Once Hakugei was announced, I knew I had to try and get back to Nagoya. Work and flight times worked out well enough that I could fly over on Friday afternoon (free flight using air miles) then back on Sunday evening (cheap flight with budget airline).
It’s only been a couple of years since I was last in Nagoya, so I stayed in the same area as last time, around the main train station, and headed out to Nagashima on the Saturday morning. I’d used a train to Kuwana before, followed by a bus, but decided to try the direct bus this time. It’s definitely the way to do it for anyone going from Nagoya in future. It takes slightly longer than the Kuwana route, but there’s not much in it and it takes a bit of faff out of the equation.
Nagashima Spaland
I got there just before opening, with very few people there, though the bus takes you to a smaller entrance as opposed to the main one.
Straight to Hakugei then. People in front of me veered off in another direction – f**k knows why – so I got to the station with around a train’s worth of people in front of me, getting the first train of the day, second to back row.
I went straight back around for a second ride, this time waiting 15 minutes, and got a middle seat, which was just as good as the back.
This thing was easily worth the effort of flying 4 hours to Nagoya. I haven’t tried to keep lists of top coasters for years since it’s a bit unfair to compare stuff from ages ago to more recent stuff, but I can say easily enough that Hakugei is now my favourite coaster.
Even first thing in the day, it was seriously hauling arse around the track, the airtime is immense, the inversions are perfect and it just doesn’t let up at all. Even the prelift stuff is good, with a decent enough drop out of the station to get a bit of airtime on the first small hills.
I haven’t done Steel Vengeance or Lightning Rod, but at the moment, those are the only two that I can see possibly topping it. Perhaps Zadra I guess, but it’s too soon to tell.
By the time I came off the second ride, the queue was up to an hour, so I headed off for other stuff. The operations on it were surprisingly good though (for Japan), without too much faff, probably helped a lot by having the lockers before you hit the station.
The ultra twister here had spited me on two previous visits, and it didn’t look like anything was happening when I got to it. It was open though. It’s just that nobody was there yet, so I got it to myself. Unexpectedly, the ride ops just set it off with only me in it; I thought they’d be more likely to make me sit there and wait for others, but no.
That’s that personal vendetta sorted then; just got that bastard Eejanaika to go.
Arashi was the first S&S freefly thing I’d done, doing a couple of others about a year later. The later ones seemed a bit tame in comparison, so I did this one again to check. Yeah, it’s definitely more intense than the others. Horrible things, but this one especially.
Steel Dragon 2000 had an hour-long queue, which I didn’t mind since all cred anxiety was gone. This and Hakugei kept up queues of around an hour all day, Arashi seemed to hover around the 15-20 minute mark, but pretty much everything else was a walk-on, so that was all fab.
I still love this ride. It seems to get very “meh” reviews from most people, probably because the big hills after the first drop don’t do much and the helixy bit is quite boring and shaky, but the first drop is great and the really long bunny hill section at the end is still one of my favourite ever coaster sections.
Acrobat only had a small queue, but staff were being particularly faffy, only getting a train out every ten minutes, which is what I seem to remember from last time.
Some other stuff, all walk-on (except SD2000):
I did the old Intamin Freefall a couple of time, and the corkscrew and Schwarzkopfs once each. Didn’t do kiddy stuff since I didn’t need the creds, and the Togo jet coaster thing was closed (got it; don’t care)
This was (I think) new since my last visit. It was an upcharge, which I usually won’t do because I think it’s rude, but I tried it anyway.
It’s a 3D shooting ride, using the same guns and screens that you get on the likes of Toy Story Midway Mania. It was very good for what it was, but shouldn’t be an extra charge really.
The Ferris wheel here always has to done. In the past it was for the views over White Cyclone, which was a stunning-looking thing even if it was a load of crap to ride, but now it’s for Hakugei. Have lots of repetitive pictures:
I did a third ride on it at around this point, paying for a fastpass. These are about 7 quid (just under US$10) a pop, which I don’t think is too bad. You can get them for Hakugei, SD2000, Arashi and Acrobat. Not many of the locals seem to use them either.
I fastpassed SD2000 a couple of times as well.
Did the Ferris wheel again. Look at how different this second set of pictures is:
I finished off with a final ride on Hakugei. It was already amazing first thing in the morning, but by the afternoon it was just ridiculous.
It was a fab day then. I was kind of dreading having to hit the park on a Saturday, but it was totally fine. It was definitely busier than I’d seen it in the past, but this wasn’t an issue at all, given that the only real queues were for Hakugei and SD2000. I think I was out of there a couple of hours before closing and back on the bus back to the city.
