awclark

So I'm back in the states from my 2 week Japan travels, and tbh, I really wish I wasn't because Japan really was just that AMAZING!! But on to the main topic of Fuji-Q, I visited the park just this past Friday, May 24th and had an absolutely FABULOUS visit!!! I won't do a full play by play of our visit, but I'll try to keep it to just the main points... We stayed at the Highland Resort right next to the park for just a single night stay. They're in the midst of a full renovation/expansion, but we stayed in 1 of their freshly renovated rooms on one of the top floors offering a stunning view over the entire park below. The room itself was extremely nice. Fancy Bvlgari branded shampoos/soaps and all if you're into those sort of boujee details. Ate at 1 of the new restaurants which was also great. Bell hops will carry your luggage to your room and go through a full rundown of all the features of the room and resort in as best English as they can. Our stay also included vouchers to the Onsen next door. As a hotel guest, you do get early access to the park in the morning by 15 mins. While that may seem short, those few minutes can be crucial to obtaining the priority fast passes should it be a busy day. Overall would recommend staying here for sure. If you're not staying at the hotel though, it's super easy to get to the park from Tokyo by bus from the Shinjuku station. I would recommend that over taking the trains for sure. Trains you have to transfer a couple times and it takes about 2.5/3 hours. Bus is about the same price and gets you there quicker with obviously no transfers. Moving on however, the weather was CRYSTAL CLEAR for the day of our visit to the park. We purchased our tickets to the park at the front desk the morning of and they directed us downstairs to the private entry into the park from the hotel. Everything uses a facial recognition system for the park. They take a photo of your face upon initial entry into the park and then every ride has the same system once you enter ride stations. To my friend and I, we thought it was pretty cool and it was super quick and efficient, some conspiracy theorists heads may explode over it though. Whatever, we didn't care. Entry from the hotel lead us through a garden into the new Parisian style area up to the main park entry gate where there was a separate entrance for hotel guests, Once they let us in for the early entry, I personally opted to just make a beeline to the main Priority fast pass ticket booth next to the carousel as I thought that would be more efficient to just buy all my fast pass tickets for all rides at the same time versus running ride to to ride to the designated automated machines outside each entrance. This specific fast pass booth didn't open until 5 mins before park opening, but I was first in line so I had no issue getting the tickets I wanted. A lady came out and marked down how many tickets I requested for which rides and for which hour I wanted. Like it's been stated, you can only choose 1 ride for each hour time slot, but you can get multiple tickets for that certain ride. I opted for 2 tickets each for Eejanika and Do-dodonpa and 1 ticket each for Fujiyama and Takabisha. Earliest time slot you can choose however is 1 hour after the park opens, so for us, the park opened at 9am so the first time slot we could choose was 10a, then 11a, and so on. Whole process was finished and paid for by the time the park opened so we were basically set for the day after that. The fast passes are ABSOLUTELY worth the price. They get you pretty much immediate access to the station with no more than a couple train wait I would say. However, I do recommend purchasing no more than 3 tickets for each hour time slot, maybe even no more than 2. If your time slot is over and you still have a ticket left, you're basically SOL as no refunds or exchanges are offered. The line for the fast pass booth was longer later in the day, probably because guests wanted to make sure they got on the major rides before the park closed at 5pm. You don't get to choose your row on all the major coasters, and if you're using fast passes, they will assign you to anything but the first row. I didn't mind though. LOVED the locker system they utilize where they're all free and the key is just on an elastic wristlet that you wear during your ride. Overall operations were actually pretty decent... at least way better than what I had expected from years of reading about how they were horrible. Eejainaka was going super quick, at least in terms of a 4D coaster, and IMO was actually going quicker than I've noticed X2 operations at times. Was running both trains. ABSOLUTELY BONKERS coaster though!!! Blew X2 WAYYYYY out of the water. Glass smooth for me on both inside and outside seats which I thought was shocking! Just blew me away all together Dodonpa's launch was absurdly ridiculous and really does live up to its title of having the worlds most powerful launch. Rest of the ride was just sorta meh to me though. Nothing crazy, a few jerky moments, but still unique and fun nonetheless. Fujiyama was the surprise hit for me and I wish I bought more fast pass tickets for it. The ride attendant assigned us to the back row and my friend and I LOVED every second of the ride. GREAT airtime down every drop and hill, was mostly pretty smooth except for a couple jerky-jerky moments, but nothing painful whatsoever. The funky curvy finale had us laughing the entire way . We came off LOVING it, which yes, I know, shocking from a Togo. Takabisha was our last coaster. Unique coaster for sure. Definitely had the slowest operations of the day, but was a super smooth coaster for us, quite forceful, loved the launch, but I've never really found Eurofighters to really get me going. Just my opinion though. Nothing bad to say, but nothing that made me go "OMG WOAH!" either. Overall, again, it was a fabulous visit for us to Fuji-Q! Definitely didn't experience ANY of the horror stories I've heard and read about over the last decade of knowing about this place, but maybe that's because we lucked out with crystal clear weather and went into the park with a clear plan of attack, or they're trying to turn things around since they're in the midst of celebrating their 50th anniversary of the park... who knows. For us though, things were *mostly* pretty efficient, the park vibe and atmosphere was super friendly, the ride ops were all happy and energetic (and were wearing super cute 50th anniversary birthday cake hats too), food was good, and yea... not many, or really any "bad" things we could say about our visit at all

