Conveniently I was required to be in Abu Dhabi for 3 days for work, so I jumped at the opportunity to have a bit of fun beforehand. This wasn’t somewhere particularly on the cards for me in the near future, but I’m very glad to have been now. The whole place far exceeded my expectations in pretty much every aspect and I’d happily go back for more.
The first day was a bit of a marathon. I had an overnight flight with 0 sleep, being surrounded by the Chinese who kept their lights on the whole time and were having their usual loud conversations. There’s no escaping them.
Landed first thing in the morning and sorted out the hire car. Through more luck than judgment, I had timed things just right and this was the first day of celebrating the end of Ramadan, so didn’t have to worry about not being able to eat. It also seemed to have a positive impact on the parks, everywhere was super quiet.
This was first made eerily obvious as I hit the dusty trail and perhaps saw about 10 cars total on the first hour of the journey. Bombing down a 4 lane motorway in the desert with absolutely nothing in sight. I like this already.
IMG Worlds of Adventure
Pulled up outside the park nice and early, believe I was the 3rd or 4th car on site. There’s some sweet Mack coaster goodness to admire on the way in.
Free parking, but unfortunately none of it is covered here, so the car and anything in it is gonna get an absolute roasting.
Eh, can’t be that bad.
Largest indoor theme park. That’s convenient.
Hung around the entrance area for a while until they let us through to the turnstyles.
From there, they did an opening ceremony to a crowd of about 50, which involved some mediocre dancing to the tune of Let Me Entertain You. Everyone rushed forward to meet the bloke from Adventure Time, while I headed off to the rides.
Ooo it’s a nice looking place. There’s definitely some magical vibe going on with the indoor-ness, which these pictures won’t do justice at all. Everyone’s really friendly and it all just looks great, particularly the jungle/dinosaur area being in half dark all the time. I was concerned about bad locker rules being an inconvenience to me, but the staff girl told me “nah, no need to bother with that nonsense.”
#1 Predator
Got the Gerstlauer Eurofighter out of the way first. Ugh, Rage clone.
It was actually better than I remember it. I only recall liking the way it hangs in the loop, but the rest of the layout is rather forceful and fun for what it is. It’s mirrored too, I’m sure that’s what makes the difference.
Ended up losing my way in the jungle area looking for the next cred and found myself in Avengers land instead. Spiderman then.
#2 Spider-Man Doc Ock’s Revenge
The queueline here is particularly impressive, going through some dingy alleys and themed rooms, before passing under a darkened tease of a section of the track. I didn’t expect much from this ride either as, you know, clones, but I really enjoyed it. The lift hill starts in a flashy strobey underground tunnel that’s pumping tons of mist into your face before dropping you into the quick off-ride viewing section.
There’s a transition from there where it lets you know that it’s a ride not to be messed with as it plunges down back into the depths of the inner themed area which is full of skyscrapers. Depending on your direction of travel and current intensity of spinning, this can be a real surprise and some of the following turns end up crazy forceful. It all ends a little too soon for my liking, but really good fun.
Still in cred mode, powered back over to the Mack Blue Fire clone (thats 3/3), which was hiding at the back.
#3 Velociraptor
Some of this queue looked rather good as well, though it just turned into plain walls shortly after here. I like the trains with their yellow and red dinosaur skin look, disappointed I didn’t manage to get a picture. Got straight on the ride and made myself at home in the sexy bucket seats again. Being spoiled with them this year.
The pre-launch section is rather cool, passing through some jungle and more mist being pumped out at you. There’s a big screen on the right, on which some dinosaurs start making a scene, prompting you to leave quickly. The door to the outside opens a little early in all this and sunlight pours in to ruin the effect of the screen before you’re off.
Ahhhh! 40°C! The cooking effect from the sun isn’t noticeable while you’re moving fast, but as soon as you hit the brake run you can feel the burn and being a vampire I’m thinking ‘gotta get back inside, gotta get back inside.’ The ride is great fun of course, being a Mack launch coaster.
Not sure what they were going for with the outdoor area. There’s a random greenhouse chucked in amongst some palm trees and some dust. Better than nothing I guess.
Each of these parks on this trip I was in super cred mode to begin with and it was never fully justified. This was all knocked out in about 45 minutes, so it was time to relax.
Did Forbidden Territory the dinosaur dark ride next. It was quite good, the queue has some story building if you get to spend any time in it and there’s some impressive physical theming inside but it got a bit screen heavy towards the end and the vehicle movement was a little awkward rather than thrilling.
Avengers: Battle of Ultron followed. I was rather excited for this simulator, being a fan of the cinematic universe, but maybe that hurt it for me, as it’s not directly from that particular media source. I wasn’t particularly impressed by the ride sequence, all felt a bit been there, done that with lots of recycled tricks in almost the same environment as its competitors (Spiderman/Transformers) unlike, say, Fantawild ones.
The Ride of Ooo was the busiest attraction all day. Queued a whole 10 minutes or thereabouts. Half dark ride, half suspended monorail over the park, it wasn’t without its charm. Don’t particularly know the brand though.
I liked The Amazing Ride of Gumball. Had a little preshow to set the scene and tell me what it even was, cos never heard of it. It’s a fun shooting ride, the type that seem to be becoming my favourites with the mixture of physical targets, screen based blastings and crazy unpredictable scores.
Hulk 3D Epsilon Base was up and running next. Another preshow to set the scene, before strapping in to the huge circle of seats. I was expecting it to be a rather relaxed affair, having only sat in a dome theatre ride like this before for a slow Chinese fairytale, but this one really gets up a good forceful spin, there’s a lot going on and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I believe that just leaves Ben 10 5D. More preshows, which the locals had now run out of patience for and were all intently staring at the door to the theatre rather than watching any more. Vicious attraction! The moving cinema style seats on this give you a right good kicking, which I wasn’t expecting at all. It brought back memories of the John Cleese ride with its intense car crash moments.
Rounded the day off with a few re-rides, but got rather exhausted towards the end of the 36 hour day. Nearly died a few times on the drive back to the hotel, quite literally being half asleep. All for a good cause.
Great park then, liked it a ton more than I expected. Very relaxed atmosphere and good selection of rides, while not suffering too badly from being an RCDB clone fest. I remarked while I was there that I thought this would be the ‘bad’ park of the trip. The bar has been set high.
This particular crawl was meant to happen last year, but it turned into something better(?) in the same area. Better late than never.
Day 2 – Dennlys Parc
Not sure what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. A tiny little place with Spanish pop music everywhere, it had a fair bit of charm.
#1 Nitro
Got extra excited for a bit as I had forgotten what this is, but damn, it’s a Moebius loop (one continuous piece of track). Sends you round both sides in one cycle, so no quandaries about half a cred or anything. It contained a couple of rough turns, but nothing too serious. The main drops and hills weren’t bad, but it ain’t no Pax.
#2 Furio
Can it get worse? The ‘worst custom steel rollercoaster in the world’ – Mitch Hawker 2013.
What? How? It rode with the same level of inoffensiveness as the Soquet yesterday. Does pretty much nothing.
#3 Voltigo
And we’ll finish off the coasters here with pretty much nothing. At least it’s an obscure manufacturer for the list. Only 2 Gosettos in the world.
Did one of those Desperado 4D screen shooting attractions where you sit on the little rocking horses as they’re quite fun. Must have done too many now, victory over everyone else came quite easily.
Did one of these discount rapids rides, which was a laugh.
That looks like the same tower as yesterday. Eh, might as well. No tingle from this version though. Pure ejector at the top of each main burst – they’re running it hard. Highlight of the park for sure.
That was all rather easy. Next?
Bagatelle
Bit of a weird entrance to this park. Bag check before a pink tunnel under the road, then some big metal entrance gates and many confused people standing around.
#4 Kid’z Coaster
Excellent once you get inside though. The first thing you come to is a Wacky Worm on tarmac. A beautiful sight.
#5 Gaz Express
Was expecting some at least some moderate crowding on a summer weekend, but maybe football (World Cup final) is good for something. Walked straight on to the most intriguing attraction here.
