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The Official "TPR Japan Trip 2007" Thread


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^^^ Thank goodness they never fill up, hey?

 

The queues at water parks in Japan i found similarly over the top in terms of length, however they actually filled up.

 

I dont know what its like for those of you in other parts of the world, but in Aussieland there is no way i would wait longer than 10mins for a go down a water slide o.O

 

Edit: Then again, the eye candy at water parks is good enough during the wait in Japan. =P

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Overall, I really liked Nagashima Spaland...so much so that I opted to miss going to get 3 extra credits at the zoo park just so I could stay and enjoy NS longer.

 

That's what I did with Universal Osaka, and the sidetrip to EXPOland. Not leaving one to do the other.

 

Even though I really REALLY enjoyed NS a lot, at the time we (myself, Robb, Shane, Miles and....Barry???) sort of decided to hit the zoo, I was ready to go anyway, lol. The only thing that might have kept me there longer, is if they opened the right side of the mouse pair.

 

But they didn't. Their loss, heh heh.

 

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Well when I get back to Fuji-Q I can easily skip one or two of the main credits, and then enjoy what other attractions the park has to offer

 

including that Haunted Hospital

 

walk-through, heh heh.

 

The total of four+ hours in two lines did not help in our touring planning etc. there.

 

And so it goes...

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I'd love to have done the Haunted Hospital when i was there.

We waited in the gift shop (exit of the attraction) for about 10mins checking out the toys and all these girls kept coming out crying... i'd love to see why =P

 

Then again, a 50min walkthrough 'scary' ride would rock! Even if you do have to wait ~1:30hours in line.

 

I dont understand fully why Fuji-Q gets such a bagging either. Its a solid park with plenty to do, just the lines get tedious!

 

Was Expoland opened again? It was closed still in July; we had to divert to Hirakata instead ='(

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"Why are the lines at Fuji-Q so much longer than Parque Espana?"

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WARNING! ROBB RANT AHEAD!!!

 

I dont understand fully why Fuji-Q gets such a bagging either. Its a solid park with plenty to do, just the lines get tedious!

For me personally I think it's completely unacceptable for a park as major as Fuji-Q for it to be such a hassle to ride the parks top three coasters.

 

Basically just about every coaster in that park is a low capacity train wreck. And even Fujiyama with a two train operation took us over an hour to get on with a line that seemed like the SFMM Goliath crew could sweep through in about 20 to 30 minutes.

 

And on top of that, at least to me, none of the coasters are really that great.

 

Fujiyama is probably my favorite of the top three, but even still after the first 2 or 3 drops, it just meanders pointlessly back to the station.

 

Dodonpa was about as uncomfortable as a launched coaster could possibly be and waiting in that 2+ hour line is just brutal with that annoying sound FX and a queue that moves about 10 people every 15 minutes.

 

Eejanika you already know my thoughts on.

 

Zola 7, the Wild Mouse, Hamster Coaster, and Thomas Tank coaster are all painfully low capacity and should NEVER have been installed into a park that draws such a huge crowd. I mean, WTF, they have a Wild Mouse that seats only TWO people at a time! A park like Fuji-Q should NOT be operating a ride like that!!!

 

I seriously think that when they got rid of the Douple Loop they took out the highest capacity coaster in the park!

 

People wonder why we've never done the haunted hospital and as much as I'd like to, after waiting in a number of 2-3 hour lines for a major coaster and 1-2 hour lines for the minor rides, you're just completely worn out, frustrated, and want to get the hell out of there.

 

On this last visit we were at the park for nearly 9 hours and there were some people in our group who only got on 3 or 4 rides! How can you NOT rip on a park where that happens?

 

Fuji-Q should be putting in coasters like Pyrenees and Hollywood Dream that chew through people as quickly as humanly possible. Not these stupid 2, 4 or 8 people per train rides!

 

Think about it, here's arguably the busiest park in Japan outside of Disney and Universal and they operate: Wild Mouse - 2 people per car, Hamster Coaster - 2 people per car, Zola 7 - 4 people per car, Dodonpa - 8 people per car, Thomas Coaster 6 or 12 people per train depending on the riders size, Eejanaika - 20 people per train, Fujiyama - 28 riders per train. Does anyone else see a problem with this?!?!

 

And on top of that, they are all dispatched very SLOWLY.

 

If a park like Knoebel's is considered to be "hassle free" then Fuji-Q is the polar opposite of that. I don't think I've been at a park where in order to simply stand in line for a coaster, I'm met with various hassles.

 

And in this example I'm talking about my experience about just even being allowed to get in line for Eejanaika where they had given out "60 minutes worth" of exit passes after the ride broke down, so therefore they wouldn't let people enter the queue until they had given the exit rider people a 60 minute window to get back to the ride.

 

It just made NO SENSE. How about loading all the exit pass people on one side of the train and your other paying guests on the other? But instead we had to stand there and watch trains go half-empty because there weren't enough "exit pass people" to fill the trains. They were all stuck in yet another ridiculously long, slow moving line for a mediocre coaster on the other side of the park.

