I had it in my head for some reason that Tokyo Dome City was going to be a large amusement park next to the legendary Tokyo Dome, when actually it feels much more like a collection of rides inside of, outside of and on top of a massive mall. For this reason finding the entrances to attractions was a lot more confusing than you’d imagine.
Following a confusing search, which was constantly interrupted by screaming at Thunder Dolphin, we found the ticket counter, which was hidden in a line of standard looking shops.
Thunder Dolphin – You know how in this report I keep bringing up coasters that in my head have a legendary status, well most certainly among them is Thunder Dolphin.
As a huge fan of Expedition GeForce and Goliath, I was extremely excited to see what Tokyo’s own Intamin monster would ride like. The outcome unfortunately aligns with exactly what I had previously read online, that it is infact nowhere near in the same league as the other Intamin Hyper coasters.
Thunder Dolphin’s first drop is by far the best part of the coaster, providing an awesome out of seat experience during the whole descent. It is from the bottom of this drop however that things take a turn and Thunder Dolphin becomes an Intamin Jet Coaster.
While it is still an amazing experience to fly over building tops and through massive Ferris wheels, you can’t help but be disappointed when knowing what this ride hardware is normally capable of.
Thunder Dolphin looks visually outstanding and provides an experience I very much doubt you’d be able to replicate, sadly as an Intamin Hyper though, it’s a let down.
Wonder Drop – Tokyo Dome City’s log flume attraction and it was absolutely evil! Water braking redefined and probably the wettest drop on a conventional log flume ever.
Big-O – The park’s famous spokeless Ferris wheel, where we got lots of lovely pictures of Thunder Dolphin. Rather awesomely it featured touch screens and could play videos in multiple languages about the park’s attractions.
After a few more laps of Thunder Dolphin, we left the park but kept our wristbands on incase we found time to return later today, we didn’t…
Tobu Zoo
The train ride to Tobu Zoo took a good 45 minutes and really did feel like it was in the middle of nowhere.
The park is apparently a 20 minute walk from the station, so we jumped on the bus that departs from just outside.
When we got to the ticket counter, an older Japanese women told us that Kawasemi wasn’t operating. When we replied with, “oh ok, that’s what we came for, so thank you but we won’t be coming in”, a younger women jumped on her phone and told us to wait. She then informed us that engineering were going to try to open the coaster. Now I can’t be 100% sure they opened Kawasemi just for us but I do strongly feel that’s what happened.
With that we bought entry only tickets and while Heartline and his wife went to check out the zoo, I went to scope out Kawasemi.
Almost as soon as I arrived outside the completely deserted entrance area, engineering smiled and gave the thumbs up to the ride team.
Now we have a problem, we have entry only passes and as far as we can tell you have to walk all the way back to the park entrance to get wristbands, or not…
After explaining the situation to the Kawasemi ride op, he walked us to a games counter, where an incredibly friendly lady sold us some wristbands.
Kawasemi – Kawasemi is an Intamin Mega-Lite, a coaster type and layout I praised immensely based on the wonderful Piraten at Djurs Sommerland.
Though it turns out riding layout clones that don’t live up to the first example you rode can quite seriously harm your perception of that first coaster.
Piraten, from memory blows the aforementioned GeForce and Goliath out of the water, it is a coaster I rode over 10 times and literally only stopped when I started to go blind, so yeah, it was awesome.
Then earlier this year I went to Nigloland and rode Alpina Blitz, same layout as Piraten but built by Mack. While a very good coaster, it came no where near how awesome I viewed Piraten. Is Alpina Blitz considerably worse despite having the same layout with better trains? Or was I wrong in how I rated Piraten in the first place?
And now we come to Kawasemi.
Literally the exact same ride, trains and all as Piraten and while it was clearly better than Alpina Blitz and had hints of what I remember lapping up on Piraten, it ultimately once again failed to be as good as I remember Piraten being. Is Kawasemi considerably worse despite being the exact same as Piraten? Or was I wrong in how I rated Piraten in the first place?
Though I won’t deny it was seriously cool on one of our laps to be the only 2 people on Kawasemi, a Mega-Lite almost to myself, I just wish the ride type hadn’t been seriously weakened by this point.
After this we rode the park’s Ferris wheel and had a real quick dash around the zoo. With the right people in your group and with no deadlines, I’ve no doubt you’d be able to spend a lovely day out at Tobu Zoo. See the animals, ride Kawasemi, then chill out looking at the nice scenery, this place keeps everyone happy.
From here we went to the Tokyo Pokemart, followed by a free to visit observation desk, before we collected our bags from the hotel and made our way to the airport.
The airport monorail was laughably poor compared to what you’d picture when you hear Japan and monorail in the same sentence.
Day 14
Our plane back to Korea was due to take off at just after 2am and at first I thought I was coping quite well but that didn’t last. I can’t remember the flight at all, not sure if that’s a good or bad thing though.
Once back in Korea we collected our Music Bank tickets from the most agressive Korean man ever and then once again boarded the airport to Seoul city train.
Falling asleep despite your best efforts not to is a horrible experience but that was me for the entire journey, it was tough. Though it was funny watching the Koreans opposite me do the exact same thing on their morning commute, I felt part of the team.
We arrived back at the Seoul Station K-Pop Hotel at about 8am and despite telling Heartline during the booking that I very much doubt I’d be able to sleep during the day, as soon as my destroyed body hit the mattress I was out.
The reason for the aforementioned crazy flight and sleeping during the day, was today, as with every Friday in Korea, was Music Bank.
Music Bank is a weekly Korean music show where the currently promoting K-Pop artists all perform their latest singles, then based on statistics around album sales and on the day voting a weekly winner is crowned.
Because it’s so hard to truly know in advance which artists will show up, it’s a bit of a risk just how good each show will be. Last time around, no less than 5 bands I was a fan of ended up showing up, with 2 of them being among my absolute favourites, it was a truly amazing experience.
This time around things were a bit less exciting, with (G)I-DLE being pretty much the only band I had heard of beforehand. Either way it was still a really good show.
For the record, (G)I-DLE used more pyro in their set than Tokyo Disneyland used in their castle show, still bitter…
With this being our last weekend, we now had full reign to spend all our money and fill our suitcases. So after Music Bank we went to Myeondong, Seoul’s biggest shopping area and started ticking off the K-Pop albums we came for.
After going to sleep I was awoken by sirens wailing, knocking on the door and shouting. Waking up thinking the hotel was burning down, it ended up being Heartline, “feel like going to Lotte World again tomorrow?”, “…yes! now I’m going back to bed.”
Thanks for reading, click here to read the final part of this trip report, where we visit Lotte World again and experience the best part of the trip (nah the 2nd best) [nah the best] {nah the 2nd best}…
After seeing the typhoon first hand and hearing all hell going on during the night, I was sure I was going to open my curtains today to see Japan in a post Godzilla state, but nope all still standing and better yet the weather looked lovely. After checking the Disney site to make sure they were unaffected, we made our way to the Tokyo Disney Resort once again.
Tokyo Disneyland
Now while I 100% stand by my comments about DisneySea being disappointing, I did feel bad for having to report that, so you’ll be glad to hear that whilst I still absolutely prefer Disneyland Paris, Tokyo Disney park had a much better showing than it’s resort counterpart.
In order to get to the entrance of Tokyo Disneyland you have to walk on an overpass over the coach park, well now they are just rubbing salt in the wounds…
Once in, things felt much more “Disney” than they ever did at DisneySea. There was a proper atmosphere in the air and while it never reached that of Disneyland Paris, it was great to feel that “magic” again.
Splash Mountain – For years of following Disney parks online I’d been really interested to try Splash Mountain and it didn’t disappoint me for one second.
Incredibly detailed theming, an adorable story (this time featuring a defined ending), a nice long ride time and a surprisingly thrilling final splashdown, fantastic stuff.
Owing to it’s location in relation to Critter Country, we next headed over to ride Haunted Mansion.
Haunted Mansion – Phantom Manor is one of my favourite dark rides and is joint first in regards to my favourite attractions at Disneyland Paris. It’s a stunning attraction that has stuck with me since I first rode it all the way back in 2005.
