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The Official "TPR Japan Trip 2007" Thread


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^Haha, I'll see if I can convince him to get importing to the US

 

Oh and thanks guys for the updates, it must take quite a bit of effort to do them, especially so long after you've been and the initial enthusiasm's died down a bit. It's much appreciated!

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Hey. I was just stumbling online right now, and I found this awesome picture of Yokohama at night.

 

It shows Cosmo world and everything. I just thought it was cool, and works with the last update. (Picture by Takashi Suglura)

 

BTW. Its a panorama, so you might have to move your cursor left or right to find the park.

 

Cosmoworld Panorama Night Shot

 

Enjoy, and I can't wait for the next update, or last

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Did you get a ride on the spinning coaster?

We saw heaps of those spinning coaster/mouse things all over Japan and Cosmoworld was the first one we saw which actually spun! All the others were locked it place.

 

No.

 

Unfortunately, the spinning coaster was down the day the tour hit the park.

 

Ah well, another time, another credit to get, lol.

 

The one at LaQua spun pretty nicely.

 

Not crazy-spin. But not locked.

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The one at LaQua spun pretty nicely.

 

Not crazy-spin. But not locked.

Buwahaha, that was down when we went through.

Actually a lot of LaQua was closed when we went through that day -.-

Only the horseshoe shaped thing and Thunder Dolphin was open.

Coupled with a pathetic range of shops (we were bikini shopping ) i wasnt too impressed with the whole LaQua experience.

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Now it's time for a little bit of Fuji-Q!

 

I've already mentioned a bit about our day at Fuji-Q. You can find Robb's Fuji-Q Rant and Robb's Eejanaika review as part of this whole update.

 

But to bring you all up to speed, here are some of my thoughts...

 

I want to like Fuji-Q...I really...REALLY do...but both times I've visited I come away thinking "Wow....this really IS one of the worst parks in the world!" And now that we've had two visits 3 years apart and it's been consistant both times, I really don't have a lot of hope that all of a sudden we'll visit again and come away thinking anything different.

 

Most of the people in the group thought the same thing. Sure there were a few people who thought Fuji-Q was great. And while I don't understand how someone could like it, I respect their opinions.

 

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.

 

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!!!

 

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!

 

Eejanika you can read my full review HERE, but basically I hated it. Perhaps if you're a fan of X you'll love it. Or if you don't mind coasters that give you a good beating, you'll find it acceptable, but my ride was easily one of the worst coaster rides I've ever taken. It was right up there with the original Outer Limits with the over the shoulder restraints. Even with all the EXTREME padding that Eejanaika had it still beat me up. Download the POV clip below. You can see exactly what I'm talking about!

 

Now maybe if the parks operations didn't suck so bad and I was able to choose my own seat I would have had a better ride. But I had no choice and I got stuck on the outside seat of the last row.

 

Oddly enough 4 weeks later I rode X in the exact same seat and it was much, MUCH smoother. So I don't know what went wrong with Eejanaika, but wow. It's not often I get off a coaster and it gives me a headache for the rest of the day.

 

And on top of it, the ride was closed when we got there. Why? Because of rain! Wait a minute...WHAT RAIN!?!? There was a light drizzle and it closed for the first hour we got there.

 

And once it opened they wouldn't even let us in the queue! Why? Because they had given out "60 minutes worth" of exit passes after the ride initially went down due to "rain", 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 waiting guests on the other? But instead we had to stand there and watch 60 minutes worth of trains go half-empty because there weren't enough "exit pass people" to fill the trains. And where were these "exit pass people?" Why I'm sure they were all stuck in yet another ridiculously long, slow moving line for a mediocre coaster on the other side of the park.

 

Anyway. The park sucks. But it's one of those places you HAVE to go to in Japan...at least once. Why? I'm actually not sure. But it's one of the biggest parks in Japan so it needs to be done.

 

Just don't expect to have a good time....

 

Anyway, onto some photos!

eejanaika_pov.zip

Eejanaika POV Clip. So you can see exactly how brutal this ride really is!

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And finally we leave you with a disturbing image to be burned into your brain. KidTums with cleavage!!!!

 

Special Thanks to Chuck (cfc), Lou, Tom, Dan, Joey, Jeff, Falafel and Mark for donating photos to this update!

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Yeah, dude...my thoughts exactly!

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"Four....not even FOUR people can ride this coaster at time!"

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"Two...We've been here all day and I've only been on TWO coasters so far...."

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Creepy....just plain creepy! =)

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"Two....We've been waiting TWO hours so far...."

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...and aparently that guy rode the back, outside seat of Eejanaika!

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I think this poster is entitled "The many faces of Fuji-Q" I see, pain, frustration, annoyance, shock, surprise....

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This was probably the most entertaining thing in the park!

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Dondonpa. One of only two S&S thrust air coasters in the world...soon to be the only one! =)

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"Yay! I only had to wait 60 minutes for this coaster!!!"

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Oh, wait, no....would you believe that they have a wait time posted to get FOOD!!! WTF is wrong with this place?!?!?

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Let's go get something to eat! This shouldn't be a hassle, right?

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So back to the rest of crappy Fuji-Q.

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Money Shot!!!

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"Hi. I'm a 4D coaster. Wanna spend the night in a cheap motel?"

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Raven turns get me HOT!

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Mmm....you know you want me, baby!

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Do I make you horny?

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But for you guys into this coaster...here's a few pics for you.

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I just don't understand how or why this one ended up being so bad! Everyone told us "Oh, it's SOooooo much better than X!' "It's so smooth!!!" Um....Were you smoking CRACK when you rode this?!?!

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Yay! The end is near!

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"PLEASE MAKE IT END!!!"

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Not even sure what part this is...

