Yeah, there’s just a slight gap between this and my last Japanese trip report, which was also posted pretty far after the actual trip. I actually took this trip up to Nasu Highlands sometime in late May/early June. I’d recently met someone (Tatsuya) who was also (sort of) into coasters and so I suggested taking a trip out there, as I’d never been there before.
Because of my job, the only option was to go on a Saturday, which I generally try to avoid, but it was the only way I was going to get up to this park. Plus, by going on a Saturday, Tatsuya could come along, too, and help to actually find the place.
Anyway, we took a train for about an hour and a half, which we got half-price tickets for thanks to Tatsuya’s dad working for Japan Rail, and got off at the station to connect with a bus up to the park. It was the wrong station. There was no bus. I knew it was the wrong station, but had to defer to the better judgement of the Japanese guy I was with.
So, the money we saved on train tickets, plus a bit extra, got thrown away on a taxi. It was a nice drive up though. Definitely not in Tokyo anymore:
The weather was gorgeous, and the park is in a really nice location. I actually got a little sunburned, which isn’t hard to achieve.
Despite it being Saturday and the weather being perfect, the park was really quiet, with all the rides being walk-on all day.
The first coaster was an ever-so-exciting Zamperla Dragon. I’m not going to check, but I must have been on about 10 of these things by now.
Yes, they’re powered. Yes, they’ve been cloned about a million times. Yes, I count them!
Right next to Dragon was Panic Drive, a quirky Wild Mouse type coaster from Sansei Yusoki.
Other coasters of theirs that I’ve tried have been Daidarasaurus (total crap) Bullfight Roller Coaster Matador (great as a WTF?! whole, but crap as a coaster) and Raging Spirits (mediocre), so I wasn’t expecting much.
Good job really, since it was pretty ****. Cool looking cars though.
There was a Lego museum in the same area. We had absolutely loads of time, and the park was dead, but I couldn’t give a **** about Lego, so didn’t bother going in.
Most of the bigger rides are at the bottom of a hill, at the opposite side of the park to the entrance. On the way down there we tried the 4D theatre. I usually can’t stand these things, but this one was ok, mostly due to the fact that it was the most **** ed-up movie I’ve seen in one of these. I don’t get Pokemon at the best of times, so in the original Japanese I’ve got no idea what’s going on.
There was a ghost train here, too, called Dark Castle.
This mostly was just dark, with not much to see, but lots of noise.
I don’t know what a Marchen is, but Marchen World was some embarrassing-to-get-on kiddy ride.
Continuing on towards the main ride area, we had a go on the rapids ride. Not bad, but not very good either.
Just past the rapids was the park’s newest coaster, Shinpi., which translates as something like “Mystery” apparently.
This was a powered coaster, mostly in the dark, but with a short outside section.
It was basically a glorified dark ride, though it did have a couple of bursts of speed to make it feel a bit more coastery.
The end was pretty good. After re-entering the building, the train speeds up and heads towards a giant frog, quickly changing direction at the last second and speeding through a giant cat’s mouth. Very run-of-the-mill stuff.
Layout!
I attempted a pov, but it was just too dark really. Here it is anyway:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffUr2gZJXs[/youtube]
Right next to Shinpi was the first “big” coaster of the day.
Yeah, yeah SLC, painful, rough yadda yadda yadda ad nauseum.
F2: Fright Flight was very good! I actually like the layout of these things, and this one is the best SLC I’ve ridden after Vortex in Thailand.
It was smooth, forceful, and obviously very popular, as we had to wait for a whole 5 minutes for it at one point later in the day! That’s 5 minutes more than anything else.
In the middle of the park is one of the few areas which really tries any theme, that of 1950s America. It’s a bit gash really.
This area contains most of the park’s flat rides. Top Spin. Oh joy.
One of those parachute tower things, which continue to freak me out. Do Not Like!
Spinny spinny!
They also had one of these **** ed-up things
though it wasn’t a patch on the one at Expoland.
Very normal S&S shot tower, with a less-than-original space theme.
Ok, so onto another coaster, my first Caripro Batflyer.
I actually really liked this, if for nothing else than the novelty factor. It’s just a shame it was so short.