I originally had no plans for the next day, figuring that I’d just hang around Nagoya, but I soon realised that I’d “done” Nagoya before, so ended up heading out to another park, which hadn’t really been on my map at all since it didn’t seem to have much and was quite out of the way.
Suzuka Circuit
It took about 2 hours to get here from Nagoya, but it was an easy trip – just one train (to Shiroko), then a bus from right outside the station.
I wasn’t massively impressed when first going into the park:
However, once you get in properly, it’s actually really nice.
The reason I’d never bothered with this place before is that they’d removed their bigger coasters, so I’d assumed that the place was on its way out. That’s not the case though; they’ve changed into a family park and have done that really, really well, with s**tloads of stuff for families with younger kids to do.
The first coaster was Adventure Drive, which got a bit of attention on coaster forums by being “powered” by how loud people screamed. This is blatantly bollocks. It looks lovely, but rides like a piece of s**t.
RCDB lists two coasters here, with Rocky Coaster being the second one. The back two cars have backwards-facing seats, but I wasn’t about to do that knowing how crap the coaster was going to be.
I think RCDB had previously listed Duel GP, but it’s not on there now. It’s very clearly a pair of powered coasters though.
There’s an element of driver control in that you should steer into the turns. If you turn too much, or not enough, then the cars spin and slow down slightly, allowing the “better” driver to slightly overtake, but you don’t get to control the speed yourself. Plus, the bridge section has a sudden burst of speed and clearly has an elevation change. They’re powered coasters. End of discussion.
Did the Ferris wheel and got to see some cars driving around in circles for no apparent reason.
This thing is also listed on Coaster-Count (though they definitely list some dubious s**t, so I wanted to see for myself), so I headed to have a look at that before leaving the park.
My first thought was “nah, probably not”, but then after seeing more of it, I changed my mind. Yeah, it’s a slow meandering thing, but, again, it’s on powered coaster track, has elevation changes, and even coasts a little down some small drops.
And, come on, look at this:
So yeah, I’ve counted it.
From there, it was a bit of a trek to the airport, having to the get the same bus and train back into Nagoya and then transferring again to the airport train.
All-in-all, it was a pretty fab weekend even if it was a bit of an effort. Hakugei alone was worth it, I managed to finally get that f**king Ultra Twister and had a few rerides on another favourite, SD2000. Suzuka Circuit was a surprisingly cute little park and turned out to be a decent little last-minute bonus.
It’s only been a couple of years since I was last in Nagoya, so I stayed in the same area as last time, around the main train station, and headed out to Nagashima on the Saturday morning. I’d used a train to Kuwana before, followed by a bus, but decided to try the direct bus this time. It’s definitely the way to do it for anyone going from Nagoya in future. It takes slightly longer than the Kuwana route, but there’s not much in it and it takes a bit of faff out of the equation.
Nagashima Spaland
I got there just before opening, with very few people there, though the bus takes you to a smaller entrance as opposed to the main one.
Straight to Hakugei then. People in front of me veered off in another direction – f**k knows why – so I got to the station with around a train’s worth of people in front of me, getting the first train of the day, second to back row.
I went straight back around for a second ride, this time waiting 15 minutes, and got a middle seat, which was just as good as the back.
This thing was easily worth the effort of flying 4 hours to Nagoya. I haven’t tried to keep lists of top coasters for years since it’s a bit unfair to compare stuff from ages ago to more recent stuff, but I can say easily enough that Hakugei is now my favourite coaster.
Even first thing in the day, it was seriously hauling arse around the track, the airtime is immense, the inversions are perfect and it just doesn’t let up at all. Even the prelift stuff is good, with a decent enough drop out of the station to get a bit of airtime on the first small hills.
I haven’t done Steel Vengeance or Lightning Rod, but at the moment, those are the only two that I can see possibly topping it. Perhaps Zadra I guess, but it’s too soon to tell.
By the time I came off the second ride, the queue was up to an hour, so I headed off for other stuff. The operations on it were surprisingly good though (for Japan), without too much faff, probably helped a lot by having the lockers before you hit the station.
The ultra twister here had spited me on two previous visits, and it didn’t look like anything was happening when I got to it. It was open though. It’s just that nobody was there yet, so I got it to myself. Unexpectedly, the ride ops just set it off with only me in it; I thought they’d be more likely to make me sit there and wait for others, but no.
That’s that personal vendetta sorted then; just got that bastard Eejanaika to go.
Arashi was the first S&S freefly thing I’d done, doing a couple of others about a year later. The later ones seemed a bit tame in comparison, so I did this one again to check. Yeah, it’s definitely more intense than the others. Horrible things, but this one especially.
