Mega-Lite

Is that a clone reasoning to spite the Batman's or did you dislike them that much? I ask because I found Batman La Fuga to be rather good fun and I've heard nothing but negatives about the ex Duelling Dragons.

Good little lunch time read that, thanks Mark. This fantastic looking park is on my horizons either late this year or early next. Even more excited about Monster now! Don't be too put out by your wacky worm milestone though. At least it's funny, my 200th is the awful mouse at the awful Parc Dtractions Madrid, that's just sad...

I feel I've been slightly misunderstood, it's probably my fault, so it's fine. I see absolutely nothing wrong with tagging a few "lesser parks" onto a trip in the quest for creds, with a friend or 2 blasting through smaller less exciting parks is great fun, certainly better than sitting at home! Time on coaster holidays abroad is always too short so grouping a couple of the smaller parks together in a day makes sense right? Surely going out and experiencing more is better than waiting around in a park you feel content you have completed, or is that just me? I actually do have a strange rule I keep to which is I won't go on a trip outside the UK without at least one coaster on the trip I'm dying to ride, whether those coasters actually deliver, which in case of OzIris and Zeus they did not, is half the fun finding out.

I'm not sure I agree with you there Benin, sure rushing around isn't the best option but I don't think it's fair to say I should have done 1 park a day and accepted things are bad. That to me is glossing over the issue. These parks were cred runs from the word go. Nothing at Belle was of interest to me and only Heidi and to a far lesser extent Anubis were at Plopsa. I don't enjoy forcing myself to stay at parks I don't feel warrant a full day, I've learnt this from experience. No doubt if we hit Plopsa at opening we would have ridden everything by lunch then just spent the rest of day walking around looking for things to do. I didn't do Jungle Mission Baron, you are the first man to speak of it's greatness, always next time.

