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Korea & Japan - Part 9: Children's Grand Seoul Land

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Korea, Japan, Creds. My dream holiday.
At many times this did feel like a dream as it was very full on, in the best way, and sleep was at an all time low.
Off we go then...

Day 1 – Everland
Had an overnight flight without sleep, landed at dawn and then jumped straight in at the deep end.
Original plan was to hit Lotte World on the day of landing, but website said Atlantis was spiting at the time, so that was put on the back burner. Dumped bags at hotel and grabbed the metro to a relevant bus stop for the park. Resulting journey was about an hour of drifting in and out of consciousness while staring out the window for any sign of T-Express.
It’ll be just round this corner. It’ll be just over this hill. It’ll be just past those trees. That hill must be where Eagle Fortress was (with 15 minutes of driving to go as you pass under an entrance sign for the resort).
Bus dumps you out at some sort of transport hub/lower car park where you have to catch another bus up another hill into the park.

Touristy card gives you at least 30% off entrance tickets during Visit Korea 'Year' (2016-2018). Cheers.

It’ll be just round this corner. It’ll be just over this hill. It’ll be just behind that building. That hill must be where Eagle Fortress was (it wasn’t). Foolishly winging it without the map and expecting to see 200ft of wooden magnificence somewhere, walked round the wrong end of the park which ended up being extremely hard on the legs.

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There she is.

Armed with many stories of queuing systems and tickets for this beast, turns out it was just in vanilla mode with a 45 minute wait. Sweet.
The only odd part about the park system as a whole was the need to show your entrance ticket at every attraction, which made for many wasted hours scrabbling about in pockets upon forgetting every single time.

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First impressions were generally great. Crazy fun first drop and hill, some ducking, diving and a premature midcourse into Balder 2.0, unfortunately then suffering from the same dead spot cornering.
Be back later.

Hit a couple of dark rides while down the bottom of the hill:

Remember absolutely nothing about the shooting one, so that must have been great.

The mad house was themed to spells and wizards (aren't they all?) and was reasonable fun as always.

Mistakenly wandered into some kids’ walkthrough thing a bit further up the hill. Put that down to a research failure.

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Did the powered dragon as it might be the only one on this trip (far from it). Staff sing as you go round which is perfection.

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Further up still is a nicely themed area with the tortoise and hare family coaster. Solid stuff.

Still climbing, nearly dieing, made it back to the entrance area. Bought some tickets for the K-Pop hologram show. Oh yes.

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Got Rolling X-Train ticked off during the wait. For some reason this ride was almost piss your pants funny to me. The subtle offness to the shaping of the track, the quality of the trains and the way they juddered about and then nearly folded into your face in the loops caused a bit of laughter related internal damage to me. Arrow at their finest.

As an unhealthily obsessed fan, the hologram show was life changing of course. I won’t go into detail.

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Pandas next, love the variety on offer at this place. Was meant to be some crappy looking interactive preshow presented by Samsung before getting to the enclosure, but thankfully this was skipped. I imagine something caught fire.

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That’s the life for me.

While the pandas looked as content as could be, the polar bear nearby wasn't winning at life for some reason.

Moved swiftly on down to the safari jeep tour thing as time was pressing.
I guess I’ll compare it to Zufari (bad luck).
It doesn’t try and be something it isn’t. Just a truck, live commentary and animals. Obviously a lot better for this, you get right up close and personal with some very impressive creatures and ploughing through the water is deeply satisfying.

On the theme of ploughing through water, jumped aboard the rapids next. Once again I was deeply amused by this ride. Sitting in a little pouchie of a seat with a tarpaulin over me, feeling both cosy and terrified at the same time.
My favourite Hafema boys are back in action and this time there’s nothing you can do for damage limitation. It got me wet in places that weren’t physically possible from the seating arrangement.
Extra point of awesomeness, there’s a free bunch of different style heat lamps at your disposal after crawling out of the boat.

