florida Fantasmic, because it wasn’t running back when we last visited. Seen the Cali edition, before it caught fire, though the one here is quite a different experience just on setting alone, being in a full arena.
Selection of music was slightly off-base from the usual castle show stuff, and much better for it, while the story was very much from the same page. Mickey, cameos, bad things, power of love and money.
Loved it overall, just think it lacked the punch of spectacle that Cali managed to deliver with it’s 200ft pirate ship appearing out of nowhere into a much more intimate staging. And the dragon ain’t all that now, for reasons.
After my minor rant about Florida Disney pricing last year, heavy research led to finding out that you aren’t as restricted to 7- or 14-day packages as I had previously believed. You can get some pretty flexible deals here https://www.bestoforlando.com/disney-world-tickets/date-based-tickets/ that allowed us to tailor our visit to the exact number of days required, not having to worry too much about over or under-cooking it. We wanted to visit all of the parks again at least once, as three of them contained +1s and the other had the most well rounded lineup last time anyway so would be rude not to.
We kicked off this package at Day 2 – Epcot
The most pleasant of the four to visit in my opinion. There’s an unrivalled vibe about the place and around 50% of the attractions that just can’t be matched elsewhere.
Not sure sequence is important here, so I’ll just talk about the attractions. This was the first true day of discovering Orlando was way busier than it should have been, with the major draws here all capping way over an hour even by early entry. This meant that most of trip from this point onwards revolved around the constant internal battles and struggles of ‘I’ve ridden this before, I don’t want to queue worse for it’ and playing the generally fruitless game of trying to beat the system without paying.
One of the new things that took priority was the recently rethemed Test Track, now on it’s 3rd iteration. They’ve removed the quirky build your own car segment and the subsequent theme of the ride being tested around that car, in favour of returning more to honouring the original version. A simple sit down of talking about and enjoying some car stuff, with a bit of an attempt to sell one.
The queue is fine, if a little bland now without an interactive segment. One of the more pleasant ‘long’ waits we had at least.
Ride itself is great, a significant upgrade to my memory of it. Some of the visual effects in the early game are rather stunning, while the cheesy onboard audio describes ‘futuristic’ features. Then there’s literally just a pleasant sit-down section of driving through trees and mountains with the new and awesome soundtrack playing. Then you get the outdoor high speed bit, which is still rather surreal as a non-coaster experience.
Approved.
#1 Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind was suboptimal, they haven’t timed the audio visual loops of some segments to not repeat themselves multiple times as you slowly move past so one of the many Chris Pratt appearances throughout the city begins to grate quite quickly. Well maybe they did time it, but the now rampant fastrack abuse of Orlando quickly killed it.
The pre-shows stack weirdly with one just being an unpleasant room of constant ‘move forward and fill the space’ shouting, killing the mood somewhat. Next one has a reasonably amusing introductory video. Last one is supposed to have an impressive visual effect, but it was consistently broken.
Heading out of this one led to a hugely unpleasant bottleneck of bodies, one in which you could easily lose another 15 minutes to if you aren’t forceful enough or experienced about positioning. Though far less egregious than some of the examples at Epic had been, this created that similar disappointment of ‘pre-show made me excited for the ride, but now the mood is gone’. Especially as it literally ends with the line ‘quick, get them on the shuttles’. There’s just nothing quick about it, even for an 8-train Disney powerhouse.
Eventually our Vekoma train chugged in and set things in motion. I stayed pretty spoiler-free for this attraction even though it opened a fair few years ago now, not long after our original visit here. Not sure this particularly helped in the end, as the feeling of needing to stay spoiler-free implies a certain level of ‘something special happens’, and it really didn’t.
The initial visual sort of illusion with the big black room and screens on a corner as the cars spin backwards was a little disorienting in a ‘that’s kinda cool’ kinda way. Then it launches backwards, then it’s just a long and mildly interesting rollercoaster in a building.
For me it failed to capture any of the sense of fun that the Tower of Terror equivalent of the Guardians attraction delivers. Without a more consistent visual story aid, this one relies on character audio describing what’s happening, while also being drowned out by the loud accompanying music that is also a defining feature for the entirety of the journey.
I just failed to focus on any one thing in particular, from the coaster forces itself, to the random screen snippets, to hearing what the crew were saying, to not particularly enjoying the Blondie song. The result was a rather underwhelming experience to be honest, especially given the popularity.
