A quaint place with precisely 0 visitors and a catchy, repetitive, park-wide song.
Home to only the finest of coasters, behold #1 Ladybug Coaster.
One neat thing they have here is these little lookout towers next to each ride.
Might be my most photographed of the trip.
Elsewhere in the park they have cute animals.
A hill with a big squirrel slide on top.
This.
Free table tennis.
And free bikes.
All in all, everything Sanrio wasn’t.
Huis Ten Bosch
Down the road was one of the biggest parks of the trip, but you’ve probably never heard of it because it doesn’t contain a rollercoaster. I know I hadn’t.
It’s a fairly hefty resort, with a fairly hefty pricetag, and entirely themed to Dutchland.
First thing through the main entrance is another teddy bear museum.
Making a habit of these.
Back outside towards the action there are a few rides.
First up was Mission Deep Sea, which was timeslotted, and had a seemingly pointless fastrack system for 95% of the year.
It’s a weird one, with approximately 30 minutes of just pre-shows, moving from room to room with a couple of staff actors. They build hype rather well into each transition, but as with most show rides it’s lost entirely amongst the faff and procedure of making people stand in front of the next screen.
Very, very eventually you get to your cinema seats.
Where the main thing that sets it apart from most is that the lead actor sits in a game chair up front by the screen and performs along with the video. It only lasts about 4 minutes and despite their admirable efforts, is a complete and confusing non-event. Oh well.
Next door is a flying theatre. This is an odd one, because it opened just last year with the usual sightseeing faff. Now, less than 12 months later, it’s been overlayed with Evangelion the Ride 8K.
Which doesn’t appear to match the elaborate queue at all. More pre-shows! You get batched several times and have several instructional videos on joining NERV, military operations, high tech all-terrain (flying) vehicles.
As such they’ve just transitioned from one trope to another. Scary monsters attack your base (which is the park itself) and you tag along for the ride watching the main characters in big robot suits beating them up. You win, at the cost of the park being destroyed, the end.
It was all a dream though, the park is fine, here’s a triple-decker carousel.
Last of their big 3 is Horizon Adventure.
This is a strange one, because water based special effects show to me usually means very exciting. Instead you sit on some wooden benches and listen (via headphone translation if requested) to an old man tell a confusing story about water to his uninterested grandchildren.
They run off and knock a statue over, then the story stops, then you watch the flood, then he comes back and shrugs ambiguously, the end.
Ferris wheel time.
The Dutch illusion falls apart when you can see the landscape beyond.
Construction, get excited?
Observation tower time. For context, it’s a replica of the tallest church in the Netherlands, the Dom Tower of Utrecht.
And I feel like it needed that. While it was a very pretty place, all of the ‘rides’ were a bit underwhelming and didn’t live up to the theming quality of the rest of the park.
All in all, glad to have knocked it off the list, even if it’s only worthy of a ‘s’alright.’
The following morning found us in Miyazaki, a quaint coastal city with a zoo., with a couple of coasters.
Day 9 – Miyazaki Zoo
And there it is.
Found this little history piece on the main path in, showing a glimpse of an old jet coaster they used to have. Sad it’s gone.
Instead we get this magnificent specimen, #1 Mad Mouse.
Maybe it’s just me, but there’s always something about a ride with a funny face that makes it so much more desirable for the count.
And these single file things are usually pretty wild, embracing the chaos.
The other ‘coaster’ is a bit of a dubious one, but it’s well themed to dinosaurs and clowns.
#2 Pierrot Train had massive airtime, and it’s stood for 20 years without ever being photographed for RCDB so, as ever, you’re welcome.
Elsewhere in the zoo they have zoo things.
All in all, a decent morning out.
Took a drive over to Kagoshima for the afternoon, which has a couple of things going for it.
Predominantly a big volcano that came out of the sea right next to it, actively spewing on this occasion.
And the southernmost city of Kyushu.
Nice.
