Logistics of doing Fuji-Q before a Mt. Fuji hike

[Pete C]

Hey everyone, I am going to Japan with my friends next week. After reading the sub-par trip reports of Fuji-Q I don't want to waste an entire trip out to the Fuji area just to hit that park. However, I do really want to ride Eejanaika and Dodonpa. So...

 

We are planning to do the Mt. Fuji hike one day, sleep in a mountain hut for a few hours and finish the hike at night. I am thinking I can sneak in a couple coasters before we start this hike if we get to Fuji-Q when it opens.

 

1) We will each have backpacks for our hike...will there be a place to store them at Fuji-Q or near the bus stop drop-off for Highland? I was planning on taking the Highland bus from Shinjuku first thing in the morning.

 

2) Do we ride Dodonpa or Eejanaika first? Eejanaika is newer, but has slightly better capacity (though it would seem the lesser of two evils with those two rides if X and Hypersonic are any indication).

 

3) If anyone knows this...how easy is it to get from Fuji-Q to the Kawaguchiko Station? That is where the bus to Mt Fuji is. I am thinking a taxi might work, but I have no idea how taxis work there or how far apart these 2 places are. It is so hard to figure it out.

 

4) Am I crazy to attempt this? Keeping in mind that we really don't want to spend a lot of time in this park anyway I figured it might be do-able.

 

I really want to ride these 2 and would like some advice. I am leaving in a week!! Of course I am doing other parks, but the logistics of Mt. Fuji are the most difficult since I am trying to get the whole Mt. Fuji area out of the way in 1 day trip.

[scooterdoug]

I just stumbled upon your question. I hope I answer this before you leave. Keep in mind that I never actually hiked Mt. Fuji. That said, I think that it is overly ambitious to do Fuji-Q AND Mt. Fuji in one day. Depending on what station you start from, you could be looking at a full day trip (people who want to do the whole thing frequently start their hike at the bottom at 6pm and arrive at the top around 4:30am to see the sunrise). You could certainly do Fuji-Q Highland in the morning and then hike to the Mt. Fuji summit from one of the higher stations. However, keep in mind that Fuji-Q Highland can consume more time than you realize. I figured that I wouldn't be there that long, what with only 3 coasters I really wanted to ride. However, I ended up staying there 6 hours and having a really good time.

 

Finally, even if you do manage to cram that all into your day, you could end up exhausting yourself. Going to a theme park uses up energy, and you need plenty of energy for Mt. Fuji. Fuji-san is a daunting mountain not to be trifled with, and I would suggest hitting it with all the energy you can save up, not drained from a few hours of coaster riding (you're thinking of two coasters, but Fujiyama is actually cooler than you might expect).

 

Just my two cents. When it comes to big hikes, I always like to devote the entire day to it. Have fun in Japan!

 

-Doug

[SigENeaT]

I'm with scooterdoug on this one.

We arrived at Fuji-Q around the 12th of this month at 10am and were entertained until about 4pm. Beware though, if you intend to check out the (AWESOME) haunted hospital, it usually has a very lengthy wait and can take 40 to 60mins to complete. It's a walk through.

 

If you are looking to trim off destinations from the park, Dodonpa isnt that fantastic and the wait doesnt justify the ride. If not for the long wait you will have to bear then for the damn 'music' ... "Doh - don - pahhh" constantly plays through speakers everywhere.

 

Fujiyama (despite what i have read) is a pretty good ride and if you catch it mid morning or over lunch times the line moves quite quickly, enough to get a couple of rides before gawking at the pudding boobies in the shop afterwards...

 

http://romulus.ath.cx/japan07/gallery4/target94.html