This is probably going to be a long one. The s**ty weather of the previous day was over, not that it would have made a difference since it was my last day in Osaka, so I would have gone anyway, but knocking off the +1s the day before had definitely been the right thing to do. See?
Universal Studios Japan
I’d been here before, and loved it, but that must’ve been about 10 years ago. I’d forgotten just how close to the city centre it was. It only took me half an hour from leaving my hotel, including the 10-minute walk to the station.
This all looked extremely familiar since last time.
But not so much that other thing in the background.
I’d been in two minds whether or not to buy one of the 348 different combinations of fast passes, but decided against it, figuring that if it came to the worst, and it was packed, I’d still at least be able to get any new stuff done. I needn’t have worried; the place was busy – enough to create a fab atmosphere – but definitely not even approaching crowded.
I headed straight to the Harry Potter area first, expecting to grab a timed pass for later, but they weren’t doing that at all. It was just open entry for the whole day. It’s a copy and paste from Orlando, so it was all very familiar, but the way you get in is better, with this forested path leading to an outside area which feels very separate from the main park, unlike in Orlando.
Once you’re in though, it’s basically identical.
It looked like Forbidden Journey had a massive queue, stretching right the way through Hogsmeade, but it was only because they hadn’t opened it yet. It only turned out to be about 15 minutes.
I’d ridden it a bunch of times in Orlando and loved it, but this version had the edge taken off slightly for me because of the 3D. Apart from improving that “magic” swirly bit at the beginning and end, it’s totally unnecessary and actually detracts from the physical sets. For example, the dementors section seemed quite a lot darker - I mean physically darker, not in terms of atmosphere - probably because of the glasses, so didn’t seem quite as detailed or impressive, though no doubt it was actually exactly the same. Hopefully, they’ll do what California did and scrap the 3D.
Flight of the Hippogriff had a 20-minute queue, so I grabbed it, thinking that it would be much longer later in the day. Shouldn’t have bothered since it was walk on later.
Forbidden Journey here has a Castle walkthrough “attraction” which basically takes you through the queueline if you want to see inside, but don’t want to ride. I guess it’s a nice idea for Potter fans who don’t like rides, kids that are too small, or dithering old people. There wasn’t a queue for it anyway, and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was, so gave it a go.
More pictures of the area, because I’m sure nobody knows what it looks like.
From there, I bypassed the Amity area and went to Jurassic Park for the major new coaster there, Flying Dinosaur.
After hearing about 3-hour lines for this thing, I was pretty chuffed to see this:
They were lying though. The single rider queue was walk-on, and the regular queue looked to be about 20 minutes. This massive overestimation was a common theme for the day. Only one ride, which I’ll get to later, was even close to being accurate. Everything else was overstated by at least twice the actual waiting time.
Using single rider, I got front row on my first ride, back row on my second, and another front row later in the day. This was all entirely by chance as there’s zero opportunity for seat selections even if you’re not using single rider, so I got pretty lucky with it.
Thoughts then. I loved it. Well, for a flyer at least. I did five rides on it over the course of the day. It IS very intense in one section – whatever the hell the inversion is before the pretzel loop, followed immediately by the pretzel loop – but the rest of it was fine. In terms of intensity, it basically feels like riding two pretzel loops back-to-back, and it’s not particularly pleasant, but I’d rather have them shoved together than spaced apart really. This overtook Sky Scrapper to become my favourite flyer.
Jurassic Park: The Ride wasn’t using their single-rider queue, so I had to wait 10 minutes in the regular one, walking on for a reride later in the day. I love this ride, and was pretty gutted that I’d missed it in Florida while it was down for a refurb since it means I don’t have the full collection. It bothers me.
Jaws was up next, another walk-on with single rider. This is the only version of the ride I’ve ever done - my first time in Florida was when it was new and was having massive downtime issues, and it had gone by the time I got back there. I love it though. No cameras/photos on the ride itself, which they’re pretty anal about.
Waterworld is in the same area and was about to start. I think I skipped it in California, and definitely skipped it on my second visit to Singapore, so it had been a while since I’d seen it. A strange choice of IP considering the film flopped and a large percentage of park guests would never have seen it, but it works as a standalone show regardless.
I headed back towards the entrance for Hollywood Dream, bypassing the kiddy area, which I never went back to. There’s a kiddy cred in there somewhere, but I already had it.
Since I’d been before, they’ve added “Backdrop”, which is just a backwards-facing train. Single Rider is only an option for the forwards train, but there’s realistically no reason why they couldn’t have put people on the backwards trains as well, which frequently had empty seats.
Again, the listed waiting times were way off. I used the single rider first, and waited around 5 minutes, then decided to suck up the regular queue for the backwards option, and was on in 20.
I’d really enjoyed this on my last visit, but hadn’t ridden any other B&M hypers (yes, yes, technically not a hyper. Whatever), so had nothing to compare it to. This time, I realised that it’s a bit s**t. I’d still put it above that thing at Carowinds though. The backwards option is a massive improvement and is actually quite fab.
