Korea + Japan 09/18 – Tokyo DisneySea

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.

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.

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.

Day 12

Korea + Japan 09/18 – Fuji-Q Highland

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

The smallest coaster in the park. I like the fact it has a fake transfer track. +1.

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.

Here’s another famous sight instead.

Up next – typhoons.

Day 11

Korea + Japan 09/18 – Yomiuriland

The magnificence of yesterday had come at a price, with us dropping off the car earlier (switching to public transport for the city activities) having a bit of an impact on proceedings.
Tokyo trains are a bit of a mess in that many different lines are run by separate companies and there is little standardisation between their ticketing systems. We had originally planned a very full day and were going to start out at Sea Paradise for a +1 and drop tower, but it was raining and things were taking far too long through faff.
As the parks we had planned for the day got steadily more significant in order, we cut our losses and went straight to the 2nd park. Which wasn’t open yet.

Passed this on the way to the station, made me think of Efteling for some reason.

Sums up the start of the day.

Orchestra playing the Incredibles theme in a mall. As you do.

We spent another hour in a Starbucks to pass the time and watch the weather, things are getting all too familiar now.

Day 9 – Yokohama Cosmo World?

One thing this place has going for it is that it’s free to just walk in and wander around. It didn’t look too promising. Only the log flume was running. No signs of life from Spiting Coaster Varnish and the spinning mouse was covered in tarpaulins.
Found an unmanned information desk which had a sign saying go to the admin office. Went to the admin office, got the usual old crap about wet track mixed with a bunch of uncertainty.

Oh well, they’ve got Shooting Ride “Cave of Ekidona” 3D, another of the same shooting dark rides. That makes 5? Ugh.

There’s also another section of the park on the other side of the river, where there was a bit of activity going on.

Where at least this was running. I guess that’s one less thing to do in future.

Time was still pressing and though disappointed with what we might miss here, we didn’t to lose out on anyhing better either, so took the gamble and went straight to the next park.

Yomiuriland

Went via train station that kicks you out by the cable car over the park.

It was a nerve-wracking ride watching everything come into view and desperately looking for something running.
Almost simultaneously, every visible cred sprang to life. That’s more like it.

We ended up with another afternoon discount upon entry, which was a welcome surprise. Wristbanded up, rain ever increasing, we set off to the biggest ride.

Not just any old Bandit. ‘Wet Bandit.’ A seasonal overhaul of the ride.
This thing was ridiculously hilarious and unexpected. They run it absolutely abysmally as far as operations go, but I’ll forgive them for the comedy. It took forever to get everyone seated and force them all to take their bags and belongings on, which you have to put inside a canvas bag for life that they provide, then wrap it around your leg on the floor of the train.

They dispatch it by playing the intro to the song advertised by the banners (bonus points for K-Pop) and by clapping and dancing. As it leaves the station, a Valhalla style geyser goes off and soaks the train, alongside a set of water guns that offride guests can operate.

The lift hill takes 6 years, and has that classic flat section at the top before the ride begins. Apparently some days they pause you up there for the view instead of this insanity.

It takes it’s 30° jet coaster drop and out of nowhere a MASSIVE water jet just shoots out of some trees, 200ft in the air and pelts everyone in the train again. I completely lost it at this point. What is this madness?

The rest of the layout is pretty good for what it is. The entrance to the helix has a rather brutal snap that you have to properly brace for, but the other hills and transitions actually provide decent forces, including air time, way beyond your average jet coaster.

The sheer scale of the layout is fantastic, it just keeps going and going across valleys and through forests.
As it loses all momentum and trundles back up the end brakes, another water jet goes off just to wake you up again.
Wet Bandit obviously runs with wet track. Pissing in the face of the previous park.

Took a while to process all that, but we headed to the next cred. This is their family coaster and pretty standard stuff other than the fact it has mist! Wet Wandit?

There was a life sized version of pop-up pirate opposite this ride, which for the entirety of our visit had a constant stream of customers. They would put one sword in and every, single, time, it would play a classic ‘wah wah you’ve failed’ tune and soak them with water. I already love this place.