 

Pathetic.

 

As much as everyone likes to rip on Fuji-Q, I've come to the conclusion that it's not truly hated. It's the park you LOVE to hate! Can't wait for the Fuji-Q update!

 

No no, trust me. I truly hate it. There is absolutely nothing at all I LOVE about that place. Now that I've had two equally horrible visits, it really is on bottom of my list of "major" parks. In fact, at this moment I can't think of a major park that I feel is worse. IMO, it really is that bad.

 

For a country that prides themselves on structure and efficiency, Fuji-Q is an embarrassment to the Japanese culture.

 

--Robb "And that's why I hate the place." Alvey

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^^ Fair enough comments, Robb. I'll agree with them as well in hind sight.

 

However when you compare the park (particularly the quality of rides and the lines) to what i have had experience with locally (i havent been to Europe or the USA) its a pretty tops park; would explain my low standards i guess.

 

I also had a truly magical evening that night with my girly so i only have good memories!

 

 

"Do - don - pahhhh"

 

 

*Swigs a beer*

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Ironically, the Thomas coaster had the shortest line in the whole park. I think most of our group waited less than 5 minutes for it! Still, even with the short line, I skipped it. I was just too warn out from the 1.5 hour Dodopa wait, 3.25 hour Japanese X wait, and 30 minute (I think) wait for the Wild Mouse.

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I agree with everything that's been said about Fuji Q. I was for me this was most disappointing park of the trip. For two weeks we had seen just how efficient Japan was how well places like Disney and Universal handle large crowds. Now we come to Fuji Q and we get one, two even three hour waits!!. Even the two non coaster attractions I wanted to do(Haunted Hospital and the Gundam walk though) had nearly 2 hour waits and I had skip them. This was the only park on the trip I didn't get to do everything I wanted to do. Not mention it wasn't even a very nice park it was one of the most ghetto of the ghetto parks we went too. The only good thing from that day was the cool Gundam shirt I bought. Oh yea I found a frozen fly in my ice cream too .

 

Fuji Q sucks!!!

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But would you/me/we go back to Fuji-Q and get the other credits and rides/attractions, if it was on the schedule for a future TPR Japan trip?

 

I would. Simple. Don't do Eeeej. Or DoWop. Or that indoor one.

 

I will go for the rodents, and the Haunted Hosptial.

 

And damnit, get my squid-on-a-stick before they run out of them!

 

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Fuji-Queue

 

I don't care if I ever go back. I have been there twice now and on both occasions I have had enough time just to ride the coasters and do nothing else. The multiple hour waits on a number of the rides were unacceptable.

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Just a random thought...I know some of the group went to Fuji-Q on a weekday rather than on a weekend (like most of us did, on a Saturday no less). I wonder how weekday vs. weekend crowds were like. Would that have made any difference in our wait times? I would assume not, but I'm curious.

 

I know I went to SFMM on a Friday in September and crowds were pretty light. I hate to see what crowds were like on Saturday!

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Barry - I went on the Friday and the operating efficiency was no less than the Saturday and hence the 'Q's' (which I realise must be where Fuji Q takes its name) were not much different and I guess the crowds were similar.

 

(and remember we went on the Saturday so we could all get the best chance of riding given the weather forecast trauma at the time)

 

On the plus side there was no rain once we arrived at the park so the wait time for J-X was a standard one and a half hours with 2 trains running in random fashion. Dodonpa went down (with a line of again 1 and a half hours minimum already) but I obtained one of the dubious 'fastpass' ticket things...which in reality are raincheck passes and after much technical delay managed to leap on the ride about 3 hours later (along with Shane and Miles) with about 2 minutes to spare before we had to high tail it out of the park for the bus back.

 

Incidently and noting Robb's comments about the issuing of 600 raincheck tickets for J-X on the Saturday, they are meant to work differently to how they put it in practice.

 

The tickets are issued in numbered batches and the park is meant to announce over the loud speaker system for example 'All you losers with rain check tickets numbered 35 please proceed immediately to the ride or forever miss the golden opportunity' and so on in reasonably spaced intervals so everyone isn't held up en masse. That would have made sense if they had applied their own rules I guess.

 

This was explained to us, and realising we wouldn't recognize an announcement if it smacked us in the face with squid on a stick, we just played dumb and turned up and got messed around anyway.

 

All it meant to me was I got the other credits I missed on the Friday on the Saturday, but still there was no time to do haunted mansion walk through stuff etc.

 

I did have a great afternoon on Saturday re-riding Fujiyama which had the shortest line and you could actually clear it in approx 35 mins.

 

I would go back all the same on the off chance I can get much better views of Mount Fuji which is simply stunning, and on the plus side on Friday was mostly visible. Other than that I've got the UK parks if I feel the need for ghetto.

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But would you/me/we go back to Fuji-Q and get the other credits and rides/attractions, if it was on the schedule for a future TPR Japan trip?