Day 10
The sort of original plan for the day (it could have also happened earlier, without rain) was to go from volcano to volcano. Unfortunately a helicopter crashed inside the crater of Mt. Aso earlier this year and obviously that’s a complete logistical nightmare to do even anything about. So, sadly, though you can usually drive up pretty much the whole thing, all the access roads were closed off for the foreseeable.
Instead, as a near equivalent alternative, nearby there’s a man and his dad who live with nearly 100 Shibas.
To many people that’s probably better.
While in the area, here’s some more general volcanic basin views, including what I assumed to be cracks in the ground from seismic activity.
Kōno Park
But to satiate the real thirst.
A very small park is another few hours away.
With yet another magnificent specimen.
Car park coasters are better when you can park directly under the supports.
#1 Mini Jet Coaster might be the flattest thing ever, but it wasn’t without its charm.
The threat of rain that had accelerated the schedule of the previous day was still looming the next morning. With 2 more, smaller parks still to do in and around the town of Beppu, the ideal situation would have been to knock one out anyway, by hook or by crook.
Thus, as they had the most comprehensive website of the two, I kept tabs on Harmonyland religiously night and day. The rain never came overnight and was, in theory, deferred to mid morning by all reliable measures. As opening time approached, ride statuses were promptly updated and the park clearly stated that neither of their rollercoasters would operate for the day due to weather. I do like a decisive piece of information.
Day 7 – Beppu Hell
As a famous hot spring town, there’s plenty of hot air to be seen around here.
Headed into town and then up a steep hill to check out a couple of their many themed bodies of water known as ‘hells’.
First one was a geyser with a seating area. A long and annoying sequence of many, many announcements saying it was about to go off, please stop crossing in front of people was accompanied by a long and annoying sequence of many, many people crossing in front of people.
Eventually it went off. Then everyone got very quickly bored and left, to the tune of a long and annoying sequence of staff saying please stop crossing in front of people accompanied by a long and annoying sequence of many, many people crossing in front of people.
Fish.
Here’s the stats though, pretty cool, people and temperature aside, as most things are.
Just next door was the one with the red water. Had a bit of a queue to get in, through an obnoxiously busy gift shop, followed by some red water.
Steam.
That was enough of that, likely not helped by my mind being elsewhere, and my consistently clockwork remarks about the fact that it hadn’t even rained yet, yet coasters were supposedly closed for the day at the mere thought of it.
Sadly I then checked the Harmonyland website again only to learn that they had decided to open their coasters… I do loathe an indecisive piece of information. With perfect hindsight, getting there at opening while most people would have assumedly been put off, could have been the perfect inside hack, but just you wait.
The sky was still certainly threatening and it still felt like a risk to commit to the park with ‘more’ so instead we hit the road to
Rakutenchi?
At the very moment I pulled into the car park, it began to rain, and continued to do so for the rest of the day.
So we went to Oita, did some shopping and had some ramen. The end.
Day 8
Well the weather got it out of its system swiftly enough and it was back to business as usual for the foreseeable. We were now on the back foot however, with both parks left to do in a day and a long way to go afterwards.
Made sense to start at the park with ‘more’, that opened earlier, was the furthest away from our eventual destination, so we hit the road to
Harmonyland
Despite being in the initial queue of cars at the car park barrier before it even opened, and I’ll never know how, it took 90 minutes to set foot in this place. To add insult to injury, it was by far the most expensive of the trip so far.
Why? Because it’s Sanrioland in disguise, and as we found out the hard way, it’s ridiculously over-visited and under-capable.
Headed straight to #1 Rhythmic Coaster whilst everyone else headed into a queue for lottery tickets for meet’n’greets or some other Sanrio slop.
Despite this, it took 90 minutes to get on the ride. I know exactly why, poor capacity, but hey, custom Vekoma Junior.
With a distinct jet coaster feel. Worth it?
Headed up to the powered dragon next but after some quick mental maths it looked to be also hanging around that magical number of 90 minutes, so noped out.
Headed down towards the dark ride to find that both it, and the hill train that helps access it – the place is very hilly, weren’t open.