On to the other big Togo. Uniquely this ride does what it says on the tin, running 2 different trains on a permanent transfer track style station. One train is a stand-up and one train is a sit-down. One loop. One cred…
Did the seated version first. Basic stuff, no issues.

Went for the standing immediately afterwards and had forgotten how good the Togo ones are. So much less faff in the restraint, a proper sensation of standing and a very unnervingly exposed feeling while riding. I never quite get used to the sensation that I’m riding a plate of metal on my feet and oh no here comes the inversion.

It shouldnt be good but it is. Instead of taking the force through your brain like you usually would, it goes straight through the knees and you kinda flex with the whole thing. Pathetically uninspired layout though.

Back up the hill to this building, which houses another indoor Gerstlauer spinner, this one elaborately themed to fashion and fabric and all that fun stuff. It wasn’t very good, much like the one in Prater, it pretty much does nothing. The most mediocre spins, turns and drops that money can buy, but at least in the theming it has bags of character like the rest of the park.

Speaking of character, I already thought I was going to love the Cup Noodle rapids Splash U.F.O., but it totally blew me away.

The uniquely themed attraction features a cup noodle super hero guy called Yakisoba-man (already sold) and an evil villain that wants to cook you(?) You’ve got buttons on the handles in the middle of the boat alongside vile looking things that could potentially shoot water in your face. The boat stops a few times underneath screens with the bad guy looking down at you in your pot and various scenes happen, while you furiously mash the buttons in front of you to try and save your life.

But in between that, who made this ride? It’s mental, like Hafema mental. Pitching down tubey helices, spinning violently and gaining ridiculous speed before plunging down unbelievably steep drops and terrifying rapids sections. Exactly what they should all be like. Absoutely loved it.

In the same building, you can make your own cup noodle, which we did for a laugh.
You pay a couple of quid, sit down and draw whatever you feel like on a custom lid, wash your hands and then play a game on a touch screen to ‘win’ the number of ingredients you’re allowed to add. Then you get friendly girls on the other side of plexiglass taking you through an interactive version of a cut down factory production line.
Here comes the sauce. Pick your fillings like a sandwich shop. Fancy lid machine. Complicated shrink wrap machine.
Then for whatever reason, you get to mount your finished product inside a balloon bag, which you manually inflate with a pump and wear around your neck on a string for the rest of the trip, looking like a pro.

Did probably the worst shooter of the trip. Animal Rescue ~The Invasion of the Mekanchura~ was a different style of ride for once, using the usual forwards facing tracked vehicle with cheap guns that don’t work and shooting poachers(?), spiders(?), and then it ended.

Ferris Wheel gave some great views. They had a couple of K-Pop rethemed pods on the ride, including a Blackpink one that I wanted to ride, but no luck.

Unfortunately we then had to leave just while things were lighting up and looking pretty, to go pick up another car.

Up next – more rain. At that notorious place.
This’ll be good.

Day 10

Korea + Japan 09/18 – Tokyo

Day 8 – Better than creds

This day was originally going to be our first attempt at Fuji-Q, and so we stayed at a hotel that claimed to have a view of Mount Fuji. Something came up though, and yes, it was more important than creds.

Didn’t quite manage to see the mountain for the clouds, I think it’s there somewhere.
Didn’t have time to stick around for it either, as some lovely ladies were waiting for us in Tokyo.

So one of our favourite K-Pop groups were doing promotions in Japan, and this included a ‘mini-live’ session in a mall along with some meet and greet action.

Oh look another ferris wheel.

The mall in question was in the Odaiba area, a ‘high-tech entertainment hub on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay.’

And is all rather posh inside. Themed to Venice apparently.

The industry knows exactly how to extract money from the defenseless fans, with which member of the group you get to meet being based on a random photocards inside the album and the manner in which you get to greet being based on how many copies of the album you buy. Ended up with 8 copies between two of us, which gave priority access to 2 rounds of live performances, as well as both getting a hearty handshake and a brief chat with our 2 respective favourite members, aided by a little crafty card trading (how very Japanese).

With all that lifechanging stuff going on, we ended up there most of the day and it was even more intense than Arashi.