^Ooo yay!! Perfect! That link will be super helpful for our visit! Will definitely keep an eye on it for our visit next month! Thank you! After some more internet sleuthing around, I was just able to locate a recent park map translated to English and it does show that a "Zekkyo Priority Ticket booth" is next to the Carousel so I'm sure that's it. I'll probably find myself sprinting there upon early entry to queue up for those tickets and just hope they will still be available for any of the "big 4". Hoping for a smooth experience, but if anything is closed or we can't get on everything, that's fine. I'm mainly just excited to go to Japan for the first time

Hey all! So even though it's been over a year since anyones posted in this topic, I still did some digging around first to see whether my questions had already been answered and I didn't find much, so here it goes... My best friend and I are doing a 2 week Japan trip for the first time next month and have been able to fit stops into our itinerary to Tokyo Disney and Fuji-Q (No pitstop at Nagashima unfortunately because it's a bit out of our way for our already packed out schedule). We have managed to book a room at the Highland Resort next door and will be going to the park the following day on Friday May 24th. For the many many years Ive been aware of the park, I've heard basically nothing short of horror stories so I was mainly looking for advice/tips to make our visit as efficient and enjoyable as possible as I'm basically going in completely blind. I've had a bit of a hard time navigating the Fuji-Q website for information, but I've seen you can purchase a "Zekkyo priority ticket" 3 days in advance of your visit, but I've also seen that you can purchase fast pass type tickets at a specific booth in the park? Is there a difference in these tickets? If it sells out online, does that mean it won't be sold in the park? I've tried navigating these priority tickets online but it links me to a Japanese Yahoo website with no language selector and copying and pasting everything in google translator hasn't been of much help so I'm a bit lost at this point lol ... All I seem to know so far is that our stay at the Highland Resort includes early entry to the park as well as possible discounted tickets. So I guess with all that said above, what's the best plan of attack? I assume my friend and I can just buy our tickets to the park when we arrive at the hotel? But after that, is the best plan to just get in early entry and go straight to the fast pass booth? Where is this booth? Should I expect many of their rides to be randomly closed for the crazy reasons I've seen like a slight breeze or cloudy weather? Apologies if this post seems to ramble or is a bit long, but any tips, advice, and/or information would be of a huge help!!! Thanks!!!

Animation looks great! I def see this being a hit with the public with its eye-catching tangle of track, unique set of elements, and lap bar only restraints. The lighting package at night should look stunning too and overall it will certainly round out what has felt like their multi-year long overhaul of the boardwalk. I'll agree that it most likely won't top any enthusiast charts, but as a whole it looks to be a pretty well rounded, unique, and fun coaster with its 96º drop, cool roll-over pretzel element right after, and that nice pop of air before the cobra roll. It's not the mega mondo hyper/giga/RMC/Intamin airtime monster that most enthusiasts with their "roller coaster tycoon" mentality really want, but like some have said already... it's lightyears better than keeping a 27 going on 28 year old Boomerang!

