Hundreds of years ago, there was a member here called AJ who I became good friends with. He’s recently moved to Tokyo, which is relatively close (not really), and I had a few days off work between meetings and the kids coming back to school so headed over there.
He suggested Yomiuriland since he’d never been. I’d been a couple of times, but there was a new cred since last time and I quite like the place for what it is. We were supposed to get there roughly for opening, but kept missing our stop/connections because we were chatting so much s**t on the trains, but got there eventually.
There’s a metro + bus option, but the more interesting way is to use a different metro station and a cable car.
They’re close to opening a new Ferris wheel, but still have the old one running right next to it. I’m guessing that’s on its way to being taken out.
First up was Bandit, a former world’s tallest/fastest. It’s not quite a hyper, but sort of feels like one. I quite like the ride, but a serious lack of leg room and pointless OTSRs do their best to make you hate it. I think we rode near the back on the first ride and ended up near the front on a later reride; the reride was definitely worse.
I didn’t need the kiddy cred, but I’m such a good friend that I rode it anyway.
Yep, they still have their old (Intamin?) looping star ship thing, and nope, I had no interest in riding it.
The “Good Job” area was new last time I was here. The coaster themed to fashion is a decent enough spinner, but the game element on the lift hill is either now f**ked or we just got unlucky with it.
The new cred is Gerstlauer’s first/only family suspended coaster and is surprisingly good. The trains don’t swing exactly, but have some kind of suspension system on them that gives an almost swinging effect. Along with Bandit, it was the only thing we rode more than once.
The car factory thing is a bit s**t. They’ve added optional VR to it. The preferred option to that will always be “Ewww, no.”
Cup Noodle Rapids (not its name) is fun. The theming inside is actually pretty sparce, but it’s a surprisingly fast ride with a fairly big drop.
Have some pictures from the older Ferris wheel, which was ludicrously hot inside; the new one seemed to have air conditioning at least.
I’d either missed the shooting dark ride on previous visits – it is slightly hidden away – or I’d just forgotten all about it. It’s ok, nothing special but worth a go.
And it was back to the cable car. They do this amazing thing whereby they spray the sides of the outgoing cars with water to clean them, which helps create some fantastic photo opportunities. See?
We got back into the city just as the bars were opening, so proceeded to get absolutely trashed - pretty much by ourselves since it was a weekday - causing my next day to be a total right off, which was fine since there was a typhoon further west meaning that the weather was complete arse, and, being Japan, there would’ve been no point attempting to do anything anyway.
He suggested Yomiuriland since he’d never been. I’d been a couple of times, but there was a new cred since last time and I quite like the place for what it is. We were supposed to get there roughly for opening, but kept missing our stop/connections because we were chatting so much s**t on the trains, but got there eventually.
There’s a metro + bus option, but the more interesting way is to use a different metro station and a cable car.
They’re close to opening a new Ferris wheel, but still have the old one running right next to it. I’m guessing that’s on its way to being taken out.
First up was Bandit, a former world’s tallest/fastest. It’s not quite a hyper, but sort of feels like one. I quite like the ride, but a serious lack of leg room and pointless OTSRs do their best to make you hate it. I think we rode near the back on the first ride and ended up near the front on a later reride; the reride was definitely worse.
I didn’t need the kiddy cred, but I’m such a good friend that I rode it anyway.
Yep, they still have their old (Intamin?) looping star ship thing, and nope, I had no interest in riding it.
The “Good Job” area was new last time I was here. The coaster themed to fashion is a decent enough spinner, but the game element on the lift hill is either now f**ked or we just got unlucky with it.
The new cred is Gerstlauer’s first/only family suspended coaster and is surprisingly good. The trains don’t swing exactly, but have some kind of suspension system on them that gives an almost swinging effect. Along with Bandit, it was the only thing we rode more than once.
The car factory thing is a bit s**t. They’ve added optional VR to it. The preferred option to that will always be “Ewww, no.”
Cup Noodle Rapids (not its name) is fun. The theming inside is actually pretty sparce, but it’s a surprisingly fast ride with a fairly big drop.
Have some pictures from the older Ferris wheel, which was ludicrously hot inside; the new one seemed to have air conditioning at least.
I’d either missed the shooting dark ride on previous visits – it is slightly hidden away – or I’d just forgotten all about it. It’s ok, nothing special but worth a go.
And it was back to the cable car. They do this amazing thing whereby they spray the sides of the outgoing cars with water to clean them, which helps create some fantastic photo opportunities. See?
We got back into the city just as the bars were opening, so proceeded to get absolutely trashed - pretty much by ourselves since it was a weekday - causing my next day to be a total right off, which was fine since there was a typhoon further west meaning that the weather was complete arse, and, being Japan, there would’ve been no point attempting to do anything anyway.