Back to reality?

Tokyo Joypolis

There just so happens to be a cred nearby, the Gerstlauer Spinner with an inversion.

But there’s more to it than that.

It’s currently themed to this anime. The restraints have buttons built into them and the first half of the ride is an interactive music game, like that old Tap Tap Revenge one. The car moves up to different screens with anime scenes going on and you compete with everyone else in the car to score points based on your timing.

When that’s said and done, it launches into the rest of the layout, of which there isnt much going on. The inversion is taken surprisingly well, then there’s a few spinny bits around a couple more screens and a smattering of lighting and music.

Kinda liked it, if just for the novelty. I like the concept – I like music, I like rides, I like games, it just all feels a bit clunky as a package and I’m sure it could be done a lot better in the future.

Joypolis itself was a bit crap though. I had it in my mind that it was going to be the biggest of the lot and I’d be blown away by the sheer spectacle of a huge Japanese arcade, but it’s tiny and there’s nothing much else to do, partcularly if you’ve already done another.

Suppose at least they had their cred working… https://rcdb.com/13804.htm

Up next – more rain.

Day 9

Korea + Japan 08/18 – Lagunasia + Hamanako Pal Pal

With the toll bill racking up nicely, we managed to beat the system on this particular day.
The sat nav always lets you opt for the ‘free’ option, but it’s usually a couple of hours of extra journey time.
Most of the routes on this particular leg were only 20-30 minutes longer to save £20-£30, the time was usually an overestimate and easy to make up and we were on a (relatively) relaxed schedule for the day anyway.

Day 7 – Lagunasia

First port of call was here. Japan’s sexy waterpark featuring rides.

It was another blisteringly hot day and it appeared rather busy at opening time, but absolutely everyone was there to cool down, leaving the amusements to the fools.

While they all staked out a shady spot to dump their towels and bags for the day, for us it was straight to the first cred of the day.

Aqua Wind is an ever so slightly custom Gerstlauer Bobsled. These are always a decent family ride – smooth and with some good forces chucked in, the laterals of a wild mouse and at least one classic air time hill.

This one had a nice aesthetic as well with its half indoor, half outdoor layout, complete with scenery.

Legend of Labyrinth is a mostly indoor log flume with some fantastically impressive theming and a few surprises on the way out to an anticlimactic final drop, which I suppose is more for the benefit of offride viewing.

Pirates’ Blast is next door. Opted for the non-Virtual Reality version, no justification required.
Again there’s some great theming inside here, mostly skeletons and pirates shooting at you, which you could skip for the pleasure of strapping screens to your eyeballs.

There’s a whole indoor section of the layout first followed by a pause in front of this window to the outside world (which looks great from the outside). The big drop throws you into the darkness before taking the outdoor portion of the coaster which rides rather poorly and again is a bit of an anticlimax.

Final cred of the park in the form of Stellar Coaster. She hasn’t yet had her revenge in this part of the world.

Had to camp out a while and take it easy due to staggered openings, but it was worth the wait.

The wait being for Magical Powder, which is a very ‘out there’ dark ride.

The factory makes different colour powders that have varying effects on objects and some stuff goes down. Can’t quite remember what.

Well worth a read.

The ride system was rather interesting, a much larger omnimover style rotating car but with the ability to put a curtain up to obscure the views and sets where necessary as it travels around.

Bit disappointed that the 4D cinema was all upcharge. It had some J-Pop show that would have been great to stumble into.

They’ve got a refreshingly different shooting dark ride to all the others here, Fire Fire Next. Scissor lift style elevation is involved and it was pretty decent, though shooting generic monsters was getting old fast.

Seemed like a good time for the Ferris Wheel in the mall opposite the park. It was completely empty and there were warning signs everywhere about the temperature, but it had a fan inside. I’ve done worse.

Had more ice cream to balance things out, then moved on.

Hamanako Pal Pal

Similar to Parque Espana, the approach to this park had us spotting creds on the far side of a lake/the sea long before actually reaching it. Anxiety was also somewhat present again, as it looked like storm clouds were rolling in.

Straight in to grapple with another token machine then. Star attraction first.