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Full-Full my ass! It should be called the SLAM-SLAM!

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Here's the "full-full" or whatever it's called. All I know is that it hurt.

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This part? Yeah you're getting your ass kicked now.

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First drop. Not that painfull.

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"It kind of feels like the Michael Vick Experience...but without the dog fighting!" (check YouTube for what the Micahel Vick Experience is!)

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Japanese X - somehow, it's worse than SFMM's X. And oddly enough SFMM's X is running really good right now!

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It was long, but not very girthy! What do you expect? It's Japanese! =)

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Along with having very long lines, they also have very long hot dogs!

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It's important for the deer to know where to put their rubbish.

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We think this says "By the time you get out of this line, you will have aged one year." Jeff Johnson was too afraid to get in line!!!

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"We are all so exhausted from waiting in lines for crappy rides...can we PLEASE leave now?!?!"

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Oh, only 3 and a half hours! So let's see, in order to ride the parks "big three" coasters, you'll be waiting in line for about 7 hours and fifteen minutes! NO JOKE! How is this acceptable?!?!

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And how long for Eejanaika?

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2 and a half hours later, you get to do this!

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Dodonpa's line was spilling out into the midway.

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Everywhere you look...long lines. This is Fujiyama at about 75 minutes long. Which, oddly enough was one of the SHORTEST lines of the day!!!

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Thomas Town is probably the nicest looking section of the park.

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But a lot of the park just looks like this. Ugly asphault areas with rides slapped down.

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Fuji-Q. Looks really nice when you are driving up to it....

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Most awesome picture of KidTums yet, but what a wretched, wretched place--and I'm not that hard to amuse.

 

You have my sympathy for next year, Robb, Elissa, and KidTums--no one should have to endure FujiQueue three times in one decade.

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I gotta agree with you Robb. When I went in 2003 during Christmas, the lines SUCKED and it wasn't even crowded! I guess I was lucky to get on Dodonpa in about 1.5 hours and Fujiyama in about 45 minutes. Of course, as soon as we got there, we were informed that they didn't take any credit cards. WHAT???

 

The only redeeming part of the whole day was when we got this awesome picture of us taken in front of Mt. Fuji. One of my favorite pics from one the worst parks in the world!

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Great update!

Wow three and a half hours for a credit. Hmmm is it worth it?

 

Probably not.

Luckily Elissa and I didn't wait that long. Since we already had all the other credits in the park we went over to Eejanaika while it was closed and waited it out.

 

We waited about 45 minutes for it to re-open, 60 minutes for the "exit pass" people to return, and then about 15 minutes once they let us in the queue.

 

So our wait was only about 2 hours. But most people in our group waited anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours for it.

 

--Robb

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I think I'm under the impression that the 4D coasters don't age with time as much as they just spoil. It's a shame that coasters considered real destination coasters reside in such a craptastic park and don't live up to the hype. Now I ask, which is a worse ride: Eejanaika or Manhattan Express Roller Coaster Death Machine at New York New York?

 

KidTums' face says it all. Adorable picture by the way.

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So our wait was only about 2 hours. But most people in our group waited anywhere from 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours for it.

 

Someone can correct me about the time, but I believe that we waited about 2.5 hours with about 3 more trains before we rode, then it broke down. (I think that the line had only got down two 2.5 hours at this point anyway.) When they got it running, they decided it would be better to take one train off. Gawd, that sucked! Total wait was about 3:20.

 

Now I ask, which is a worse ride: Eejanaika or Manhattan Express Roller Coaster Death Machine at New York New York?

 

Without a doubt, Eejanaika! In fact, I'd rather sit on Goudurix or Manhattan Express for an hour before riding that POS again! (Well, maybe not Goudurix. But you get the idea.)

 

ME seems like a Schwartzkopf compared to Euthanasia.

 

JJ

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My God.

 

I can't even tell if Elissa is making a fake-sheer terror face or not.

 

But the fact that this video cussing section was even worse than Manhattan Express' says it all.

 

Dan "Today's show is brought to you by the word 'OMGWTFBBQDAMMIT!!1!' Smith

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Dude that would make for an awesome Godzilla movie. Have dinosaurs erupt out of Mt. Fuji, then they totally stomp FujiQ to the ground on their march to Tokyo where of course Godzilla appears out of the bay to kill them all.

 

Steven Speilberg, are you listening???

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I will comment as I am in the minority on many points of what Robb and many others said....

 

Jeff Waters and I hit up FujiQ a few days before the whole crew to insure we got all the credits.....and good thing because many of us didn't get them all in the one visit. On the first day we got there at opening and headed right to Eejanika. We had to wait about 20 minutes there. Dodonpa was an hour and Fujiyama was 45 minutes on this day (a weekday). The rest of the credits were short waits. That being said, the wait times on the Saturday the whole crew went was ridiculously long. And I agree with many of the comments including the silly rain rules, the inefficiency of the crews to move the lines along and the installation of such low capacity rides.

 

But I absolutely loved Eejanika. As a ride I will probably never ride again, I was glad it was intense and a wild ride. Dodonpa is ridiculously powerful in the launch and the punch in the gut airtime at the tophat is a must do experience. Sadly, due to the long line, I only hit it once. Fujiyama imo is an absolute blast. The airtime is really really good, the layout unique and some of the elements are cool. And you cannot beat the scenery. It is the best scenery of any park (or any place) that I have ever been to.

 

It is sad that the majority of us had a bad experience. It is capable of so much. But, my opinion is in the minority. I know Jeff Waters had a good time when we went alone and SteveC also enjoyed himself when he went on his side trip to FujiQ. Yes, a few of us skipped out on a 3rd of 4th day at Tokyo Disney / Disney Sea to go to FujiQ on our own!

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