Because of this, I was so excited to try out the alternative mansion, but there was a problem…
For reasons only known to the insane, Tokyo Disneyland had their Haunted Mansion in Holiday Nightmare flavour in EARLY SEPTEMBER!
So instead of getting to experience the legendary Haunted Mansion, I got some emo Christmas rubbish.
For principle I’m not even going to give an opinion of Holiday Nightmare and I guess I’m going to have to wait untill I go to the US to finally get to ride the Haunted Mansion…
Following this crippling disappointment we finally made our way over to Big Thunder Mountain.
Big Thunder Mountain – Sorry to keep mentioning Disneyland Paris, but I’d rank their Big Thunder with the list of coasters that sit just outside my top 25. The theming, the dive under the water to start the coaster, the truly out of control feeling it creates and the insane ending, I absolutely love it.
During this trip, me and Heartline kept saying to each other, it almost feels like every ride here is a far tamer version of their great other halves. The more I think about it now, the more I agree with that statement. For reasons unknown, the country that’s home to Flying Dinosaur, Eejanaika, Arashi and Pyrenees (4 of the most intense roller coasters ever made), seems to also be home to the Disneyland with tamed down rides.
Big Thunder Japan was no different. While the theming as expected is outstanding, the coaster itself rides much more like a Vekoma Junior than the out of control French version and the ending is much much more lacklustre.
It’s still a great ride but when you’ve done other Big Thunders it doesn’t quite live up.
Making our way back to Adventureland, it was time for me to experience my first Jungle Cruise.
Jungle Cruise – After almost doing Hong Kong Disney before, I had seen on their website that their Jungle Cruise contains pyros and all sort of madness kicking off, so this probably didn’t help in regards to forming my opinion of Japan’s version.
While Jungle Cruise was a lovely sit down and bless the poor skipper girl who really was giving it all she had. Sadly due to stupid Hong Kong I was destined to come off disappointed when the ride just ended without any major pay off.
Star Tours – Much like the French one, to a man who hasn’t seen Star Wars, this was just a rock dodging simulator. It’s good but it ain’t no John Cleese dark ride…
Space Mountain – Next up was Space Mountain, another attraction I’d be longing to experience for a long time and sadly another attraction that led to some disappointment.
Now this time, the disappointment doesn’t stem from the Paris one being better, probably because I haven’t ridden the Paris one…
This time it comes down to the experience as a whole falling far short of what I was promised.
The coaster itself is super super tame, which would have been fine if there was anything decent to look at but there wasn’t. So after the interesting lift hill section, you just end up slithering around in the dark while space sound effects play quietly on the on board audio. I’m sure the American Space Mountains feature a score that causes instant orgasms among Disney fanboys, so why doesn’t Tokyo have that?
After this we had lunch at the pizza place in Tomorrowland, after the pizza place in Fantasyland refused to take the pineapple off the pizza for me. I suppose it’s too much to ask the staff to not put pineapple on your pizza at the happiest place on Earth…
Pirates of the Caribbean – Exactly the same as I remember the Paris one but this time featuring really lifelike Jack Sparrow animatronics, it’s pretty good, though nothing new to me.
Western River Railroad – After using the statement, “might as well do the train”, we were certainly glad we did because it was great. A nice sit down with fantastic views of the area and even some fun surprise sections.
Gadget Go Coaster – While they have certainly done an alright job of fitting this Vekoma Junior in, it still doesn’t really excuse that Disneyland has a Vekoma Junior to start with.
Monsters Inc Ride & Go Seek – Even though I had no idea how to make this interactive dark ride work properly, I absolutely loved it. Monsters Inc is one of my favourite Pixar movies and this ride did the source material justice and then some.
With everything we wanted to do (and some extras) knocked off, we took things easy for the next few hours and hit up various other attractions that sounded worth our time.
PhilharMagic – This 3D theatre based musical adventure was amazing, easily the best surprise at the park.
Pooh’s Hunny Hunt – To say anything other than it’s amazing, you NEED to try it, will completely ruin this awesome trackless dark ride. Hilarious to the point of tears and a technical marvel.
Pinocchio’s Daring Journey – Exactly the same as the Paris one but still a great ride.
Small World – I’m not sure if it’s a Tokyo exclusive but this variation featured Disney Princesses within the attraction and that added an extra layer of enjoyment to the ride.
For the last few hours I had really started to get into the Disney magic and as the sun went down I didn’t feel a million miles away from the feelings I felt while walking through the Paris park. Unfortunately things were going to turn sour to cap the day off…
Disney Dreams at Disneyland Paris moved me in ways I rarely feel like expressing and with Heartline who’s done all but one Disney park telling me that ALL the Disney castle shows are near enough as good as Dreams, I was unbelievably excited to see how the Tokyo one was going to play out. Well…
Instead of the show being featured around Disney movies, tied together with a magical story, this time the show was based around the park itself.
This meant instead of seeing Rapunzel swinging from the turrets or hearing Elsa singing Let It Go, you were treated to crudely animated recreations of the park’s attractions, while each ride theme played. Tied together by an out of tune overly pretentious song about how great the park is. The 2 most insulting parts were, the Haunted Mansion section, when you can’t even ride the proper ride at the moment and an extended part about a paddle steamer…
Worst of all though, no fireworks at all, only a few flame throwers that went off every once in a while.
I could literally feel the magic being sucked out of me every second this waste of time continued.
Disney Dreams in person > watching Disney Dreams on YouTube > thinking about Disney Dreams > going back to the hotel > Tokyo Disney’s current castle show
From people worth listening to, to random channels on YouTube who can’t even name the park’s lineup, Tokyo DisneySea has been branded the best theme park in the World countless times.
If the statement were “best THEMED park in the World”, you might be able to convince me but as for being the greatest theme park in the World, I’d strongly disagree. Hell I’d even go as far as saying it’s not even the best theme park in Japan.
Day 11
So today was the day the typhoon was set to hit Japan. Me and Heartline made the decision that if we looked out the window and saw carnage we’d spend the day in the hotel watching Korean TV shows but if things looked fine we’d stick with our original plan of hitting DisneySea.
I opened the curtains expecting the worse but instead got blinded by the blazing sun, I think we’re going to Disney boys.
Tokyo DisneySea
Despite there supposedly being a typhoon, the weather today started off insanely hot again and as I chose to wear jeans expecting the worse, things were rather uncomfortable for me.
Once we arrived at DisneySea we purchased the 2 day Disney Resort Pass. Sadly with the 2 day pass they force you to pick which park you do on which day and you aren’t allowed to visit both parks on the same day. This was a bit of a shame because that was one of my favourite things about Disneyland Paris, the ability to bounce between parks at your leisure.
Not knowing where we were going or even wanted to go, we accidentally ended up in the Mysterious Island area of the park. This is the area to bring up if you’re trying to convince me it’s the best THEMED park in the World, because Christ this area looks beautiful.
20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – Noticing that this submarine based ride had a 0 minute wait time, we walked straight onto our first dark ride of the day.
Picture Legoland’s Atlantis done properly and without the real fish and that’s basically what this was. Whilst I quite enjoyed it, I couldn’t help but think that it ended without any major climax or stand out moment.
Indiana Jones: Temple of the Crystal Skull – This dark ride was absolutely amazing!
After loving Fantawild’s outstanding knock off, Qin Dynasty Adventure, I was desperate to ride the original and I was not disappointed. Incredible from start to finish, I am so sad I only got to experience it once.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth – With our fast track time up, we ventured back over to Journey.
What can I say really, it’s fantastic, but much like 20,000 Leagues it feels like the ending is missing.
The dark ride part of the attraction that starts you off is incredible, the lava monster itself is insane and the high speed section after you meet the monster is fantastic fun, but then things just end abruptly with no final payoff.
Tower of Terror – After making it back from the centre of the Earth, we made our way over to the Waterfront section of the park to ride one of my most anticipated rides in the park, Tower of Terror.
I absolutely love the Paris version of this ride and knowing the Japanese one had it’s own unique story made me incredibly excited.
Up until the actual elevator section, Japanese ToT is AMAZING. The new story and effects used to convey it in the preshows made me prefer this over the Twilight Zone version. Then the ride itself happens…
Call it lost in translation but I really didn’t like the way the new story is applied to the actual elevator section, it didn’t really make sense and left me thinking that this story would of suited a trackless dark ride much better than the very limited elevator system ToT is tied to.