So there’s a hundred million people in here and they’ve got about 3 attractions.
They were open until 8pm however, so figured it was best to let them attempt to sort things out and come back in the evening, at risk to sanity. Got a hand stamp and left.
Rakutenchi
Upon second arrival here, the car park at the base of the funicular – the place is very hilly, wasn’t open.
You can drive to the top and go in the less impressive entrance however, it’s just a long way round, far more non-descript and slightly cheaper.
Another significant factor in the decision to abandon the other stupid place at that time was the opportunity to catch capybara feeding time here.
Which we did, it was great, and then they got in the water, it was hot.
Wish I could chill like that.
They have other attractive animals too.
Oh, and a #2 Jet Coaster. Without a 90 minute wait.
One of the more iconic looking old school jet coasters with great views and some acceptable levels of merriment.
This bridge makes more attractions than Harmonyland already.
Bridge from a bridge.
Sadly I then checked the Harmonyland website again only to learn that they had decided to close their car park because they had reached capacity… for the rest of the day. With perfect hindsight, this could have gone an infinite number of other, better ways, but let us never speak of Sanrio again.
And give all our love to Rakutenchi.
Suppose the one mercy was getting to do many hours of mountainous roads in the daylight, slightly annoyed, rather than at night and undoubtedly more annoyed.
Continuing ever westward, we found ourselves in Shimonoseki – the town that marks the entry point onto the island of Kyushu, via yet another big bridge.
Just before that though,
Day 6 – Haikara’t Yokocho
There’s a coaster to be had here. Guess I’m not retiring just yet.
Only the finest to break the fast of course, one of the nations many #1 Family Banana Coasters.
Alternative transport options are available.
In the interests of keeping things relatively leisurely, this was originally billed to be the only ‘park’ of the day. However, worrying weather reports were worryingly reporting that the following day was going to be a bit of a write off, so we upped the pace a bit in response.
But first, a horsecourse.
Via a bridge.
This is Kokura Racecourse, the biggest in Kyushu.
Nice place for a picnic.
Building was open, as other races were on elsewhere in the country, you can treat it like a big, fancy betting shop with free drinks.
And then, several down hours the road, you may have heard of this one.
Kijima Kogen
9 years ago, terrifyingly, we sort of almost came here. The circumstance birthed a quote of a lifetime in that we were done with Space World, put it in the Sat Nav, and were presented with arriving 5 minutes before close, with a cost of £70 in tolls. How times have changed.
Thus I suppose this was pseudo revenge, though mainly I’ve been haunted ever since by the relative significance of their signature coaster. And completing the Japanese wooden (not that impressive), Intamin wooden (better) and top 10 longest wooden (nice) sets of course.
Enough words, #2 Jupiter.
Ok, some more words. Similar tactics for the ‘biggest’ park of the trip, though a day early, this was intentionally a weekend for attraction availability over crowd comfort.
So, several hours into the day here, this had a pretty hefty, or at least slow-moving queue. As busy as it gets was only deemed worthy of one train operation.
Eventually made it on, the biggest source of discomfort being assigned seating taking fate out of my hands. Ended up near the front, in a non-wheel row.
Off we went. It’s got a fun little pre-lift section, one of the pioneers of the genre in that regard I guess. While only hitting moderate speeds here, this revealed that there probably was something to be worried about.
Up and round and down we go. I kinda liked it.
A very interesting mix really. There’s sparks of it being a very good ride, with even a few moments of what would be impressive airtime, as you would expect from a more modern Intamin, but not at all after riding Regina and Elf.
The tracking is patchy at best. I assume some work has been done at some point as all these things change all the time of course, it varied from laughable jiggle, to stay on your guard, catch this at the wrong time and it’ll kill you.
Did I dare to ride again? Probably, through 40% morbid curiosity, 30% a sense of respect to the name and the size, 20% the decent chance it won’t be around forever and 10% actual enjoyment. It held the same queue all day though, so no. On reflection now, glad I didn’t, as we so often learn these days, walk away on the high.
