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3 Week Japan Trip with 19 Parks and 70 Coaster (LAST UPDATE)


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Hi Robb,

 

we actually rode it but made no pictures. We waited about 10 minutes for a ride op to open the gates. He was really shocked to see that someone would like to ride his attraction. They really tried to copy the Disney Jungle Cruise, but their waterways were dirty, the "jungle" was just the normal japanese forest, and all the animals (I think about ten animals?) didn`t move any part of their body. It was a long ten minute ride, no narration (maybe because we were the only guests - but I think they never narrate) and it was boring as hell.

So you really didn`t missed this bizzarre clon.

 

And yes, April is such a great month. If you can miss some hot weather and the opportunitiy to go to a waterpark this is the month to go!

You can expect spring temperatures (about 55 to 65 fahrenheit or 15-18 degrees celcius)and some rains (it rained four days of 21) but otherwise you`ll get the greatest scenery ever and great evening festivals. If you`ll like to see some temples this is the most beautiful time.

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Captain,

Isn't Sakura (cherry blossom) season amazing? I usually go to natural parks instead of amusement parks in the week or two that the blossoms are around, but Just driving around is enough as there are cherry trees EVERYWHERE!

 

I'm glad you like Hirakata, it really is a hidden gem. (Not for rides, but the theming is really quite surprising. I did that and Nara Dreamland the same day! There's a definition of contrast for you!)

 

A lot of the parks have a roof over their entrance plaza, (USJ, TDL, etc.) it really does rain a lot here!

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@chris

 

Yeah, the Sakura season is amazing.

 

We tried the busy Ueno Park in Tokyo and the Maruyama Park in Kyoto, both on weekends. This great friendly festival feeling was amazing. We loved the different food stalls and ate so many varieties of food - unbelievable. One of the best issues eating at this kind of festivals is that our evening "diner" was so cheap and good.

 

Will def. comeback for another Sakura experience

 

Greetinx

 

Andy

 

the last Part IV will follow tomorrow....

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food stalls at Tokyo`s Ueno Park

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in food tasting at the food stalls

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Marayuma Park in Kyoto for a evening experience....

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Part 4:

 

Central Park Himeji

Our trip to Himeji started with a short walk to the fantastic looking Himeji Castle. After this sightseeing part we took a 30 minutes bus ride to the Central Park. This park has two different parts, the Drive-through safari park and the amusement park. There are four credits to explore. A B&M Inverted called Diavlo, which is pretty nice. A kiddie coaster; Labyrinth, a kind of mine train with a classic steel layout and jet coaster, another boring “scenic railway” coaster.

They didn`t offer much more in this park (two or three flat rides, no dark-rides). We think this park was the biggest dissapointment of the whole trip! It was so boring that we took the bus back to Himeji after one hour.

 

Tegarayama Park Himeji

This was a little addition to our trip, because the Central Park was so lame and this small park is so easy to reach from the main train station. Tegarayama is a real small kiddie park, with three credits, all are very interesting. Normally I don`t like such small parks, but this park is really nice because they don`t charge any entrance fee and the rides are unbelievable cheap. So it´s more a big playground with some rides. The first coaster goes around a big swimming pool (it wasn`t open at this time of season) so it`s really strange just to do a big circle with a coaster. The second coaster is a kind of wild mouse, but it`s very special and is really funny.

The last “coaster” ist not really a coaster, I can`t describe it just look at the photos below.

Overall worth to spend one hour in this small park.

 

Tokyo Disney Resort

Another 8 days of our trip ended and we took the Shinkansen again back to Tokyo to go straight to Tokyo Disney Resort. We really looked forward to visit the Tokyo Disney Resort for a lot of years. We decided to stay directly in one of there two hotels, and we chose Disney´s Miracosta Hotel. Oh boy, this hotel is so amazing and so beautiful that is really worth the extra money. The best part is, that the hotel lift is going straight into the park. The rooms are really big, the lobby is beautiful and the restaurants offering world class architecture and design. We stayed three nights and so we had a lot of time to explore the whole Resort.

 

DisneySea

We started off at Disney Sea. We heard so much about this park in Tokyo and we`re really were afraid if it can stand the big expectations we had. But it could!