Having done a crafty loop of the park, rapids kick you back out at T-Express, just in time to finish the evening with a couple of night rides.

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Ascending the lift in the dark, looking out at the park was one of those magical moments. Moments that remind me why I’m in this hobby.
Wouldn’t say the ride had physically improved in any way by this stage, but the atmosphere was amazing and made it a very standout experience.

Overall I found Everland to be one of those parks that I could just spend the day at doing pretty much nothing, because it’s just a great time regardless. The locals definitely seemed to share that attitude as well.

Christ that was a long day. Fell asleep a few times on the bus back and could have quite easily missed the stop, not that it felt like it mattered at that stage.
Somehow made it to the hotel and skipped over the fact the room had under floor heating and it was set to something like 35°C...
 
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Sandman

Giga Poster
Some lovely photos there, glad to hear you had a great time. T-Express is definitely a bucket list woodie for me. I think based on your report, I'd enjoy Everland. Prefer the laid back parks to the manic crowd drawers. Looking forward to seeing how this report progresses!
 

Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Always love to read some Asia TRs! Especially one containing an Everland day... This park looks pretty nice judging from the pathwork picture and this gorgeous landscape background :)

Also looking forward to the following pages of your report!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 2 – No parks

Thought I’d died and gone to hell, waking up to the intense heat in the room sometime late the next morning, but soon remembered it was actually heaven. Suitcases lying on the searing hot floor now had some rather damaged goods inside, namely melted food and a waterproof coat that I would later find out had had its waterproofness destroyed.
In stark contrast, the ‘fridge’ in the room had frozen a couple of carbonated drinks. Everything in extremes.

So Japan was never originally on the cards for this trip, the eventual motivation behind the rushed first half of Korea was twofold.
1) Upcoming Space World spite.
2) If you transit through Seoul within 72 hours you get free tickets to go watch the live recording of K-Pop chart show.
Well that just had to happen.

And that happened on this day.

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Passed some time with a visit to some fancy temple and a leisurely lunch nearby.

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Didn’t feel like getting dressed up in traditional garb for the free entry inside, but it’s a big thing for the young locals. See if you can spot them.

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After overestimating the speed of the metro, got to the TV studio with just minutes to spare and ended up accidentally joining the line of jealous fans that weren’t actually able to go inside and watch. Awkward.
Eventually found our way inside and sat just a few metres from the stage and cameras to watch it all unfold.
More life changing stuff, but I won’t go into detail.

Tried and failed to get an early night and then at stupid o'clock we’re off to…

Day 3 – Greenland

Landed in Fukuoka the next morning and took a little while to discover that ‘Airport car hire’ wasn’t actually at the airport. Bit of faff later, bloke in a minivan came to pick us up, all good.
Got the car and within a couple of minutes of driving things got interesting. There are 2 types of toll road in Japan, some are robots and some are people. First one we came across didn’t have a machine, but there was definitely no sign of a person either. There was no barrier. What do we do? ‘Go for it’, I hear, and do.
‘STOOOOOOP!’ A man appears out of nowhere, slightly bemused and asks us for the cash. As if we weren’t misbehaving enough, we passed him some Korean coins by mistake.
All in good humour, he sorted us out in the end.
Sorry Japan.

Pleasant drive down, at a very humble pace (Japan never lets you do more than 60 in a car).
Soon greeted by the first of a million Ferris Wheels in this part of the world.
Lesson not learnt from earlier, gave the parking attendant some Korean coins by mistake. It took him a little longer to notice as we had already parked before seeing the poor chap come running towards us.
All in good humour, he sorted us out in the end.
Sorry Japan.

Got some tickets and wristbands and headed in for a fairly hefty +1 marathon. Admissions girl came running over as we passed through the turnstiles and was deeply apologetic for having not given us the correct change.
See.
We’re not the only ones.

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Gao first and I fall in love with Jet Coasters as a concept.