Back up the high end of the park are the other coasters.
The cold steel of a powered #3 Dragon.
The park’s signature steel, #4 Super LS Coaster, a Meisho rarity.
It has some of the charms of a jet coaster when wafting over the pathways, but loses the spirit a little bit in trying too hard with inversions.
Looks cool though.
Vekoma Junior, from both the old #5 Roller Skater days and a defunct park up the road. Should have saved their jet coaster instead.
And finally a ridiculously intense Meisho mine train thing by the name of #6 Gold Rush, that was nothing like the others of the trip in any way. Swear I took a picture of it, but have checked all 3 phones now so you’ll just have to believe me.
The warning signs – the back row is permanently closed off, more padding than usual, a 5 minute enthusiastic safety spiel form the operator before despatch (resulting in easily the second longest queue on park).
No idea what went on with this one, but every elevation change is marked by the most intense of transitions, which built and built until the very end. Like it wasn’t meant to have a long train or someone got their calculations off.
Amazing though, they accidentally stumbled onto a winning formula as it made everyone scream and shout every time. Sleeper hit of the park.
Was sad to learn that the building for this once housed the park’s only actual dark ride. It had an interesting history, originally being built as a showcase model over in Europe. Chuck some 4D seats in a box and call it a day.
Had a cheeky go on the old Intamin drop tower, Newton (one of the mascots of the park), which became my most efficient amusement attraction of all time. No one else there at all. Nodded at the guy. Sat down. Despatch. Drop. Nodded at the guy. Done. Less than 30 seconds?
With that it was park complete, Perhaps not quite as significant as I’d built it up to be in my head after all these years, but great setting, interesting set of coasters, good vibes, all that fun stuff.
Next morning was a rainy one but, for a welcome change, that didn’t even matter.
Headed over to see the signature castle of the city, which can be accessed via this cable car station.
The plastic school chair version was out of action, so up we went on big blue.
Even after that there’s a hefty hill to climb to get up to the castle grounds. Accessibility wasn’t a top priority when choosing the location.
There’s separate ticketed entry if you want to go inside, which is recommended both for something to do and the views. Once in, there’s a locker room for shoe removal, so you can get to pad the wooden halls and climb the steep stairs in slippers or socks, which adds to the experience.
Plenty of history stuff.
Can’t beat a good vantage point.
Yes, that’s a ferris wheel. No, no coasters here.
That was fun. Headed back down and took a drive to see some oranges, the famed fruit of the region.
Yes, it’s called a park. No, no coasters here.
Only oranges.
Juiced up, drove all the way back over those bridges again to reach Hiroshima for the evening.
First and only priority upon arrival was their famed pizza vending machine, which as far as I know is a one and only. Used to live near a convenience store, now it’s just under an apartment building. So, how was the pizza? Pretty good, considering.
Day 5 – Hiroshima
Took a wander through the city the next morning.
Main stuff in the middle includes the museum.
Peace park.
And A-bomb dome. There’s also an overpriced vantage point with a slide in it, inside that building to the right.
We had planned to head to Miyajima for the afternoon, mainly to finish a joke I set up in Florida, but the weather ruined the ferry scheduling.
Looked something like this, I would imagine.
But if you zoom in real close, there it is from the mainland, specifically the car park of a convenience store. Keep it a secret though, or they might put a wall up.
An hour down the road, something that didn’t require a ferry.
The bridges are back with Kintaikyo bridge.
There’s a toll gate at one end, and another cable car up to another castle at the other end, but the latter was closed by this time.
7 years ago I arrived at the ticket desk of Washuzan Highland to be helpfully informed that all three rollercoasters were not operating that day.
Time for revenge.
Day 3 – Washuzan Highland
Arrived to a reasonably long queue to get in. As with Rusutsu last year I had intentionally aimed for what was expected to be a busy or ‘peak’ weekend in order to prioritise attraction availability over crowd comfort.