The Soquet Aquatrax, potentially their finest achievement. 2 helices of doom, one moment of violent air time in the back and some tasty fire effects. Who could ask for more?
#6 Famous Jack
The name doesn’t sound like a cred, but here we are. Reverchon failed to beat Zamperla today.
#7 Triops
The last couple of areas had seemed quite nice, but now we’ve stumbled onto concrete wasteland with a Vekoma Invertigo on it. It’s like they know not to try and glam it up.
With their Paris Metro air gates.
Oh no, Invertigo. My very first of these. Got somewhat nervous about how terrible it could be. The sign even mentions ‘side impacts’ (or lateral chocolate), so that’s reassuring.
The restraints are super hench like El Condor, already touching your ears before you move, so that’s reassuring.
It’s fine. No problem at all. Not as intense as a regular Boomerang, and smoother than most of them. Might still be a spark of Liseberg (its original home) magic left in it.
Can’t find the last cred now.
#8 Spirale des Dunes
Oh there it is, a baby Soquet. That’ll do.
Again that was all rather easy, time for a baguette and to see what else they have.
Like Bocasse, they were also celebrating some sort of anniversary, by splashing out on a new(?) film for their simulator attraction. This was beyond confusing, starting with what felt like a circus horror walkthrough, expecting a preshow in a punch and judy box – nope. Expecting a preshow in a room with screens inside giant 3D glasses – nope. Straight on the ride, no glasses, the simulators are decorated with bones, pop music playing, “hold the red bar.” The video was a rollercoaster on the moon! Well that was a thing.
Disaster struck at this moment. Somehow my drink had leaked absolutely everywhere in my bag. An actual swimming pool of it, just stewing in the bottom. Everything got affected, everything. It all smells rather fruity now, but also a tad sticky and I’ve had to order myself a new passport as several of the stamps are now unreadable. Volvic you heartless bastards.
The log flume here had a bit of pace to it. Drier than my bag though.
Is that a… a Hafema rapids? Had to assume it’s a Soquet again, but it does have the same crazy whirlpool element, just with less enjoyable wall collision. This became the trip of surprisingly good water rides. Drier than my bag though.
Who needs one log flume when you can have 2? Smaller than the first, but a more intense drop for its size. Drier than my bag though.
Had another go on Gaz Express and some kid in front of me decided to stick his hand/head in the fountains that spray the track mid ride. I got SOAKED by this, but still drier than my bag.
And that was it. The place was turning into a ghost town due to that sports thing and we had a Chunnel to catch. Assume everyone in the terminal was British as there was no reaction to the final result of the match. Train was delayed as always. People were moaning as always. Burger King was broken as always. That’s enough of that for one year.
We were going hold off a little longer, but the Chunnel booking system for the summer holidays wouldn’t have it any other way. Another obnoxiously early start and battling with closed roads, but for a worthy cause. There’s new wood on the horizon.
Day 1 – Parc Saint Paul
Walked away from this place less than a year ago thinking it was a good little park, but probably won’t be back. Then they had to be awesome and throw together a Gravity woodie out of the blue.
Look at the colour of it. Doesn’t get much newer than that.
They haven’t had the chance to put up a sign yet.
It wasn’t open first thing as they were still hammering some wood onto the lift hill.
And then taking a small group of people with Expedition GeForce, Cedar Point and the wrong coaster crate shirts for a backstage tour + Exclusive Ride Time. Ugh, enthusiasts.
Sadly Wild Train was down all day (the train has gone walkies), so we took the time to reacquaint ourselves with Formule 1.
Formule 1
Pax you crazy beasts. Without the other one in the park for direct comparison, this was a lot better than I remembered. Ridiculous air time in the big drop as well as the silly bunny hill and it rides way smoother than it should.
Their log flume was something different to try. The world’s dinosaur theming craze continues.
Also did this haunted walkthrough, hoping it would house a secret ride or something. The highlight was a piece of vibrating floor which reminded me of Lost Gravity. Good times.
#1 Wood Express
The French were being cheeky and slithering in past a fence earlier than the posted opening time, so we assumed it was all ready.
Gravity you crazy beasts. How can you pack so much into so little? Not being much of a fan of Twister, I had assumed they were a go big or go home manufacturer, but it turns out they really are my boys when it comes to wood.
13, not that I like to count them, moments of very decent air time. Well paced with a good bit of variety, all out of a tiny 49ft drop. And the station is nearly halfway up that height, so it could have potentially done more. *Insert derogatory Wicker Man comment here*
The trains are cute, no-belt baby Timberliners and it was weird for me to not see them in red. They seem to always be red. Except that one that’s blue. And the one they copied this from.
This park never seems to get particularly busy, and they were operating very well for 1 train of 12 people, so we got plenty of goes out of it with a consistent 10-15 minute queue. Back row was the place to be, just for the extra bonus in the first drop really.
Brilliant investment for the price. Well done Parc Saint Paul.
So what else can we find around this part of the country?
A million cars covered in bike racks and stickers were driving recklessly in the opposite direction to us while a local town ground to a halt, so we got stuck in the Tour de France on the way to the next parc. All part of the culture.
Parc du Bocasse
Celebrating 50 years with Parc du Bocasse seemed like a bit of fun. It was quite a nice place actually. Reminded me of that RCT scenario with the bridge over the road, mainly because it has a bridge over the road.
#2 Jurassic Twister
Minimal dinosaur effort on the first cred. A Zamperla version that does spin. Not bad. I say this every time now, but it still never got better than Brighton Pier.
#3 Train de Mine
I’ve never managed to ride a Soquet before, so this was my first. It’s a fairly inoffensive experience, most comparable to a small French Jet Coaster, but nowhere near as cool. The V-shaped track and lazy 45 degree up/side-stop wheels kinda bug me.
#4 Gonzales
That leaves the smallest cred. DC rivals colour with a legit IP.
The twisty air time hill looked like it could rival Alpina Blitz, but only managed about as much as Shambhala.
Gave this tower ride a crack as it seemed relatively big and we didn’t recognise who made it. It was surprisingly decent. 3 rounds of 3 upwards shots, the first of each providing a bit of tingling sensation (I’ll leave it to your imagination as to where).
We had spotted what looked like a gem on the way in. Is that a… a Hafema log flume? My boys when it comes to water.
Apparently Splash-O-Saure is made by Soquet and it’s very suspiciously similar to Mami Wata (if that means anything to you). What’s all this about the Chinese copying rides when the French are at it as well.
It does a Tidal Wave to the exit path, soaking the unsuspecting guest, or in the case of a hot day, the ready and willing guest.
Couple more dinosaurs than the cred here.
Dinosaurs crashed a plane.
Or something about time travel? My stamps don’t quite last that long.
One of the staff members at this ride spotted the shirt I was wearing and was either from ‘Parkfan’ or calling me a ‘park fan’ (apologies for me being massively confused and tired at this point). I assumed the former (but without actually knowing that was a thing) and I kept saying no as if I wasn’t the latter. The conversation ended with “Kärnan – great ride” with a thumbs up and a nod, so all was well.
Up next: Reverchon vs Zamperla Spinners. The showdown continues.
After a tricky night of finding everything closed (in the usual French fashion) and a quick burst of driving down the wrong side of the road, we set off a little earlier the next morning to hunt down some breakfast, ending up with some tasty Pain of Chocolats. Still doing it right.
Day 2 – Nigloland
The sight of the 5th tallest drop tower in the world surrounded by some trees soon greeted us and we were amongst the first 50 cars or so to arrive at the car park. I was expecting it to get busier throughout the day, but it was all far too easy again.
The world’s most lax bag check followed and we joined the crowd that had just been let in the park, all powering along the main pathway. They eventually all dispersed around us (not sure where to), leaving us with a virtually empty queue for Alpina Blitz. That works.
#1 Alpina Blitz
I’m being spoiled by the number of these Mack Mega trains I’ve sat in this season, they always feel so homely. Being a bit biased, I wanted this to be better than the Intamin almost-equivalent layout, but it never quite matched the ferocity of Piraten, who seems to be a particularly special beast.
I was very happy to learn that it has its slight variations, so at least you get a somewhat different experience out of it other than the trains.