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Such a relaxing little sit down, breeze in your hair, trundling along at unknown speeds, unknown height, having a good laugh. Nothing like those boring, thrilling western coasters.
Highlight: Getting front row and being able to watch the dinosaur on the front of the car.
Lowlight: Honestly can’t think of one.

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On to Milky Way. Stand-up first.
This was great fun. Forces I didn’t expect to take direct to the legs and it puts you in a very exposed position.
Highlight: Restored faith in stand-ups
Lowlight: Restored faith in stand-ups

The sit-down side was fairly inoffensive and forgettable in comparison. The on-board music was a little odd, playing what reminded me of Wild West chase music. Good for a race, but not very Milky Way-y.
Highlight: More pink rides for the count
Lowlight: Unnecessary restraints

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Grampus Jet. Great name. Great cars.
Highlight: Pisses all over Bobbejaan’s. All I needed.
Lowlight: Still dull.

There's a powered dragon next door that isn’t a dragon. Didn’t expect to ride another one so soon…


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Ultra Mega Super Twister. Weird contraptions these. Life feels a little less natural when you’re surrounded by cages and grease, but the resultant pitching you over the edge and first hill is decent fun.
Highlight: The backwards inversions catching me off guard.
Lowlight: Bit of a car crash on the transfer section.

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Nio.
Highlight: Middle of the road SLC on this particular day.
Lowlight: Having enough SLCs to make statements like that.

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Some powered thing, mostly in the dark. Alright I guess.

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Scraping the barrel a bit now.
Highlight: Being handed a glasses pouchie was a nice touch.
Lowlight: Done far too many of these and they never beat Brighton Pier. What’s up with that?

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Sphinx is as fun as it looks.
Highlight: Killer layout.
Lowlight: Lack of leg room.

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Having polished off all the creds, went on the ferris wheel for some views.

Again, this was a very nice place to be, but had nothing amazing to rush back for.

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Hotel that evening didn’t have many food options nearby...
 
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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
There's something both quirky and lovely about these Japanese parks with original and dated coasters sporting faded pastel colour schemes. Greenland has some really unique creds actually!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
What the hotel lacked in food, it made up for in convenience. Just 15 minutes and 30 pounds of tolls up the road was

Day 4 – Space World


Was a bit of an odd sensation being able to drive alongside Stealth’s launch track.
Got a ticket from an alien and parked up.

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Headed round to Zaturn first.

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Same beast but cleaner.
Highlight: Not Thorpe Park.
Lowlight: Locker faff.

Titan was up next, with a rather painfully slow queue. Announcement kept repeating the name of the ride in a cute accent, so that helped a little.

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Grabbed the back row, picked a good tune with the buttons on the restraint and crept up the lift hill in anticipation. Thought these trains were meant to be an improvement, but something went wrong somewhere. Instead of your standard first drop back row ejector sensation, there was some sort of collision between the wheels and the rail and it only continued to jolt itself stupidly around the layout for the next couple of minutes. Might have been some forces somewhere, but everything was drowned out by it riding like crap. Shame really, the layout is a lot more interesting than something like Big One and I imagine it could have been half decent.
Highlight: Laughing at the catastrophe
Lowlight: Catastrophe

Had a look in some shops on the way past and they had some decent merch with statements in recognition of their final year. There were also a couple of walls outside which you could write your farewells on with the pens provided. Kinda gives you the feels.

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Opted for forwards rather than backwards on Boogie Woogie Space Coaster for throughput reasons.
Highlight: Staff were great at hyping the ride up and getting people excited.
Lowlight: It didn’t really deliver.

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Venus was running quite a bit more efficiently than the other creds. It was as good fun as it looks. The loop and lots of very heavily banked corners (and restraints) give it the feel of an almost Olympia Looping.
Highlight: Watching people trying to cope with taking bags on ride for the only ride in Asia for which that is a thing.
Lowlight: Bit of a weird jolt in the first hill

Had some crepes, while waiting for Clipper to open, which are apparently a Japanese cuisine…
Review of a man who hasn’t really eaten for 3 days: I’ve had better.

