Photo TR: Hirakata Park, Japan

Hello TPR!

Weather was very good today in the Kansai region so me and a friend deceided to check out the amusement park Hirakata Park, located in ... Hirakata. After a short train ride we arrived at the park. The park itself was rather busy but we never had to wait more than 5 min. for an attraction (I think we waited more at a food stand than for any ride!). Since noone really cares about long pieces of text I'll just tell my day by using photos!

Yay we finally made it to Hirakata Park. Btw yes, the K of Park is missing, it's my fault.

The park is rather hilly, you can see the ferriswheel and the wooden coaster being all high in the air. Also, random cardboard guy in the front!

That's right, the wooden coaster is called Elf. It stands for Episode of Little Fairies. I was more than confused about the name cause there's not a single fairy in sight, let alone an episode of them! What the hell?!?

I was really looking forward to the wooden coaster since R&E said it's good. Here you can see that it's a medium sized rollercoaster.

This is how a day at a themepark should always be!

Really liked the trains cause they felt very open and comfortable even though they look very standard.

POV!!

Seriously though, for it's size, this coaster was a hell lot of fun. It's difficult to photograph but the coaster is basically drop-turn-drop-turn-... untill you hit the brakes!

You simply can't beat the feeling of a wooden coaster. As I said, this is a medium sized one but you still get that out-of-controll feeling that I love about woodies.

And because everyone loves a POV, I shot one with permission of the operator. Hope you enjoy it!

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=MVI_6877_9cc5[/coastertube]

Also something that I noticed is that the front gives a MUCH better ride than the back. In the front you get pushed up the hill and you get alot more airtime than when you're in the back. Maybe this has something to do with the short trains? Either way I didn't get the 'airtime cause I'm being pulled down a hill' feeling in the back.

Moving on, we come to this cluster of coasters and rides.

Red Falcon, the BIG rollercoaster. Better believe the sign boy!

This is one of those infamous japanese jet coasters that are all over the place but hardly do anything.

This one had OSR but there are no inversions! Also, is it me or is the track freakishly wide? I think this had to be the widest rollercoaster track I've ever seen!

Seriously though, the coaster wasn't that bad. Sure the hills weren't steep nor deep enough, but the coaster did have some high speed moments and ofcourse a helix with insane headchoppers. Also, some of the track looked like there were some mistakes made. A high speed turn didn't have banking at all but then it suddenly banks for a slow turn and so on. It was fun though.

They also have a logflume which is fun, but why did they put a shield at the front?!? You didn't get wet at all, except for a few droplets. Japanese people sure don't like getting wet...

Here you can see some of the other rides. There was also a spinning mouse rollercoaster which didn't spin at all.

Time for more Intamin goodness! (btw, Meteo? Shouldn't that be Meteor or something??)

Poor Meteo probably gets made fun of every day by it's bigger brothers all over the world, but it was still a nice ride, and I prefer an Intamin drop ride anyday over an S&S one.

"Fantastic Coaster Rowdy" Sounds fanatstic eh? Well it sucked. It's basically a big kiddie coaster with jerky movements and very tight turns. No more pictures need to be posted about this piece of crap.

The street with food stalls was themed nicely.

The garbage bins in this park are screaming for waste!! It's as if they have their own mind!

This was themed nicely too, but it's not part of an attraction or something.

Obligatory big japanese ferris wheel.

Here you can have an idea of how Elf's layout it. It's basically a circle with a figure eight inside.

And here's some of the rest of the park. We didn't do the kiddie coaster in the front because we're not credit whores.

This was the first time I did one of these disk things, and I was pleasantly surprised (and also unpleasantly naucious!)

There was also a rapids ride. This one actually got you a bit wet unlike the logflume, but notice the plastic hanging over the seats to stop the water. Lame!

Also, these signs were everywhere in the que, telling you to watch out because you will get wet. Kinda unnecessairy when you're queing for a WATER ride.

After every run the ride ops would dry the inside of the boats with a towel. Only in Japan, only in Japan.

Here you can actually see the towel rack with all the wet towels they have used to dry the boats.

And one last picture of Elf sitting there high above us and looking down on us.

Thank you for reading.

Thanks for the photos. Hope you had a lovely day.

Thats an amazing park I love the photos!!! That must have been a great day! Thanks for the amazing pictures!

The quirky yet awesome culture of Japan seems to have an effect on their theme parks.....

In a good way.

Hey, nice pics, thx! I was there the 24th of April! It was a nice little park and a welcome bonus, but without a standout ride.

The Elf coaster was a real dissapointement! Almost no airtime (even frontseat), not enough speed and the train really shook your body, wich made it an unpleasant ride. By far the worst Intamin ever! GCI would've done a much better job with the same space and coasterspecs.