The log flume was a load of arse.
Picture from the log flume. Yes there are 5 coasters crammed in there.
The yellow track is Spin Turn, a spinning coaster.
I’m “slightly” taller and heavier than Tatsuya, so we got a brilliant spin on this. Not a great coaster, but way better than most Asian spinners.
That blue loop belongs to Big Boom, which is, hands down, the best Meisho coaster in the world ever. Ok, so that doesn’t take much. Their shuttle loops are good, too, I suppose.
This has one of the best first drops I’ve ever been on. The angle these pictures were taken from really doesn’t show how steep it actually is, but there’s nowhere to take a side-on picture from.
The hill after the drop, before the loop is excellent, too.
After the loop, it’s pretty much done though. Weird brake run.
And one more of the drop, just for jolly.
Ok, now onto the green one:
This is Thunder Coaster, again from Meisho.
Not very tall, twisting drop, into a double corkscrew, into brakes. Boring and pretty rough, though far, far from the worst corkscrew I’ve tried.
I’ve decided that my body just isn’t built for Meisho trains. Big Boom and Thunder Coaster’s trains reminded me a lot of Black Hole 2000 and Columbia Double Loop in Seoul Land.
I’m too tall for them, meaning that my knees are crammed against the seat back in front of me, and the otsrs, which aren’t the most comfortable to begin with, really dig into my shoulders.
The final coaster here is Camel Coaster:
This is from Meisho, again, and is of the “Jet Coaster” variety.
It started off well, with some decent airtime on the first few humps, but then it all went horribly wrong when it tried to perform a few turns.
Just ouch, basically. After the humps, there was one massive smash to the right, during which the whole train collectively yelled out in pain and continued complaining until the ride finished. Just horrible.
More of the ride from either this ferris wheel:
or the previously mentioned parachute drop.
Might as well shove a few more aerial shots in:
So, a really good day on the whole, despite the messing around to get there. Great weather, very few people and loads of rides, even if most of them weren’t up to much.
Highlights: Smooth, forceful SLC and utter brilliance of Big Boom
Lowlights: Pain of Camel Coaster and general disappointment with Shinpi.
I’ll just finish off with another Roller Coaster Tycoon picture:
Because of my job, the only option was to go on a Saturday, which I generally try to avoid, but it was the only way I was going to get up to this park. Plus, by going on a Saturday, Tatsuya could come along, too, and help to actually find the place.
Anyway, we took a train for about an hour and a half, which we got half-price tickets for thanks to Tatsuya’s dad working for Japan Rail, and got off at the station to connect with a bus up to the park. It was the wrong station. There was no bus. I knew it was the wrong station, but had to defer to the better judgement of the Japanese guy I was with.
So, the money we saved on train tickets, plus a bit extra, got thrown away on a taxi. It was a nice drive up though. Definitely not in Tokyo anymore:
The weather was gorgeous, and the park is in a really nice location. I actually got a little sunburned, which isn’t hard to achieve.
Despite it being Saturday and the weather being perfect, the park was really quiet, with all the rides being walk-on all day.
The first coaster was an ever-so-exciting Zamperla Dragon. I’m not going to check, but I must have been on about 10 of these things by now.
Yes, they’re powered. Yes, they’ve been cloned about a million times. Yes, I count them!
Right next to Dragon was Panic Drive, a quirky Wild Mouse type coaster from Sansei Yusoki.
Other coasters of theirs that I’ve tried have been Daidarasaurus (total crap) Bullfight Roller Coaster Matador (great as a WTF?! whole, but crap as a coaster) and Raging Spirits (mediocre), so I wasn’t expecting much.
Good job really, since it was pretty ****. Cool looking cars though.
There was a Lego museum in the same area. We had absolutely loads of time, and the park was dead, but I couldn’t give a **** about Lego, so didn’t bother going in.
Most of the bigger rides are at the bottom of a hill, at the opposite side of the park to the entrance. On the way down there we tried the 4D theatre. I usually can’t stand these things, but this one was ok, mostly due to the fact that it was the most **** ed-up movie I’ve seen in one of these. I don’t get Pokemon at the best of times, so in the original Japanese I’ve got no idea what’s going on.