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Clipper was a good laugh for its size.
Highlight: +1
Lowlight: Weird lunchtime closures

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Jumped on another ferris wheel for the views and a sit down. Couple of nice touches on this one in that they give you a pair of binoculars and there’s a notepad and pens in each pod, for inspired sketching?

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One more cred to go, but no such luck. Required a bit of a hunt in the big indoor section to find it but staff outside said it was spiting.

Had achieved everything we felt necessary at a reasonably leisurely pace, so headed out to the car.

Odd place really. Still had a good sense of fun but perhaps not quite as ‘nice’ as Greenland the previous day. Again, nothing amazing to go back for. Oh wait…

Sort of on the cards, if we had been quick, was a trip to Kijima. Found it on the sat nav and made the following statement: We’ll get there at 16:55 and it’ll cost us 70 pounds in tolls.
That’s a no then.

Side note:
I’m always hearing stories from people about places that are expensive (Scandinavia, Singapore etc.) and then starting arguments with such people. Had always put it down to tourist traps and a foolish necessity for coffee, beer or whatever people are into these days. If you played it smart, they were never any worse than back home.
Japan is expensive.
Just to exist in.
There is no avoiding it.
All major roads are tolled very heavily. Parks, trains, food, entertainment and shopping are all comparatively expensive no matter what you do.
At regular points from this moment onwards, we would jokingly say how much something just cost us in pounds and all you could do was laugh out loud.
Not a complaint at all because it’s just a ****ing lovely place. Call it Awesome Tax.

Had a couple of +1 alternatives written down and plumped for the following as it was the most convenient/decent looking thing on the way back to Fukuoka.


Day 4 – Kashiikaen

Plenty of fun faff here with car parks and getting in. With the tactic of driving physically as close as possible to the coaster, ended up in a car dealership. From there we were pointed to the car park for Sylvanian Family Land.

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Having not made a connection between the two, took a long walk around the perimeter of all that to the back of the coaster and wandered into the park entrance that end. It is all one park, seeming to be going through a UK-style massive kid’s brand overhaul. But we went in the ‘cool’ entrance at least.

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Pegasus was another glorious Jet Coaster.
Highlight: ‘Think of the rare points on coaster count!’
Lowlight: More ridership than T-Express

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Boom-Boom Coaster was yet another Powered Dragon thing.
Highlight: Name
Lowlight: Shame

Job done. Exited into our actual car park and headed off to ditch the car and have a night in Fabulous Fukuoka.
Car hire people were extra nice. They usually only shuttle people to and from the Airport, but after explaining we wanted the train the next day, they dropped us off downtown instead.
 
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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
Nice to have a report on Space World months before its closure. Hopefully Zaturn will found a new home. Come to Walygator haha!
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
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Oh look. Another ferris wheel.

Day 5 – Himeji

Took a ride on the beautiful Miss Nozomi (the bullet train) who dropped us off at Himeji Station. Used the lockers there to dump our bags for the duration while no less than a thousand school children walked past in single file, every one of them smiling, waving and speaking various greetings.
Went to the bus station outside and jumped on the next one to the castle, unfortunately it wasn’t one the great looking old fashioned buses.

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Ticked off the culture cred

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and the cat cred.

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Castle comes with a vending machine that had melon Fanta. I had been promised ‘all the Fantas of the world’ on this trip, but only found 2 that were new to us in the end.

Got a bus from there to Himeji Central Theme Park/Zoo/Waterpark.
Got that all in one ticket, whether you want it or not.

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Camelback Jet Coaster.
Highlight: Everything I wanted and more.
Lowlight: Disappointingly for a zoo, no camels included.

Imorinth.
Highlight: First time having a single lap on one of these. Proud moment.
Lowlight: £10 a head

Labyrinth.
Highlight: Good odd fun
Lowlight: Lack of legroom (that keeps coming up)

Loved the rubber escalator that takes you up the hill. ****ing love the fact it used to be upcharge. Imagine Gavin’s reaction to that.