And it is of course still extremely good, for me the best ride in the country by some margin, combining comfort with a punchy mix of strong airtime.
Also wonderfully photogenic and nicely ‘styled’.
Well I do feel like lazing around in the shade too. But what else do they have on offer here?
#2 Schlitt’Express
Got your standard Mack mouse. This one is offensively smooth, almost to the point where it loses its fun.
#3 Chenille
Got your standard Wacky Worm. Can’t go wrong there.
Hérissons de la Forêt Magique lets you ride in a cute little hedgehog and has a hint of a dark ride section.
Big wheel. Can’t see a huge amount of the park from up there as it’s so well… vegetated?
Only the big rides stand out from the trees.
#4 Spatiale Expérience
Was rather looking forward to the space themed indoor coaster as well, being a big fan of Eurosat (nervous about its refurb).
The spirit lives on in the smaller brother here. Hasn’t quite got the musicality, but it rides like a beast and is a lot of fun.
Also got rather excited for Donjon de l’Extrême, being a big fan of drop towers. And since when do they have pseudo lap bars? It’s also massive and does give you your observational spin at the top first (for those who can bear to look), which is an added bonus.
The drop itself was a tad underwhelming force-wise, as the big ones often are, but it goes on for an age. Got a bit stapled by the restraint on both attempts which may have hindered things a little.
Haunted Mansion was great. A fair amount of obvious Disney inspiration going on, but still of decent quality. Absolutely love the cars, which are just like an ornamental bench on top of a platform. They’re very ‘open’ and give a rather good spin too.
The park Euro-spited themselves here by having a new for 2018 declaration for this ride already on the map. It wasn’t ready.
#5 Gold Mine Train
Powered mine train was a thing. Bonus points for the log flume interaction. Minus points for teasing the log flume, which had the only massive queue all day.
Really liked the park overall. Nice atmosphere, not overly busy. Well kept, looks nice – the castle and Swiss areas are simple but effective. Efficient operations, lots of fancy bag holders actually in use (take note Parc Asterix…) and a couple of smart turnstyles that count down the correct number of people per batch. Water jets scattered around to keep people cool. Good ride selection. Decent food. Free parking. No complaints at all really.
Good for you Nigloland.
We returned home through the Channel tunnel that night, but our work in France wasn’t done yet. Due to an exciting new addition at one park, we came back for more a mere 2 weeks later.
Had these parks on the cards for what feels like forever now, but never quite got round to it. They were always toeing the line between too much of an effort to drive and not worth the hassle to fly. Even after making the effort and getting up at 4am (nutters), life was against us as 90% of the roads on the way to the Chunnel were closed. Made it there 1 minute later than ‘check-in’ but were lucky enough to keep the time slot. Many hours later…
Day 1 – Walygator Parc
Car park was surprisingly empty, though I do believe it never gets that busy here. Figured it should be an easy job and headed for food first rather than creds. Queued more for the food than any of the rides and then it took about 20 minutes to get a signal on the payment card reader. The staff were friendly, so no harm done. Croissants for breakfast. Baguette for lunch. Doing them proud.
#1 Family Coaster
Rides then. Started strong on the faithful family ride. Classic wacky worm but with bonus Walygator face on the train and a rotting apple to decorate. Effort.
#2 Monster
Less effort went into the big boy it seems. Temperatures in the high 30s (°C) and no roof on the station wasn’t the best of combinations, but there was never more than a trains worth of queue.
This was my first of the ‘big’ B&M inverts and you can definitely feel the difference in the way it’s all spaced out. Rather than the consistent flurry of forces there’s pauses, strange transitions, extended straights while the train sorts itself out for the next element. Which was weird, but I kinda liked it. Adds a bit of character.
The elements themselves were great. A forceful loop, air-time out of the zero-G, hugely snappy (but never ear-punchy) cobra and corkscrews, and a killer helix to finish (which hilariously makes every single person in the train shout ‘AHHH’ in unison). I imagine the lack of mid course braking helps that second half of the layout a lot. Great stuff.
#3 Comet
Bog standard Vekoma looper was bog standard. The layout that inspired so many Chinese classics.
#4 Anaconda
Which leaves L’Anaconda. Expected one of two things going into this, it was either going to be be horribly rough or horribly boring. Managed to not quite achieve either.
The layout is almost pointless, but the train bounced along in a mostly rhythmic and amusing fashion. On the more pronounced moments I could feel just my heart bouncing up and down, but I’ve felt worse sensations on rides. The locals love it, for reasons unknown, and it got a round of applause on return. Normally that’s saved for something particularly special, but who am I to judge?
I lied about the food queue being the longest. The water rides were hugely popular given the weather, but the queues were a good excuse for a bit of shade.
The dinosaur themed rapids is a weird one. Only ride I’ve seen other than Valhalla that has 2 different types of boat in active service. Layout was decent fun and the typical waterfall section was probably the most wet in recent memory with the boat actually ploughing straight into it, rather than teasing along side it as per the usual design. The Jurassic Park theme was playing here in full force, but there weren’t that many dinosaurs. It’s only Walygator, we’ll let em off.
Speaking of Valhalla.
The log flume was somewhat shorted than expected, comprising of a single drop.
Managed to last until the end of the day (without even noticing the time fly by) by spacing out the intense laps on Monster and I didn’t mind the park as a whole, as it has a certain crummy charm about it. They were announcing the live progress of the French team in their world cup game while guests were on the rides, to the sounds of cheers or groans, so they know how to crowd please.
Spotted this on the way out, which I thought was a very nice touch. They’ve got a bit of a museum building with some park history.
A B&M wheel, not for sale.
I remember him.
Walibi Schtroumpf. Gotta be the best Walibi park name.
Monster was relocated from Japan. No mean feat for a ride of that size.
Many people were gathering outside the park and sweating profusely in preparation for a semi-marathon. The car at this point, perhaps falsely, reported the outside temperature at 50°C as we got back in for another couple of hours drive to the hotel. Who were the real nutters here?
I’ll lump the last few days in together, as there’s only one more brief jaunt in a park to keep things on topic.
The 2am flight was to get us back into Seoul and meet the strict criteria to be able to attend the filming of K-Pop chart TV show Music Bank as part of an airport ‘transit’ experience.
We landed at 5am and proceeded to camp out the desk that would later open to distribute the tickets. The grumpiest man in Korea showed up for the morning shift and very reluctantly handed over the goods after some aggressive questions, without ever looking us in the eye.
Got to the hotel some time mid-morning and went to sleep then woke up mid-afternoon and headed to the TV studio. Getting inside went a lot more smoothly than last year now we knew how things worked, but it had become even more complicated within, as they’ve started to semi-enforce a seating plan. We learnt before that the locals like to sit in groups of their own fandom to show a stronger presence of support, but in theory anyone that was automatically designated a good viewing spot could kick someone else out or ask security to do it for them. Didn’t realise this was happening at all until someone approached us and sent us on our way, and then our actual seats (which were in a terrible place) had already been taken by a huge group, so ended up in a very prime spot nervously waiting to be moved again.
Show itself was suitably spectacular, but not quite up to the standard what we had the previous year. There’s a lot of luck involved in who is going to be promoting at the time and we just happened to catch a disproportionate amount of groups that we knew and liked last time, this year slightly less so…
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To this madness. Performed not once, but twice.
Luck was irrelavant though, considering who we found and met in Japan, along with what was going to happen to us the next day.
Not being as destroyed as we expected from that experience, we managed an extortionate amount of shopping that evening, which then led me to having one of my genius ideas in the middle of the night – Let’s go back to Lotte World tomorrow. And we did.
Day 15 – Lotte World
Basic premise of the visit was that we didn’t get Pharoah’s Fury last time and it would be rude not to pop in and ride Atlantis again, considering how close we were going to be to the place later that day anyway.
Ended up at the South Entrance somehow, which I didn’t know existed. I remember running through a mall last time and being spited by how quickly the fastpasses dried up due to how insanely busy some of the rides get here. This entrance was on an unassuming street with only a small gathering of people waiting for them to open the doors.