The history of why this place has an obsession with Brazil eludes me, but it seems to be toned down these days. The only time it kicked off was for a weird bingo event in the middle of the day (everyone got a card with their entry ticket) that had a couple of folks in carnival attire trying to rile up a mostly mute Japanese audience, while of course shouting numbers and giving out prizes.
We’re not here for that though. It is with immense satisfaction and sadness that I have now ridden every existing version of my namesake coaster.
Despite the queue to get in, the fact that it’s front and centre as the first ride you see upon entry, and the horrendous capacity of this running a single 6-person car, #1 Ultra Twister hadn’t drawn too much of a wait.
Turns out the restraint system I described for the dive loop version in Rusutsu is entirely unique (amongst those that remain at least). Here the first thing I noticed is a much chonkier shoulder restraint and lack of weird little lap bar.
It all amounts to a similar amount of fear factor however, I can never say enough how much these things are fascinatingly over and under engineered, for the era.
It delivered the appropriate amounts of glory. Two terrifying out of seat moments, one thriling hurl of a heartline, a car crash of a brake run at the far end, and a graceful backwards descent through two more inversions that no one else sees coming. Seems obvious now, but I was surprised at the speed difference of these vs the dive loop edition, which carries an insane amount of momentum and intensity in comparison to that which comes to a dead stop at less than half the height.
This park is quite the athletic workout, as it’s built on a massive hill. Also at ground level, but with views here not even halfway up, is the other major coaster.
For the morning #2 Pink Typhoon Standing Coaster was running its backwards, not standing, train, which I found to be extremely potent in the back (front) row.
I’ve experienced the layout before, but not for a long time and never in this manner, so the sheer element of surprise in each of the surprisingly sharp hills led to some surprisingly strong airtime surprises. Loved it.
At the summit of the park is the final, family friendly coaster. Old mate #3 Chupy Coaster.
It’s great not only for the setting, but the very open cars with no restraint beyond a seatbelt, and of course the train decoration.
Did a nearby cycle railway, also for the views.
An interesting touch was that they added a little trick track to it, for a bit of scary illusion.
They’ve also got this ferris wheel with open air seats. Seemed to be a few downsides however, in that it’s upcharge, your view is restricted by restraint and there were a lot of scary bugs flying around.
Opted for the regular of course.
Can’t beat a good vantage point.
This looks far more impressive than it rides.
Around lunchtime they were due to swap the trains on this over to the standup version, as proclaimed on a sandwich board on the path to the ride.
This also coincided with the bingo, so doubled up as being dead quiet and avoiding that.
Now in this mode, it’s the same as the Togo stand-up in Italy, which I absolutely adored. Didn’t ride quite as potently in feet-off-the-floor airtime for whatever reason, be it weather, front row or me related.
Still terrifying though, and definitely reinforced for me that, whilst B&M have finally come a bit closer to replicating the fear through actually standing up, and having a restraint that moves with you, Togo have been doing that and better since the ’70s. Insane.
Closing lap on that closed out the visit, which was lovely to finally tick off after so long of a tease. Great setting, great rides, a gem of a Japanese park. Having now ridden all the Heartlines, I can officially retire from the hobby.
The drive for the afternoon took us over a set of bridges through the inland sea and over to Shikoku. Not to be confused with the bridges over the inland sea to Shikoku we’ve just seen from the park. That’s the other way.
Who needs coasters when you can have bridges?
Let’s count.
At the end there’s a rest stop where you can look back at some of the view.
Finished up in the city of Matsuyama, our base for the night, and took a wander over to some touristy place.
Old train and new tram.
A pretty clock tower that does a show every hour – the top rises up, doors open out from the sides with little dioramas and music plays. It got dark, so no pictures, you can probably find it on the gram.
Reminded me of a few other places, up in the hills in the middle of nowhere, by a lake.
Initial pathway is somewhat blocko-inspired, though this particular theme soon dies out as you reach the amusements proper.
Wait, is that a bonus coaster in the distance?
First things first was the Meisho, very similar hardware to the previous day.
Name here is far less apt however, #1 Hill Billy Coaster Texas Bronco? Not much of that makes sense.