I've no doubt anything Parc Asterix is flogging in the way of a show would be lost on me anyway. Disappointed about that tiger show, was half expecting you to say they let them loose in the tent or something! Day 2 Our hotel was quite good, certainly better than Hotel New York at Disneyland Paris, although I'm sure at points it hit 40 degrees, oh well it was cheap and very well located. We set off at a much more reasonable time today on route to Bellewaerde. Assuming we had already crossed the France/Belgium border imagine our surprise when 10km from the park we took a right turn into a small road with 15 heavily armed soldiers standing there! While slowing down to stop to show them passports, the bloke in charge beckoned us to pass regardless, we must have trustworthy faces or something. For context, me and Belgium don't get on. We did Walibi and Bobbejaanland last year and I really didn't like either. Learnt on that trip too that it's impossible to do 2 parks in 1 day, let's see how we fair this time round. Bellewaerde https://rcdb.com/4848.htm Getting to the park for 20 minutes before opening and assuming we'd dust it off in 1 hour we were rather worried when the car parking bloke sent us down some narrow awful roads to get to car park number 2. Parked up and we knew we had to get fruity in order to get this park done before it was too late to do Plopsa, game on. As with France the locals were trying to out chain smoke each other at the turnstyles, so with more reason than ever now we ran to the first cred of the day. Huracan https://rcdb.com/10979.htm - The ride was meant to open at 10 but in true Belgium spite style it opened at 10:15, thanks. Rather enjoyed the coaster though, the dark ride section before the main event was really cool and the coaster itself was good fun. We ran to the parks tivoli coaster to discover they were doing a Stealth and increasing the amount of rows used each cycle, they were only on 4 when we ran over and the queue was huge, Belgium man! Boomerang https://rcdb.com/926.htm - We did the park's boomerang in the mean time, it was fine, I've ridden much worse of these things. About 8 rows of 1000 were now being loaded on the tivoli, WHY?!! Dawson Duel https://rcdb.com/14196.htm - We decided to check out the queues for the park's brand new dueling alpine coasters, only about 30 minutes, that'll do. You walk up about 100 feet worth of wooden walkways until you reach the ride station, then you pick a side (blue or green) and off you go. It was quite good fun and a nice sit down, nothing special though, if you could control the braking yourself like on a proper alpine coaster I'm sure it would of been much better. Keverbaan https://rcdb.com/927.htm - Finally they were loading all the rows and we got the cred. We grabbed a panini and hit the road but not before screwing up finding the exit of the car park no less than 3 times, smooth! Plopsaland De Panne https://rcdb.com/4850.htm We got to the park about 2 and knew we had to leave at about 5:40, in most other countries this wouldn't be a concern but in Belgium it was. Adding to the Belgium based concerns were the Plopsa concerns, when I did Holiday Park, which Plopsa own, I found operations to be bad and staff to be lazy. Viktor's Race https://rcdb.com/1006.htm - Wasting precious time walking around in circles looking for the Anibus entrance we finally decided to just ride this, +1. Noticing the operations were indeed even slower here than at Bellewaerde, it would indeed imply the Plopsa curse continues. Rollerskater https://rcdb.com/997.htm - +1. The operator quized me on my count though, was it that obvious? Anubis: The Ride https://rcdb.com/4181.htm - Finally something exciting! This Gerts launched coaster was very good. Great launch, the airtime on the top hat was as good as you can get with OTSR and the pacing for the rest of the ride was great. I think I prefer Lynet in Denmark if I'm honest though. SuperSplash - Operations on this thing were laughable, the ride is boring and the water gave me hepatitis but got the cred! By this point it was 4 and we concluded we weren't going to get all the creds today, so we decided to go ride Heidi, the park's brand new GCI woody and cut our loses. When we got to the coaster, we noticed it was closed with a member of staff at entrance so we sat down and camped it out for a bit. 10 minutes later and the queue was opened and a bunch of us powered in, only to be told to leave by security, fair enough. We spent the next hour waiting and watching about 40 different staff members show up, do nothing, then leave. Exactly the same thing happened to us at Holiday Park on our first visit with Expedition GeForce, so this has to be some kind of Plopsa job practice. At 1 point a security man showed up and mocked those waiting and pretty much told us, ride closes at 6:30 it's almost 4:30, what would be the point now, amazing. Draak https://rcdb.com/2447.htm - Losing the will to live and even more faith in Plopsa and Belgium we opted to ride the park's powered coaster, this wasn't wise. Operations were now so bad it was almost a joke, taking minutes to load the train and then having to put up with the locals screaming as it did the station fly through. Time to leave, without Heidi (a coaster I needed being a stupid GCI fanboy) and Vleermuis, we went to the parking ticket machines, broken, Plopsa man! Went into guest services to buy the parking ticket and ask about some kind of reduced ticket to come back after Heidi spite. One grumpy old lady was running the whole thing, all 4 tills, leaving us waiting there money in hand for over 10 minutes while she slowly did some annual pass stuff for some other bloke. Here she comes, no wait she's on the phone, here she comes, no wait another guy needs an annual pass printing. Finally she took our money, walked over to get the ticket for us and went on the phone again, Plopsa!!! We powered out the turnstyles, now slightly late for our hour drive back to the chunnel, when suddenly Heidi goes down the drop with guests on board, what do we do? In a split second decision and against better judgement we ran to the turnstyle lady and begged her to let us back in without a hand stamp, she agreed. We RAN to Heidi, literally through a restaurant with the shutters lowering at 1 point and reached the ride only slightly dying. There was a 10 minute queue, but we didn't just run for nothing and I can't leave without this coaster! Heidi The Ride https://rcdb.com/7645.htm - Really enjoyed this cute little GCI woody, much better than Zeus that's for sure! Easily the weakest of all the GCI's I've ridden but that's to be expected considering it's size, it is what it is and that's a lovely little family coaster. So for the record I'm still not really a fan of any Belgium park and it's still impossible to do more than 1 park in a day there, oh well got Heidi. We were 3 minutes late for our check in at the chunnel which meant we had to be relocated on the 9:20 train, which was delayed by an hour. So we ended up waiting for about 2 hours, which actually went quite fast in all honesty. Busy couple of days but I didn't mind, was good fun, thanks for reading!