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These old drop towers have quite an unnerving aesthetic. Thankfully the whole end sequence was a bit of a blur and I didn’t really notice being tipped on my head and stuff.

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Diavlo.
Highlight: Great setting and good to look at.
Lowlight: Felt a bit weak for a Batman, it doesn’t get enough ridership obviously.

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More worrying Togo encounters that proved to be entirely unjustified. Had a good laugh on it and no troubles at all.
Highlight: The speed hump.
Lowlight: Discount GoPro in your face.

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Another day another ferris wheel. Great views but some unnerving noises on this one.

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Didn’t feel like hanging around any longer and bus times were awkward to get back out of the place, so asked guest services to find us a taxi.

A 90 year old man picked us up and took us back to the station. He was greatly amused by our reading out of the ‘things to do in Himeji’ leaflet we had picked up.

Hopped on the regular train to Osaka from there and spent the rest of the day exploring the city and shops.
 
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gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
F**k Himeji.

How did you check the bus info? They leave the park back to the station literally every 30 minutes. I don't imagine that's changed in the last 3 months.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
There was a poster in guest services, with confirmation from the staff. There was a huge hiatus in the middle of the day and it would have been a couple of hours wait minimum.

Different on weekdays?
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 6 – Universal Studios Japan

Seems there’s never a quiet day at this place, and deservedly so with such a strong line-up.
Made for a bit of a worrying start, queuing for over half an hour just to get into the place while watching all the fastrack packages sell out on the screens.
Probably the only thing that deserves complaining about at this place is the way admissions are handled. You can’t buy online tickets direct from the park and all the queues on the day are severely slowed down by people asking about and having explained to them the million different packages before deciding what they want on the spot. This and the ridiculously overstated queue times everywhere which you can’t help but think is their way of making more money out of people, though I don’t want to believe is the case.

Expecting to struggle, tried to play things a bit tactically, but it wasn’t particularly necessary in the end.

Went for VR Space Fantasy XR Evangelion: The Ride first as throughput is halved by only running the forwards facing seats and then further destroyed by the plague that is VR. There are a couple of preshow bits as a build up to aliens coming to attack the city and then the VR is aliens coming to attack the city.
Have to say I was majorly let down by this ride. I’ve seen it being extremely highly rated in the past and I have a bit of a thing for a good indoor coaster so it was supposed to be bucket list good.
It’s very weak as a coaster, like a mini Temple of the Nighthawk with its 3 lifts and doing **** all in between them and I don’t really see how it could have been hugely different in the past, even with a bit of spinning.
I guess I can say I haven’t truly experienced that bucket list coaster, but I’m very doubtful now.
The VR itself was probably the best I’ve seen so far, definitely the most detailed and well synced up. Doesn’t make me a fan of it though.
Highlight: Played our cards right with the queue
Lowlight: Sad face

Scoped out the rest of the park and ticked off the Snoopy cred next as it was walk on. Could have sworn it was a Vekoma.
Highlight: Camera snoopy animatronic interacting with the train
Lowlight: Building was like a furnace

Backdraft was good for the (FIRE!) but a little too much of a slow burn with too many pre-shows. Prefer the USS equivalent. Didn’t know it was an actual film.

Turned up to Harry Potter land about 10 years too late to care. Went for the dark ride first with or without the optional castle walkthrough bit, not sure what was going on. Biggest locker nonsense I’ve experienced since Arthur, but then walked straight through the very well themed queue and on to the ride, contrary to the 45 minute wait sign outside.

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Quite liked this, even though a lot of it happens too fast. The ride system is a bit odd, the arm chucking you into a very different mix of scenes ranging from half a second of breath-taking physical sets to some crappy screens with Harry on a broom waving at you. Almost can’t see how it all fits together. Would have liked to give it a second go to let it sink in a bit more, but didn’t find the time.