It was also directly under the bridge to the outdoor section of the park, so great for running to said fastpasses. Despite being specifically told not to run today, everyone did and we joined in, managing to bag a morning slot for Atlantis as well as jump in the main queue for a brief 30 minute wait.
The ride experience was mostly as I remember. An amazing station with the clapping and singing and pushing of big canvas bag trolleys for loose belongings on the offload platform.
Atlantis Adventure
A layout with some fantastic moments, but full of deeply questionable pacing issues. The main difference was that last visit I thought the first indoor hill after the launch was the standout airtime moment, but this time it was the one into the archway that nearly cuts your head off.
This one. Also more mist!
And a new sponsor.
Comet Express was broken sadly. Would have liked to give it another go after how ridiculously good it was. Pharoah’s Fury then.
Had a great queueline that was mostly empty, then some very efficient batching going on in the station. Cars had netted pouchies for bags but we were specifically told not to use them. On the lap bar it goes. Hope it ain’t too intense.
Riding Indy on the same trip may have hurt this slightly, it was probably all very impressive, but more of a return to the out of place jerky movements I was used to from the hardware and there’s a little ‘outside’ section here that breaks the magic somewhat. Don’t remember a particularly spectacular ending either, seem to recall asking where was the fury?
Forgot French Revolution did that, even without wearing the VR.
Don’t remember them having an ice rink before.
Went back outside to use the fastpass we picked up earlier. By this time the machine had already sold out and been covered up for the day with the standby queue, as seems to be the norm, stretching way beyond what it can physically hold and out into the various pathways around the area.
Comet Express still broken. Tried to find something else to do.
Ended up with Fly Venture, not being sure what it was. Diagrams outside would have you believe it’s a Forbidden Journey ride system, but it turned out to be a flying theatre.
It had this elaborate Steampunk theming and queueline with a preshow featuring some inventor bloke talking about a fantastic journey travelling through time and space (with poorly translated subs). Could be interesting then. Nah, the ride had absolutely nothing to do with the theme and the preshow, just your generic flying over scenery (Korean in this case) in the present day. Ugh… deception.
Without wanting to commit to any large queues for something that wasn’t new to us, our visit came to an end.
I talked about luck earlier. Some time after this trip was fully booked and planned to the nth degree, another of our absolute favourite K-Pop groups announced some concert dates. Full blown concerts in this industry aren’t common to start with, it’s just not the way they make money/gain popularity. It was happening in Seoul. We were in Seoul for 72 hours at best on this trip. It was on the only full day we had there. The only day we had free. This was fate.
The tale of what was involved in acquiring the tickets alone would probably be longer than this trip report, involving serious levels of unprofessionalism on my part, copious amounts of spending, learning that consumer laws are irrelevant, becoming best friends with Paypal, becoming mortal enemies with my bank and hopefully ruining a Korean man’s life. So it meant quite a lot.
I won’t describe the evening beyond ‘lifechanging’, as you probably got bored long ago.
Here’s some token culture to finish things off with a semblance of sanity.
Worryingly far from the first time I’ve seen Koreans playing with their old timey torture devices.
Summary
New creds – 56 Total parks – 19 Jet coasters – 7 Shooting dark rides – 8 Best coaster – Eejanaika Spites – 8/64 (12.5%)
Time for our final day in Tokyo. We started off by clearing some anxiety that had been building all week after telling ourselves we’ll get Thunder Dolphin one evening, but hadn’t actually managed it yet due to a combination of K-Pop and typhoons. So let’s do it.
Day 13 – Tokyo Dome City
Tokyo Dome is a confusing little place. Half shopping mall, half spa, split across many floors and a road, combined with a distinct lack of visitors first thing in the morning. Got lost in a lift for a bit, then picked up some wristbands from the lovely staff and headed straight to the main event.
It’s policy here at each ride to hold a sign in front of your face containing all the rules and regulations in English, for you to show some level of understanding and then nod your agreement before entering. I admire their commitment to procedure, as this also happens on rerides, just in case something serious happened to you on your previous lap.
There’s some locker faff in the station, but the ride was only ever half full at most, so it mainly involved waiting around for things to happen. They’ve got some sort of OCD despatch procedure which involves many complicated gestures and a speech, pointing at various buttons and lights, then the staff members, who are all doing hand signals for what appears to be facts about the ride – height, speed, drop etc. It all ends with the obligatory waving as the ride begins of course. Cute.
#1 Thunder Dolphin
The familiar Intamin cable lift in the middle of a city is quite a surreal experience, but these things never give you too much time to think.
So it’s not fantastic. It’s fun because it’s interesting and cool, just not so much because of the layout, which suffers quite badly from being very forced into these surroundings.
The first drop is very good, naturally. There’s also a speed hill that packs quite a punch, and the way it comes into the big drop through this hole in the building is pretty special.
The rest involves large banked corners at 150ft in the air, a failed air time hill, a 150ft drop into the brake run and most importantly – a ‘so dumb it’s funny section’ of slow wonky hills, also 150ft in the air.
Did a very weird shooting dark ride here called The Dive to finally break the trend. It’s a standup, with elaborate seatbelts that we were told we didn’t need, in a car that holds 4 people in a square shape, facing outwards. It moves to the middle of each scene before activating said scene with lights, sounds and movement, then does a single rotation on the spot while you can shoot things. There weren’t many scenes.
Did the log flume for some reason.
Glad we did, as it has a little lookout post for the staff in the middle of the upper level meandering section, placed just so they can wave to you and tell you to watch out for the drop as you approach said drop. Cute. The ride was also surprisingly wet, so good for the heat.
Went over to another section of the park looking for their Spiderman type dark ride, but it’s all closed off and has been removed from the maps. Spite.
Did the ‘Big O’ Ferris Wheel. A karaoke option is available, but we had the normal pod which has a touch screen that can read out stories about the history of the park in various languages. Good stuff, though they used to have a lot more creds apparently. More spite.
Headed out of the park after a final go on the Dolphin, but kept the wristband on. Just in case.
We then got reacquainted with the concept of ‘fare adjustment’ (having to pay more for your ticket after getting the wrong one) during a very long journey to the next place. Those damn Tokyo trains.
A friendly bus driver was waiting at the station exit and he showed us the marvels of the automatic change dispenser that is built into their buses, so you can always pay the correct amount. On closer inspection, coulda walked the journey, but I’ll claim that we were preserving ourselves for the insanity of this particular day.
Tobu Zoo
Well this is far more unassuming than I was expecting.
Got as far as the ticket window to see one of those dreaded signs with pictures and names of rides on it. It would appear that the Megalite and one of the small creds aren’t open. Please no. Made friends with the staff lady, who explained the situation as “they’re doing their daily checks on the rides at the moment, it might open afterwards, but no guarantee.” This also included a phone call to the ride staff, which given how quiet it was, could well have been “open the ride for these lovely people.”
With no guarantee, we bought entry tickets only and wandered in for a look. Headed straight for the Megalite, where a man pretty much opened it in our face. Right, how do we upgrade to a wristband then? He led us over to another super nice person who was making sure we understood the cost implications and how much we would have to ride to make the transaction worthwhile. “4 goes on the big one? Oooh, brave!”
#2 Kawasemi
So we had it to ourselves for the afternoon, which could have been amazing, but I’ve found again that they don’t all ride the same and the original is still far superior for whatever reason. We physically struggled to marathon Piraten due to its intensity, but there’s something lacking here and it’s just going through the motions more than anything. Ugh, clones.
The true highlight was the smoke effect on the brake run, along with more OCD despatch checks where two staff make a point of walking to the front of the station, looking out at the sky and/or lift hill, pointing and nodding. ‘Yup, no rain/the ride hasn’t fallen over yet.’
#3 Tentomushi
Right, creds. This was round the corner, a classic Tivoli medium. Done.
#4 Regina
An older Intamin woodie loomed in the distance. Only wood of the trip, sadly. This’ll be interesting.
There’s always that fear these days that the next unsuspecting woodie will be cripplingly rough. This one was fine. A bit something and nothing in terms of what it actually did, the odd off the seat moment here and there, but with a functional shake and comfortable trains, so… ‘a bigger Elf’ or ‘slightly better than the Vekomas’, take your pick.