 

Nope. I hope to never see Fuji-Q again. That place was the hellhole of the damned, and I'd rather spend the day poking myself with sharp things rather than wait around all day for craptacular coasters. Seriously, when Hamtaro is the best ride there, your ride collection might not be up to par.

 

I really think that any future trips to Japan include Fuji-Q as an option, where you can take that bus to the park if you like. I'll spend my money at a park where I'm actually treated like a customer and will actually have some fun.

 

Actually, I should take that back, I did have fun at Fuji-Q. But it wasn't because of any of the rides or anything, it's because Falafel is awesome and the two of us together equals entertainment, and we would have a good time in a field of broken bottles. Which I probably should not have typed here, as I've given them an idea, and Im sure the Shattered Glass Playzone will soon be announced as their 2008 attraction...

 

dt

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It's so sad that it's evolved into the crap hole it is. I remember 1998 at Fujikyu as something entirely different. It had some amazing, and at the time, world record breaking, coasters. At least to me, as I'd not ridden anything over 200 feet, and they had 2 of them, no less!

 

Moonsault Scramble may have been an overly intense reverse boomerang, but damn... it was wild.

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I never thought I'd say it, but...

 

I enjoyed my visit to SFMM!

 

Sure, SFMM had a 1 train operation on all coasters (except for Riddler's Revenge and Tatsu for 1-2 hours), an employee used profanity over the loadspeakers at Goldrusher, and a kid was kicked off Golitah for being too short and the ride ops didn't bother to measure them. But after experiencing Fuji-Q, SFMM looked like Disney in comparison!

 

Come on guys, stop bashing SFMM until you've visited Fuji-Q!

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Next up! Lagunasia. This was a quirky little park that we had never been to before. The park itself was VERY well themed and had an amazing looking pool with some slides in the middle of the park, with all the dry rides around the perimeter.

 

The coasters themselves were all compact but very good! There was a Gerstlauer bobsled "Aqua Wind" (or "Wet Fart" we we renamed it) that wasn't as insane as the Klotten version, but had some great moments of air and fun indoor/outdoor sections.

 

"Pirate's Blast" was the new for 2007 coaster which was mostly a jerky ride through some "dark ride" like sets. We were told this is where the Indiana Jones style dark ride used to be, but it was removed to make room for the new coaster.

 

And then the highlight, at least for me, was a bizarre dark ride called "Magical Powder" which was based on a factory that made some kind of happy drug that turns boys into men and makes fat people thin! SERIOUSLY!!!! I love Japan!

 

Anyway.....

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And finally we leave you with "Meat Cow." Probably the coolest thing we found in all the Japanese capsule machine! (Ask Dave or Falafel to sing the song for you!) Meat Cow had other friends such as "Meat Chicken" and "Meat Fish" which informed you what all the animals body parts where. It's educational, weird, and FUN!!! =)

 

Thanks to Mark, Chuck, Dan, Falafel, and Jeff for contributing photos to this update!)

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My Melody agrees! Lagunasia kicks ass!

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"When your underwear goes squish, squish, squish, you know it was a good ride!!! Oh, you meant about the log flume.....!"

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Judging by the look on Chris' face, Lou is about to get a little bit wetter! :D

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"Did you feel something on your back? I think we might have gotten wet...but I'm not quite sure."

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I'm pretty sure the log flume was kind of wet.

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The only thing "stellar" about it is that Elissa gets a credit! Yay!!!!

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There was one more coaster credit in the park, the "Stellar Coaster."

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And yes you CAN by cans of this stuff at the exit gift shop!!! (No, it didn't turn Joey into a man, just in case you're wondering...)

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There is so much happiness in this ride that it threatens my manhood!

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Grandpa Elf has been taking the stuff for years and as you can see he's doin' just fiiiiiiiine....

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The happy elves work in a factory filled with cake, little duckies, and rodents. Yeah, I'm thinking there was some "Magical Powder" used in the design of this attraction!

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This guy was like the "Giant Toast Monster!"

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So the ride vehicles were these half-circle "lounge cars" that turned to face the other way half way through the ride. Very bizarre!

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Joey, look! This one can make you a man!!! =)

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Magical Powder....yeah, Joey knows ALL about this stuff! *cough* Grog *cough*

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Bob's way too happy. Chuck's all "I think I just swallowed my pancreas."

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Car load of losers!

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Aqua Wind was GREAT! It was a cross between a Wild Mouse and a Bobsled coaster. Good airtime and some fun indoor bits!

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We nick named it "Wet Fart"

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"What just happened?"

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Ryan and Robb are not as sexy as the Japanese girls in the back.

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"Hello Mr. Pirate's Blast sign. Are you this new for 2007 coaster?" "Yup!" "Cha-CHING!"

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Joey hangs out with his new retarded walrus friend! He named him "Jules."

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This is what you see when you walk into the park. Great setting! You can see some of the coasters in the background.

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The fort style entrance to Lagunasia. Very nice.

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Dammit, I forgot to get my portable ashtray!!!

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"Please don't let this be a group of loser coaster enthusiasts....ah crap...."

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