Also, either I’ve changed or Japanese ToT is incredibly weak when compared to Paris, the drop sequence was completely forceless.
At least you can’t deny the building itself looks breathtaking.
Something I’d glad to say DisneySea did do better than it’s French counterpart was food, we had a lovely pizza for lunch which came out far cheaper than we were expecting.
Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster – Why is this here?
Toy Story Mania – I really enjoyed Toy Story Mania but Maus Au Chocolat at Phantasialand is a far superior example of this kind of ride. Look DisneySea you’ve made me praise Phantasialand, you’re making us both look bad…
After exiting Toy Story Mania it became apparent that while maybe the typhoon wasn’t striking Tokyo, it was making it presence known by providing us with extremely strong winds.
I had never felt anything like it but testament to Japan’s familiarity with such events the locals didn’t seem bothered at all and the park made no announcement.
Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage – Fighting the wind we made our way to Sinbad’s dark ride.
This water based ride takes you through various scenes based on Sinbad and is heavily focused around music. I rather enjoyed it and it had me laughing out loud at points, wondering when Sinbad was going to break into song next.
And with that, Tokyo DisneySea was complete and here lies my major issue with calling it the best theme park in the World. I count 9 attractions in my opinion that are worth doing, which to me is far from enough to keep you busy for a whole day. But you have to factor in that only 4 of those attractions are unique to the resort, 1 is a terrible Togo junior coaster that couldn’t feel anymore out of place and ToT can be experienced in a far superior form elsewhere.
From my personal experience, only Indiana Jones exceeded my expectations, with the other attractions either leaving me slightly dry or doing exactly what I expected and nothing more.
Much like Universal Studios Japan, Tokyo DisneySea also suffers from a distant lack of magic. Now hear me out, at Disneyland Paris the atmosphere was at points overwhelming and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel quite emotional just being there. To contrast this, for all the time I was at DisneySea the “magic” of the place never struck me.
With Universal Studios Japan lacking the atmosphere that it’s Singapore counterpart emits, perhaps the issue is country based?
This isn’t to say I didn’t have a good day out at Tokyo DisneySea because I did, it just didn’t live up to my expectations based off of Disneyland Paris or live up to the immense hype placed on it’s shoulders.
With everything done, we headed for another go on Indiana Jones, however it was closed due to a breakdown. While waiting for it to open the parkwide PA system announced “your attention please, the train line linking the Disney Resort to the rest of Tokyo may soon close due to extreme weather conditions”.
We decided it was in our best interest to heed this advice and make our way back to the hotel.
After getting off the monorail that links the parks to the Disney train station, we knew we were screwed.
Thousands of people milling around outside the station with screens listing the closed lines, of which there were many.
We headed up to the rammed full train waiting in the station, due to depart any minute and there we stood for over 20 minutes, cramped and confused, as the train just sat there but more and more people piled in.
To save ourselves having a panic attack we got off the train to ask a guard what was going on, he blanked us and walked off… So we walked back down the station stairs to the ticket office and asked the lady at the barriers what was happening, “I don’t know” she shouted back, so we asked another staff member, who just walked off… See I wasn’t joking when I said the Japanese train staff are absolute bastards.
It turns out the trains had been stopped, but no one there thought it would be helpful to tell us that.
Not knowing at all what the hell was happening or the best way to get off of the Disney Resort island, we ventured into the Disney WELCOME Centre and couldn’t have felt any less welcome.
As we walked in, the 2 women behind the counter stared us down. “Hi, it’s madness out there, can you please help us find the best way to get back to our hotel?”, “oh no no no no no no, I can’t help you”, “sorry what?”, “I don’t speak English, I cannot help, sorry”, “right….”.
There was a mall next to the Disney station that upon searching was home to the Disney annual pass centre, so in we went. Inside we found a woman who put the WELCOME centre staff so much to shame it’s laughable. She got translators involved and maps and bus schudules up on her computer. Thanks to her helpfulness we were told we needed to catch bus number 1, easy right?
Into the bus rink we went and into madness we descended. There were many bus stops, with none of them showing the destination we were meant to be heading. After awhile we spoke to a member of the bus staff and he told us that we needed to be in the coach park. Fine we thought, we are on track now…
On approach to the coach park we saw a sight that will forever haunt me, thousands and thousands of people, all waiting to catch buses.
Thinking no, this CAN’T be real, we spoke to a member of staff who informed us we needed to catch a bus from stand number 1, but the queue was going to be, “many many minutes”…
What followed was over 3 hours of waiting for a bus, in a Tokyo DisneySea of people, in typhoon strength winds.
No this wasn’t Disney’s fault, it was ours for going out in a typhoon and the train companies for being awful at their jobs, but either way this wasn’t the way I wanted this day to end.
Moments before getting on our bus we were informed that the train line had just reopened. Well that’s a lovely insult to injury…
When I finally got back to the hotel I was tired enough to sleep through the immense wind trying to blow the hotel over.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 12 of my report when we visit Tokyo Disneyland.
I feel more so than any park in the World that since I first learnt of it’s existence many years ago, that Fuji Q was both the most intriguing and most unobtainable park out there. Way before I actually got out there and went to see what the theme park World offered outside of the UK, this place was already at a legendary status in my mind. Dodonpa, Takabisha, Fujiyama and Eejanaika were on pedestals and the fact I was going to get to experience these icons was almost unbelievable. Some of you may find it annoying that I’m against cloning certain rides, let my respect and intrigue for these 4 legends be a perfect example of why I am. The sheer thrill of being able to say “holy crap I’m about to ride Dodonpa, something I’ve dreamed of doing for years”, is almost completely ruined if there’s a clone of it chilling somewhere else in the World, I guess some will never be able to see it that way and that’s fine but I do.
Day 10
Today we woke up early to make the almost 2 hour drive from central Tokyo to Fuji Q. It would be fair to say we were absolutely expecting the worse in regards to this park. Way before I saw it myself in Nagashima, China and Korea, this was the original park that I heard closed everything in anything but perfect weather. It was spitting with rain and looking disgusting as we approached, so things weren’t looking good at all. Also I’d read far too many trip reports saying X was closed but that’s to be expected, I’m just glad we got Y, so that was a concern.
Fuji Q
When we got to the park our spirits were lifted by a digital board in the car park showing all the rides operating today and the times they were due to open. To further reinforce that idea Fujiyama (which is mostly in the car park) starting testing as we parked.
After entering the park we made our way straight to Dodonpa, which it turns out is located right by the turnstyles. We entered the queueline and as soon as we did 2 things happened, 1) it began to rain heavily and 2) I felt the most nervous I’ve felt in a queueline in YEARS.
The queue was probably only about 20 minutes and contrary to what I’ve read online the operations appeared to be fine, with a ground shaking launch sending one of the 8 person trains out of the launch tunnel every couple of minutes.
Despite it raining heavily, Dodonpa launched full train after full train for about 15 minutes, before operations were suspended due to the weather. At first I was honestly glad they stopped the ride as being launched 112mph into the rain was concerning me. Sadly my initial appreciation for operations stopping was short lived. For almost an hour we stood in the queue, hearing them power down Dodonpa, watching them close Takabisha and seeing no sign of the rain stopping.
Then suddenly the queue started moving again, I was sure the ride was still powered down so didn’t understand why. Then when we reached the ride station it became apparent as we were handed priority passes to come back later and got an apology and a bow from the ride staff. See the internet had me believe that when it rains Fuji Q close everything and the staff go home, so an apology and a ticket to return later blew my mind.
Well, that’s an hour and a half wasted. We know Dodonpa is shut, Takabisha (which is next to Dodonpa) has it’s entrance gate locked and Eejanaika hasn’t even tested yet…
So we entered the queue for Fujiyama. Despite the ride testing with 2 trains, possibly due to the weather it was only running 1. This meant an almost 8 minute coaster (including loading) was running 1 train with no other coasters in the park open. The queue which was quickly filling up was displayed at 4 hours as we entered…
That’s us screwed then. When we leave this queueline it’s going to be 3pm, we absolutely have to leave at 7pm and there’s no sign of the rain stopping and who knows if they’ll close Fujiyama in a minute..