Next up was Red Falcon, the big rollercoaster. It's big, enough said. This is a good example of how you can actually rape a coaster of this size. The track looks like it could fall apart at any moment ! Or is it normal that the whole break zone, just before entering the station, moves like there's an earthquake of 6 on the Richter scale? Also a new paintjob would do miracles on all the rust. And what's the deal on the train? I'm 6 ft 1 and it was impossible for me to sit in the backseats of a car. Even the front 2 seats don't give a lot of leg space. Clearely made for the Japanese market!

Another 'what the hell is this' moment came when I rode the log flume. It bends nicely through some coasters; but wich drunk person has put on those giant windows on top of the logs? Looks like it's absolutely forbidden to get wet! Or the water is contaminated with all sorts of bacteria. It's just ridiculous, with a BIG R. Like you mentioned, the same for the covers on the rapids' seats. Altough I didn't ride it because it was closed.

In the mean time I could'nt quiet understand this park. And it was about to get worse. Why buy a Reverchon 'spinning' coaster if you're not going to let it spin? Can anyone please get me the owner? Or is he yet again drunk?

The last 2 things I did was the circus darkride and the fantastic coaster Rowdy. To make things short: get the bulldozers!

The darkride is like 50 yards long and has animatronics of the early 1900's. Rowdy, which is appearantely a pirate, has drank to much rum. How is it possible that a train goes a couple of inches left to right on a straight piece of track? You get a good idea of how good the wheels make contact to the track.

Anyway, I had a couple of hours of mediocre fun. And if you're in the neighboorhood, drop in. It does have 5 credits! (Yes, I did the kiddie coaster, I'm a whore ).

Here some of my pictures if I may:

Nice!

Collection of all kinds of kiddie flatrides

The 'awesome' circus darkride...not

It's actually BIG!

What? It's a credit !

Dry rapid river.

I don't know about this one

It looks nice, but it isn't

When riding the log flume, you get a nice view on red falcon.

Red Falcon, Elf and the 'not so' Fantastic Coaster Rowdy

That's interesting that you visited the park just a couple of days earlier. You really didn't like Elf? I thought that for it's size it delivered a great ride. The roughness is very tolerable IMO and adds to the ride.

Haha I'm glad I wasn't the only one noticing how Red Falcon's track shook on the brake run. Kinda scary isn't it Also, have you done the gnome-themed shooting dark ride? That was soo bad and way too short. Funny thing is they had 2 ride ops for a ride that had no people coming to it while at Elf or Red Falcon they had 1 person doing everything. Strange...

Thank you for your input!

Oh and I see you're Belgian too

So they have water rides but don't want you to get wet? I know a robot out there just short-circuited from that paradox lol

The park looks pretty nice though

But is it just me or is Elf another Coney Island Cyclone-clone?

That's interesting that you visited the park just a couple of days earlier. You really didn't like Elf? I thought that for it's size it delivered a great ride. The roughness is very tolerable IMO and adds to the ride.

 

Haha I'm glad I wasn't the only one noticing how Red Falcon's track shook on the brake run. Kinda scary isn't it Also, have you done the gnome-themed shooting dark ride? That was soo bad and way too short. Funny thing is they had 2 ride ops for a ride that had no people coming to it while at Elf or Red Falcon they had 1 person doing everything. Strange...

 

Thank you for your input!

 

Oh and I see you're Belgian too

No, I really didn't like it. Like I said, GCI would've done a better job with it. It's like Pegasus (RIP) at Efteling, it's crap IMO.

The shaking at the brake run is that scary, it almost made me crap my pants! And it's also the reason I didn't rode it again

I didn't do the shooting dark ride, simply because I didn't know there was one, haha.

And yes, I'm from Belgium , not something I'm proud of though!

@ coasterking2981: no, it's not a coney Island Cyclone-clone. That one is much better than this one IMO

^You should probably stop going to Japanese parks if you're looking for GCI Quality and Disney style dark rides.

That's not what the Japanese parks are, they're quirky and fun!

^You should probably stop going to Japanese parks if you're looking for GCI Quality and Disney style dark rides.

 

That's not what the Japanese parks are, they're quirky and fun!

Or just go to Parque Espana, which is all of the above: GCI.. err.. B&M quality, Disney style dark rides, quirky, and fun!

Excellent TR wrebbit. I'm hoping to go to Hirakata Park on a return trip to Japan someday... it looks like a fun place.

Awesome PTR! Thanks for sharing!

I had no idea Hirakata was such a large park. The water rides look really fun, even with those plastic shields that keep you from getting wet.

Is Elf an Intamin? (I can see that the trains are...even though they look like PTC's with a T-bar.)

Is Elf an Intamin? (I can see that the trains are...even though they look like PTC's with a T-bar.)

Yes it's made by Intamin,but not a plug&play.