I thought this ride looked rather good with it’s funky dive loop and heartline inversion knock off.

I’m a defender of Togo but eh, it didn’t ride particularly well. Interesting but not great, sadly.

Passed through some tasty mist to find Mini Coaster. At least the +1s all have a bit of variety around here as opposed to being 100 powered dragons.

Over to the other nicer looking side of the park.

The storm clouds seemed to pass by so now that we were safe from spite, went for yet another of the same shooting dark rides – Dragon Fighter. Something about dragons.

Which left us with the Jungle Mouse to finish. Not nearly sketchy enough for my liking, and the 2 across seating is far too impersonal. China have made these their own.

So that all went well. Off to another mall where we managed to catch a perfectly timed showing of Ant Man & The Wasp, something we had been searching for all week. International cinema cred +1.

Day 8

Korea + Japan 08/18 – Nagoya

Challenge time. There’s a lot of smaller parks around Nagoya with not a huge amount going for them, but it’s always fun to see what you can mop up. So starting furthest out…

Day 6 – Enakyo Wonderland

A completely empty car park greeted us. This doesn’t seem to be the most popular of places but we may also have got the opening times slightly wrong and nothing is running yet.

We were allowed to enter the park first and have a wander, so took the opportunity to scout the number of pay per ride tickets required for each of the creds and spent some time faffing about with the machine trying to get the best deal.

Still don’t actually know when things were meant to open, but the staff were ridiculously friendly and went out of their way to find the right people and get the rides we wanted fired up for us anyway.

First up was the Cycle Coaster. Thought this one would be a bit of a stretch to add to the count as it runs like a cycle railway, but 2 chain lifts and a couple of ups and downs with the cycling itself not affecting the outcome makes it good enough for me.

Jungle Coaster had a bit of weird outwards tipping towards the edge of a cliff to give it a bit of a thrill. Otherwise your average, but sketchy, family coaster.

The camel is their signature jet coaster. Not much more to say on these medium sized ones, fun little sit downs at best.

On to the next destination.

Japan Monkey Park

The weather was ridiculously hot on this day and that alone was slowing us down quite a bit.

Particularly as the only available parking spaces for this place were up on a hill, near the monkey sanctuary and not particularly near the amusement park (spot the ferris wheel), it was rather difficult to be overly into the cred ‘running.’

Arrived at the ticket windows, where the staff were nice enough to check whether we did want the rides and not the monkeys. “Yup.”

Our first attraction here was Shooting Ride “Duel”, yet another of the same style of ride, done mainly to escape the sun for a bit. Back to generic looking weird creatures in this one, but at least they were all turning out to be unique in theming.

Highway Coaster was next. A fairly substantial looking jet coaster with a layout that follows the terrain rather nicely.

It wasn’t quite as spectacular as I had imagined sadly, the highlight being the moment it shoots under a bridge that had some cooling mist coming out of it (between these two pictures).

The monkey was a dull powered coaster, on which I spent the time looking at another cycle railway ride and questioning the consistency of this coaster counting malarkey.

We got lost finding the last cred and ended up back at the entrance to the park, which didn’t help with the heat situation.
Over a bridge and round the corner somewhere they were even hosing the ground to cool things down.

Here it is. The enthusiastic operator got us involved in shouting “go go” before it went went. If only all parks in the world were this open to strange adults barely fitting into kids rides.

On to the next destination.

Higashiyama Zoo & Botanical Gardens

This park supposedly had another massive walk to the amusement area, which we were dreading.

But we somehow ended up at a car park on the nearer side to what we were there for.

Still far too much hill though.

The jet coaster has had a ‘retheme’ to Jaguars with a new paint job on the cars and a sign with facts about big cats at the entrance. Cool.

Another dull powered coaster in the form of a bear. How many animal named rides have we had today?

Time for the legendary Slope Shooter. It was great fun with more enthusiastic staff, but nah, this ain’t no cred. Other than a lift hill, it runs on tarmac like a soap box race and I think we have to draw the line somewhere before those who count their rollercoasters start jumping in shopping trolleys and rolling down hills.
I do like the fear this ride generates that you might lose your arms on a wall if you naturally stick them up on the side bars.