The Zero G was one of the better examples of one I must admit Mark, shame about the rest. I feel a whole day at Asterix would of been a waste having now done it. One go on everything interesting then a couple of re rides on Oz and Zeus and that's me done, each to his own though. On that note, 1000 degrees and the smell of the French confined is all I recall of the Oz queue, not my idea of fun! Benin I MUST know, what happens in said tiger show? Seeing them pacing in cages inches from the PAX was concerning enough!

What do you do when it's your best friend's Birthday and you are both coaster nerds? Mop up some more of the Euro creds! We plumped for the trip that was the cheapest and easiest this time round, save the fun stuff for later in the year! Day 1 An extremely early start sent us flying towards the channel tunnel (chunnel) at half 4 in the morning, can't moan too much though, we were pretty much the only car on the road! Surprisingly for us the whole channel tunnel bit went very smoothly and we were soon on French soil. Parc Saint Paul https://rcdb.com/5024.htm After parking my incredibly low car (low by design, not rude boy lowered) in the worst car park in the World (I could literally hear boulders scraping the exhaust), we were at the entrance to Parc Saint Paul. Now I must admit I knew very little of this place beforehand but I quite enjoyed this strange little park! I'm not joking when I say the 2 security guards at the turn styles were 7 and a half feet tall, literal giants doing bag searches, off to an amazingly weird start here. We found out in the park later they are famous or something. They amused me, I hope WWE offer them a contract one day! Pomme https://rcdb.com/3223.htm - Starting the day how I wish I could start every day, with a Wacky Worm! This wasn't just any old Wacky Worm though, this was the best themed Wacky Worm in the World! Wild Train https://rcdb.com/1354.htm - My first ever PAX coaster. For those who don't know about PAX, they are Russian company who are completely mad. This coaster was no exception. Points of sustained ejector, laterals that attempt to injure you, weird rough parts and transitions that shouldn't exist. I loved it. Une Souris Verte https://rcdb.com/3845.htm - This Zamperla spinning mouse did get a bit fruity for us but stills pails in comparison to the Brighton Pier one that almost made me black out. Formule 1 https://rcdb.com/2664.htm - Another mad PAX coaster, what a company! This was great fun, hilarious and felt like it was about to collapse from the word go. Literal live tigers in circus cages inches from the ride area added to the excitement, Christ this park is brilliant. Mini Mouse Cartoon https://rcdb.com/2665.htm - I regret to inform you, this coaster has developed a bit of a shuffle. Aerotrain https://rcdb.com/6718.htm - +1 Made a complete tit of myself trying to order fries, I'm awful at French and have no interest in trying to learn it at all, I pulled it off in the end though! Left the park content, weird as hell little park but it left an impression on me, wouldn't rush back but will burst into laughter thinking about it for years to come. Fully exploiting the fact the French allow you to do 80mph on their motorways (why can't we?), we blasted our way to... Parc Asterix https://rcdb.com/4790.htm I recently saw a member of this forum say something along the lines of, "forums are about sharing opinions, please don't get upset", please remember that as we dive into Parc Asterix. After almost crashing (which isn't fun being my own car and all) at the site of OzIris from the motorway, we pulled into the car park and buttered ourselves up, it was hot as hell by this point. Parc Asterix is a park I've heard stories both great and god awful about for years so I really wasn't sure what to expect. We got the 1 go on most attractions fast track for £20, which isn't bad at all really. Vol D'Icare https://rcdb.com/755.htm - Black engulfs the dying light, as he falls, on frail wings of vanity and wax. Tonnerre de Zeus https://rcdb.com/752.htm - First major disappointment of the day. I was tricked into expecting great things from this large CCI woody, what a mistake. As a man who rather enjoys Megafobia I was expecting that, but bigger, I was wrong. Very little air time to be had on this thing, very few forces and no sense of speed. 90% of the coaster is shaking around turns, not what I was expecting or wanted, meh. Goudurix https://rcdb.com/753.htm - Either this thing has had some major work done to it very recently or most coaster enthusiasts are dead wrong. Goudurix is not at all rough, it's rather fun actually. Saw, Colossus and The Smiler on good days are all more violent than Goudurix, I've no idea how it got the reputation it has. Pegase Express https://rcdb.com/12555.htm - Now I have something positive to talk about! This brand new Gerts family coaster is very good fun, great little ride this! OzIris https://rcdb.com/9675.htm - Oh boy... I really wasn't a huge fan of this B&M invert, that pains me to tell you. Easily the weakest B&M invert I've ridden. Weird flow to the layout, almost forceless and rattly. I was sitting on the brake run the first time thinking to myself, this can't be real. Second lap was slightly better but still disappointing. SOS Numerobis https://rcdb.com/754.htm - +1 Trace Du Hourra https://rcdb.com/1038.htm - Never really been a fan of Mack Bobsleds and this is easily the worst example I've ridden, oh well. Menhir Express - The park's log flume is fantastic, it's been a while since I've done a flume and I really enjoyed myself. Le Defi De Cesar - Very well done mad house with insane preshow section. Let me say some more positive things before you accuse me of being too negative about the park. The army outside ready and waiting to deal with crazy people as well as the very large number of security guards in the park is reassuring in this current environment. The park is fantastically themed in places, it would be a nice place to relax if it wasn't for the locals. Operations on all attractions were amazing, lightning fast all round. The pizza restaurant we found was very well priced and the food was lovely. In my opinion then, the park itself is quite nice and I can see the appeal of it. As for the coaster line up, it's nothing special. We raced the sunset over the next 2 hours to get to our hotel, I hadn't worked out how to put on the stupid light reflector things and didn't want to get a ticket, just about pulled it off though, nicely done. Next time, Bellewaerde and Plopsa De Panne, stay tuned.

