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PTR:Japan - larrygator goes to Japan (11/6 update)


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I have to be honest...and I'm just going to come right out and say it...

 

This trip report doesn't suck!

 

and Robb knows suck, so that is a huge compliment.

 

The official day 3 of the trip brings us to Kijima Kogen. Later in the day we would venture to Wonder Rakutenchi, which will be posted on Page 4 of this thread. The day starts in typical fashion, with a threat of rain again. It is also the first of only a few days that we will travel by bus (coach) versus solely by rail. Rail travel rules. Kijima was a nice terrain park at the top of a mountain. The bus ride was probably more terrifying than any of the rides. The ride weren't great but they were fun with a couple of surprises thrown in. Jupiter surprised me, the tea cups were out of control and the park had a great 4D/Simulator themed to bumper cars.

 

On to the pictures. Enjoy! or mock! Your choice.

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Come on everyone, "think dry happy thoughts"

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Scary bus ride into the mountains

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Just like Dollywood.

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Surprisingly the group is walking, NOT RUNNING, away from the brutal GoldRush Coaster.

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Longest shooting dark ride ever. No seriously, if you got the shorter version you didn't shoot well enough.

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How do you say Lucha Libre in Japanese? Actually this is an ad for the uncompleted haunted walk through.

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As 50 of us line up to ride the Dragon coaster, Kristen stayed in the front seat for every circuit rotating her seat mates. TPDave with a new facial expression!

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The LS coaster will not be operating today,

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Screw you!

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Dare I say, the best themed Flying Island

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These tea cups were insane. Unfortunately, the low seat backs were a little painful. But not as painful as falling down after riding.

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The 4D movie was Galatic Bumper Cars

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No really, read the signs. And it was awesome.

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I think we're safe. It's too hot for snow to be on the ground.

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When a bunch of us went to ride the Flying Island...

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Tom rode the Drop Tower again...

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and again

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Good thing there wasn't a problem as I couldn't figure out how to use the emergency communications device.

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I think that is Tom up there again.

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SCREW YOU!!!

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TPDave takes another break from being serious.

Edited by larrygator
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As previously mentioned, the second park of the day was Wonder Rakutenchi. Not my favorite park of the trip. The park was a little run down but had a few fun rides and a zoo section. Those unassuming parks also end up providing the best humor opportunities. The park's coaster was a typical Japanese Jet Coaster, it looked cool but did nothing. Unfortunately the controlled golf cart ride down the mountain was not operating. However, the live ducks were racing as Fran can now attest to and the wallet stealing Sky Cycle attacked TPFail.

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We're in the right place.

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Here's the entrance.

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and here's the funicular railway that takes you up to the park.

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They have duck races and to Fran's surprise the ducks are ALIVE!

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The park's signature attraction is the double armed ferris wheel. It looks a lot cooler than it really is.

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Unfortunately, the golf cart ride was closed.

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but the haunted house was open

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KidTums approved.

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Hold on to your wallet, don't be like TPFail.

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It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Super Chair.

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TPDave, Ride me.

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The Jungle Safari ride.

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Yup, I shot that guy dead.

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This is the first park I encounter cork guns where you could win prizes. I don't think anyone won at this park.

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Here is the view back down the mountain from the park.

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This bubble blowing cat reminded me of a joke I first heard in 5th grade.

Teacher: Who are you and why are you late?

Student: I'm Bubbles.

Edited by larrygator
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Love the "dead raccoon" picture. I recall that the Haunted House has a rather odd smell to it back in 2007; then again, I did walk through it behind Barry.

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FACT: Friday and Saturday are the slowest days on TPR, but I don't care. I'm still posting an update whenever this threads gets to a new page and I have spare time.

 

The fourth day of the trip took us to Mitsui Greenland. This theme park probably had the highest number of rides of all the Japanese parks. There were plenty of flats and dark rides to match a lot of coasters. The coasters were mediocre, but the volume of things to day at the park made for a full day. Again we woke up to the threat of rain and arrived at a wet park but were lucky in that it never rained while we were at the park.