On to the next destination.

Kariya-shi Kotsu Jido Yuen?

With the ‘bigger’ stuff out of the way, there were a few +1s to try and hit up. This was the first, but on arrival it seemed they had given up for the day, with a few locals hanging around just for somewhere to be, and no staff in sight.

Figured this may be a similar case for the other places and called it a day for creds, opting to go to album shopping in a mall instead. No regrets.

Day 7

Korea + Japan 08/18 – Nagashima Spa Land

Previously on my trip reports:
‘Today there was a slight drizzle in the air and umbrella signs on the roads as we trundled towards the park, not too concerned. Japan had been amazing to us, thus far.
Straight round to Steel Dragon with its permanent physical sign saying 90 minute wait in front of it. Joined the queue and killed time watching some painful operations up at the station. Moved a few feet in half an hour…
That sounds like a ride closure announcement.
Everything else was closed and remained that way.
Had some pizza for lunch and by the time that was done (around 2pm), it had stopped drizzling, but all the school trips had left the park, leaving us to wander around aimlessly in despair.
Staff were busying themselves around Steel Dragon, both in the queue and in the control box. We got as far as walking up the exit and standing on the platform looking at the train (could have sat in the seats if we wanted) but they all completely blanked us for the duration.
Lost for words, left the park and went to get ice cream. Japan immediately redeems itself as the staff ask: “Can I sing to you while I make it?”
“Yes. Yes you can.”
With big smiles back on our faces, we leave it all behind.‘
And now…

Day 5 – Nagashima Spa Land

Rocked up at opening to find a reasonably substantial queue for tickets. They seem to have improved on the old system of ‘nobody knows what’s going on’ and have a screen up showing queue times and what rides open. Everything but a couple of flats today, apparently. Sounds good.

Straight to Steel Dragon then, for a 45 minute lesson on how to redefine 2 train op.

Actually got on it though.

I like how long the lift goes on for, as well as the exposed feeling on the left side. The ride itself felt a bit underwhelming to be honest. First drop isn’t particularly special and makes 300ft seem like no big deal, the following hill didn’t do much, nor do the massive corners after that.
It does get a bit more interesting and weird as it transitions into the mid course block section and then the second half is decent fun with its many, many little airtime hills.

Moved onto the other busy ride, a B&M flying coaster. Sadly it’s a clone and it has a bit of an identity crisis with the name and showing videos of people doing acrobatics in the station, but then keeping the manta on the front of the train from the original iteration in Florida and copying the fancy splash effect. Quirky or lazy?

It’s a solid entry. I love a good pretzel loop, and it stays interesting and varied throughout the rest of the layout unlike a certain superhero. Lacks the over the top crazy elements of its Asian cousins though.

Hey, it’s my ride.

Love it.

Did the one side of the Bobkart that was open and it sucked. The track has somehow managed to develop potholes so there was some unpleasant jarring involved. Didn’t think it was possible to not enjoy one of these.

Did the old school Intamin drop tower. The unnerving part of the ride when it shunts forward over nothing but open air hasn’t got old yet, then I still have no idea what it’s trying to doing to you at the end. Mad things.

Though there are several still around, this was my first Schwarzkopf Looping Star. Have to admire them. Lap bars and loops and ahead of their time.

As was this. Same Schwarzkopf trains twice in a row is very homely. Better than the obnoxious Walibi one.

Did the Tivoli medium. Well this is going surprisingly well.

Had some lunch and hopped on the Ferris Wheel to mix things up a bit.

Bit of future RMC porn for you. Bit of a downer for me. I’ll never get to ride stupid Spite Cyclone now.

I’ll start the rumour now – a guest was wearing a shirt that said ‘Thrift Whale’ that day. Will that be the name of the new ride?

Only one side of the mouse was open, but I’ll take that as Nagashima Spa Land complete. Wow.

I remember liking Arashi a lot before. It was the highlight of the day when nothing was open. It was also intense and messed up, but in a smooth, good way, right?