About an hour into the second most frustrating queue of my life the rain did stop and about 30 minutes after that a parkwide announcement proclaimed “ladies and gentlemen we are happy to announce that Takabisha has now reopened”. Before we could even think of how to react to this information, nothing short of a swarm of people began running in it’s direction and almost everyone behind us in the Fujiyama queue bailed too. Heartline left the queue to get an update on what the Takabisha area was looking like, he returned with the simple statement, “it’s a mess”.
Desperation made us draw up a plan on how to react to Dodonpa reopening. It appeared the Fuji Q way of queueing was to leave 1 member of your group in the queue, while the others go to the toilet or to get food, then simply slither back in no questions asked. Ok we thought, if Dodonpa reopens, we will nip out and use our priority passes, while Heartline’s wife holds our place here.
30 minutes after coming up with this plan, this happened, “ladies and gentlemen we are happy to announce that Eejanaika has now opened”.
Eejanaika – A swift nod was all we needed before we jumped over several queue fences and began to literally sprint in the direction of Eejanaika. The thing was, we didn’t even know the way, so we just followed the crowd and overtook as necessary.
I’m not even sure why we expected anything less but when we got to the coaster the queue time was listed as 5 hours…
We had seen literally hundreds of people purchasing fast track for Fujiyama while we queued, so now with the situation being desperate we decided to join them.
As we got to Eejanaika so fast and everyone had just piled into the massive queue without thinking, when we did purchase our fast track from the vending machine, we got offered the very first slot to ride.
So before even seeing the coaster test, we entered the fast track queue and were immediately batched into the station building.
After being told to remove our shoes and put anything loose in the locker, it finally dawned on me that I was moments away from riding Eejanaika and because it all happened so fast I wasn’t prepared at all.
With the S&S freespin Arashi being one of the most intense coasters I’ve ever ridden, the idea of being spun while riding a coaster this time doing almost 80mph from a height of 250 feet was honestly terrifying. The reviews of S&S 4D coasters range from best coasters in the World to absolute hatred and I could easily see it swinging both ways for me.
The seating and restraint set up for Eejanaika only further helped to make me feel even more uneasy. A very small over the shoulder restraint holds your top half into the seat while absolutely nothing at all holds your legs in. I have never felt so improperly secured in a ride seat before, we will get back to this on the ride itself.
With the restraint set up already looking absolutely insane, it was also extremely complicated. One part comes in from the side, the other part comes down from above, then no less than three belts hold it all together. I let the staff member secure me for fear of actually killing myself if I did it wrong. When they were finished they smiled and said “is this OK?”, I smiled and gave a big thumbs up, while deep down thinking “I don’t know, oh God I am going to die”.
After all the ride staff do a dance and chant, the coaster is dispatched and immediately becomes terrifying. Between the station and lift hill the 3rd rail which controls the orientation of the seats is missing, meaning on the corner between station and lift you get a small teaser of what the ride can offer, as it quite violently tilts backs then wobbles around to centre itself. It was here I knew my fears for nothing holding in my lower half weren’t for nothing, as my legs bounced around in a most unnerving fashion.
On the evil, evil, slow lift hill my life flashed before my eyes and I thought of meeting Arin and the feel of her hand in mine, as I could literally hear my heart tearing through my chest. As we neared the top a massively unnerving thought sprung to mind, wait a second, which way are we tilting for the first drop? And then it happened…
It would be impossible for me to explain Eejanaika to you and unfair on the coaster itself. All you need to know is it’s absolutely amazing, probably the scariest roller coaster on Earth and unlike any other coaster out there. With the tilting of the seats, Eejanaika has you at it’s mercy to experience the layout however it wants you to and that creates some truly crazy moments.
Eejanaika bonded with me on a first ride like very few rides do. I respect the sheer terror it instills in me and adore the incredible things it’s able to accomplish with the rotating seats. S&S 4D coasters are incredible and it’s such a shame there’s only 3 in the World.
Fujiyama – We stumbled back to Fujiyama and slithered back into the queue where Heartline’s wife was standing, still about an hour from the station. During the last hour of the queue we noticed Dodonpa had just reopened too, we might complete this park after all!
Fujiyama was rather good, like not 4 hours queue good and it’s easily the lesser of the park’s big coasters but for what it is (a giant jet coaster) it’s good. A great first drop, some properly decent airtime moments and wicked laterals near the end.
After leaving Fujiyama, we heard an announcement telling the people who had Dodonpa priority tickets to please head to the ride now, so we did.
Dodonpa – Much like Eejanaika, things proceeded at such a pace that the fear from earlier didn’t have time to build up again. We walked up the coaster’s exit and met a smiling man, who put us straight us on the train waiting in the station.
It’s fair to say the fear came back as soon as Dodonpa dispatched though. It wasn’t Eejanaika bad but I was certainly on edge while waiting for this monster to launch.
Now put it down to Eejanaika before or having done Bullet Coaster in China but Dodonpa’s launch didn’t really pack anywhere near the punch I was expecting. In fact the whole experience was just really smooth and enjoyable, not the being hit by a truck I was expecting.
Dodonpa absolutely glides through the rest of a it’s layout and while it’s not boring, it’s a bit something and nothing. Even the loop which replaced the insane looking airtime hill is completely forceless and smooth as silk.
And that was Dodonpa. Not the ultra intense coaster I was expecting but rather a big softy. I’m absolutely delighted to be able to say I’ve ridden this legend, so I won’t hold much against it.
Takabisha is a Gerstlauer Eurofighter, that really should have been an Infinity Coaster and that really shouldn’t have been cloned and shoved in a mall.
It features much slimmer over the shoulder restrainsts than any other Eurofighter I’ve ridden, they were much better and it’s a shame they weren’t implemented elsewhere.
Takabisha is good but sadly it’s nothing too special, pacing issues and a lack of forces hold it back from greatness.
The first half is really good but then you are stopped dead before climbing the awkward looking lift hill. Much like Atlantis Adventure, putting the launch in the first half and the lift hill in the second causes some really bad pacing issues.
Now onto the lack of forces. Takabisha’s layout is much more suited to be an Infinity Coaster, with many huge inversions. Taking these elements in a small Eurofighter car really makes them ride forceless and strange.
Now with everything we wanted knocked off, we headed back over to Eejanaika but there was an issue…
They had ran out of fast track slots for the day and the current queue time was listed as 2 hours. Now this shouldn’t have been a problem, Eejanaika is easily worth waiting 2 hours for but the issue was we had to leave at 7 at the latest to get the hire car back for our 9pm drop off. Regardless we entered the queue with the plan to bail out at 6:45 if we didn’t make it. I’m so glad to tell you that we did infact JUST manage to get on Eejanaika before we ran out of time.
Second time around, this time in the dark, cemented Eejanaika as one of my favourite coasters in the World and I rank it in my top 5 with other coasters that caused a deeply emotional reaction in me. Even after riding it earlier, if anything it was even more intense a second time around, I love Eejanaika!
Following this we literally sprinted from the Eejanaika area at the back of the park to the park entrance, which damn near killed us.
And with that our day at Fuji Q was over. Now while I’ve got nothing massively positive to say about the park as a whole, other than that from our experience it’s no where near as bad as the internet makes out. There’s almost nothing you need to say when the park is home to 4 legendary coasters and one of them happens to be one of the best and most unique coasters in the World.
Thank you for reading, click here for the next part of this report, Tokyo DisneySea during a typhoon…
Morning now and an attempt for the stupid hotel to redeem itself. Apparently it afforded fantastic views of Mount Fuji, sadly the reality was it offered fantastic views of a man’s house, redemption failed…
This morning we were headed to our new hotel (this time a real one) in central Tokyo, where we were going to spend the rest of our time in Japan.
After dropping off our trusted car and paying over £200 in toll fees, we ditched our luggage at the hotel and jumped on public transport (we will get back to this later) on route to a very special event.
Heartline had discovered that one my favourite K-Pop groups, Oh My Girl, were in Tokyo for a 1 day only special event in a popular Japanese mall and through multiple emails with the event team I felt I at least half understood what was happening and when.
To over simplify a ridiculously complicated process…
Oh My Girl’s debut Japanese album was on sale in the mall and in every album was a photocard of one of the members. Depending on how many photocards you had you got to claim various awesome rewards. I think you can see where this is heading…
One photocard got you a high five with said member, two photocards of different members gave you the option to pick one and have a prolonged handshake and chat with them and two photocards of the same member got you a signing with that member and a selfie.