The whole area to the left of the main entrance had been given over to something called “The Real”. No idea. Some computer game thing? The usual Shrek/Sesame Street 4D had been temporarily replaced with two different films, one Godzilla type thing and one pretty gruesome one with weird giant things ripping people apart. They were both s**te and felt really cheap.
There was some other temporary film thing, which was again s**te, and an escape room thing that I didn’t try since it needed reservations and they were all gone.
This was, apparently, some walkthrough thing, but I skipped it based on the relatively long lines and the fact that the other temporary stuff had been a pile of gash up until that point.
Most annoying was this:
Space Fantasy had crappy, non-optional VR on it. It’s only temporary, but I was pissed off because I’ve always been interested to try the ride properly. Obviously, I’ve now got the cred, but I don’t feel like I’ve properly done Space Fantasy. With single-rider, I waited about 15 minutes. They were running it as well as they could do I guess – the trains never stop in the station and they were getting people fitted out with the headsets very efficiently - but because of the VR, only half of the seats, the forward facing ones, were being used, effectively halving the capacity. F**king stupid decision.
I get the idea of having this stuff to perhaps bring in repeat visitors, or give regular guests something new -and it was pretty popular - but it was all just very cheap and tacky.
Getting away from all that s**te then.
Spiderman is obviously fab, and was another single-rider walk-on.
Looking back over the lake:
Back to the Future had been holding on here for much longer than the two American parks, but the whole area has now become “Minion Park” with the ride being rethemed as Minion Mayhem rather than The Simpsons as it has at the other parks.
It’s exactly the same film as the American Minion Mayhem attractions, but works better I think because it’s using the huge Back to the Future ride system and screens. The preshows are a f**king burden though. There are three of them, and they don’t flow well at all. We were left standing around for a couple of minutes each time after they had finished and before moving on. The whole thing is new though, so maybe they’ll iron that out.
This was the only ride with accurate waiting times posted. The signs said an hour, and including the preshows came pretty close. I almost didn’t bother, but I’d been walking onto everything all day and it was still early, so sucked it up.
Another hanger-on here is Backdraft. The final room is still very impressive, but the first two are a total ballache to stand through. I can see this disappearing soon. It didn’t seem particularly popular (though it’s difficult to tell on a quiet day I guess), it must cost a s**tload to run, and who even knows what the film is anymore?
From most of the park, Hogwarts is hidden until you enter the area, but there’s a very clear view from this side of the lake.
I did some rerides on both rides in the Jurassic Park area before heading back to Harry Potter.
Forbidden Journey was now posted at 10 minutes, but in reality was a walk-on, as was Hippogriff.
I hadn’t bothered with the Olivanders Buy Our Tat “attraction” in Florida, but gave it a go here. The guy doing it was very good, delivering it in English and Japanese, but I thought it was a bit s**t to be honest.
By now it was getting dark. They had cordoned off most of the area in front of Hogwarts Castle, but the ride was still open. It turns out they were doing a preview of the new projection thing, which officially opened a couple of days later, but it was for annual pass holders and press I think. They had loads of staff getting us mere peasants out of the area. I went in and out a few times – as I said, the ride was still open right until park closing – and tried to hang around, but they were having none of it. I even tried getting a spot in the empty Olivanders queue, which had a fab view, but was met with “for Olivander attraction only sowwy” from some little Hitler, even though Olivanders was closed by that point. I played the dumb foreigner first, then the indignant, belligerent “Why? There’s nobody here?” card, but he looked as if he might start crying as he repeatedly said “No. Sowwy. No.” so I just sacked it off.
They would have been MUCH better off just closing down the whole area half an hour earlier, checking passes at the entrance to Hogsmeade, rather than having the by this point empty ride still open and people still milling around, who they had to constantly chase down and kick out. It really wasn’t thought through at all I don’t think. I wasn’t bothered at not seeing the show – though it would have been a nice little bonus – but was getting annoyed by the piss-poor organisation of it.
I walked the long way around to the exit on the way out, having the place mostly to myself and bagging what turned out to be the last ride on Spiderman on the way past.
Yeah, I know I ended with a bit of a whinge about the way the Potter preview thing had been handled, but I had a fab day here. I’d already loved the park on my first visit, and the addition of Wizarding World and Flying Dinosaur has elevated it massively. The light crowds and single rider lines on Flying Dinosaur, Jaws, Evangelion (Space Fantasy), Spiderman and Hollywood Dream meant I got a lot more done than I’d expected to, plus rerides on loads of stuff, even though I skipped the kiddy area completely and didn’t bother with that Monsters show or Terminator 2:3D, the first one through choice and the second one more because of mistiming and no sense of urgency to hurry back around to it.
If you’re taking single Universal parks, then this one is easily the best of the bunch, though obviously you kind of have to take Florida’s two as a package and, together, they’re clearly stronger.
Next up: bitching and moaning about Legoland.
This park looks amazing with superb scenery. And since last year they've got this super intense Flyer too. Going from Himeji to this in the space of a few days is quite a journey, really.