The final cred was indeed down, and remained that way. It had engineers on their backs under the station track most of the time. Ah well.
Another park, another Ferris Wheel. This one had stuff about cheese, including a narrating girl that was enjoying eating said cheese in a questionably pleasurable manner. Then it turned into anime music. Classic.
Slithered round the zoo for a bit, ending up at the complete opposite end of the park which had another entrance, but headed out the way we came to save getting lost, bus and all.
Don’t know why I imagined this place as a significant park. It was far more low key and in line with a lot of other places in Japan – friendly, but a bit run down and haven’t done anything exciting for at least 10 years. Grab them while you can.
Decided that was enough parks for now and headed back into the city for some other bits. In mental preparation for the following days, we completed our ritual of hitting every music shop in town, searching for stupidly rare K-Pop albums. A ritual that very often borders on the excessive.
Went to heal at the Pokemon Centre.
This one had a far more impressive selection than Osaka, along with some good displays, but no free gift sadly.
From there we went to the free observation deck in a government building. Night view wasn’t a great idea to be honest, a bit generic looking as cities. And still haven’t laid eyes on Mt. Fuji.
Normal people would go back to the hotel and sleep at this point, but we picked up our bags from the hotel and headed to the airport for our 2am flight back to Korea. There was method to this madness, honest.
And here we are again. No monorail required for the main park as we’d learnt the walk the previous day. Had a slight shudder walking past the bus terminal again (looking completely different) and we were soon through the entrance gates, slithering through the crowds that had all got stuck around some singing thing in the main street.
Day 12 – Tokyo Disneyland
Headed over to Big Thunder and grabbed the first fastpass of the day, then went for the main queue of Splash Mountain. Many mountains.
Didn’t really know anything about this attraction. I’d heard the name obviously and knew it was a water ride, but that was it. I like the setting and the framing of the drop with the thornbush, it’s all rather well done.
Just seems a little odd to have it a stones throw away from Big Thunder, with another similar looking mountain and setup. I was imagining ways to fit them both in the same area, but maybe that wouldn’t work narratively.
Based around cult classic Song of the South, the dark ride sections of this are a huge part of the ride and really impressive, making it all a lot better than I was expecting. It was a lot of fun and a great start to the day.
Haunted Mansion Holiday was round the corner. The building hasn’t got anywhere the same presence as other iterations, just being stuck on one side of the path opposite Fantasyland stuff. It was running with its ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ overlay. This made the preshow a bit weak, as rather than being somewhat scary, you just get a cartoon face appearing in the ceiling saying “Merry Christmas!” (in early September). Ride was interesting enough for being slightly different with this overlay, but all the familiar overused effects were there as well and it didn’t grab me in any particular way. Here comes the theme of the day, and an unfortunate side effect of visiting many of their parks – not as good as Paris.
#1 Big Thunder Mountain
Fastpass time. There’s always a great sense of joy associated with these mine trains. A bit of a buzz in the station, the excitement as the trains plough in on both sides. And off we go.
It’s good, particularly visually, but rides more like a Seven Dwarves, tamed down like their Tower of Terror. The wild and out of control aspect of the Paris version is severely lacking. At least it seemed to be more reliable.
Got this weird syndrome where I can’t remember what order things happened at Disney. Everywhere else is normally quite straight forward.
Jungle Cruise: Wildlife Expeditions?
They may not be good at maintaining a sinister atmosphere, but if there’s one thing the Japanese staff excel at, it’s narrating boat rides. And the Oscar goes to… whichever girl we had. The performance was ridiculously intense and hilarious and the ride was rather secondary to it to be honest. Shame less stuff happens during the journey. Not as good as Hong Kong.
There’s a train ride above it that turned out to be much more than a train ride. Starts out stereotypically western, travelling round the water and past the paddle steamer.
Goes round this.
Then ends up chugging through tunnels with dinosaurs fighting. Think they copied Quancheng Euro Park with that idea.
Picked up a fastpass for Space Mountain at some point, which put us outside Star Tours: The Adventures Continue. All I’d heard is that it had been updated from the original, but didn’t know what that entailed – a slightly different video including one of the planets from the prequels. Best part of the ride is the instruction video where the demonstration contains wookies and everyone dressed up Star Wars style. Being an unhealthy fan of the films, they don’t manage to capture anything special in these rides. There’s so many things you could do better with the brand and it leaves me with an overwhelming feeling of ‘meh.’
I remember going on a stupidly long walk past a construction wall several times. Not sure what was so fascinating about the wall, it was plain blue with a couple of Disney logos on it, but everyone was completely obsessed with having their picture taken in front of it. Is Frozen going there? Nah… that’s not popular any more.
The walk first took us to Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin. This was good, mainly for being different. There’s a whole lot of craziness to it, including spinning cars, so it did the job well.
#2 Space Mountain
Back to Space Mountain. The conveyor belt entrance with transparent roofing was deeply unpleasant in the intense heat of the day. Got on the ride, got dispatched within less than a second of the putting the bar down. Whoa, that was an intense start. Pulled out of the station, went left instead of right, through a curtain. Someone asks “is this Space Mountain?” I start laughing uncontrollably. We’ve ended up in the maintenance shed. The train stalls itself and staff have to push it all the way in, bowing and apologising profusely. Please don’t, this is amazing. We get instructed to climb out, then taken on a backstage tour through endless tunnels to end up back in the station and put straight into another train.
That may as well have been Space Mountain, cos this thing was poor. The music was off, the lighting wasn’t disorientating. It felt slow and weak as a ride. Not as good as Hong Kong.
Grabbed a fastpass for Monsters Inc and had a questionable lunch – back on track with their less than ideal food.
Except this. This was spot on. Time for the +1.
#3 Gadget’s Go Coaster
As well as expecting to queue a million years for these kids creds, for some reason I pictured them in my head as unceremoniously plonked on a patch of land, but they’ve done an insane job of making this one look good and it was another 10 minute queue, so well done. Guess no one really loves Gadget (who?).
I knew Pooh’s Hunny Hunt had a reputation of being rather good, but it exceeded all expectations in this format. There’s something so much more magical and exciting about these trackless dark rides, watching them go about their business around you, it’s like a step closer to humanising a vehicle. Or I’m just weird. The Tigger room is amazing, then things just get insane. Pooh does a Twilight Zone and drifts into the further, something which kept me laughing until well after the ride had ended, while we enter a room that can only be described as 1000 trackless vehicles (half of them containing characters rather than humans) dancing around each other in a drug fuelled frenzy. This isn’t the Winnie the Pooh I know, but I bloody love it.
Finally Tokyo, you’ve one-upped something.
Did Pinocchio’s Daring Journey for a laugh. It’s too fast to take in, and… the same?
Had no idea what Philharmagic was, but gave that a crack too. Sitting down on sofas in a weird lobby full of obscure posters.
Looks like it’s gonna be Hades on stage belting out some hits. Oh, no, the doors have opened and it’s a 4D cinema.
It was good actually. Donald Duck doing some black magic with Mickey’s orchestra and ending up in a load of other films for some musical numbers – Beast, Mermaid, Aladdin, Lion King, Fantasia (love it). There’s a strong smell of cake that lingers from Be My Guest onwards and an animatronic Donald ends up in the wall at the back of the theatre at the end. Can’t argue with that.
Time for Monsters, Inc. Ride & Go Seek.
They stole my idea from the last time I got bored in a Legoland and replaced a shooting ride with a ‘how many physical effects can you set off?’ ride, by using torch lights to hunt for monsters. It’s a clever idea, so I’ll let them have it. Fun too.
Pirates of the Caribbean is in a weird place in the park, so nearly forgot about it. Had a fantastic moment outside the ride, where it appeared that a cleaner had smuggled in a music player and suddenly burst into spontaneous breakdance in front of people. Then he went into the growing crowd and pulls out a girl who just happens to be rather good at backflips. They had their moment, well done them. If only it was real… I could claim it on the league.