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Flight of the Hippogriff trains amuse me. Why is he made out of a wicker basket?
Highlight: First of many instances in the park where staff notice my shirt and say ooh, Universal, Mummy, Singapore! And give me a huge grin and thumbs up. Perfect.
Lowlight: Done far too many of these.

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Was not prepared for how good Jaws was. This ride was just made for Japan with their excitable girls doing the talking, driving and shark shooting. Great crowd reactions every time the shark appeared. Great effects (FIRE!). Enjoyed every second of it.

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Flying dinosaur was claiming 120 minutes but was about 40 in reality. More great local reactions every time the ride ‘assumed the position’, which was making for a good atmosphere after the very intensive loose item procedures.

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What a fantastic flyer this is, they’ve finally nailed it. So many good forces throughout.
Came back for this later as it was getting dark and had another of those magical moments.
Highlight: Perfect pacing, incredible intensity
Lowlight: Nasty nets that ruin many photos

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Jurassic Park was decent, but I much prefer the rapids version to the big lumbering boats as you get a much more exposed feeling from the whole setup and a bit more of a ‘ride’ out of it. The ending was very impressive, but all the drifting around beforehand just wasn’t quite as fun to me.

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Spiderman was very good. Got hit with a sudden wave of tiredness mid-afternoon, so didn’t take in much of the ride, just remember enjoying it at the time.

This tiredness continued into Terminator, where a very long standing preshow nearly finished me off. The acting was good though.
Once in the comfy seats of the main theatre, I was drifting in and out of consciousness while gun fights were going off, so again didn’t take much in, until the seats dropping at the end gave me a good wake up call. I was fine after that.

Wasted a chunk of time going for this new show thing in Harry Potter-Meade, expecting it to be a Universal class production. They had made the area back into a time slot basis and everyone was totally confused by this, so staff were handing out little maps to the machines that would give you a ticket. The time slots on these tickets didn’t line up with the show times, so had to sprint along with a crowd of people through some dark trees only to miss the first 30 seconds of it.
The show was hilariously bad. Few actors up in front of the castle chatting away and a couple of poor projections on the castle of some spells, followed by some killer comedy. There was an actor on the roof of one of the shops very, very, very slowly getting attacked by a Dementor (those evil cloak things) with really over the top suspenseful music, while the actors down front just stand and stare at their friend dying like ‘sorry mate’.
The power of love or money won through in the end and there was a smattering of applause. Left the area almost as fast as we came in to go do something decent.

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Hollywood Dream was claiming 90 minutes but was about 30 in reality. Started off with a forwards run, no gimmicks, and really enjoyed it. There’s a good unique feel to the layout and it’s a very aesthetically pleasing ride.

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Came back right at the end of the day and went for the backwards option, in the dark, with a foreboding anime soundtrack coming from the seat and suddenly this thing was crazy good. Not seeing things coming had a huge impact on how strong the airtime was and I all I could do was laugh with joy from start to finish. Make that 2 magical moments in one day. Christ.
Highlight: Limbs haven’t flown that uncontrollably since Helix.
Lowlight: J-Pop selection on the on board music wasn’t the J-Pop I know and love.

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Very easy to fill up your day here with so many attractions, would definitely be a struggle if it was ‘busy’. Had a fantastic time with it all and would have loved to get a couple more re-rides in. Even stood at the park entrance and longingly watched them sending the empty Dream trains home for the day.

Still managed to squeeze a bit more shopping into that evening somehow.
 
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Coaster Hipster

Giga Poster
USJ and your report really make me want to go to Japan. Your description of night rides on Flying Dinosaur and Hollywood Dream makes me even more interested! Amazing pics as always :D (Do you mind if I use them in a future video? I will give credit in description and outro of course)

Too bad the country is so expensive :(
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 7 – Nagashima Spiteland

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Oh look, another ferris wheel.

Was a bit of a long shot tagging this place on and turned out it certainly wasn’t worth it this time around.
Every day of the trip so far had been >30°C and not a cloud in the sky. Today there was a slight drizzle in the air and umbrella signs on the roads as we trundled towards the park, not too concerned. Japan had been amazing to us, thus far.

