Jakizle wrote:Chris, this is such a kick@$$ trip report! Great coverage of everything. When were y'all there? Must have just missed you! Can't wait to follow along more
Thanks Jake! I was there from September 14th to September 26th. A good 2 week trip, but I kind of think that I could've spent more time at some of the parks. I might do three weeks the next time I go over and do a park a day (excluding TDR of course).
xVicesAndVirtues wrote:Love your report! Great photos and a huge amount of detail. When you mentioned Linear Gale, at first I was like "where are the photos of that coaster", then I looked on rcdb and I never knew it's been gone for 7 years![]()
Thunder Dolphin looks so graceful. I know everyone says it's not up to the level of the other Intamin hypers, but that is totally fine by me. I have a weak spot for that type of coaster and this one is definitely on my list of ones to ride, one of these days.
I want to say that they may have re-used the former station for it and turned it into a haunted walkthrough, but I'm not sure.
It's certainly no Skyrush or Millennium Force, but it is something you could just stay on and marathon it and not feel exhausted or bored. I kind of like rides that have a pretty good flowing layout, but I also like rides that have some decent airtime. This ride goes on a different list than the previous two to me.
Nrthwnd wrote:La Qua had some really cool rides, as well as a few great coasters, for where it was,
and how it was put together. I remember back then. And you can't beat Japan's Beverage Machines
for literally anything to drink, cold OR hot, lol! Thanks for the updated TR on what's there now, etc.
I really enjoyed drinking Pocari Sweat each morning and I think those machines turned me into a grape soda fanatic. lol
TBpony414 wrote:I really enjoyed reading about your first 2 days in Japan! I've never been over there and doubt I'll ever get the chance to so it's great to be able to read TRs like yours to get a small bit of the experience. That hotel room is crazy tiny but I'm sure you were barely even in there enough to do more than sleep and shower!
Thanks! I did spend a little time in there especially during the typhoon, but I didn't really mind the lack of space too much. I can say that it was a little tough to move around with a large suitcase, a rolling backpack and laptop backpack. I realized as soon as I got there I should've packed lighter when moving around the train stations.
Day 3 Part #1: Hakkejima Sea Paradise
A typhoon was approaching Japan from the south (much weaker than the one that seems to be happened the other week over there) and it was getting clear that there was a good chance that we might end up skipping a park or two. The original goal for today was to start at Sea Paradise for half of the day then head over to Yokohama Cosmoworld for the evening. This changed the wetter it got.
Its a little bit of a journey to get to Sea Paradise as it is on a literal island at the southern part of Yokohama.To get there you have to take the Negishi Line to Shin-Sugita Station and board the SeaSide Line to the Hakkejima station. It took more than an hour or so to get to from Tokyo on a regular train, but it can be much faster if you take the shinkansen to Yokohama.
Going back to the SeaSide Line, it seemed to be the cleanest and most well kept of the train lines that I’ve traveled on the trip. I also kind of found it interesting that they had an anime character promoting the line as they had tons of posters up and even selling specially themed bottles of water and souvenirs in the drink machines.
Built in 1993, Sea Paradise (also called Sea Para) is located completely on a manmade island in Tokyo Bay. The park opened to be both a marine life park with also a bunch of rides scattered throughout the park. The park’s star coaster Surf Coaster Leviathan built by Togo, opened with the park and is still operating. The park did have a small wild mouse coaster in the early 2000’s, but that apparently only lasted several seasons.The park is also have to the famous Blue Fall drop tower and classic shoot-the-chute attractions. It’s newest addition is a 3-story wooden structure where you have to find 10 locations by navigating through a ton of crazy puzzles and doorways and not go off the course.
I looked a little bit into who owns Sea Paradise and it turns out it is owned by a Japanese holding company called the Seibu Group. They apparently also own many different hotels, ski resorts, transportation lines, shopping malls, and even a few Hawaiian resorts in Hawaii. They also own Toshimaen and Seibuen Amusement Park (both parks that I didn’t visit on this trip).
Admission to Sea paradise is free, but you can either purchase individual ride tickets priced from ¥100 to ¥1000 (approx. $0.88 to $8.80), a One Day pass for the aquarium and unlimited rides for ¥5050 (approx. $44.45) or Paradise Naitopasu (Paradise Night Pass for admission after 4pm) for ¥3300 (approx. $29.04). There are several uncharge attractions such as the Aqua Theater show for ¥500 (approx. $4.40), Ice House, and the wooden maze structure, but there is a slight discount for them if you have a one day pass.
After taking a long train ride down to Sea Paradise, we walked across a long bridge and were greeted by the park’s entrance area, which housed a huge carousel with several restaurants and games around it. So far things were mostly dry, but that would change as soon as we walked straight towards Leviathan after receiving our wristbands. We figured once it started to drizzle, things would start closing and it would affect our plan to his Yokohama Cosmoworld later on.
The park itself kind of looks like it hasn’t changed a whole lot since it first opened in 1993, but they have done an excellent job at upkeep and making sure the park stays clean. The main kids area is themed to Cartoon Network, which was odd, but it does kind of make me wonder why that franchise hasn’t been brought to any US parks.
Before Leviathan, I only had experience with Shockwave when it came to Togo coasters and went in expecting to have my spine split in half. While the train was a little cramped and did feature stomach guard restraints for some reason, it really wasn’t half bad! It was pretty smooth, had a pop of air or two, and the turns were still oddly formed, but were tolerable. Miraculously they were running it in the rain as well and had water jets set up at several places along the track! Only took one lap on it due to time constraints, but would definitely make the journey back to the park to ride it again.
This was kind of dumb on our part but Blue Fall was operating at this point, but instead of heading straight there like we should’ve, we went to check out the dolphins and then grab a Japanese style fast food meal at Lotteria in the food court (it was good other than the chicken I got was kind of rubbery compared to what you can get stateside).
After finding out that Blue Fall was closed, we went and checked out the main aquarium building, which was home to tons of different species and kind of reminded me much of the Baltimore Aquarium. We next decided to check out the Wooden structure and see how well we stacked up. You have three different courses to pick from that each make their way through the 3-story structure and at 10 different locations you need to get your passport stamped. Along the way, you have to go through doors that open a certain way, climb above, over, and around wooden gaps and holes but if you go out a certain way, you’re disqualified. Three of us went in, but we eventually separated to try to search and spot the stamp locations and were never able to meet back up. They got as far as the 3rd and 5th stations, but I managed to make it to the 7th on the top floor before accidentally going out the wrong door.
We discovered an Intamin rapids ride behind the aquarium building and figured on taking a ride considering we are already soaked… we ended up not getting wet by the ride at all, but it did wrap around a dolphin backstage area, which was pretty cool.
By this point the heavier rain was starting to approach and we decided to wrap up the visit and see about heading up to Yokohama and try to get the Dive Coaster credit, but first we rode the Shoot-the-Chutes. This ride is modeled just about exactly like those old water rides from the history books where you board a boat at the top of a long ramp, slide down and splash into a open pond below. The operators who ride the boat while standing used to jump into the air once it hit the water and land back on the boat, but they don’t do that anymore.
After waiting for the rest of the group back at the carousel, we headed out and attempted to try to get to Yokohama Cosmoworld before the rain got worse. Plan B was to hit Joyopolis instead.
Find out in the next update whether I get the Dive Coaster Vanish credit or the Veil of Dark credit!