Was a fair bit heftier in duration, picked up a fair bit of speed over time and the near misses with the rockwork in the end felt rather scary.
While nothing special in any particular way, I came off far happier about it than I had any right to be. A delayed culmination of emotions about being back at this nonsense again, still a spark for it somewhere deep down I guess.
This also Meisho shuttle loop is long gone, just an eye-catcher from a time gone by.
Huge, in what is very much a park aimed at young families these days, I question whether it would have lasted no matter the circumstances.
And missing the rest of the layout, albeit just a straight line. It’s been exactly this way for at least 20 years and the park has added precisely 0 coasters in that period, an apt summary of the state of the scene out here.
Mooched around and killed some time as there was a staggered opening on the other, smaller cred.
#2 Waku Waku Coaster opened a little earlier than posted, which was welcome. A functional +1 if ever there was one.
Didn’t hang around much longer, took a drive down to Okayama, specifically a touristy bit dubbed the ‘Venice of Japan’ for the afternoon.
Not entirely convinced, but here we are.
Was quiet and pleasant for that time of day at least.
Content warning – this trip contains whole days without rollercoasters. I would say it’s me slowing down, but choose to blame the industry doing so instead.
It’s been far too long since my last visit to Japan at just over 6 years months. The simple FOMO of the previous trip carried over once again, inspired by some longstanding unfinished business with a particular couple of places, and a continued desire to explore new parts of the country by means of their fading amusement parks.
Day 0
Nothing much to report on the travel front, thankfully. Flew into Osaka via Beijing because it was offensively cheap, but too short of a layover to get up to anything cheeky. Oh, they did try and cancel the Japan leg earlier in the year when the two countries fell out politically again, because the airline anticipated not making any money on flights between them, but it was rebooked with relative ease and only ended up being a minor inconvenience.
Hit the ground half-running with some shopping shenanigans before near-passing out in a Mcdonalds once sitting down and travel fatigue could set in. Time for a reset.
Day 1
Picked up a hire car the next morning, a loyal and faithful cubular Suzuki that served us faultlessly and provided a quintessential local driving experience. Didn’t have much in Osaka to hang around for so immediately busted out of the city in search of a new genre entirely.
Why ride coasters when you can look at horse courses?
This is Hanshin Racecourse.
It’s free to enter on non-race days.
Good place for a picnic.
And generally very pretty.
Can’t help but think of Thunder Dolphin when I see the hole in that roof.
Not sold? Coasters it is then.
Kobe Fruit & Flower Park
The flower bit of the name is up through there.
But turn left before that for the real deal.
Started strong, as always, on the #1 Hurry Coaster, a mini Meisho with some inspired shaping.
Both coasters here came from a defunct park in Osaka in the ’90s, so that’s fun.
The other, bigger #2 Jet Coaster also has a bee(?) on it.
It’s somewhat jet coaster inspired, as the name would suggest, but also a bit jankier and wilder than usual with the stumpy two-car trains.
In a mine-cart-esque kinda way, was a rather fun experience to kick off the obscure coaster hunting.
Had some local strawberry sorbet to fulfil the fruit part of the equation, then hit the road, simple.
Final day was a welcome change of pace. All of our ticket validity, and general enthusiasm, had run dry and there was a sizeable hole to fill before an evening flight home.
Day 9 – Kennedy Space Center
Which felt like a good opportunity to come here.
After some poor communication at the Houston equivalent, we made sure our first priority was getting on one of the coach tours that drives around to various points of interest. There was almost no queue in the end so, following a brief green screen photo opportunity, we were quickly on board.
First stop on the tour was a viewing platform with a couple of exhibits built into it.
From here you could see the launch pad that Artemis II was sitting at. Having now seen several of the amazing photos we got from that mission, makes this feel even more special.
If you’re into anything space, go check them out. I think it’s a shame how little I’ve heard the whole thing talked about since.
Here’s the ridiculously huge building in which they put rockets together, and the chunky vehicle that moves them to the launch pads.