There’s a massive sign up outside the entrance with some overwhelmingly confusing descriptions of what is open, what is meant to be open, what is closed, what is meant to be closed, what opens in 'bad weather', what is meant to be open in 'bad weather', what closes in 'bad weather' and what is meant to close in 'bad weather'. 3 different members of staff gave 3 different answers to these questions, but they were mostly positive responses so we went for it anyway. Even pulling into the car park, Steel Dragon was running and the park is a ghost town, so what’s the worry?

Straight round to Steel Dragon with its permanent physical sign saying 90 minute wait in front of it. Joined the queue and killed time watching some painful operations up at the station. Moved a few feet in half an hour…
That sounds like a ride closure announcement.
A few school kids dropped out of the queue at this point but the majority remained and they seemed to keep things running for a while. With the pace at which we were moving however, it was clearly going to be well over the 90 minutes and we have 12 other creds to hit! (No, just no).
There’s a thing about fastrack on that sign, let’s check it out. Gave up on the queue and went round to the shop bit to try and buy some.
Ride’s closed boys.
Seriously.
In the time it had taken for us to walk around, they had begun closing it all off and sending people away.
Spite Dragon 2000.

Arashi was next door and actually open so sucked up an hour queue for that, all the while thinking ‘what the **** has become of this day'.
Was sort of dreading this, with Insane in the brain, but it was actually rather awesome. It does a lot of crazy flips but smoothly with none of the horrible lurching that you get on a Zacspin, providing a very intense but in no way disgusting ride.

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Highlight: The video in the queue of a couple of Japanese girls having the time of their lives on it, summed up the ride experience perfectly.
Lowlight: Shouldn’t have been the best ride of the day.

Corkscrew was open, with an hour queue, and the light drizzle was starting to collect on the inside of my coat.
Yes, this was the point where I noticed the true extent of the damage from the underfloor heating.
Slowly descending into insanity at this stage, the ride produced similar results to Rolling X-train in that it was unnecessarily hilarious, but I couldn’t say why.

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Highlight: Comedy
Lowlight: Shouldn’t have been the second best ride of the day.

The Jet coaster was open and people were already starting to disappear from the park.
Highlight: Walk on
Lowlight: The magic was lost on this one.

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Peter Rabbit powered thing was open. Might as well.


And that was Nagashima Spiteland.


Everything else was closed and remained that way.

Had some pizza for lunch and by the time that was done (around 2pm), it had stopped drizzling, but all the school trips had left the park, leaving us to wander around aimlessly in despair.
Even those few rides had since closed, with the exception of Arashi, which it looked like they were just getting practice operation laps on.

No one could tell us what was going on now. What’s the procedure here? The park is open for another 3 hours. We are guests. The weather has cleared. What happens?

Staff were busying themselves around Steel Dragon, both in the queue and in the control box. We got as far as walking up the exit and standing on the platform looking at the train (could have sat in the seats if we wanted) but they all completely blanked us for the duration.


Lost for words, left the park and went to get ice cream. Japan immediately redeems itself as the staff ask: ‘Can I sing to you while I make it?’
Yes. Yes you can.
With big smiles back on our faces, we leave it all behind.
 
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gavin

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^ Whoever said that is wrong, unless they don't actually like airtime on their giga coasters. While the layout is unimaginative, it's way better than I305 and Millennium Force.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 8 – Hirakata Park

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Oh look, another ferris wheel.

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 got us some train tickets to Hirakata.

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.

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The first stop was Fantastic Coaster Rowdy. It did inspire some rowdiness, due to a comedic sense of urgency and needing to take several shopping bags on board.

Red Falcon was another Jet coaster with some great views and one particular wtf moment in the tracking.

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The spinning coaster doesn’t spin. Different experience I guess.

Peekaboo Town was almost as fantastic as Rowdy. Amazing staff was a running theme in this park.