 

Out of respect for the injured, I did not take pictures of the bloody and battered TPDave and Scottish Steve after their near fatal Alpine Slide accident. Also missing are photos of shooting range were I spent 45 minutes, but no money, trying to win a miniature stuffed animal.

 

If anyone cares, I am eating microwave popcorn seasoned with McCormick Original Chicken Seasoning right now. Damn good. A possible a Tokyo Disney flavor in the future?

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We were led to the Ultra Twister before the park opened and as you can see the ground was still wet from the morning's rain. "Think Dry Happy Thoughts"

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With rain a strong possibility our group decided to get the lower capicity outdoor rides out of the way first, but TPFail led us this, the indoor coaster.

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OK, low capicity spinning mouse we found you. Low capacity, but lots of spinning.

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Sphinx was an underwhelming coaster.

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Milky Way has two sides (stand-up and sit-down) but only the stand-up size was running.

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Eventually we got to ride NIO and it's signature SLC kidney bean element. YAY!!!!!!

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Here's Grampus Jet, the Vekoma suspended coaster.

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One coaster opened a little later in the day. Those that survived the Alpine Slide and the GAO theming, finally got to ride GAO when it opened

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With all the coasters conquered we did the democratic thing and called a special meeting to decide startegy far the rest of the day, clearly everything is very interesting.

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Hey Nathan, the meeting is over here.

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Let's take the chair lift that the American and European folks are too big to fit in.

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to the Gyro-Swing (a.k.a the Togo Flat Ride of Death) that many Europeans and Americans were too big to ride.

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A headless Divv exits the shootng dark ride.

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Ve're Valking. BTW - on the next TPR Trip wth Erik Penders there should be a portion of the bus ride devoted to Erik telling "Your Momma" jokes.

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There was the interesting "Adventure Ride" where you sit in an "Adventures of Spiderman" vehicle, but it was enclosed and you watched a video screen inside the car.

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We took a less scary chair lift to the top of a hill

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passing over this non-assuming turn on the Alpine Slide.

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After walking through the bizarre Horror Tower...

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I took the last picture of TPFail before he said "I'm not using the brakes" on the Alpine Slide.

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"Danger in a Maze" did not compare to danger on an Alpine Slide.

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While Scottish Steve went in search of first aid, EB, Paul, Nick, TP and I enjoyed some more awesome Japanese Curry

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Another miniature ferris wheel on the Japan Trip.

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Artsy Fail!

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The politically incorrect Small Java walk through.

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I already showed you 5 indoor attractions, but there were more, included a dual 3D and 4D theater. I did only the 4D side and it was truly one of the scarier 4D movies Two Japanese schoolgirls ended up in the underworld why I think one of them became brainwashed by monsters and killed the other one.

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Mirror Maze

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The Haunted Shrine (ghost train)

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The haunted shrine, where you are supposed to hold an electronic candle perfectly still. At the end of the attraction a machine measured how much the candle move, showing how "scared" you were.

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Within Luxor Magic you made choices on colors, paths, animals, geometric symbols by placing a plastic sword into different slots.

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At the end of the ride, you inserted the sword into a machine and the machine spit out your fortune. MAGIC!!!!

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In the Ice House you had to brave many adverseraries to enjoy the freezing temperatures on a 95 degree humid day.

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Polar Bear attack

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Wholly Mammoth attack.

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Scottish Mummy attack as the cold fogs up my camera lens.

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After leaving the the crew partakes in another Amazing Race style taxi challenge to get back to the train station.

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Cool report Larry, you are getting better and better in it. The single chair chair-lift was weird and not build for me. I had to hold my feed up, otherwise they would drag over the wire mesh.

And yes, that is the bend in the alpine slide where you would start picking up speed. The bends after that were quite interesting to navigate.

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Great report! Loving the captions! I still can't believe how small those chair lift seats were!

 

The "Chairlift of Death" is, indeed, kind of scary--but it sure saves you some walking.

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Next up was one of the more anticipated parks of the trip, Universal Studios Japan. Although Jurassic Park The Ride would be down for rehab, this is one of the more picturesque parks and has many other quality attractions.

 

Hollywood Dream was better than I expected with quite a few good pops of air, Space Fantasy was quite unique and fun. Best of all both coasters offered single rider lines that many of us maxed out after using our Express Pass tickets.