And a pretend engine that simulated being vaporised by the loudest thing on earth, by means of some light misting.
Back on the coach again, next stop was a place that contained a standing cinema pre-show about the history of launches, into a seated cinema bit about what launch days are like, complete with old-fashioned mission control setup.
Exiting that led to the classic big warehouse with rocket, lengthways. Also at Houston.
Coach took us back to base, where it was dark ride time, ish.
This building contains one of the attractions. Spaceport KSC is a collection of 4 small flying theatres with only two rows stacked vertically, but they were only running one deck of each on this occasion.
Each one has a different film, a simple choice of destination – they all simulate getting on a shuttle and visiting somewhere in space.
Due to the limited capacity it took about half an hour just to do the one, the Mars one, which we got the general gist from and called it a day. It was alright.
Foolishly we had completely walked past the building that contains the OG simulator here, so backtracked to that, right next to the coach drop off.
From seeing a ‘POV’ of the Shuttle Launch Experience, many moons ago, this ride held the most anticipation. It’s several minutes of people screaming and slightly jiggling in a box, which seemed like entertainment of the highest form to me.
Anyway the pre-show was very good, recorded by real astronaut folk on robot arm screens with a good sense of humour. Then we moved to a loading area much like a giant star tours. Again there were multiple simulators but they were running a limited capacity so had quite a wait here.
Then we strapped in to feel the Gs. It was funny, quite impressive and somewhat intense. Obviously nowhere near the real deal but enough to give the average person a sense of ‘this isn’t for the average person’.
Closed the day out in the ‘worlds largest nasa gift shop’, such an American thing to say. Had a great day here overall, would recommend it over the Houston equivalent and to break up the travesty that is Orlando these days.
Apologies for the delays and negativity overall, as you can probably tell I wasn’t particularly thrilled by Florida this time around and I do quickly burn out on reporting revisits when there’s no new experiences to talk about. Stardust Racers is amazing when it works, very glad to have ‘done’ Epic Universe, but it wasn’t all that. Excited for the future of B&M stand-ups. Not excited for the future of Busch Gardens.
A quiet trip to Orlando now seems impossible, the baseline entry price to simply ‘suffer’ through it is very high and you have to up-charge well over the odds to actually make a half decent attempt. I dread to think how difficult it would have been had we needed to experience every attraction this time around, though I do recognise that most often the challenge in that is the fun for me, the true driving force that was lacking here immediately after the very first day. That’s about everything I learnt!
Not much to report here, had a lazy morning as we’d pretty much run out of things to do that didn’t include standing in a 2 hour queue for something already done.
Afternoon rolled around and we went back to
Epic Universe
to see the dragon show, Untrainable. I’d seen it before in Beijing so knew what to expect. And it was what was expected, very good, but then they skipped Toothless at the end for technical reasons or something.
Can’t remember exactly what happened next, more procrastinating out of silent protest to the park and then left again most likely. $30 parking just to see an old show.
The weather had gone really weird once more, with another massive drop in temperature expected overnight and some pretty high winds, so general consensus was that everything outdoors was going to close for the next 24 hours or so.
Epic Universe
Expecting this to quieten things down substantially, and maybe steal our final lap on a broken stardust racers, went back in again to find it closed for weather instead of course.
The park was deadening however, as guests had suffered the 3 attractions available and then decided to run for shelter. Battle at the Ministry had hit an all time low and I had had a few days to recover from the potential fever dream. Probably still took about 90 minutes in the end, but it was worth it for the comedy.
My fear that I had misinterpreted any of the moments that split my sides was extinguished. If anything it elevated the experience even further by having them affirmed. I must not tell lies.
The park wasn’t far off closing, but threw a random curveball in Hiccup’s Wing Gliders reopening as a walk-on for the final 30 minutes. We grabbed a cheeky lap in the now bitter cold, but it had great vibes in the dark and is a fantastic family attraction, when you can walk on it.