This park is by far the most themed park in the world. Every detail is perfectly themed like in no other park. The Italian part of DisneySea looks absolutely like a lot of Italian cities – No - DisneySea looks much better than the originals. The ArabianCoast looks so good you think to stay somewhere in Marakesh (okay all the noisy salesmen are not there!). American Waterfront looks like you always imagined this Hollywood style of harbour somewhere in the 20s. Okay enough about theming, what about the attractions? This is the only thing what is “lacking” a bit at TokyoDisneySea and for me the main reason that it is not my number one Themepark in the world (don`t understand me wrong DisneySea is not Number One but definetly Top Ten). They`ve the Californian Indy (in a big Maya pyramide) and the DisneyParis Indy coaster, here it is called Raging Spirits (but it looks better). They`ve some kind of “It`s a small world” boat ride, called Sindbad with the greatest animatronics worldwide. They`ve two unique Dark-Rides: Journey to the center of the earth (using the Test-Track system, this ride is very famous worldwide but I`ve to say that the ride is a bit to short and the “wild part” a bit to uninteresting) and the other is 20.000 Leagues under the Sea. I haven`t heard much about the ride and so I was blown away from this amazing ride. I would rate it as one of the best dark-rides worldwide. Besides some more real good attractions (f.ex. the 4-D theatre for Stormchaser is real good, Aquatopia real interesting....), DisneySea also offers some great shows and of course the colorful Water Carnival (in its last season) and the great evening event BraviSEAmo (kind of Illuminations style). What they really need are some more rides. In the next month they`ll get the Tower of Terror (this DisneySea Tower is the most beautiful one), and so they`ll offer another major attraction. If they would add one or two more great attractions (something with water?) in the next years this park will change from the best looking park in the world to simply the best overall park in the world.

 

Tokyo Disneyland

I don`t have to say a lot about this themepark, because all of you guys do more visits to Disneyland California or Florida than I do. I just say some words about the main differents: The main street has a roof (this makes a shopping-mall feeling and we hate this), Japanese people like to line-up for everything and especially parades. Winnie the Pooh`s Hunny Hunt is really the best kiddie dark-Ride in the world. We liked there Space Mountain layout very much (one of the smoothest enclosed coasters) and the diner or lunch Shows are really great (but you`ve to book it in advance!). After 3pm a lot of school classes are in this park and its get even more crowded.

 

After exactly 3 weeks our Japan Trip came to an end. It was such an amazing trip with so many parks, so many sightseeing, so many friendly people and so much impressions.

We can recommend anyone to visit Japan. Here we are in a coaster forum but our advice is to take some more time and to explore some of the major temples because they are outstanding (like temples of Nikko, Kyomizudera and other temples at Kyoto, the Island of Miyajima).

We definitely will come back in the next years to see some more parks we couldn`t manage to see (Kyushu area, Parque Espana and so on). But first we`ve to top the “70 coaster credit holiday” with some other tours like a big East Coast / Mid West US Tour in 2007 with much more coaster.

At the end of my TR I would like to apologize for my bad english and all the mistakes but writing such a long TR isn`t that easy for a bavarian guy!

If you got further questions in the future you can visit us at www.coasterfriends.com

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you remember - cherry tree blossom

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this is a weird coaster...

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way to big for this one

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one person per car

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the nice, but old mouse coaster

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the park is on two levels...

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the orange track is the Jet Coaster, which goes around the big swimming pool

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map of the park

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Tegarayama Park Entrance

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another Labyrinth shot

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the B&M Inverted was the only thing that was good at this park

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Labyrinth, not very good...

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...a big dissapointment!

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Himeji Central Park...

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the most beautiful castle in Japan

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we started our Himeji day with sightseeing...

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Disney Time

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another American Waterfront

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a Sailorshow infront the big ship

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Tower of Terror, so beautiful

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what a big, big ship

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American Waterfront

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Aquatopia

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one for Elissa...

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in this pyramide is the Indy Ride (California Version)

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Raging Spirits

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Lost River Delta

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I was a bit to quick for the photo...

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Arabian Coast

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Flying Fish Coaster

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Mermaid Lagoon

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Mysterious Island

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the other side of the lagoon

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the inside park view of the hotel (which is the background for the italian theming on the big lagoon)

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the outside side of the hotel

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the way to your room...

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lobby shot

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Disney`s Hotel Miracosta

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DisneySea Entrance Plaza

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4 days of Tokyo Disney Fun!

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the Disney Monorail

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Disney Time Part II

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that`s it from Andrea & Andy - maybe see you in some parks soon! Japan we miss you.....

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I think Elissa would like it!

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this Polynesian Luau Show is really good...

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thr Gadget Coaster

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Hello, I want Toontown in Paris

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nice Toontown

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biggest attraction

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a lot of Japanese couples are looking like this one (WTF are they wearing in a themepark?)

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the parade is so much bigger than anyone else in the world!

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how cute is this mountain?

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Splash Mountain

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Secondbest BTM (after the Paris Version)

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the great Stitch Parade

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New Orleans Square

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mickey shaped waffles!

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fantastic Pooh!

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did I say that I hate this roof?

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Welcome to Tokyo Disneyland - Special Stich Days were going on

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BraviSeamo - great show!

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Raging Spirits again

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Venice

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I missed out on the smaller Himeji park. I didn't know they had a coaster similar to 'Slope Shooter'. That is one of those that is on the edge of the definition!

 

DisneySea, I will have to stop seeing you soon...

 

6FGAm just won't be good enough.

 

Thanks for the pictures, Captain!

It's aways nice to see someone elses' perspective, and the parks looked so great with all the cherry blossoms!

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