Complimenting meeting the girls by redeeming your photocards, was those who bought 3 albums or more got to attend 2 mini concerts.
The 2 hour queue to buy CDs flew by in minutes and soon I was holding 3 copies as if they were gold.
My photocards didn’t quite go the way I wanted but thanks to trading with Heartline I was able to get a handshake and chat with my favourite member, Arin.
After the awesome first mini concert I had my one on one meeting with Arin. If you’ve ever met one of your favourite K-Pop idols you’ll know exactly how I felt, if you haven’t there’s no point trying to understand.
Now with only 1 card left I convinced myself to queue up again to get another CD, to gain the opportunity to get another handshake and chat, this time with the beautiful Seunghee.
After an even better second mini concert (Arin recognised me from our previous meeting and waved), I got my handshake with Seunghee, who spent our entire life changing interaction in shock that a random English man had come to see them in Japan, if it counts for anything, I’d do it again.
The entire experience felt like it had lasted an hour (the best hour of my life) but had actually gone on for a little over 7, meaning that by the time we were finished there wasn’t very much left of the day.
On one of the previous days I saw on the tv in passing something about a typhoon. While in McDonalds still in a daze after the day’s event, Heartline’s wife tells us that, that typhoon was going to hit Japan in 3 days and it was going to pose danger to properties and life, I wonder if Fuji Q operates in a typhoon?
Joypolis
With it now raining as well as being late we gave up on original plan of doing Joypolis and Tokyo Dome and chose instead to just hit Joypolis.
Rather luckily located 5 minutes from the mall, Joypolis is a sadly quite disappointing arcade featuring a Gertslauer spinner.
When picturing a large scale arcade in Japan of all places, I thought of floor upon floor of countless ultra high tech arcade machines and an atmosphere that was bordering on too intense but alas no. Tokyo Joypolis is 3 floors of really not much at all worth doing.
Gekion Live Coaster – Gekion Live is a Gertslauer spinner that’s half arcade machine, half coaster.
You start out playing a rhythm based game while the coaster crawls past screens in the dark. Then you are launched out into the arcade and through an inline, which is by far the best bit of the ride. After the inline you leave the arcade again and enter a room with a light show and screens while the coaster doesn’t really do much of anything. Nothing of note really took place in the final part of the coaster and hardly any spinning either.
It’s certainly interesting but it isn’t very good.
Those reading through this in order will remember on one of the days we had the car we managed to knock off 3 parks in 1 day. Well today we were going to try that same approach but on the Tokyo transport system, what could possibly go right?
The Tokyo transport system is an absolute mess. On top of the fact it’s incredibly complicated, different bits are also owned by at least 5 different companies. You need different tickets for each of the different companies, so it’s not uncommon to need 3 different tickets for 1 trip on the metro. This means that the super value day passes you can buy from the many companies only work on their little bit of the network and as soon as you leave you have to go back to paying again and it’s not obvious who owns which bit so you’ll almost certainly be paying the fare adjustment costs and getting beeped at by the barriers for doing it wrong. Then there’s the cost…
1 – 4 stops on the metro costs you 3 pounds, 4 – 8 stops costs you 6 pounds and so on, which is why the day passes would be super handy if it wasn’t for the fact as mentioned they are company specific and once you the leave that company’s bit you’ll have to start paying those prices again.
Also not helping things is the fact that Tokyo rail/metro companies seem to be staffed by the worst Japan can offer. Anywhere else in Japan they’ll go so far out of their way to help you that it makes you feel guilty but on the trains at BEST you’ll get “sorry no speak English”.
We originally intended to start our day at Sea Paradise but after getting not quite half way there and realising it had already taken an hour due to train faff, we came to the conclusion that we’d have to ditch it if we wanted to hit the 2 preferred parks today.
Yokohama Cosmoworld was our next destination and we arrived in Yokohama station at 10am, it was just a shame the park didn’t open until 11… Shortly after arriving it began to rain so we killed the hour in the second Starbucks of the trip, I really am starting to associate Starbucks with disappointment.
Talking of disappointment…
We got to Yokohama Cosmoworld a little after opening to the sight of both the major coasters being under tarp. After asking guest services they told us they’d walk the track at some point and if they looked dry they might open them. The coasters really weren’t worth waiting around for so we opted to just move on to the next park. On the way out we knocked off the kiddie cred which rather insultingly was open.
Yomiuriland
With 2 parks missed, hideous amounts of train faff and the rain still falling on and off, we really needed Yomiuriland to lift our spirits and it certainly did.
As we were on the cable car that takes you from the station to the park entrance it began to rain again and it really did feel like all hope was lost
Though when asking the man at the ticket office if the coasters were open he replied “they might close if the weather gets really bad”, so there’s hope you say?
Bandit – We powered straight to Bandit, the park’s giant Togo jet coaster. Bandit is a monster, at nearly 200 feet tall and over 5,000 feet in length, it almost doesn’t seem real, but don’t worry it gets even more insane…
Not really paying attention in our rush to get to the coaster, it turns out we entered the queue for “Wet Bandit”, this is a special mode they put Bandit in during the summer months and we were in for a shock.
Before being dispatched Big Bang’s Bang Bang Bang played while the staff made everyone clap along. Then we dispatched and as we took a turn to the right towards the lift hill a giant water geyser went off absolutely soaking everyone. I spent the entire lifthill laughing, thinking what the hell just happened, will anything else happen?
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer because as soon as we began to descend down Bandit’s massive drop, from the trees to the left of the ride, water was shot easily 100 foot in the air, landing on us by the time we reached the bottom, Jesus Christ! Almost Valhalla wet now and laughing so hard I wasn’t braced so was getting the crap beaten out of me, this was awesome. Wet Bandit’s final surprise was a wall of water awaiting us on the entry to the brakes.
So I just came from a park that’s waiting for the track of a jet coaster to dry while I’m riding a nearly 200 foot tall one that’s shooting water 100 feet in the air and then onto the track, that makes sense.
I’ll more than forgive it for it’s age and charm but it’s fair to say Bandit is a bit of a rough monster, nothing serious but certainly some vicious jolts in places.
Momonga Standing And Loop Coaster – This Togo coaster gives you the option of riding in sitting or standing trains using a switch track in the station. The sitting train offered a rather bland ride but the standing one was good fun. You are actually fully standing on the Togo coasters as opposed to sitting uncomfortably on your balls like on Intamin and B&M stand ups. The exposed feeling of truly standing with not much holding you in really makes the standing aspect appealing. Who knew Togo were the kings of the stand up coasters?
Spin Runway – Spin Runaway is another Gertslauer spinning coaster but this time themed to working in a fashion factory, no really.
Unfortunately after the highly detailed queue, the coaster itself takes place in almost complete darkness and much like Gekion from earlier it really doesn’t do much of anything exciting.
From disappointment to probably the best ride in the park, sorry Bandit.
Splash UFO – Splash UFO is the park’s rapids ride, a rapids ride themed to cup noodles, yeah seriously.
This thing was insane, which you’d expect from the lunatics at Hafema.
I was expecting a tame indoors rapids ride with cup noodle theming but was presented with River Quest’s whirlpool, bouncing off walls at 40mph, steep drops and sheer terror, I absolutely loved it.
Yomiuriland was great and brought the day back from total failure. Quality rides combined with a really wacky sense of fun made for a really enjoyable few hours.
To end the day we picked up our hire car for our trip to Fuji Q the next day. We had forgotten to ask for the ETC card so discovered it was going to cost us £84 return in tolls to get to Fuji Q…
Thanks for reading, click here for day 10 of my report where we visit the legendary Fuji Q.
After close to 10 hours sleep I woke up feeling considerably better but still not 100%. With some of the most exciting stuff on the trip quickly approaching I vowed that today I would go as easy as possible and drink more fluids than I’ve ever drunk before.
Lagunasia
Previous reviews of Lagunasia promised uncomfortable levels of friendliness from the female ride staff, a park swarming in bikini clad women and not much else, I think I’ll let it slide.