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The greeting committee was out in full force.

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Robb asked us to gather around. We thought we were going to be taught a new team cheer.

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But instead he directed us to the top secret entrance for a special presentation. Who brings a bicycle on a TPR Trip?

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Not only were we authorized but we also had an appointment.

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These guys gave a great presentation.

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This ride board helped us know the opening/wait times.

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AWS is great attraction. Seriously there was one ride op that went above and beyond. He was sweating big time from how animated he was acting.

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Jurassic Park may have been down but there were stand-ins.

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See stand-ins. Yes, I meant to use the plural form.

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Yes, it certainly was Back to the Future with both this attraction.

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and BackoDrafto. I love how in the pre-show when Ron Howard is dubbed in Japanese everyone laughs but when Deniro is dubbed no one dares to laugh.

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One sign of progress is Space Fantasy The Ride in ET's old home. And just like Orlando Revenge of the Mummy where King Kong still resides, you can find ET in Space Fantasy.

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Apparently that ride with the plastic shark is called JAWS not AWS, sorry about that other picture.

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Shark, shark, shark, shark ...

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This way sir, and next time don't squeeze the character's ass.

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The most amazing put of the day was when Brad (roachman) and I broke away from the group eating burgers and BBQ to try the Magical Curry at the Happiness Cafe.

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Besides the 3 different levels of hotness you had 4 meat options to choose from. That's 12 variations. Actually 24 variations since you could go with or without rice.

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but wait there's more. An unlimited salad bar creates an unlimited number of combinations.

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Can you see the happiness etched in curry on top of my rice.

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Then as we start eating the staff comes over and points out this locked display in the middle of the restaurant and challenges us to some of the HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT sauce.

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We accept the challenge. Brad is smart enough to accept in moderation. I overdue it and take advantage of the unlimited soft drinks by returning to the coke machine 7 times. All the time the staff is staring at us and laughing, however to do come over and make us balloon animals before we leave.

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Not sure if this couple was dead or not, but I just had to take a picture.

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Beware of bikers with no pants and runners in tighty whities

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It's getting late, time for me to go to sleep. Enjoy!

Edited by larrygator
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The next day we arrived at the best themed non-Disney / non-Universal park. Parque Espana is themed to Spain, right down to bringing in authentic Spanish dancers for the parade. The park had many indoor air conditioned rides, which was quite a relief on this hot and humid day. The day started out with a surprise that even Robb did not expect. Since the car park was not open the park representative boarded our bus and directed the bus driver to drive through the park right to Pyrenees for our filming session.

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First class service, unfortunately the bus did not drive us from ride to ride.

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Pyrenees really did deliver the goods, an excellent B&M invert.

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Why am I showing you a carousel? This is the Gaudi Carousel, if you look at the detail on the support pillars you can see how it got its name.

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After riding the Bullfight Coaster it was hard to tell if I was the matador getting gored or the bull getting speared. Ole, no way!

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These are the cool ride vehicles for the trippy Nutcracker Ride.

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Chockety's Mystery House was pretty weal for a fun house, but it was air conditioned.

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The indoor/outdoor pirate ride was very well done.

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The walk through fairy tale area was most remembered for the amount of small crab that were living are the sides the the pathway, sorry no pictures of the crabs.

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TPConfused on the Don Quixote suspended ride.

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The plaza within the park was very reminiscent of Madrid. Restaurants were all around the periphery, but due to the weather many people ate indoors out of the sun.

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Looking at of that plaza towards the entrance to the park you can see that Parque Espana also has a covered entrance way to protect patrons from sun and rain.

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We found a suspended indoor shooting dark ride that TPSpecial enjoyed.

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TPDave was back to normal when we found the real shooting dark ride and Divv doesn't look as embarassed to be next to TPDave.

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Real Spanish dancers brought in for the parade.

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The flume (Splash Monserrat), train and Gran Monserrat weave amongst one another.

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POV from the flume, right next to Gran Monserrat.

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In the Alice and Wonderland walk through you shake your magic wand to make things (like the Chesire Cat) appear and disappear.

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Some people were well versed in shaking their wands.

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