They’ve added some film elements to the ride, which doesn’t really help it for me, but it contains a very breathtaking ship battle scene, which I don’t remember from the original. Got one of those deceptively huge drops in the dark chucked in as well. Liked it a lot. Not as good as Shanghai, obviously.
It was now ‘time killing’ time until the closing show, gotta get at least one for comparison haven’t we. What does one do when killing time at Disney?
it’s a small world. It’s fine really. The music is way less invasive than reputation dictates. They’ve also got bonus Disney film character models everywhere so you can play a fun game of spot all them in their various countries.
Had another go on Big Thunder, which was slightly improved by the night time and the lighting package on the sulphury geysery section.
Time to camp out the show. Oh, there was a parade first. Pete’s Dragon, Emporer’s New Groove, Treasure Planet, all the hits.
Thought we were going to be treated to the Paris experience with sitting on the floor for the performance, but with around half an hour to go, everyone spontaneously stood up. Ugh, my bag is heavy.
Normally these shows are pretty special right? A magical moment to end the day, a world class spectacle, lots of big tunes and tears. Disney at it’s finest. What followed was hilarious, but quite possibly the death of Disney. They’re on the 35 year anniversary at the moment, and the show was celebrating ‘the rides of Tokyo Disneyland.’ But, we’ve just done all the rides, and some of them ain’t worth celebrating.
They’ve got the usual song tying it all together about magic and dreams come true and life is a party and all that, but it came across as way too far up its own arse when it’s so specific to a day at this theme park and not just the brand in general. Mickey is titting about as always but the highlights were, in no particular order: low resolution footage direct from the Star Wars simulator, a celebration of the paddle steamer (I lost it hard at this point) and some flat rides no one cares about.
The actual highlight? Probably saying “Yay, the Pirates of the Carribbean theme”, because it reminded me of Shanghai. No, it was the paddle steamer, that was the defining moment. The moment it couldn’t recover from.
There were no fireworks, very few special effects, a couple of pyros and zero interesting graphics which were also steppy and of poor quality.
It ended to absolute silence. And then everyone left, probably all thinking ‘where was Let It Go?’
For the second time on this trip, there were a lot of news stories and rumours going around about typhoons interrupting proceedings. Never knew what to believe, but figured do what the locals do. They were getting on with their daily business and, after excessively waterproofing ourselves up and selecting the park with the least weather affected attractions, we did the same.
Day 11 – Tokyo Disneysea
Took me until arriving at this place to realise it’s Disneysea as in Disneyland, but with sea and not just some arbitrary suffix. Weird how you read things.
Walked through the turnstyles to find the Universal globe without Universal on it. Alright, not what I expected.
Through the main street plaza.
Ah, there it is. That volcano thing. So many things I’ve heard about this place, let’s see what it’s really all about. To clarify my position, I knew enough to be subject to a lot of hype and positive things, namely ‘the best park in the world’ to many, but knew little to nothing of the actual attractions it had to offer in terms of what they are and what they do, so it was a spoiler free experience in that sense.
First thing that hits me is the sheer number of staff they’ve paid to literally stand around all day and wave at you as go past. They’ll do other things like give you information, point you in the right direction and take photos for you, but it’s still crazy.
Headed up to the volcano first, without any sort of plan of action, which probably seems more crazy to some people. Walked straight onto our first attraction – 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Wasn’t familiar with the source material for this and didn’t know what was going on, but it pretty much fixes what I slag off the Legoland submarine simulator for not doing and that’s having a sense of scale in the underwater. It has lots of big impressive sets to go past and some cool effects with Krake getting electrocuted and such. The windows were pretty low compared to the seating arrengement and it was a bit uncomfortable looking through them for that long, but otherwise interesting and enjoyable.
Picked up a fastpass for Journey and, bad weather still in mind, headed off for an outdoor attraction. Felt rather foolish in the queue as it was now about 35°C, sunny and everyone was sweating profusely. Time to crack out the sun cream.
#1 Ragins Spirits
An old Intamin coaster with the layout of a fairgound Pinfari – or Disney Paris’ Indiana Jones with more mist and a slightly better aesthetic.
That hardware in this park though… why. +1.
The actual Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull was next door in the form of his dark ride and far more amazing.
Everything in the queue and on the ride itself looked incredible. Having only done Fantawild equivalents of the ride system, the way it chucked itself around felt vastly better and was a welcome surprise. Particular highlights were a big stone face aggressively shouting something in Japanese then shooting a smoke ring at us – couldn’t stop laughing at that one, and then the bit with the boulder – can’t even explain the magic involved. Made me very happy.
So now we’re cooking, back to Journey to the Centre of the Earth. The fastpass takes you straight to some lifts which were fine, maybe could have done something. No, that’s a different ride. The station area was in another league to what we had seen so far and I was completely mesmerized by this stage. Caves and crystals and bottomless pits, it was hard to walk and take it all in that the same time. That’s some funky looking ride vehicles rushing up towards us.
Again I’m not familiar with the source material for this, but the ride itself had too high of a reputation that I’m not sure it lived up to. None of the sets made a lasting impression on me like the ride queue just had, some weird looking flowers underground and THE set was at best an “OK, that’s cool” moment. The change in dynamic of the ride at the end was fun and unexpected, giving it a bit of a thrill element at least, but that led to an underwhelming ending of mincing over an empty bridge back to the station.
Talking of lasting impressions, I think I’ve skipped over the Nemo & Friends SeaRider simulator from earlier. Bit of a long-winded batching procedure into the bays for the ride, which you then had to turn away from to watch a pre-show that contained a nice magic trick. Actual ride was decent enough. Easy to follow, though I haven’t found Dory yet.
Tower of Terror was next, something I already know and love. At least I thought I did.
I like the alternate story, all the paintings in the hotel lobby of the rich guy being a troll and stealing all these artifacts around the world from their local owners. The pre-show is fantastic, while it doesn’t quite have the goofy charm of the Twilight Zone, it has a mind-blowingly good bit of Disney magic and a decently sinister undertone. The Japanese staff are far too lovely to keep that tone flowing into the loading areas and lifts, but I’ll let that slide.
It’s either like Dodonpa in that I’ve done far too much since the good old days and the ride just felt really weak, or it’s an actual recurring theme that we’ll be seeing again in this resort on the next day – everything seems slightly tamer here. We had already picked up a fastpass for it before going in, so got to reconfirm those feelings later on.
The weather did actually seem on the turn now, it got very, very windy, to the point that poor Japanese girls were being affected by it while walking around, staggering slightly against the force. Better go get that other cred then.
#2 Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster
This family ride was great. I’d been worried about how much time would be lost queueing at the crappy creds in these parks, but they were hauling arse on 2 trains and it took us no more than 10 minutes. A station fly by, complete with staff waving, made the experience particularly enjoyable.
The food options here were a lot better than I’ve had at other Disney parks. Let’s look at the map. Pizza? Yes. Low budget? Yes. Done.
Longest queue of the day went to Toy Story Midway Mania. It flowed well enough and had plenty to look at however.
Bit disappointed to be honest. I regularly slag off the Fantawild equivalents of these rides for having nothing going on between the screens, but this had exactly the same issue, though the actual games on the screens were far superior and a lot of fun. Maus or that new Happy Valley one can beat this any day.
Time to head back to the other end of the park and find Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage.
This was ridiculously quaint and very much my kinda thing. Love the way he’s contently singing the same tune throughout the entire ride, no matter what the scene contains. Leaving home, beating up pirates, tigers mauling people, coming home, all with a smile on his face.
And that was Disneysea.
I kinda get the place. I can’t think of anywhere else that rivals the aesthetic they’ve created with the visuals of the park and the blending of the areas, it all looks incredible and the pictures should speak for themselves. Using the Disney scale and budget to pull off a more refined, highly concentrated and compact theme is a great concept, and I’m already trying to take what I’ve learnt from it into my latest creations in the game world, so it’s certainly made an impact.
For me, it comes down to the attractions themselves just not being particularly outstanding. My favourite on this day was Indy, and unfortunately that’s not a Disneysea exclusive. The biggiest issue is that we ran out of things to do quite early in the day (even with us being rather inefficient in our approach), and then struggled to think of much we wanted to do again.