Was here at the park today too! I live in Los Angeles and have lived there for the past 9 years, but happened to be visiting my family in NJ this past week and had nothing planned for today so I decided to hit the park with my sister who actually hasn't ever been to Hershey before. I personally hadn't been since Fahrenheit opened back in 2008, shortly before I moved to the west coast, so I was excited to make it back here and check out what I've been missing out on! Had an awesome day but for the sake of keeping this post short cause I'm wiped, I'll just give a couple notes... - Skyrush was super super fun, although I had forgotten all about the talk (or complaints?) about the comfort of those restraints. All I'll say is that I should've taken my phone out of my pocket and put it in my sisters purse in a cubby because when we got back to the station, the restraint was so tight on my thighs (I guess from the g-forces?) that it quite visibly 'bent' my iPhone ... I was able to bend it back and it still works a-ok though so I guess no harm done - Like a couple of you who were also there today have said above, Storm Runner was in fact running 1 train, but the wait wasn't anything tragic. The queue was filled to about half way thru the switchbacks that sit right in the middle of Trailblazers helix and it only took about 30 mins. Was kinda surprised it moved so quick for just 1 train, but it's a short coaster so that helped a bit. Still gives an absolute fantastic ride all these years later! - Laff Trak was a fun little spinning coaster. The wait was only about 15 mins which is easy peasy. I liked where it was placed in the park and how it's sort of juxtaposed against the Wild Mouse right across the midway, which to me are 2 somewhat similar attractions in my eyes (a standard outdoor mouse and an indoor spinning mouse type coaster). Managed to also get rides on Great Bear, Fahrenheit, and Lightning Racer, which BTW, is still running absolutely fantastic for being 17 years old IMO. Overall it was a great day at the park and of course we couldn't resist popping into Chocolate World on our way out

Seems like a bunch don't understand the "lingo" (if you could even call it that) behind that t-shirt so I guess I'll take the liberty to explain for those not familiar with it's origin... It's taken from a guest that appeared on the Dr. Phil show back in September 2016 and the clip (imbedded below) that was uploaded from the episode went majorly viral and has now been viewed over 37,000,000 times. The guest was a 13 year old girl who actually speaks like that (Yea, seriously ) and tells the audience "Cash me ouside, how bout dah?!" after the audience began to laugh at her after she called them all "hoes" ... Basically she was provoking the audience to fight her in the age old expression of "How about we take this outside?". The embarrassing thing is that the girl in the video is now a millionaire thanks to that clip going viral and most seem to agree that it just goes to show how a$$ backwards American culture really is by basically rewarding, or in a sense making a stupid, disrespectful person with a police record longer than a CVS receipt rich and "famous" To me, it's simply SFMM trying to cash in on what happens to be relatable and/or relevant to the majority of the demographic that they attract. It's not that they too speak like this, it's just that the majority of SFMM's demographic, being young adults and teens, basically live and breathe for internet viral sensations no matter how trashy, awful, sad, or hilarious it may be. [youtu_be]WE DON'T NEED TO ADD TO HER FAME[/youtu_be]

My Avatar is me at Burning Man )'( It's probably the #1 thing I look forward to each and every year. It's just so magical

My list is in no particular order, but these are the 10 games that have stood out as my all time favorites. 1. GTA San Andreas 2. GTA V 3. The Sims (+ all original expansions) 4. Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 5. Zelda: Ocarina of Time 6. Zelda: Link's Awakening DX 7. Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception 8. Uncharted 4: A Thief's End 9. Riven: The Sequel To Myst 10. Myst 3: Exile

The thing I've found about MF is that when it opened, there was simply nothing like it in the world and is still a part of a rare breed of coasters, which is why its reputation has stuck. It emerged out of the newly found resurgence in Hyper coasters coming out of B&M and Intamin and it was in a league of it's own. Obviously now, 17 years later, wilder and more extreme coasters have been built, but it's still held up. To me, MF is all about pure speed and grace... big sweeping overbanks, curves, and hills with forces and speed that don't aggressively throw you all over the place, but gracefully just all flow together. When it comes to everyones opinion about it, it's really all dependent on what each person looks to get out of their coasters. I'm on the side that does think it's a bit overhyped, but there's no denying about the pure and raw fun every ride on it has.... That is unless you're getting a face full of those infamous Cedar Point gnats up in the front row though

Ok I probably went a little overboard here, but I ended up finding the original announcement for Tennessee Tornado that had been archived from HERE. Since there's a whole months worth of announcements to scroll through, I've taken the liberty to quote the announcement below. I've also highlighted the areas where there were some discrepancies that could have led to some people being mislead with the announcement... mainly between the ride description and the technical stats. Also, here's the original concept artwork for TT I mean, I can see how it could be a bit misleading, but again, concept artwork back then was very artistically exaggerated and only used as a very loose artists representation as to what the attraction would actually entail and look like. In all though, there probably was a period when the attraction was planned to be longer with more loops and possible tunnels after the "iron butterfly", but it was probably cut early on due to budgetary reasons as the technical stats in the main announcement seem to add up to what the ride is today. [/end mondo coaster research nerd out ]