Steel Dragon 2000 had an hour-long queue, which I didn’t mind since all cred anxiety was gone. This and Hakugei kept up queues of around an hour all day, Arashi seemed to hover around the 15-20 minute mark, but pretty much everything else was a walk-on, so that was all fab.
I still love this ride. It seems to get very “meh” reviews from most people, probably because the big hills after the first drop don’t do much and the helixy bit is quite boring and shaky, but the first drop is great and the really long bunny hill section at the end is still one of my favourite ever coaster sections.
Acrobat only had a small queue, but staff were being particularly faffy, only getting a train out every ten minutes, which is what I seem to remember from last time.
Some other stuff, all walk-on (except SD2000):
I did the old Intamin Freefall a couple of time, and the corkscrew and Schwarzkopfs once each. Didn’t do kiddy stuff since I didn’t need the creds, and the Togo jet coaster thing was closed (got it; don’t care)
This was (I think) new since my last visit. It was an upcharge, which I usually won’t do because I think it’s rude, but I tried it anyway.
It’s a 3D shooting ride, using the same guns and screens that you get on the likes of Toy Story Midway Mania. It was very good for what it was, but shouldn’t be an extra charge really.
The Ferris wheel here always has to done. In the past it was for the views over White Cyclone, which was a stunning-looking thing even if it was a load of crap to ride, but now it’s for Hakugei. Have lots of repetitive pictures:
I did a third ride on it at around this point, paying for a fastpass. These are about 7 quid (just under US$10) a pop, which I don’t think is too bad. You can get them for Hakugei, SD2000, Arashi and Acrobat. Not many of the locals seem to use them either.
I fastpassed SD2000 a couple of times as well.
Did the Ferris wheel again. Look at how different this second set of pictures is:
I finished off with a final ride on Hakugei. It was already amazing first thing in the morning, but by the afternoon it was just ridiculous.
It was a fab day then. I was kind of dreading having to hit the park on a Saturday, but it was totally fine. It was definitely busier than I’d seen it in the past, but this wasn’t an issue at all, given that the only real queues were for Hakugei and SD2000. I think I was out of there a couple of hours before closing and back on the bus back to the city.
I originally had no plans for the next day, figuring that I’d just hang around Nagoya, but I soon realised that I’d “done” Nagoya before, so ended up heading out to another park, which hadn’t really been on my map at all since it didn’t seem to have much and was quite out of the way.
Suzuka Circuit
It took about 2 hours to get here from Nagoya, but it was an easy trip – just one train (to Shiroko), then a bus from right outside the station.
I wasn’t massively impressed when first going into the park:
However, once you get in properly, it’s actually really nice.
The reason I’d never bothered with this place before is that they’d removed their bigger coasters, so I’d assumed that the place was on its way out. That’s not the case though; they’ve changed into a family park and have done that really, really well, with s**tloads of stuff for families with younger kids to do.
The first coaster was Adventure Drive, which got a bit of attention on coaster forums by being “powered” by how loud people screamed. This is blatantly bollocks. It looks lovely, but rides like a piece of s**t.
RCDB lists two coasters here, with Rocky Coaster being the second one. The back two cars have backwards-facing seats, but I wasn’t about to do that knowing how crap the coaster was going to be.
I think RCDB had previously listed Duel GP, but it’s not on there now. It’s very clearly a pair of powered coasters though.
There’s an element of driver control in that you should steer into the turns. If you turn too much, or not enough, then the cars spin and slow down slightly, allowing the “better” driver to slightly overtake, but you don’t get to control the speed yourself. Plus, the bridge section has a sudden burst of speed and clearly has an elevation change. They’re powered coasters. End of discussion.
Did the Ferris wheel and got to see some cars driving around in circles for no apparent reason.
This thing is also listed on Coaster-Count (though they definitely list some dubious s**t, so I wanted to see for myself), so I headed to have a look at that before leaving the park.
My first thought was “nah, probably not”, but then after seeing more of it, I changed my mind. Yeah, it’s a slow meandering thing, but, again, it’s on powered coaster track, has elevation changes, and even coasts a little down some small drops.
And, come on, look at this:
So yeah, I’ve counted it.
From there, it was a bit of a trek to the airport, having to the get the same bus and train back into Nagoya and then transferring again to the airport train.
All-in-all, it was a pretty fab weekend even if it was a bit of an effort. Hakugei alone was worth it, I managed to finally get that f**king Ultra Twister and had a few rerides on another favourite, SD2000. Suzuka Circuit was a surprisingly cute little park and turned out to be a decent little last-minute bonus.