Not many rides get me nervous now, but giving this another go was up there with one of my most fearful moments. I don’t remember the restraint biting into my collar bone quite this much and… oh now it’s not even sitting upright on the lift and… oh <insert shouting here>.
It was 10x more intense than I even remember. As soon as it goes over the top the flips come out of nowhere, pounding you back and forth in your seat until you can’t stands no more. The ride is a ridiculous, stupid thing, but it’s still endearing and I somehow ended up on it more than once even after declaring it a ‘once a day’ job.

Discount Monsoon was fun.

Oops. They broke it. Evacuated the queue and gave us free fastrack this time though, so fair play to them.

Cheers for ruining the shot lads.

Had a couple of re-rides on the star attractions and managed to bring the day to a close with a smile on our faces. You’re alright Nagashima, you’re alright.

You’re better than alright. That’s made my day.

For the sake of loyalty, we went back over to have ice cream at the shop that cheered us up last year. It was even better than before, with many songs being sung and even an improvised light show from the staff. Too good.

Day 6

Korea + Japan 08/18 – Suzuka Circuit + Parque Espana

Flew from Busan to Nagoya the next morning and picked up a car from the airport.

Good advice.
After the hilarity of the expensive tolls on our last trip to Japan, we had pre-booked an auto toll card to come with the car which gives you a discount and lets you pay it all off at the end with a credit card, rather than eating into your fast dwindling cash funds.
Lets see how much we can rack up this time.

Bah.

Day 4 – Suzuka Circuit

Was immediately reminded why I love this country as we pulled into the car park here to be greeted by the friendliest person in the world brandishing signs and maps about who wants the amusement park and who wants the race track? First one please.

It had just started to rain as we reached the ticket windows, where more sign brandishing occurred, in particular the one that said no refunds if things close for weather. Don’t get me started.

Headed straight for Rocky Coaster, which I didn’t know had 2 backwards facing cars out of 5. Bonus.
This also turned out to be my 600th coaster. I beleive I was originally planning for it to be something more significant at Gyeongju World but the many spites in Korea hadn’t allowed that to happen. It was nice to end up with something more quirky instead.
The rain got rather heavy but they continued sending a couple of trains in front of us before it died down for our lap.

Backwards! Jet coaster was rather fun, not knowing what was going on both from the direction of travel and the intensity of the weather blinding us. There’s a classic ‘stick a straight line in’ section towards the end which was particularly amusing.

The other cred was in sight – Adventure Drive. Supposedly launched by people’s screams. It sure is a weird looking thing.

The rain got rather nasty again but we were welcomed into the queue. Again, they persisted for a while, but then it got too much and they ceased operation.
It might be that they have the power of some super accurate weather prediction technology in these parks that rules all the ‘cop out for the day’ decisions we encounter, but here we were simply told to wait 30 minutes and they’d give it another go. Yes, that’s more like it.

Sure enough, around 30 minutes later, while watching the water park evacuate themselves cos it was too wet, the rain died down once more and they sent a couple of cars before starting to load again.

It rides as weird as it looks. Punchy little launches in between momentum killing moments. An unusually steep lift and drop combo is chucked into the middle of the layout. Screams don’t seem to do much. Bit of a laugh.

On to the first of a million shooting dark rides for this trip. There’s a particular Japanese style of these rides, I believe made by Senyo, with continuously moving, sideways facing, 4 seater cars and fixed position swivelling guns that shoot at red LED circles and the occasional screen. Some of them have quite impressive animatronics inside, but it’s all a bit lost on you when you’re concentrating on shooting. Hirakata Park had my first of these and it was quite novel. It now turns out they’re absolutely everywhere.

Netto’s Power Crystal Hunt was about drilling for crystals I believe (don’t know where I got that from). The details might have faded on me.

Remaining thing of interest was the new Duel GP.
Nobody knows whether it’s a cred yet, but it’s great fun either way.

There’s 10 cars you can end up sitting in, with amusing names and colours.

You pseudo-steer the car with the wheel if you sit in the front of the 2-seater vehicle. If you take any of the corners badly then you get a controlled 360° spin while continuing forward until it points you in the right direction again. The more spins you rack up, the slower you are by the end of the race, so losing can have the advantage of being more fun. This is all enhanced by on board audio of revving and screeching and statements such as ‘YOU WIN!’
Each person in the winning car gets a little prize card at the end along with an excitable thumbs up from the staff.