We were planning to hit 2 parks today so we rocked up for opening, only to find out that the park’s major dark ride opened 2 hours after opening. Luckily we managed to keep ourselves entertained until said ride opened because it was quite the experience.
Aqua Wind – We started with Aqua Wind, the park’s Gertslauer Bobsled and it was better than expected.
I’ve become slightly bored of these coasters (excluding the awesome Van Helsing) and they all blend into one but Aqua Wind’s first drop was more intense than I was expecting and unlike other examples this hauled ass over the air time hills at the end. The ride’s theming was really nice too.
There was some sort of J-pop 360 3D cinema experience thing that looked awesome but sadly the first showing wasn’t until like 2pm and would have meant missing the next park, in retrospect it may have been worth it…
Legend of Labyrinth – I had read online that Lagunasia’s log flume was special and Christ was it.
The flume is called Legend of Labyrinth and all but the last drop is enclosed. To spoil what you’ll find inside would be evil but trust me when I say I was utterly speechless at the scale and quality of what I was faced with. Easily the best ride at the park.
Pirate’s Blast – After politely turning down the VR option at batching, I left this coaster confused as to why it was an option in the first place.
80% of Pirate’s Blast takes place within a highly themed show building, with the coaster speeding past and reacting with some really nicely designed set pieces.
After that interesting section ends you drop out of the show building, jolting in amazing fashion as you do, then you slither around on a patch of grass for a while before re-entering the station. To call the ending a let down is a bit of an understatement.
Magic Powder – 2 hours had now passed and the aforementioned dark ride was now open.
Named Magic Powder, which should give you some idea of just how messed it was going to be, this thing can’t be explained and you wouldn’t even believe me if I tried.
It would be a stretch to say I enjoyed this madness, it rather occurred around me as I was having several out of body experiences and then it ended and I’m not sure I’ll ever be the same person again.
An absolute must ride, just make sure you’re of a semi sound mind before you enter because if not it WILL destroy you. Literally the dark ride you imagine you’ll stumble on in Japan but you guess it can’t exist, then Lagunasia has it and suddenly you regret everything.
And with that, Lagunasia was finished and while I sadly wasn’t swimming in bikini clad women or fighting off ride staff with tins of magical powder, the park itself far exceeded my expectations.
Heartline and his wife really wanted to ride the Ferris wheel next to the mall opposite the park, so we crossed over the bridge and had some ice cream for lunch. The woman serving me at Baskin Robbins more than made up for the lack of female attention elsewhere and even saved me money, that’ll come in handy soon.
At the entrance to the Ferris wheel a sign mentioned that the pods had no air con and currently the temperature inside them was 37 degrees, as I was being good to myself I opted out and instead sat under an air conditioner in the mall.
Hamanako Pal Pal
After a relatively short drive we arrived at Hamanako Pal Pal, a park I walked away from rather disappointed.
The park has a strange mall like hub which you enter after purchasing tickets, this “hub” connects the two sides of the park together. There was something rather off putting about walking through a dirty looking mall type room full of arcades as you enter an amusement park.
Mega Coaster – Online I’d be led to believe that Mega Coaster was some sort of hidden gem and since then I had been quite excited to give it a go. Unfortunately I found it rode exactly like I’d expected before I read the hype, completely devoid of excitement or charm and just another coaster for the count, what a shame.
It was a shame that a park I was quite excited for ended up being a bit of a disappointment. I wouldn’t recommend bothering with Hamanako Pal Pal unless like us you’re just doing it for the count, the park itself needs some work done to tidy it up, the staff weren’t up to Japan standards and with Mega Coaster being a disappointment there’s very little to love.
Following this we went to a mall to get food and watch Ant Man 2, both were great.
We left the mall at about 9pm for the 2 hour drive to almost Tokyo. The first half of the journey was spent watching an absolutely beautiful thunderstorm light up the night sky in spellbinding fashion. With the second half spent trying to see Mount Fuji or Eejanaika out the window, I saw neither but don’t worry I promise you I see ONE of them before the end of the trip.
Then we arrived at our hotel for the night at almost midnight. We go in, exchange pleasantries with the friendly woman behind the counter, get our rooms keys and head upstairs…
I open my room door to discover that Heartline without telling me had booked us into a traditional style Japanese hotel. The kind where the floor is a straw mat, there’s nothing else in the room and you sleep on a half inch thick piece of cloth on the floor. I was livid…
If it wasn’t for the following day containing something I’d have given body parts to attend, I probably would have put him through a window, I did honestly think about sleeping in the car.
It took me half an hour to kill the largest fly I’ve ever seen that was circling my room and a further 20 minutes of spraying various scents around the place to get rid of the awful smell before I managed calm myself enough to attempt to sleep on the floor.
Thanks for reading, click here for the next part of my trip report where we bond with Kpop idols, visit Joypolis, half visit Yokohama Cosmoworld and have a great time at Yomiuriland.
The heat from yesterday, combined with the long day at Nagashima, added to 5 busy days in a row of coaster madness, meant I woke up today feeling like crap. Now this obviously isn’t ideal but the situation was worsened by the fact today was the day we knew we had to go hard in order to knock off as many parks in Nagoya as possible before we headed off to Tokyo.
Enakyo Wonderland
The first park of today was Enakyo Wonderland, a small family oriented park home to 3 roller coasters.
After being attacked by a flying bug half the size of my hand (no seriously) and shouting about how hot it was, we made our way to the ticket counter.
We picked up the entry only tickets because we knew it was cheaper to just purchase tokens for the coasters once in the park.
There was no turnstiles or staff to check tickets, so rather strangely we just powered straight into the park, made all the more strange by the fact we were the only visitors in sight.
I had written down on my phone the amount of tickets we needed to purchase, so we walked to the nearest ticket vending machine we saw, which was a lot more confusing than it needed to be. While making a scene at said machine, 2 staff members appeared out of thin air to come and help us, see I told you you don’t have to wait long for help in Japan.
Cycle Coaster – We started with Cycle Coaster and with immense confusion. There was a sign on the fence that implied you got a discount with 3 people, so we asked the very friendly man about it. 5 or so minutes of confusion and Google translate later we never found out the answer but he let us on for that price anyway!
The pedalling aspect actually made this strange coaster really amusing.
Jungle Coaster – A small Togo family coaster with a hamster on the front, that’s perched on the edge of a sheer drop and has brutal laterals. It was unexpectedly quite a lot of fun.
Camel Coaster – We had a mix up with our tokens and it turned out we didn’t quite have enough for Camel Coaster. The ride operator, an absolute hero of a man, personally walked us to the machine and told us which package was the cheapest in order to get just enough to ride and no spare, where else in the World would this happen!
The coaster itself although the biggest in the park was probably the least interesting. Pedalling a roller coaster and getting brutally beaten by a crazed hamster coaster were much more exciting.
As we went to leave and thanked the operator for his time, he offered to take a photo of us infront of the train in the station to forever remember our experience, what an absolute beast.
Whilst it’s obvious that Enakyo Wonderland wasn’t built for me, the staff were absolutely fantastic and managed to turn a cred run in 40 degrees into a memorable experience.
Japan Monkey Park
The sheer intensity of the heat on the walk from the car park to the entrance of Japan Monkey Park was staggering, I really can’t put into words just how unpleasant it was.
While this park was nothing special, we knocked it off in such a hurry to get out of the sun that I really can’t remember much of anything.
Highway Coaster – Easily the most boring and least memorable jet coaster I’ve ever ridden. I have 3 lasting memories of the entire ride, 1) thinking I was going to black out from the heat in the station, 2) it has a mister near the end of the ride and 3) the coaster has one of the dumbest looking trains I’ve ever seen.
Go! Go! Banana Coaster – The elderly man operating this tiny coaster gave an extremely enthusiastic chant on dispatch, which you have to commend considering it was 40 degrees and his only riders were 3 weird foreigners barely fitting in the train.
As well as obviously being home to a zoo, this park also features gardens and of course the amusement park, from my memory the entry ticket is really cheap too.
Jet Coaster – Much like Highway Coaster from earlier, all I remember of this Meisho jet coaster was feeling like I’d been set on fire and begging for the train to dispatch because sitting in the station was unbearable.
Slope Shooter – Let’s get it out of the way, this isn’t a cred, coasting down a hill in a car doesn’t count and that’s exactly what this is.