It’s glossy smooth and the rotation is technically seamless, but that takes away from the thrill somewhat. Outside of a couple floaty pops of air here and there, the overall feeling is far less out of control than an old Space Mountain equivalent, and that simply doesn’t suit the premise, or my personal taste.
Disapproved.
Spaceship Earth remains a classic of course, a long and comfortable uphill sit-down with soothing narration and pleasant scenery. This is capped off by a drastically out of date but quirky on-board interactive screen which puts your on-ride photo face into a goofy future.
Did Soarin’ because why not, never actually done it before. Unironically it has one of the most enjoyable queues on park by means of a simple quiz on screens that you can also interact with using your phone. No decoration whatsoever, just a simple brain exercise competition was enough to keep us entertained.
The ride is nothing to write home about, I’m way beyond caring about flying theatres now, though there is a certain charm in coming back to one of the originals that started the craze in the first place.
Speaking of charm, Living with the Land oozes it. Where else in the world can you get a dark ride through an unenchanted greenhouse, with real vegetables. Better than Guardians.
One final shout out to Club Cool. We had heard about but managed to not find this sodas of the world thing last time. To our elation, stumbled upon it still existing and then visited on multiple occasions. A great source of free hydration in a theme park, not to be underestimated.
There’s no coasters to rank here, so let’s rank sugary drinks: 8. China – tastes like medicine, not particularly pleasant. 7. Russia – Cucumber flavouring is too bland to carry it. 6. Italy – Not awful, but tastes like a mixer rather than a standalone drink. 5. Philippines – Is what it looks like, watermelon Fanta. Had better versions of the same thing elsewhere in Asia though. 4. Dominican Republic – Decent flavour, but the kind of very sweet you wouldn’t want to drink too much of. 3. Moldova – Decent flavour, a little in the opposite direction, bit too subtle to satisfy. 2. Madagascar – Addictive taste. 1. Korea – As good on flavour, I just prefer non-sparkling drinks where possible.
Yay for Epcot.
Headed out to Disney Springs for a meal, before hopping over to
Magic Kingdom
This place is the most faffy of the resort to get to, because of the mandatory monorail. For a first time visit, the wonder of that likely adds to the charm, or at least it probably did when monorails were more special. On a return visit it just eats up a portion of your expensive day out.
It was actually already dark when we arrived, don’t let that photo fool you, and for now we had one new coaster on our mind, #2 Tron Lightcycle Run, for the sake of completion.
See?
This sucked, so bad. Let’s get the clone moan out of the way. I’ve done it before, under much better circumstances. Remember the good old days, when Disney used to give free fastpass from machines and they didn’t ruin anything for everyone else? Well even without that I queued about 20 mins a go for the Shanghai version of Tron. Didn’t like it much, because I don’t like motocoasters and the layout is bland as anything.
Well here we are 9 years later, the Americans were patient enough for Disney to just bring it to them. It wasn’t worth it.
The queue time was understated at around 80 minutes, which was awful to begin with. But it’s just lazy, no effort overflow switchbacks under boring and sparse umbrellas. On a hot day, this would have been hell on earth, but we had a different kind of issue. No sunburn for the first time in forever, but Florida was instead on the cusp on a freak cold snap. It dropped from 29 °C to -4 in under 48 hours and we felt the effects of this to our very bones, barely moving, even though trains were being launched every 25 seconds.
After over an hour you might reach the actual queue entrance, which says the name of the sponsor rather than the ride. Then maybe 20 minutes is actually themed, poorly, indoors, with another annoying audio loop about a mini-game in a film no one is supposed to acknowledge that they have seen.
Ride was exactly as I remember – uncomfortable, underwhelming visually and as a coaster. It immediately superseded Guardians as the new ‘this ride is better than <insert premium attraction here>’ of the trip.
Case in point, wanted to go ride Space Mountain, because it’s better than Tron (and Guardians), but it had broken for the day.
So we walked straight onto the Peoplemover, which is better than Tron. Got some sneak peeks at the inside of Space Mountain with the house lights on, an engineer standing at a block section and scratching his head.
Then no sneak peeks at whatever they’re doing to Buzz Lightyear, because they’ve put curtains up.
Castle show wasn’t far off starting at this point, but the crowds, weather and general mood deemed it was better to skip it in favour of getting out at a reasonable time in a reasonable condition. Had our eye on some different shows for the week anyway.