We would have stayed for the show at the end (see events below), but it would have been ‘killing time’ until that happened.
We had completed everything that we wanted. Fancied another go on Indy while we were near, but it had broken itself for an indeterminate amount of time. Settled down on a bench outside it to reflect on the above. Anything else worth doing? Nah, not really. Just space things out until the park closing show? The wind was still blowing strong and announcements were being made throughout the park about a cancellation of a water parade that was due to take place. Then the sky darkened and a different announcement played. “Due to the weather conditions, the train service from the Disney Resort to Tokyo may be suspended later.” Hmmm. Essay incoming.
This turned out to be the most unfortunate timing in the world. It was a ‘maybe later’, so a HUGE amount of people, including ourselves, made the intelligent decision to leave te park at this point rather than run the risk of being stranded. We headed to the entrance via the Electric Railway ride (for the league obviously), which ended up being rather hilarious.
The station is up high and looking out over the sea so there really was quite a gust up. The staff were all excitedly shouting, losing hats, clutching onto railings and holding up wind speed measuring devices to see if they could keep operating within regulations. They could. But other rides were closing around us.
Left the park. Took the monorail. All fine. Walked to the station, bought a ticket, went to the platform. The trains aren’t on time?! That’s the end of the world in Japan surely. The train arrived, we got on the train and then it didn’t move for half an hour. It was at this point that I really started to dislike the Tokyo train system.
No announcements were being made, no information was being given other than a screen onboard scrolling through other lines that had delays and cancellations due to typhoon. Locals were constantly second guessing and getting on and off, on and off, while no one had a clue what was going on. We were looking down below and there was a constant stream of buses leaving outside the station. The train kept filling up to the point that it got uncomfortable to stay on for too long, and we made the decision to abandon it and try something else. The staff here were beyond useless and manage to be the only rude people in the entirety of Japan (almost, wait for it). The first response we got was a plain ‘I don’t know’ and clearly not caring, the second was that we were being completely ignored, so we left the station.
Couldn’t work out the buses directly outside the station, later discovering that they only went on very local routes within the island that encompasses the Disney Resort and not getting you out to Tokyo. There was also a taxi rank here, but with a queue that was both impossible to determine and never moving because there were virtually no taxis coming through it.
We went to the Disney ‘Welcome Centre’ towards the monorail station and asked if they could point us in the direction of a useful bus. “No, I don’t speak English, but I’ll find someone who can.” Person who speaks English: “No, we CAN’T help.” They then just stared at us. Ok then.
Spoke to staff in the Disney ‘Ticket Office’ of the monorail station next. They were more than happy to help, pulled up a chair, jumped on a PC. Phoned someone who could describe to us in a bit more detail what they were looking at on the screen. “Take Bus 1.” Done.
Went back outside to bus 1 in the area outside the station. Got some nervous glances from the locals queueing there, with one eventually checking where we were going and telling us this ain’t the bus you’re looking for. Move along.
Back to being confused again, asked a guy who seemed to be directing people to buses, who told us to walk over to a separate bus station, nearer the entrance to the main park.
Walked over to the separate bus station to find queues stretching as far as the eye could see for certain stops. Did a quick walk past them all to see if we could find our number 1, but there was no number 1.
Asked a guy who seemed to be directing people to buses on this side, who pointed us down to the other end, towards the other queue that was impossible to fathom. So we can’t even get to the front of it to see what we’re queueing for. And these queues just weren’t moving. They potentially contained thousands of people, and all visible bus activity was at best half hourly.
Went to the ticket office of the main park to ask for a 14th opinion. They seemed completely out of touch here, first recommending a taxi and then being surprised by our response – huge queue, NO taxis. Can’t phone one because all of Tokyo is currently phoning for a taxi. “Take bus 9.”
Bus 9? Couldn’t find bus 9. Ended up methodically working out every stop in this bus station. All the quiet ones were going to nearby hotels, all of which were still on the same island, and not Tokyo. Buses with regular numbers didn’t exist at all. This leaves the final section, for which there are now 3 distinct, but massive queues.
Managed to squeeze our way to the front of these to actually find the first person who had a vague idea of what was going on. He asks where do we want to go and holds up a clipboard with a list of major stations in the Tokyo area. These aren’t buses, these are direct shuttle coaches, but I’m not fussy at this stage. I pick a station that I know is near enough to us to get us off the damn island. He puts us in a specific queue. And now we wait.
The train never moved. We could see the station from where we were queueing. It sat there, with people on it, just like we sat there. For 3 and a half hours.
Coaches would come and go, very sparingly. 90% of them were to stupid Yokohama, which kept us mildly entertained because no one was going there (and the park there spited us the other day), so ourselves and locals around us would react with disgust to the arrival of each and every one. There was another taxi rank behind us here, with another indeterminate queue and again, no taxis.
The wind was blowing, but it never rained. The whole evening was filled with the uncertainty of is this an actual serious weather event and if so, isn’t their poor handling of the situation potentially very dangerous? It was interesting to say the least, we even got to see the spotlights of the show in the main park go off.
Somehow, very slowly but surely, the queues began to dwindle and there was light at the end of the tunnel. It seemed like we had ended up making the worst decision, with almost no one left in the area by the time we boarded our coach, but there was clearly no right decision either.
No more than 5 minutes before we boarded our coach, a man announced that the train line was back in operation and sure enough, we watched the very same train we had abandoned ~4 hours earlier trundle over the bridge from the window of the coach. The coach was weird, with your standard 2 seats on either side of the aisle, but then little fold out seats on every row that completely blocked the aisle by the time everyone was in and as such had to be assembled in a very specific order. Wouldn’t want, say, an emergency to occur with that going on.
Drifted in and out of consciousness for what seemed like far too long, with the coach spending 90% of its time in tunnels on the return journey. Not the Tokyo I remember. But we got there, very tired and very hungry. Had a midnight snack in a restaurant as if nothing had happened. Took the metro back to the hotel.
Bit of a long day that one. But don’t worry, only have to do it all again in less than 7 hours.
It rained pretty much all journey the next morning. This place has somewhat of a reputation for ruining everyone’s day in the slightest of weather conditions. I almost welcome it at this stage. It had stopped raining on arrival, and the car park was dead. Promising.
Try not to crash the car on the way in.
Day 10 – Fuji-Q Highland
That’s quite the entrance, even if it isn’t the actual entrance. I didn’t know they had a Disney village style area to walk through first.
Some screens near the ticket booths said every ride bar some irrelevant ones I didn’t know of will open today. Promising. There was a big queue for the final entrance, waiting for the flood gates to open. Where did they come from? Their new ride entry system scans your face (after you awkwardly crouch to fit it in the screen in front of you) as you enter the park and then remembers if you have a ride pass or just an entry ticket. It’s kinda cool.
The gates opened. Now run. Which one, which one? That one?
We entered what was apparently already a 45 minute queue for Do-dodonpa. It was pumping out 8 people every couple of minutes on its 2 trains, moving alright. Then it started to rain. It carried on running for half an hour or so. Then they ceased operations, but Suzuka Circuit style, telling everyone to wait for the weather to get better again. So we wait. An hour passes. They test another couple of trains. I think we’re moving again? Oh, nope, they’re evacuating the queue through the station and giving out exit passes to come back later, alright then.
Well that’s 2 hours gone and we haven’t achieved anything yet. Takabisha is directly opposite and we had watched that get evacuated too. Eejanaika had never moved at all.
So EVERYONE in the park was at Fujiyama, and what choice do we have but to join them? Joined the back of a 3-4 hour queue, cowering under shelters from the moderate rain (not pictured above). They tested both trains on this ride in the morning, but it was only running one now and it’s so slow. It’s a long ride. It’s a long train. It’s a long loading procedure. Taron’s queue record is about to be smashed. The more depressing part was that no one really joined the queue behind us, so we weren’t particularly gaining anything, just endlessly shunting the back of the queue forward, with nothing better to do.