While it may not be a cred, Slope Shooter is good fun and extremely unique.
We entered the station to be greeted by 2 super friendly operators who instantly made the experience special.
Following that I wedged myself into my comfy car, then got pushed by the ops (who were singing me a song) to the base of the lift hill. Once you reach the top, you coast on tarmac down several slopes until you get back to the station.
Now that may sound a bit boring but it’s quite fun. You pick up quite some pace at certain points and hilariously crashing into the walls never gets old. Plus at one point I got slapped in the face by an overhanging plant which I found really funny.
When I got back to the station the ops were chanting, clapping and beaming ear to ear and I couldn’t help but smile too.
With those 3 parks down we had managed to knock off the 3 larger parks we planned to do today.
We had planned to visit 3 small parks with 1 coaster each next, but after we showed up at the first one to discover it was completely closed we decided to bail out on that idea.
That night while sitting in Mos Burger my condition went from bad to worse and it was at this point I decided that I probably actually had heat stroke for real. As soon as I reached my hotel room I collapsed, then set my alarm and passed out.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 7 where we visit Lagunasia and Hamanako Pal Pal.
Today was the day I’d literally had dreams about, the day we seek revenge on Nagashima Spa Land.
For those who haven’t read my report from 2017, the last time we visited it rained an hour in and they closed almost everything for the rest of the day, even though the sun came back. Rain wasn’t going to be an issue today thankfully, although the sudden immense heat that descended on Japan made for other issues.
Learning from our past mistake of arriving late and Steel Dragon having a 90 minute queue instantly, this time we arrived slightly before park opening.
While Heartline got our tickets I marvelled at one of the best theme park investments in years, Nagashima Spa Land now has large electronic information screens telling you what’s open in Japanese AND English. Previously you had to contend with 2 different hand drawn signs, contradicting each other and only in Japanese, which is about as helpful as it sounds.
Steel Dragon 2000 – Once in we powered straight to Steel Dragon and entered a 30 minute queue, it was about now that it became apparent just how hot it was going to be today as I found myself sweating from places I won’t discuss. Looking around the queue and seeing that even the Japanese were dying led me to believe it wasn’t just me being weak, this time at least.
After the usual Japanese faff of nothing in pockets, this time featuring a metal detector, we took our seats on this legendary coaster and what great seats they were.
Steel Dragon has trains designed by B&M, which amounts to the coaster pretty much using 2 wide B&M Hyper trains and they are awesome.
After the ride staff finish an amazing chant which ends with “Steela Dragon!” you are off up the unnervingly tall lift hill, sadly the following drop doesn’t amount to much though.
With this being my first giga coaster I foolishly expected the drop to be quite special but it really isn’t. The shaping of the drop and the fact it pulls out 100 feet from the ground means Steel Dragon’s drop delivers an experience that goes on forever but is completely forceless.
Following the disappointing first drop is 2 camel back hills which do absolutely nothing and then 2 huge inclined loops which only exist to kill speed.
Thankfully things pick up on the return to the station though, with several air time hills in a row, with at least half of them providing some decent pops of ejector. 2 of these hills are inside tunnels which makes for some good headchopper moments and in the heat made for some interesting extremes of temperature.
While I’m very satisfied to be able to say I’ve experienced Steel Dragon, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed.
Acrobat – From the moment Flying Dinosaur showed me that B&M flyers can be so much more than lumbering gimmick coasters I was desperate to try another and Acrobat didn’t disappoint.
This beast of a coaster packs so much intensity into it’s perfectly paced layout, it really is hard to point out a favourite part of the coaster when everything just flows so well.
With the important stuff that we missed from last time knocked off, we spent the next couple of hours mopping up all the filler stuff that litters Nagashima.
Bobkart – We started with the park’s Bobkart, I love these things and this one was no exception.
Looping Star – Blame it on the heat stroke or the concussion at the hands of the drop tower but I really wasn’t a fan of my first Looping Star. I’ve seen these things talked up all around the internet and I can’t understand why at all. Not as good as Nessie and I can’t remember Nessie is my review.
After this we went back to Steel Dragon, which broke down 5 minutes after we entered the queue, having not gained anything we tried to leave but a staff member told us to wait and we’d get a priority pass for when it reopens, can’t say no to that.
Next we went for a second lap of Acrobat and I fell even more in love with it.
By the time Steel Dragon reopened it was dusk and this made for a lovely backdrop to our second lap.
Arashi – Now you may notice that I’ve yet to mention Arashi…
When I first rode Arashi last year I really didn’t enjoy the experience it offered and vowed that it would take a lot to make me go on it again. Well I whole heatedly retract all previous statements about this wonderful ride.
While walking past, after having ignored it all day, I on the spur of the moment decided that I NEEDED to give it one more go to be sure.
Once seated however I couldn’t have been regretting my decision more, as the seating position jogged my previous traumatic experience.
Without a shadow of a doubt going up the lifthill was the most scared I’ve been in years, with palms sweating so much they were sliding on the restraint and my heart thumping harder in my chest than when I met the girl of my dreams on Valentine’s Day 2018.
Then it began and I wish I could do it justice.
Spinning so fast, so many times, I lost count and even though I try not to swear in Japan I found myself painting the almost night sky with every profanity under the sun. Intensity like I’ve never seen before and will likely never see again, in a hobby that features so much of the same sensation this thing takes you completely out of your comfort zone and then keeps going.
I can totally understand why I hated this thing last time but now that I’ve grown some balls Arashi is beautiful.
Riding Arashi twice in one day caused Heartline to spend 20 minutes in the bathroom sorting his life out and wanting to leave the park, thankfully I managed to convince him to join me in riding Acrobat one last time. At night I fell even further in love with it and I couldn’t think of a better way to end the day.
In the gift shop I bought an Arashi shirt as a peace offering to the beast for moaning about it last time.
Nagashima Spa Land has gone from a park I mocked and despised to a park I’m ashamed to say I’ve grown slightly fond of. When running, the sheer amount of rides surrounding you at all times is quite the sight and at night the place looks fantastic. Acrobat and Arashi are incredible coasters and Steel Dragon isn’t without it’s charm and things will only improve further when the park opens it’s RMC conversion of White Cyclone.
Thanks for reading, click here for day 6 where we visit 3 parks in 1 day.
Today began with an early start, followed by a trip on the metro to Busan airport.
After a rather uneventful hour long flight we were in Nagoya.
Despite it being my second time visiting Japan it managed to yet again take me by surprise just how friendly the people are.
Look slightly confused for half a second and out of nowhere a friendly Japanese man/woman will appear with a huge smile on their face desperate to help you.
After picking up the hire car and 2 comedy sized drinks from one of the millions of vending machines that litter Japan, it was off to Suzuka Circuit.
As you’ll hopefully remember from my last Japan report, Japanese highways come with very expensive tolls attached to them, it’s not at all uncommon for an hours journey to cost you £30 ONE WAY.
In order to slightly combat this, this time around we rented an ETC card. This card goes into a machine in the hire car and then allows you to drive straight through tolls, with the toll fee being charged to the card. The main advantage of this is that you save 1/3 on every toll and with the amount of driving we planned to be doing this was an absolute necessity.
On route we unintentionally passed Legoland Japan and I promise you I’m not joking when I say that the park is built in the middle of industrial wasteland to the side of a huge bridge. Seeing the stupid sky tower thing painted in the brash Lego colouring surrounded by rusting metal and chimneys was hilarious!
For the first 2/3 of the journey the weather was beautiful but as we approached the park, the heavens opened…
Suzuka Circuit
As well as being a World famous race course, Suzuka Circuit is also home to a sizable amusement park.
It was still raining somewhat heavily when we got to the ticket window and with this being Japan I was already expecting this to go terribly but to our surprise and delight it didn’t. Not only is every ride still running but we’d also be getting tourist discount!
After passing the turnstiles, the rain went from “oh this is quite heavy” to a “oh my god we are going to die” thunderstorm and immediately an announcement came over the park wide PA, well that’s gone well…
We powered straight to the first coaster assuming the worst but hoping if we were really quick we might be in luck.
Rocky Coaster – With lightning striking structures in the distance we entered the queue for Rocky Coaster, the park’s Senyo sit down coaster.