It looks fantastic and extremely intimidating from the outside and the way the external queue line perfectly frames the immense looking tower is genius. As for the rest... Didn't think much of the internal queueline. Was expecting to be both scared to death and blown away, I was neither. The ride itself was even more of a let down. Not a fan of tower rides that push you up and pull you down with no force at all. Show aspect of the main ride too let me down. Not much to look at, not much to look it, oh look some strobe lights, oh it's over. I've knew of this thing for years before riding it and read countless fans go on about how life changing it is, so maybe that didn't help things. Or the fact it's located in a park with so many fantastic attractions. I've yet to get to ride River Quest, was down on my visit, I hope that can live up to the honest fear I have about riding it, it looks freaking messed up!!

Those are some strong words about the mighty Taron there, you better pray Cheetah Hunt is that good! I much prefer Nemesis Inferno to Black Mamba, clearly I'm not "everyone else". You didn't have enough time to get all the credits but you rode stupid Mystery Castle twice?! Colorado Adventure was awful in my opinion, rough as hell and completely boring. You missed out big time with Maus as Chocolat, that ride is fantastic! Intriguing read though.

I'll just assume you haven't ridden Helix yet.

Nemesis Inferno is by far the best coaster at Thorpe and it just keeps riding better and better every year. 1) Nemesis Inferno 2) Colossus - From a coaster that I actually stopped riding it got so brutal, to a must ride every visit, come back of the century. 3) SAW - The more Eurofighters I have the misfortune of riding, the more I think Saw has one of the best layouts out there. 4) Stealth - Meh 5) Swarm - I get more excitement out of my computer desk chair.

If Thorpe installed the Bose set ups correctly in the first place, didn't attempt to fiddle with them, ran them at a sensible volume and did very basic maintenance then I'm almost certain most of them would still be going strong to this day. I wonder if the new cheaper looking speakers (which I don't think sound as good as the Bose ones) are used now completely for cost saving or have Bose and Merlin had a bit of a falling out in the past.

Well if it helps keep it a rare cred I'm all for that!