There was a ghost train here, too, called Dark Castle.
This mostly was just dark, with not much to see, but lots of noise.
I don’t know what a Marchen is, but Marchen World was some embarrassing-to-get-on kiddy ride.
Continuing on towards the main ride area, we had a go on the rapids ride. Not bad, but not very good either.
Just past the rapids was the park’s newest coaster, Shinpi., which translates as something like “Mystery” apparently.
This was a powered coaster, mostly in the dark, but with a short outside section.
It was basically a glorified dark ride, though it did have a couple of bursts of speed to make it feel a bit more coastery.
The end was pretty good. After re-entering the building, the train speeds up and heads towards a giant frog, quickly changing direction at the last second and speeding through a giant cat’s mouth. Very run-of-the-mill stuff.
Layout!
I attempted a pov, but it was just too dark really. Here it is anyway:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mffUr2gZJXs[/youtube]
Right next to Shinpi was the first “big” coaster of the day.
Yeah, yeah SLC, painful, rough yadda yadda yadda ad nauseum.
F2: Fright Flight was very good! I actually like the layout of these things, and this one is the best SLC I’ve ridden after Vortex in Thailand.
It was smooth, forceful, and obviously very popular, as we had to wait for a whole 5 minutes for it at one point later in the day! That’s 5 minutes more than anything else.
In the middle of the park is one of the few areas which really tries any theme, that of 1950s America. It’s a bit gash really.
This area contains most of the park’s flat rides. Top Spin. Oh joy.
One of those parachute tower things, which continue to freak me out. Do Not Like!
Spinny spinny!
They also had one of these **** ed-up things
though it wasn’t a patch on the one at Expoland.
Very normal S&S shot tower, with a less-than-original space theme.
Ok, so onto another coaster, my first Caripro Batflyer.
I actually really liked this, if for nothing else than the novelty factor. It’s just a shame it was so short.
The log flume was a load of arse.
Picture from the log flume. Yes there are 5 coasters crammed in there.
The yellow track is Spin Turn, a spinning coaster.
I’m “slightly” taller and heavier than Tatsuya, so we got a brilliant spin on this. Not a great coaster, but way better than most Asian spinners.
That blue loop belongs to Big Boom, which is, hands down, the best Meisho coaster in the world ever. Ok, so that doesn’t take much. Their shuttle loops are good, too, I suppose.
This has one of the best first drops I’ve ever been on. The angle these pictures were taken from really doesn’t show how steep it actually is, but there’s nowhere to take a side-on picture from.
The hill after the drop, before the loop is excellent, too.
After the loop, it’s pretty much done though. Weird brake run.
And one more of the drop, just for jolly.
Ok, now onto the green one:
This is Thunder Coaster, again from Meisho.
Not very tall, twisting drop, into a double corkscrew, into brakes. Boring and pretty rough, though far, far from the worst corkscrew I’ve tried.
I’ve decided that my body just isn’t built for Meisho trains. Big Boom and Thunder Coaster’s trains reminded me a lot of Black Hole 2000 and Columbia Double Loop in Seoul Land.
I’m too tall for them, meaning that my knees are crammed against the seat back in front of me, and the otsrs, which aren’t the most comfortable to begin with, really dig into my shoulders.
The final coaster here is Camel Coaster:
This is from Meisho, again, and is of the “Jet Coaster” variety.
It started off well, with some decent airtime on the first few humps, but then it all went horribly wrong when it tried to perform a few turns.
Just ouch, basically. After the humps, there was one massive smash to the right, during which the whole train collectively yelled out in pain and continued complaining until the ride finished. Just horrible.
More of the ride from either this ferris wheel:
or the previously mentioned parachute drop.
Might as well shove a few more aerial shots in:
So, a really good day on the whole, despite the messing around to get there. Great weather, very few people and loads of rides, even if most of them weren’t up to much.
Highlights: Smooth, forceful SLC and utter brilliance of Big Boom
Lowlights: Pain of Camel Coaster and general disappointment with Shinpi.
I’ll just finish off with another Roller Coaster Tycoon picture:
