Photo TR: ECC/ACE trip to Japan

[gisco]

Land of the Rising Fun. September 3rd, 2005 to September 16th, 2005. A joint trip put on by the European Coaster Club and the American Coaster Enthusiasts.

 

First off, there was a lot of negative things said before this trip even began. The cost and the schedule were criticized. The schedule that the public knew about was preliminary. I ended up riding 70 coasters in 22 parks over 14 days. We visited at least 1 park every day. Most days there were 2 and some times 3. We were rained out of 2 parks the first day of the trip and we were able to go back to one of those parks a few days later and get the credits. The other park I went back to on the 2 extra days I spent in Tokyo after the tour. As for the cost, I feel that I got my moneys worth. It truly was the trip of a lifetime. I went on this trip not knowing anyone. I met a lot of great people and made new friends. Could it have been done cheaper? Maybe, but the hotels were outstanding and we had great breakfast provided every day. I think they did an outstanding job moving 117 people around Japan. The best part was I didn’t have to make any of the arrangements; I just had to show up.

 

Japan was an amazing country. I would go back in a heartbeat. Elissa, When are you going to start taking deposits for 2007? The people are super friendly and very courteous. The service is outstanding and there is no tipping! A lot of the parks in the US should go to Japan to see how parks should be run.

 

Saturday, September 3rd and Sunday September 4th.

I had to get up at 4:30 A.M. to get to the airport. My flight out of Fresno to Tokyo via San Francisco left at 7:00. I was able to get a seat in an emergency row. It was a middle seat but on a 747 there was a space of about 6 feet to the next row of seats. I flew United. The food was good, remember, I’m a member of ACE so I will eat anything. The 3 movies they showed sucked. I spent the 10-hour flight from San Francisco to Tokyo just reading a book I brought along and listened to my iPod. I didn’t even try to sleep.

I was very curious on how the jet lag was going to hit me. As soon as I boarded the plane to Tokyo, I reset my watch. I planned to not sleep until Sunday night. It was like 4:00 A.M. in Tokyo when my flight took off. I landed just before 2:00 P.M. At that point I lost track of West coast time. I think the excitement of being in Tokyo kept me going. I didn’t go to sleep until 10:00 that night. I figured it out later I was up for around 26 hours. Jet lag never bothered me on the tour but it did hit me when I came home.

I took the shuttle bus from the airport to The Radisson Miyako Hotel in Tokyo. The people loading the bus were very efficient There were 5 of them taking our bags and checking our tickets. They all lined up and bowed to the bus as we were pulling out. At the hotel, a gal took my bags, walked me to the front desk then showed me to my room. It felt odd not tipping.

Nothing was really planned for the first night so I joined a group and we headed out into Tokyo. We decided to go to the Tokyo Tower do a little sight seeing and get dinner. The Tokyo Tower is the Japanese version of the Eiffel Tower but not as big. I think it is 250 meters to the top. The view was great but I forgot to bring my camera. On the lower levels they had a food court. I chose the Elissa friendly restaurant, McDonalds for dinner. Some of the others jumped right in and got Japanese cuisine.

After dinner we headed for Aqua Stadium to ride Galaxy Express 999. The first coaster of the trip and it was just so so. The cost was 1000 yen, which is a little under $10.00. You have to sit thru a pre-show. It’s all in Japanese so I have no clue what it is about. Evidently this ride is based on some popular TV show. After the pre-show you board the train. It is a quick launch out of the station with an immediate uphill right hand turn and then into a loop and a few more turns and your back to the station in under a minute. Not worth a reride.

 

Monday September 5th

First stop was Hanayashiki. A nice little compact park with the oldest coaster in Japan. The park crams a lot of rides into a small area. The coaster just circles the park and is nothing special. They have a drop tower, a dark ride and a little maze among other things. The bumper cars were cool. You competed against each other for points. A red or blue spotlight would shine at different locations. The first car to run over the spot would score a point. I think blue you got a point and red would take one away. Each car had a sensor on the front. You would get a lot of full speed head on collisions racing for the spots and they didn’t yell at you for doing it.

 

The next stop for the day was to Toshimaen. Unfortunately it had started to rain. The 3 coasters were all closed. We did ride the dark ride and the carousel. The carousel was cool. It had three rings that rotated at different speeds. It turns out the carousel is somewhat famous. It was made for the Kaiser of Germany around WWI. It was later moved to Coney Island and when the park closed there in 1968 it was moved to Toshimaen.

 

We moved on to LaQua, home of Thunder Dolphin. The rain was still falling so Thunder Dolphin and Linear Gale were both closed. We did go on the indoor rides. I hated Geopanic. The restraints were horrible. Did ride it twice to be sure and didn’t like it either time. Spent most of the time riding Maihime, a spinning mouse. 3 of us tried different seats in the 4 seat cars to try and get the optimum spin. We must of rode it 7 or 8 times.

 

After dinner it was back to the hotel. This would be the only day we would get rain that closed the coasters. We were 3 out of 8 today on credits.

 

Tuesday September 6th.

Today was Disneyland Tokyo. The rain was still falling but it didn’t matter. Everything was still open and there were no crowds. We got multiple rides on everything with very little wait. Getting a fast pass was not necessary. We did get a Fastpass for Space Mountain and then rode Buzz Lightyear and some of the other rides while waiting for our time slot. It turns out the wait probably wouldn’t have been more then 20 minutes anyway. We got on Gadgets Go Coaster and Thunder Mountain. After getting the credits out of the way, I had to convince my roommate to go on the Winnie the Pooh ride. He was a little skeptical at first but it turned out to be the best ride of the day. We ended up going on it three times. The Honey Pots you ride in do not run on tracks but sensors in the floor control where they go. It is really cool and the room with Tigger is hilarious. The car bounces, the scenery bounces and Tigger bounces all at the same time. Why did California have to put in a crappy version? We had dinner in the Blue Bayou and were like the only ones in there. The only bummer of the day was they canceled the fireworks because of the weather.

We were 3 out of 3 credits today.

 

Wednesday September 7th.

Tokyo DisneySea was today’s stop. The weather was much better today, except for a late afternoon down pour. When it started to rain we just ducked into a restaurant and had lunch. It had stopped raining by the time we were done. The park was pretty cool. Very well themed. We rode Journey to the center of the Earth a number of times thru out the day. Never more then a 15 to 20 minute wait. It was almost a walk on at night. The Indiana Jones ride didn’t open with the park so we got a Fastpass and came back later in the day. Raging Spirits, there newest ride was the most crowded. There was an hour wait. We decided to do the single rider line because we didn’t care if we rode together and we didn’t want to waste an hour in line. This is were it gets really strange. We were walked down the single rider queue, got to the end and found 10 others from our group and one Japanese guy in front of us in the single rider line. They proceeded to take people from the single rider line, 2 at a time and put them in the front. They filled the other three rows with people from the regular queue. When they came to the Japanese guy, they put him in the back and my roommate and I in the front. I don’t think they get the concept of the single rider queue. We came back to the ride later in the day and used the single rider queue again to see if things changed. This time they split my roommate and me up. I got the front row alone and he was put on the next train in a row by himself. Go figure. The ride by the way was rough. Checked out the rest of the park. Saw their Tower of Terror. It is coming along nicely. Rode the other coaster, Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster. It is pretty much like Gadget from the day before, fun but nothing special. Their simulator ride Stormrider, was pretty good. They had a translation in the pre-show so we knew what was going on. All in all it was a good day but again no fireworks because of the weather. 2 credits today.

 

More later.

Ariel's Grotto

Raging Spirits

Tower of Terror

DisneySea, Raging Spirits. What a rough ride.

The castle is so damn big, I couldn't get it all in the picture!

La Qua - Maihime

Picture for Robb

Toshimaen's cool Carousel

Hanayashiki. First TOGO of the trip. Japan's oldest coaster

[robbalvey]

Wow! Those are some really great photos. I find some humor in the Walt photo with the "Disneyland 50th" sign as it's too bad that the park that the celebration is for doesn't have that awesome castle behind it!

 

--Robb "Sorry, couldn't resist the castle joke!" Alvey

[CoasterFanatic]

Damn. Just looking at Raging Spirits makes my neck hurt.

 

Why on earth would they use non-trailered trains?

[SharkTums]

Can't wait to read and see more!!!

 

It is hard to explain just how awesome Japan is. The people are so friendly, efficient, smart, polite, it's just great!

 

I had my reservations about some of the things that the ECC/ACE trip did, but I'm glad everything worked out for the best. I'm really interested to see how our upcoming 'winter' Japan trip works out to see if that might be something to think about for the future. I think we'll also look into splitting the 2007 Japan trip so that we can do some 'new' parks, as well as the 'staples'.

[Blazen_AZN]

yeah, i agree, japan is an awsome place!

 

too bad the woman we asked at the front desk of our hotel said there wasn't any themeparks around there.

 

Steel dragon was right there.. right there!!! i mean come on! i could have ridden steel dragon!!

 

anyway, im looking forward to seeing what i missed, so keep the pics coming!

[Hattuchili]

Wow, great pictures! I really like the Disney pictures! I hope I can go there in the near future!

 

--Sören

[gisco]

Thursday September 8th.

First stop today was Yomiuriland. The park sits up on the side of the hill. If you take public transportation to get to the park, you get dropped off at the bottom and get to take a tram to the top. Since we came in charter busses, we were dropped off at the top. We got there before they opened and the weather was clear and hot. There was hardly anybody in the park. A group of what looked to be about 1st graders was there but they were not riding any of the rides we were on.

The first coaster of the day was a kiddy coaster. All I can say was cha-ching, Credit! We then went to the Standing & Loop Coaster. The only unique thing here was that one train was standing and the other sitting. We rode both ways and again nothing special. At least it was better then the kiddy.

On to the first woody of the trip, White Canyon. It was memorable, not because it was good but because it was so rough. The cars looked like they had roll cages on them. Maybe that was because they might come off the track. It was funny to see the California flag on the structure. It was in a lot worse shape then when Robb & Elissa took a picture of it the year before.

Bandit was next up. Not a bad coaster. The layout was spread out and the cars looked like carved out logs. We ended up riding this one a lot. There were a few rough spots but you did catch some air in a few places. Since there was hardly anybody there, it was like ERT. They did make you get out and walk around though.

SL Coaster was very strange. It looked like it was going to be really cool. The station is on the top of the hill so the lift hill is at the end of the ride. You drop in 2 stages out of the station but they almost brake you to a stop after the first little drop. It just kills the momentum and the fun of the ride.

After getting all the credits in the park we did rode their Wheel to get some pictures and ride their dark ride. I think they are supposed to be scary but none of them were. They had both a shot tower and a drop tower. Rode both of those for the view.

Spent about half a day at the park which was more then enough because of the lack of crowds. We then changed our itinerary a bit. Instead of going straight to Sega Joypolis, we went back to LaQua. We stopped there for about an hour. They gave us 2 tickets, one to ride Thunder Dolphin and one for Linear Gale. We were able to pick up 2 of the lost credits form the first day.

We rode Linear Gale first. I was unimpressed. It seamed forceless. Not worth reriding. On to Thunder Dolphin and the strange things ops do. Before riding TD, they make you take everything out of your pockets and I mean everything. Even the park map had to be taken out. Now here is the strange part, my roommate could leave his glasses on and he didn’t have a strap. Map in pocket NO, glasses with no strap OK. I don’t get it. Here is another ride that looks like it could be really cool but is not. Your pulled up the lift hill really fast and you get some float time on the drop but that is it. At least it looks cool coming thru the hole in the building.

Sega Joypolis was the last stop of the day for Speed Boarder. Another weird ride. It’s indoors and it is kind of like a mouse but you sit sideways. Low capacity and we didn’t want to pay to reride it. Joypolis was pretty cool. They had a number of games and simulators to ride. It is located in a mall so there were plenty of places to look around and eat at.

Not a bad day 8 out of 6 credits. Picked up 2 extra at LaQua.

Yomiuriland Mascot

White Canyon

Night shot of Rainbow Bridge

Linear Gale

Thunder Dolphin

Bandit layout

Glad I'm a guy!

cool looking layout of SL Coaster

on ride photo

Bandit with tram

Roll bars?

poor flag

Look how close your head comes if your in the front of car 2 to the back of car 1 in the loop

Sitting or standing, your choice.

Their idea of theming, a bubble machine on the kiddy coaster

Cha-ching! credit!

Tokyo Tower

[Hattuchili]

Great update! It is nice to see all the great coasters from R+E´s trip, again! However, good TR and thanks for posting!

 

--Sören

[SharkTums]

Nice to see the park NOT in the pouring rain! The gondola ride is really cool!

 

Glad to hear that we were not the only ones who thought that Thunder Dolphin was kind of a letdown.

 

Keep 'em coming!

[CoasterCrazy]

Thanks for posting the awesome pictures, Japan looks like a awesome place to visit!

 

Hopefully the 2007 Japan Trip will be during winter break!

[CycloneMan]

Is Raging Spirits an Indy clone?

[gisco]

Yes, if your refering to Indy in Paris Disneyland

[CycloneMan]

Yes, the themeing looks better!

[gisco]

Friday, September 9th.

This was our last full day in Tokyo with the tour. The first stop was Nasu Highland. It was a nice park with 7 coasters built on a hill. This was one of the few parks that let us in early before opening to the public. You enter at the top and all but one of the coasters is towards the bottom of the hill.

First up was Panic Drive, a wild mouse. It was at the top of the hill and we decided to get the credit out of the way sense most of the group headed for the bottom of the hill were the bigger coasters were. It is in a kid’s section and there was also a powered coaster there that we rode. We didn’t do anything else in this section because we wanted to get to the other coasters before the park opened to the public.

On the way to the bottom of the hill we passed a guy selling fish on a stick. The whole fish, head and all. I passed on the fish. I had already eaten something that I think was chicken on a stick earlier when we stopped at a rest stop. The park kind of has a fifties theme. They have old cars parked in the plaza and the fake movie house is playing “Rebel with out a Cause”.

There are five big coasters at the bottom of the hill; one is SBNO. It looked fine so I have no idea why they don’t open it any more. We rode Spin-Turn, the train is something like eight cars long and each car spins. Pretty fun, we rode it several times. Track is yellow in the pictures. Thunder Coaster is a corkscrew. No smoother then any other corkscrew I have been on, ouch! The track is green. Camel Coaster, a nonlooper. It has a few humps and I guess that is why it’s called Camel. Big Boom is a looping Meisho. It has a nice first drop and that is the only thing I found good about the coaster. The rest of the ride and the single loop were rough. The odd thing about the ride was the lift hill. I have never been on a slower lift in my life. I’m not kidding, you spend more time going up the left then the rest of the ride. It seems like it takes a minute to go up that hill.

We started back up the hill to catch the 2 coasters that were not open earlier. I rode Batflyer next the first one of this type I have rode and my 100th coaster. Each car can hold 2 people but there was no way you were going to get 2 big Acers on these things. You have to kind of contort yourself to get in and out of these things. I must say the ride ops were very patient and turned no one away.

The last coaster of the park was my favorite, Fright Flight. It’s a Vekoma SLC. I actually like SLC’s. We rode the log ride and there raft ride and went up in the Wheel to get some pictures. Got some lunch, thought I was getting chicken and ended up with pork. Glad I’m not a picky eater. By this time we had to go because we had another park to hit. It would have been nice to have a little more time to reride some more of the coasters.

After leaving Nasu Highlands we headed for Tobu Zoo. We got there pretty late in the day and didn’t have a lot of time. They have a zoo, which we didn’t really see at all, and 3 coasters. The kiddie coaster was a credit. The mouse was not a normal mouse. This one has a loop to it. It was kind of interesting in the station for the mouse. There was nothing stopping you from getting out of either side of the car when you were loading or unloading. On one side was the platform and the other a 10-foot drop. Safety hazards everywhere. On some of the rides in Japan you can easily stick out your hands and hit the structure or scenery. The last ride of the park was the woodie, Regina. This was the 2nd best woodie of the trip. We ended up getting some ERT after the park closed on it.

We did the drop tower, rode the wheel. Got some pictures of another SBNO coaster. And headed back to the hotel. A long day and 10 for 10 on credits

High tech controls for the toilet in the hotel

SBNO

Regina

Crazy Mouse

on ride photo

kiddie coaster Tobu Zoo

2 fish please

Fright Flight

Me in Batflyer

Batflyer

Camel Coaster

Spin-Turn

Panic Drive

[Hattuchili]

Nice update! There is a lego section, that is cool. There are a few good coasters, I think so! I hope we visit this park on the TPR trip in a few years!? However, fish on a stick??? :shock: I am sure I wouldn´t taste that!

 

--Sören

[zaneymon]

God i miss Tobu Zoo park

[gisco]

September 10th

Today was the day we left Tokyo for Osaka via the bullet train. The train goes 120mph+ and the ride is incredibly smooth. You don’t realize how fast your going until another train passes you going the opposite direction. The 3-hour trip went by real fast. Spent most of the time looking out the window and watching the scenery go flying by.

Once in Osaka we boarded busses again for a short ride to Expoland. The park was already open by the time we got there but was not to crowded. We just circled the park and rode the coasters. Not much of a wait on any of them. For the most part there was nothing special about the coasters except for 2 of them, Fujin-Raigin II and Daidarasaurus. These 2 were not special in a good way.

Fujin-Raigin II is a TOGO standup nonlooper. I don’t like stand-up coasters to begin with and this one by far is the worst I have ever ridden. It was rough and it really bashed my head around. I just didn’t like this one at all and it ranks as one of the worst on the trip.

Daidarasaurus used to be a twin-racing coaster. I’m sure at best when it was a racing coaster it was a below average ride. Some genius had the bright idea to join the tracks and make one long ride. This only made it twice as bad. You go up the lift hill and go thru the circuit, cross over before entering the station, go up the lift hill on the other side and repeat the circuit again. It takes a train about 8 minutes to complete the cycle. It is a coaster that you quickly get board with and just seems to go on and on.

They have Wild Mouse which is a mouse and Space Salamander which is an Arrow corkscrew. Both these were better then the first 2. The Mini coaster was ok and the family coaster was a credit. The family coaster was actually a little embarrassing to ride. I was waiting in line. They had already loaded the train with mostly our group. There were 2 rather large guys in the cars and the poor female Japanese op could not get the lap bar to click down. She pushed and pushed but they were just too portly. The line started to get long with all these Japanese kids looking puzzled as to why these fat Americans would even want to ride this little coaster. Finally a guy from our group got out of line, walked over to the car and just forced it down. We all cheered. Credit whores we are!

The best ride of the trip so far for me was Orochi. I’m a fan of inverted coasters and this is a standard B&M.

After the coasters we did this dark walk thru thing. They gave you a globe that flashed a color and when you found the right location in the walk thru the globe flashed multi colors. That allowed you to open the exit and get out. You then got a paper written in Japanese with a score on it. We didn’t have a clue as to what we were doing.

The icehouse was real cool and I mean cool, -30C. It was hot out and I was sweating, by the time I got thru the icehouse I was shivering. This was the best icehouse on the trip because it was free! A lot of the other ones you had to pay extra to go thru.

We left the park around dinnertime and headed for the hotel we would be staying for the next couple of nights in Osaka. We were on our own when we got back to the hotel. A few of us headed out to Festival Gate to ride Delphis. It was a short subway trip there. This place has seen better times and I would be surprised if this coaster remained open much longer. Festival Gate is a 5 story mini mall that has the coaster and other attractions scattered over the different floors. We got there before 7:00 on a Saturday night. There were a couple of small stores open on the bottom level and Delphis was running. That was it. There was almost no one around. It was 1000 yen to ride and only a couple people wanted to ride a second time.

We had an excellent Japanese dinner at a place near by and then wondered into a Pachinko Palace. Pachinko is a gambling game, something like a vertical pinball machine. You shoot these little silver balls into the machine and they bounce off these little pins and hopefully land in certain slots, which get you more, little silver balls. Since gambling for money is illegal in Japan, you trade these silver balls in for prizes. You can then take these prizes and turn them in for money outside the Pachinko Palace. One of the guys put in 1000 yen and started playing. We had no idea what we were doing but before long he had a lot more silver balls then he started with. He then redeemed the balls for what looked like watchbands. But the gal indicated we were to go out the front door turn left, turn left again and then left again. We went out the front door, turned left and then left again. We were now going down this dark alley. We came to a street and took the final left. The street was empty except for 2 of the ugliest hookers I have ever seen. We knew we missed something in her directions. When we turned around to retrace our steps a Japanese guy came walking by. He saw us holding these watchband thingies and he said something in Japanese and motioned us to follow him. We went back up the dark alley and turned down an even darker alley. Half way down there was a small window. He motioned for us to put the things thru the window. A person on the other side took the things and passed back about 4000 yen. The guy smiled and left. We went searching for the subway and back to our hotel.

8 out of 7 credits today. We picked up the bonus credit, Delphis that wasn’t on the itinerary.

I leave you with one last look at boring coaster with angry guy in background

Playing Pachinko

The Pachinko Palace

Dinner

Delphis

Orochi

These guys never had a chance!

yeap, -30C

ouch

Fujin-Raigin II is Japanese for this is going to hurt!

huh????????

poor japanese ride op trying to get the lap bar down

kiddie coaster

The cross over that made this a really long boring coaster

Daidarasaurus is Japanese for boring

on ride pov

Space Salamander

Either the Japanese are cloaked or no one wants to ride this boring coaster

I think every park has a wheel

[Mind Eraser]

Thanks for your posts and pictures! I've wanted to go to Japan for so long, and I bet I won't get there for at least 5 years.

 

I'm so interested in that stand up, Fuijin Raijin II, even though it's said to be.... not that comfortable . It has such a nifty layout.

 

Orochi is crazy beautiful. That Daidarasaurus makes me laugh.

 

[edit] typo fix

[DerekRx]

As much as I look forward to visiting Japan someday, the coasters don't seem very "incredible", mainly weird and unique. That said, the thing that makes me really want to visit Japan was the dinner picture.

 

The kiddie coaster debacle sounds just like typical ACE behavior...if the lapbar won't click, push harder. No one would ever think, "I'm too freakin' fat to be riding this apparently!"

[SharkTums]

Yeah, seriously, the coasters are by no means amazing, it's just that the parks, country, and people are so great you'll want to go back over and over again!

[gisco]

Elissa is right. There are some interesting coasters but it is just the experiance. The group I was with was great. The Japanese people are fantastic. Most of the parks are real nice. True, a lot of the coasters are average but the trip was a whole lot of fun. I can't wait to go back.

[niiicolaaah]

i wanna go!

 

 

...on the escalator ride! 8)

[Nrthwnd]

Thanks for sharing the trip, gisco. I was in Japan in 1972 and only got to ride what was there at the time, in FujiHighland Park (or whatever's near the base of you-know-what). Can't even remember the coasters, been so long ago.

 

But I must tell you. I think we now have a coaster we can safely call The GAY COASTER . See below.

 

Hmmm? And with friggin' fake lavender palm trees there, too! So choice, yubetcha. Hey, there's even a soft-cornered triangle there! :shock: Who knew?

 

Color scheme and positioning says it all, bois and gurls.

[niiicolaaah]

^wouldn't that be the BISEXUAL coaster?

[PhishyBrewer]

^^I've never seen an SLC look so appealing.