Coming from a man who’s ridden Stealth in hailstones, I was amazed any park in the World would run a coaster in this amount of rain, it’s not an exaggeration to say the rain was so heavy you couldn’t see through it. Couple that with lightning striking in the area and thunder shaking the ground and I was left in complete disbelief. Nagashima closed their entire park in moderate rain which ended after 2 hours and now Suzuka are running their coasters in a stupidly intense thunderstorm, someone needs to explain what’s going on over here!
After seeing 2 trains worth of people coming back wetter than Valhalla and in serious pain, I was glad the rain eased slightly for our lap, which I honestly cant’ remember at all because I was still in complete shock at what was happening.
Adventure Drive – We knew our luck was going to run out at some point, so we powered to the park’s only other coaster as soon as we got off Rocky Coaster.
After about 10 minutes of waiting with the already intense rain getting even worse, the coaster ceased operation but it ended up being more interesting than frustrating.
The operator shut the coaster down completely, including isolating the control console and ride electrics. Then he walked down the queueline informing people, “it’s going to be about 30 minutes, if you’d like to wait that’s ok”. After this he switched between contacting control on his radio and entertaining the kids at the front of the queue. 20 minutes later the rain died down, he turned it all back on, performed all the start up checks for the coaster and even explained how the block sections on the touch screen worked to the kids. Exactly 30 minutes after it closed the ride reopened in the most Japanese manner, including all the seats being wiped completely dry and bowing.
The coaster itself is quite fun and the scream powered launches are just so Japanese that you have to love it.
After the 2 coasters were knocked off we rode the park’s shooting dark ride, a ride style that by the end of this trip I was getting quite bored of but this was the first and I enjoyed it.
Next we checked out the park’s brand new ride Duel GP.
Duel GP – This thing was great!
2 cars race each other on what is essentially a really complicated duelling powered coaster. The fun part being that you have to steer your car and the challenge being that if you steer gently and precisely you’ll do well but if like me you can’t be gentle to save your life, you spin out on the corners and it slows you down. I’m not ashamed to admit I lost when I rode both tracks, though I’d argue it’s probably more fun to spend the entire ride spinning around and shouting anyway.
Suzuka Circuit really surprised me, I wrote it off as just a stop off on the way to better things but I ended up leaving quite fond of the park. Their willingness to run things in the rain and their wonderful customer service can’t be overlooked.
Due to the rain slowing us down, we were now running rather late and had quite significantly gone past the time we were due to leave the park. With this in mind and slightly worried the rain might have beaten us there, we thought it would be best to phone Parque Espana and check everything was still on for their 8pm close.
I ended up having one of the most amazing phone conversations of my life with a very confused Japanese woman. Did it answer any of my questions? No. Did I care? Also no.
The journey to Parque Espana was really impressive with crazy mountain roads and killer views. The best of these views however was seeing Pyrenees getting ever closer.
Parque Espana
We arrived at 4pm with an advertised 8pm close but having not seen Pyrenees move during the last 5 miles of the journey we were rather worried.
It was all for nothing though because as soon as we got out of the car Pyrenees dispatched onto the lift hill.
After buying our tickets, which were once again discounted, this time due to arriving after 3, we sprinted across the park into the waiting arms of Pyrenees!
Pyrenees – Now at the time I couldn’t believe it but even now I’m rather amazed that I was lucky enough to be able to ride what I consider to be the two legendary Asian inverts back to back.
Now while Phaethon was good, Pyrenees is in a completely different league, I’ll make it as simple as I can, this is the World’s greatest B&M invert and more than that it’s one of the best coasters in the World.
I can’t not mention that this coaster looks absolutely insane, the shaping on the first drop compared to Phaethon alone had me deeply concerned. Everything just screams that this coaster is going to kick ass and it does!
So you think the drop looks intense off ride? That’s nothing compared to how it rides.
The loop zero g loop start to Batman is one of my favourite opening sections on any coaster, so the fact Pyrenees borrows it on an enlarged scale is awesome. While the section doesn’t ride as intensely as Batman, when it’s coupled up with that ridiculous drop, it is an absolutely incredible way to start a coaster.
The madness is then followed by a snappy and intense cobra roll and only then does Pyrenees let you catch your breath, slightly. Next up is an almost helix through the second loop, a midcourse that barely slows you and a perfect example of a corkscrew.
It’s now that you can really catch your breath, because sadly Pyrenees does suffer a bit from the large invert habit of searching for the next bit to do, however it really is a short patch and it’s so out of place after the intensity before that it’s rather cute actually.
Then things pick back up with a rare example of an air time hill on an invert, followed by an intense floor hugging drop, before you’re swooped back into the station.
I knew after my first lap that I was really taken with Pyrenees but by the end of the night and after 5 laps I was in love.
Gran Montserrat – One of the biggest surprise hits of the trip belongs to this Mack mine train coaster, it’s surprisingly fast, way more intense than it looks and as you’d expect from Mack it’s butter smooth, for what it’s trying to be I can’t praise it enough.
With those beasts down we went looking for the park’s other major coaster, a search which led us around the entire park.
On route we rode the Nutcracker dark ride, which was weird, another shooting dark ride, which was meh and the park’s Peter Pan inspired dark ride, which was awesome.
Steampunk Coaster Iron Bull – I hope the photo of the beautiful building housing it sums why it took it so long to find this enclosed Togo coaster, it’s hardly screaming in your face and I love that.
Some call this coaster rough, it’s not but it is weird and hilarious and I also love that.
With everything done, including multiple re-rides, it was now park close and we decided to grab some food and watch the park’s closing fireworks.
How many parks in the World would bake you a pizza if you show’d up in the restaurant 5 minutes before park close and then proceeded to take most of them 5 minutes choosing said pizza? None?
Well Parque Espana did for us but not only that, the incredibly friendly elderly man insisted on us taking our seats and bringing it over himself, oh Japan you are too good to us.
Given the choice I’d easily be able to entertain myself for the day at this amazing park. From riding the World’s greatest B&M Invert, riding the fantastic Mack mine train, checking out the many dark rides and just enjoying the lovely theming.
Parque Espana much like the park before it blew expectations out of the water and ended up becoming one of the best parks on the trip.
Thanks for reading, click here for the next part of this report where we seek revenge on Nagashima Spa Land.
There were a couple of different types of ticket machine in Osaka. One type were friendly and were easy to use. The other type didn’t like us so much. The train station we used today only had the unfriendly ones, so there was much confusion. After a short battle with one, a wonderful passer-by noticed us and came to help us out. She gave us a detailed explanation on how to earn the trust of these machines and successfully got us some train tickets to Hirakata.
Oh look, another ferris wheel.
Day 8 – Hirakata Park
Having needed to fit in a special mission in the morning, time was not on our side for this park. With the flight back to Korea being later that afternoon, everything was done at an amusingly fast pace.
The first stop was #1 Fantastic Coaster Rowdy. It did inspire some rowdiness, due to a comedic sense of urgency and needing to take several shopping bags on board with us. It’s a small coaster with not much going on.
#2 Red Falcon restored the good name of jet coasters with some great views and one particularly amusing and jarring transition in the tracking.
#3 Crazy Mouse
This spinning coaster doesn’t spin. Different experience I guess.
#4 Peekaboo Town was almost as fantastic as Rowdy and 10 times smaller again. Amazing staff was a running theme in this park.
#5 Elf
Saved the supposed best for last with this little Intamin woodie. It was a bit underwhelming really, some harmless fun at best.
Still had time for a go on the Dark Ride shooter, Return of the Garg. Was quite impressed with the ride system and unusual scenery, but unfortunately none of us got a high enough score to win a prize as advertised. This may have replaced another dark ride that was here, we never found the one on that was our to-do list.
After successfully dodging a park mascot, we headed back out to the train station. A particularly troublesome but entertaining sequence of events followed, involving: – Running out of cash for the trains (creds at all costs, too many toll roads) – Not being able to take out cash anywhere – The hotel staff giving us great advice on how to get to the airport when collecting our luggage, only to then discover it was the wrong airport – Taxi drivers not understanding the word taxi – Arriving at the right airport 45 minutes before our flight was due to leave and it not being an issue in any way
A hectic but fun final day in Japan. Wouldn’t have it any other way.