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Saved the supposed best for last with Elf. Was a bit underwhelming really, some harmless fun at best.

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Still had time for a go on the Dark Ride shooter. Was quite impressed with it, but unfortunately didn’t get a high enough score to win a prize.
This may have replaced another dark ride that was here, we never found the one on our to-do list.

A hectic but fun final day in Japan.
 
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Pink Cadillac

Giga Poster
You must be happy you managed to do Space World before it closed! I always been fascinated by Hollywood Dream. I can't wait to hear about Atlantis Adventure.
 

HeartlineCoaster

Theme Park Superhero
Day 9 – Lotte World

Website confirmed the Aquatrax was back in business. Let’s hit it on the weekday, it’ll be quieter...
Also back in business with the tourist card. Supposed to give you another 30% off here, but through some happy miscalculation, it made the ticket price 30%.

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By the time we had sorted the tickets and moved swiftly through the indoor bit, queues had already started to explode. Grabbed a Disney-style fastrack slot for already pushing 5pm and joined the already pushing 50 minute queue for Atlantis Adventure.
It must get them on a regular basis, but it isn’t built to take a big queue. They batch at the entrance gate for a short walk and a 10 minute wait by the station, the rest is made up of a single roped straight section and then just the masses forming an orderly line throughout much of the outdoor section, round shops and even other queues. At the point it had reached 200+ minutes in the early evening, it was hard to distinguish it from the scream shield gyro swing line of 100+ minutes. No thanks.

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Loved the station. There’s a sign up saying 140 phones have been lost on this ride so far today, which I could have believed from this lot (it stayed the same number all day, so just for effect). To save you clambering over the cars, a trolley is pushed up to the vehicle for your loose articles. The staff then clap and sing you out as it dispatches.

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The ride itself is a bit of a mixed bag. It has a fantastic start and some really strong moments but this is punctuated by some dodgy pacing issues. Trims galore, some of which completely kill momentum, the weird middle section of slowly drifting past theming + transfer track and then the seemingly redundant slow LSM lift.

An hour into the day now and Comet Express had run out of fastrack already. Queued at least 90 for it, spending most of the time trying and failing to figure out where the ride fits.

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This thing was a surprise hit. The confusion/mystery as to what it is and where it came from only adds to the fun. As soon as it starts leaving the station, the crazy spinning begins and never lets up. The ride is a long blur of theming, intense dizziness and laterals and from the many brief glimpses you get of your neighbouring cars you can see everyone is absolutely loving it.

Headed back inside for a 2 hour queue at French Revolution. Opted out of the VR, why miss all the indoor interaction?
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Was an interesting layout and rode quite well, just wasn't particularly good because of what it is.

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All the creds, which had all the big queues, were ticked off. Time to see what else was on offer.

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Dragon Wild shooting was a great little ride and seems to be underappreciated. Took a second lap but failed to get the winning screen at the end both times. Don't mind losing to those cute dragons.

Sinbad was a really impressive story-telling dark ride boat thing. Didn't expect much from the size and location, but theyve definitely worked some magic to pack so much goodness in there.

Even more magic with a full blown rapids being somewhere halfway up a building. Was great for the novelty.

Pharoah's Fury was closed. I'll take that as a reason to return.

Fantasy Dream was one of those classic dark rides full of slightly out there figures and sets with a love it/hate it song containing the name of the ride many times. Once will do.

By then it was finally time for the fastrack reride on Atlantis, sneaking past a good 3 hours of queue.
Loved it, but it didn't do anything to sway my earlier opinion.

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That rounded off the day nicely, it was all very enjoyable in spite of the queues. Again the locals always seem to have a good time in their parks regardless, so it's not really an issue.

Some obsessive hunting/shopping began that evening and consumed most of the following 72 hours. Life changing stuff, but i won't go into detail.

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Also went to the 'rainbow bridge' that night, which was meant to be one of the wonders of the world or something, but was hilariously underwhelmed by the spectacle.
 
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