Park-wide announcement: “Ladies and Gentleman, we are pleased to announce that Takabisha is now open.” People had already been gathering over there as the rain eased off again, but I took a quick wander over to see that it was as bad as what we were currently in. It was. Probably not worth bailing for.
Park-wide announcement: “Ladies and Gentleman, we are pleased to announce that Eejanaika is now open.”
What do we dooooooo? Run then. If we get there quickly, we’ll be straight on it right? Wrong. Ran straight into another 2 hour queue. This place baffles me.
They have fastrack machines outside the major rides in this park that show all available time slots for the day for ~£10 a pop. There were still some selling for right now and we knew we had to get something done.
So we walked straight into the station, putting the face recognition things to the test for the first ride of the day. It works well, maybe UK airports should invest in some.
The ride was operating 2 trains and actually running quite well with its 4 pen system that lets everyone deal with their locker and shoe removal faff in their own time. Our time had come.
I forgot how terrifying the restraints are on S&S 4D coasters. A jacket for your arms and nothing for your lap and legs which can just jump around as they please. They’re shouting “Eejanaika” and playing dispatch music, oh no. The seats just freely tilt you almost onto your head as you leave the station, that’s a thing now? Oh no.
#1 Eejanaika
Second time in a week I’ve been proper scared on a ride, half dreading what’s to come and holding on tighter than ever. I like that.
What I said about Dinoconda doesn’t really apply here, which is that it all felt designed around pointing you down the first drop and the rest was an unplanned mess. This one either rides better, or I was less physically wrecked by the trip I was on.
The first drop itself felt a lot less sustained than I remember, but the remaining insanity of the layout was so much clearer and more well defined, and I loved it.
There’s almost nothing else out there in the world of rollercoasters that can do these things to you, holding you upside down and in all sorts of weird positions while you fly through inversions at ridiculous speed and height.
It does bounce your lower half around, but only through intense moments of change and not roughness, and on that final twist both my legs were clear above the lump in the middle of the seat, so I now fully understand how some riders end up with their limbs completely swapped over.
#2 Fujiyama
Back to Fujiyama then, the king of queues. This was still on 1 train and running terribly, with everyone ploughing through the train to the locker section in the station and faffing with that forever. Took another age, but we got there in the end.
Every major coaster at this park is so iconic, but they also come with the stigma of ‘it could be an absolutely terrible ride.’ This one made 2 for 2 though, I liked this Togo Hyper a lot.
Its a stupid layout, namely the 250ft drop into a 200ft flat turnaround, but it’s full of surprisingly good forces and having just a lap bar only enhances that. There are no words to describe the last section of the ride which was just hilarous in execution, but it was never rough and never felt like a waste of potential, unlike certain other coasters of this size.
Dodonpa was also back up and running by this stage, we had been watching it from the queue of Fujiyama and the speed it leaves that tunnel just doesn’t look real. Time to use those exit passes.
Walked straight up the exit and immediately onto the ride, with a couple of bows and nods on the way. That was way too quick, I’m not ready for this ride.
The whole park is full of a bunch of anime girls at the moment, with them being mascots on various rides. All of them were on a giant screen in the station here. I’m scared again, this keeps happening. Oh no, we’re in the train, with those new offensively large restraints. I’m keeping myself sane by enthusiastically singing along to the tune it plays while the ride turns the corner into a tunnel. Dun dun, dudun dun! Oh no, we’re on the launch track. Dun dun, dudun dun! Oh no, the anime girls are shouting about launch time. Dun dun, dudun dun! Oh no, they’re counting down. Dun dun, dudun dun! Oh… no?
#3 Do-Dodonpa
Well I’ve officially broken myself when it comes to launches, because this was nothing special. For the most powerful in the world, it felt no more significant. It rides fine? Again we’d bigged it up to be this stupidly intense and rough ride, but it just kinda floats around the layout of one massive corner on its silly tyres.
The only slightly questionable part is the jolt in the entrance to the newly added loop. Where once it had a straight element, they now had to find a way to angle it for an entry and an exit, but it’s not bad.
The loop is alright I guess, I like these massive ones where the train takes up a tiny proportion of it, and you get a slow moment at the top to appreciate that. Would have preferred to try the original airtime hill obviously. I think the best bit was the little lurch downwards the track does at the end of the launch section which feels like an afterthought: ‘oops, we’d better change the elevation a bit here.’ Otherwise meh. 3 for 3. We didn’t dislike it at least.
We had had enough of Qs by now and were getting rather hungry so we bought the fast track for Takabisha and again walked straight onto it. I like that every major ride here has its own little jingle with the name in it, helping to build character for the legends. Can’t really comment on how this ride was being run. More 8 seater train nonsense with lockers. Who knows how many they were running, but they did seem to be doing some two-halves of the ride duelling when we were watching it earlier.
They’ve done something to these trains. It’s still a Gerstlauer Eurofighter, but it’s way less offensive somehow. It feels wider. It feels less bulky. I didn’t instantly regret putting the restraint down.
Ugh, that start again? The drop out of the station into the slow roll. At least it doesn’t lurch you downwards into the launch. Can’t think of much that stood out about what follows, just a bunch of very large inversions that don’t try to kill you.
The world’s steepest drop behaves weirdly though. It acts like a holding brake and then keeps inching and teasing you downwards before finally releasing. Well that was a thing. More huge inversions. Brakes. 4 for 4. Have we just completed Fuji-Q without dying?
We were pleased by the fact they had a Mos Burger on park, as it’s something we quite often have in Japan, but they managed to ruin it here by having a reduced, overpriced menu. Bah.
#5 Mad Mouse
A bit of fuel was consumed, then into the queue for the next cred. It took far too long and was by far the roughest ride in the park. Felt like the car was scraping something the whole way round and it hurt my brain. The Formula Rossa of wild mice.
Couldn’t be arsed to queue for what was formerly known as the hamster coaster yet, so went round to Thomas Land.
Thomas’ Party Parade is their fun little Thomas the Tank Engine dark ride, which is really well done for what it is and a welcome change from the feel of everything else in the park.
#6 Rock’n’Roll Duncan
The smallest coaster in the park. I like the fact it has a fake transfer track. +1.
#7 Voyage dans le Ciel
For some reason, the queue here had completely emptied by the time we came back, so walked straight onto the final cred of the day.
The ride is now based on their French dog mascots, Lisa and Gaspard, who have their own shop and museum back in the village.
It’s a bit of fun and punches you hard in the stomach on the brakes.
Fuji-Cat is better though.
So now we’ve actually completed Fuji-Q. With rain. Take that Nagashima. I won’t praise this park for the queues, because they’re just awful. There was no way around paying extra for 2 of the 4 major attractions and in a way we had to get lucky with the exit pass on Dodonpa as well. This was a quiet day in terms of guest numbers and everything just default ends up on queues of 2-3 hours, which gives you no opportunity to truly… enjoy? any of their offerings. It’s an ordeal, or maybe even a ritual. But facts are facts. It rained, it rained hard, they kept going, they stopped, they compensated. It stopped raining. They reopened everything. There’s a lot of parks out there that just don’t do that and are a lot worse in comparison, so well done lads.
There were a couple of hours left before close now and we would have to leave a smidge early to stand a chance of getting the car back in time. Let’s suck up one more fastrack and maybe one more big queue? All fastracks are sold out now. Ah.
In the end we just went for Eejanaika, and while we were there, announcements were playing throughout the park declaring the closures of other queues ensuring that they weren’t still running past midnight or something stupid. The queue here was moving incredibly well for what it was but the timing was tight, it was tense. It was so very worth it.
Night had fallen and Eejanaika was just fantastic. Disorientating and intense, it had me doing a quiet scared laugh to myself the whole way round, I couldn’t find the words. By far the best ride of the trip and exactly what this hobby is all about.
And now we’re running again. Gotta get that car back to Tokyo.
Hit a bunch of traffic on the return journey and completely forgot to factor in a petrol stop as well. They’re crafty in Japan and give you a list of 3 fuelling spots near to the drop off point which you have to use before returning, as well as provide a receipt to prove it. But we made it.
Oh, we still never saw Mount Fuji. There was always a cloud in the way.