What deplorable, disgusting behavior! The amount of entitlement some people have is mind blowing. These people need to grow up, get out, and live their life because sitting behind a computer acting like a sniveling biotch like the world owes them something is getting them nowhere. Like, earth and all the humans on it are an insignificant speck of dust floating in an infinitely vast universe so the fact that these individuals have their panties in a wad over stuff as insignificant as this is ridiculous. Just because you've paid money to be a part of an event and/or tour doesn't give you the right to bring your ungrateful, disrespectful, diarrhea attitude along with you, especially when you've done none of the planning. I don't blame you for stopping the tours because of such vile behavior. If I were in your shoes I probably would have bailed long before then! lol Clearly for these people though, it sounds like being able to obtain their bragging rights for a few inane factoids and credit counts to spew off on the forum was more important than being a respectful individual towards the people who made the trip happen for them. I mean, I love being around people that share the same passions as I do, but sometimes certain individuals take it a bit far and eventually all that BS coming out of their mouths falls on deaf ears. Like, I thought we're here to have fun and enjoy what we love, not get into some pissing contest over who's the most "experienced" enthusiast... For me personally, I only ever got around to attending WCB 2009, the one where we had the hail storm. It was SUCH an epic time! Between all the ERT, fun scavenger hunt games, free souvenirs, hard hat tour of Terminator/Apocalypse, provided lunch, and that unforgettable hail storm, I'd be shocked to hear about any drama from that event, but I'm sure there were a couple things... like, I don't know, somebody being ticked they couldn't get their credit on whatever kiddie coaster because of a height limit or something. I could see the yelp review now: "Everything about the event was impeccable, but I couldn't ride the kiddie coaster because I was too tall!! 1 star!!" lol

Well here's something many of you may find interesting. This is about all my "collection" consists of these days, but they're certainly 1 of a kind rare items! It's blueprints to The Incredible Hulk Coaster, Dragon Challenge, as well as original color blueprints of the entirety of Islands of Adventure from 1999! I believe I've posted pictures of these somewhere here on the forum before... most likely in the Universal Orlando thread. They've been in my possession for just about 10 years now though and ironically enough, I obtained them from someone here on TPR who was trying to sell each print to whoever wanted them haha! Blueprint of the whole park as it was originally planned in 1999. So obviously pre Storm Force, Flying Unicorn, Harry Potter, and Kong The front half of the park! Jurassic Park and Toon Lagoon areas! The Lost Continent as it was before Harry Potter took over! Also note the original outdoor queue for Dueling Dragons that existed before Flying Unicorn/Hippogriff was installed Prints for The Incredible Hulk Coaster! Prints for Dueling Dragons/ Dragon Challenge

Looks like this dude is in desperate need of the WAHmbulance I mean, seriously??? Talk about the emotional maturity of a sack of potatoes. This dude seriously means to tell me that 2 YEARS after he got banned from here for whatever reason, it literally doesn't even matter what the circumstances were, that he's still butt hurt about it and decides it's a good idea to show the world of Youtube that he's still got his panties in a wad over it by BBQ'ing a T-shirt? Talk about the epitome of #FirstWorldProblems That comments section really is gold though

You're not wrong. The bottom of Viper's drop actually was quietly re-profiled at some point during it's first couple years of operation (Exact year/date is completely unknown). The videos below show proof of this change though. Here is the original drop (skip to 6:36) which you can see used to have a harsh unbanked snap as it leveled out at the bottom. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be] And here is the current drop as it is today (skip to 2:29) which you can notice is far smoother and snap free. [youtu_be] [/youtu_be]

Man, the amount of complaining on KI's Facebook page over this coaster is ridiculous. So many entitled brats that think every business they encounter "owes" them something I don't understand why anyone on here is disappointed though considering the layout leaked WEEKS ago. Sure it's not the biggest, tallest, fastest, most intense, unique, or "OMG RMC insanity!!" type of wooden coaster, but its still a new modern wooden coaster that I think fills a little bit of a void the park had. All their current wooden coasters were built back in the 70's so to finally get a smooth, modern, and just plain FUN new woodie is great IMO. Perfect addition that will be attractive to many ages and demographics. I mean even though it's what many people want, and because we're the generation that grew up playing "dream-maker" in RCT and No Limits, not everything can be your "coaster enthusiast RMC/Intamin mega mondo airtime monster of insanity wet dream" lol