Then, wanting to spice life up a little and pretend we’d got our moneys worth, we power-walked to Mario Kart with 5 mins left on the clock. Not because it was good, but because it was open.
Again the true walk-on experience enhanced the pacing, and I opted not to shoot this time, just soak up the vibes. S’alright that way, less chaotic but a little lacking in cohesive stimulation.
And then we left.
Day 8
Failed logic had dictated we leave this park until the final day. Most chance of the Mummy reopening earlier than stated. Most ‘indoor’ park for the day when everything outdoors was expected to be closed.
This park simply sucks right now.
Universal Studios
Sadly couldn’t resist walking into the Minions Villain Con travelator thing immediately before it got any queue, as it was a new ‘experience’. You collect a hefty gun and then stand on a spot, moving slowly past some shooty scene screens.
They managed to break a moving floor about a minute in, so we had a good 10 minutes looping the same sequence over and over again while everyone’s arms got tired from the heavy guns and bored because it’s simply not an engaging attraction.
Started back up again, no one cared, waited for it to end and left. Ew.
Then headed to the back of the park to try and double down on the Harry Potter humour. I had almost entirely forgotten what Escape from Gringotts was like beyond a bad story and the sentiment of ‘I’d quite like to try the ‘coaster’ again though’.
Shouldn’t have bothered, the comedy was gone. Queue is such a drag, so I guess Forbidden Journey is the best at that. Bill Weasley gives an unconvincing performance in a pre-show, then on-board the audio was really quiet so we couldn’t even hear the stellar dialogue. It makes no sense for big V to show up in this one, say something funny, then that same problem again – ‘I’m going to kill you with my wand now’. Could have done it in an instant, fluffs it up by licking the air and being creepy instead.
Harry intervenes out of character and power scaling, then what happened to the ‘coaster’? On my one previous attempt it had managed to lull me into a false sense of the technology being quite cool at least. Nothing happened at all that gave me that impression this time around, it failed on every level. Then the lockers are bad.
Oh yeah, the lockers are bad in this park, we were reminded again at Men in Black, immediately needing to use them again. It broke down for about 10 minutes while we queued. Then we rode it. I like it, couldn’t seem to score very well, but I like it. The spinning is pretty intense if you get hit in a duelling section. A technology that needs bringing back to a modern dark ride for sure, this thing is old now. And as soon as we left it went down for the day.
Half the park was closed in fact, including many, many of the indoor attractions that were supposed to be saving the day. The hogwarts train, MIB, ET, fast n furious, villain con, the Mummy of course, most insultingly of all, down. It’s not a good attraction lineup to begin with, particularly with the recent death of RIP Rocket, but this really drove the point home. Gringotts up to 3 hours, 90 for a Transformers clone I’ve done 100 times or a Minions clone I’ve done once. Don’t like Jimmy Fallon or the Simpsons ride. Time to leave already eh?
Had some bad food in city walk while waiting for something, anything to miraculously reopen and somehow save our day. All the Universals were suffering the same fate and salvation never came, so we left again to monitor the depressing situation from the warmth and comfort of a hotel room.
Islands of Adventure
Nighttime came and the coasters of IoA limped back into life. We had one more ‘dying hour’ card to play, so we played it on Velocicoaster.
Picture this, but dark.
This was about the only thing to go better than expected and pretty much saved the day on some levels. What should have been an hour queue for the dying hour ended up around 35 minutes. Then 15 minutes. Then walk on. Finally, after a full week, we had managed one more fill of multiple laps of a kick ass Universal coaster and it was back to kicking ass mode, somehow. Definitely wasn’t warm, maybe I was more disheveled to compensate but the speed and power of the elements that were lacking on our single lap, days before, had returned to what I had been considering their former glory. It’s a firm ‘not quite top 25 for me these days, but I love it anyway’.
Then we tried to push our luck and drove to Epic for their dying hour, hoping for a single side of Stardust to do the same. Sat in the car, staring at where the on-board lights should have been moving. Lightning didn’t strike twice. And now the Stardust situation is even worse! We count our blessings for that first day, every day.