The straight section over the bridge and down the steepest slope cannot be influenced by riders and is completely controlled by the ride system, with no steering required (not that it’s ever really required). The slope itself has trims brakes, implying a little fall under gravity and the track itself is what one would call coaster track. I’d be half tempted to count it, but it’s lumped in with the wrong crowd on Coaster Count for now. I would have done both sides ‘just in case’, but it was fun enough to warrant another lap anyway.

Suzuka Circuit (as an amusement park) is an enjoyable little place with a particularly extensive lineup of family rides, well worth the stop off, but nothing spectacular for us to stick around for.

Due to the weather concerns at this point, we decided to phone ahead to the next park to avoid potential disappointment (and costly tolls) but, as lovely as they were, continuously trying to put someone on the line with a bit more English, they didn’t understand our questions.

So we risked it.

Parque Espana

The final portion of the drive is a rather fun mountain climb before descending back down towards a lake, of which the park is on the far side. A massive B&M invert came into view, and it was rather distracting to me as the driver, glancing over at it repeatedly to look for any signs of life.

Signs of life were confirmed upon arrival in the car park, as a train was despatched. We’ve done well.

Picked up a nice cheap evening ticket from the entrance and headed in. Straight to Pyrenees.

Two of these in as many days now. How does it fare?

Even better for me. The ride starts off stupidly intense like a Batman clone but twice the size, the brutally fun snap is back in the cobra, then the unconventional second half gives it a bit of extra charm, with some weird meandering and a sort of air time hill to finish. Great stuff, potentially my favourite Invert.

Our second ride was just over the way.

An inoffensive family coaster with salamander trains.

Followed by Gran Montserrat, the rare species that is the Mack mine train. The sight of the double lift makes me shudder having done a stupid amount of Vekoma and Golden Horse equivalents.

This was really good though, it picks up a ton of relentless speed out of almost nowhere on both the drops and gets rather intense in the low to the ground, tightly banked curves, which are only enhanced by some good rockwork. It’s a shame it was only running 1 train, I believe they can duel it on the two lifts and it would have been even better with some interaction.
Potentially my favourite mine train outside of Disney.

A dark ride called Illumination Ride “The Nutcracker” was nearby and a decent experience. I forget the story, but the music was all familiar and legit.

There was one more cred to find, but we got lost along the way. It’s a pretty substantial park filled with a lot of other types of things to do with the Spanish side of the whole resort theme.

There’s lots of buildings you can pop into and read about stuff, as well as a full blown castle. They do 2 day packages here and there’s a on-site hotel, so it’s obviously enough to keep some people entertained.

Some nice views too.

There is another section of the park down at the bottom of some escalators.

Including Don Quixote’s Magical Flight, a Peter Pan style dark ride, though the station reminded me more of the Liseberg one.

Quite impressive, but also forgettable, inside. Something about a quest with this crew and riding seahorses.

Found the cred eventually. It turns out we had walked straight past it on the way in to the park, a huge building on the side of the entrance square. Great name.

The coaster section of the ride doesn’t do much, but it’s all indoors, which makes it kinda cool. There’s a big dramatic scene in the middle of the layout where the train stops, there’s steam effects going off and a screen counting up to something happening. Then nothing happens.
The train crests another lift hill which leads to a second half that’s as laughably pointless as Novgorod. Then it ends.

Found the second shooter of the day in Batalla del Alcazaar “Adelante”. Same style but with scary demons instead.

That was pretty much everything on the to do list. Enjoyed the rest of the time with rerides in the dark of the two major coasters, which only enhanced the experience of both.

They had a parade going on at the end of the day, followed by fireworks as it was a late closing event. I was impressed with the park overall. It’s got a bit of an aesthetic which sets it apart from a lot of parks in Japan as well as a couple of particularly standout rides, it’s just a shame none of these places are ever expanding their lineup.

A very successful day. Can the streak continue?

Day 5