I've been spoiling you lucky lot with my tales of tackling the land of the rising sun and the land of the idol queens. Today it's going to be a little less exciting, but still very important, a creds a cred after all. West Sands Fun Fair https://rcdb.com/9117.htm This gem of a park recently popped up on coast2coaster and instantly became my nearest +1 and my next challenge. An extremely spur of the moment decision, made about half an hour before setting off, is how all good trips start. We picked a great day to do it as well, it only rained heavily for about 75% of the time. In the car (my own personal missile as I like to think of it) blasting down a dual carriageway and suddenly it starts raining so hard I can't see the car in front, or the road or how to turn on the fog lights, spite! After driving down some roads not fit for driving on, 6 foot deep in water and potholes the size of inverted mountains we arrived at the park, kind of. Turns out the park is located within a holiday park and you're meant to be a paying customer of the holiday park to get in. Sat in the car in the pouring rain for 20 minutes assessing our options. Assuming the cred is open in this pouring rain, how do we get to it and where do we park... We asked the friendly man who was the security guard letting cars in and out of the holiday park. He told us you're meant to pay 10 pounds a car to get into the holiday park for the day, but if we only want to get in and do the coaster we can ditch the car and run and he will look the other way, top bloke! Finally in we went to the fun fair bit to see half of it was under water and all the staff were hiding from the rain under the dodgems. Walked over to the coaster, the staff noticed us and asked if we really wanted to ride, yes please! Much confusion between the staff later, including such lines as "how do you operate the brakes?", something I feel Parque de Atracciones are asking themeselves at the moment, and we were on. The staff were really helpful and friendly actually, something that keeps happening when we visit sea side fun fairs in the pouring rain, much better than Nagashima Spite Land that's for sure. 3 laps on this beast later, we thanked the staff and hit the dusty trail. On the way home we stopped off at B&M, not the coaster manufacturers but the wacky superstore and I broke my won't eat McDonalds streak. 3 rare points from coastercount later and I declare this a very good day.

Red Velvet eh, meh... Congratulations though! I bet that's a rather awesome job!

Day 11 Today we planned to quickly dust off the creds at Children's Grand Park and Seoul Land, in order to make up for the farce that was Nagashima Spite Land, I'm still a bit bitter, not sure if you can tell. Children's Grand Park https://rcdb.com/5042.htm Children's Grand Park has 2 entrances, one with the rides right by it and the other a half mile walk away, through trees and a zoo. Guess which one we entered, yes that's right, the wrong one. The area with the rides is nothing special, just a few flats and a couple coasters just plonked on the ground with no theming or trees. Crazy Mouse https://rcdb.com/3125.htm - Not the weirdest roller coaster with a mouse face on the front I rode today but still very weird. Rattled and bumped it's way round the track and then held you in a high level block section for ages then rattled a bit more and it was over. They were playing Kpop in the queue line though, so can't be too harsh on it. Family Coaster https://rcdb.com/11880.htm - Vekoma SFC with the same layout as Kvasten. Even though it had a rhythmic jolt to it, it rode much better than Kvasten. And that was Children's Grand Park! On route to the next park we followed advice we read online to find more elusive Kpop merchants. We ended up stuck in a lift and then entered a drug den, so probably not the best advice. I had rather a large quantity of Won left so we visited a reliable haunt from the day before and I left with a few heavy bags, probably not the best idea. Seoul Land https://rcdb.com/5019.htm Seoul Land was a strange one. You got off the subway at Seoul Land stop, then had to walk down a long path with literally 50 people on either side of the path selling the exact same thing, talk about competition! You then had to buy a one way ticket on the elephant tram or something which goes from this area to among other things the entrance to the park. This park wasn't on our T Card discount list, so knowing the ride line up we joked about how this is the only park in Korea we are paying full price for and what a park! Got to the desk, women got a lamented piece of paper from under her desk, informing us in English, we were going to get tourist discount, Korea I love you. In the park we went and I had to find a place to stash my Kpop haul. Went to the locker building to be presented by 8 Korean girls cosplaying as anime characters, oh god! While I was trying to work out how the change machine worked 3 of them came over to help, oh god! After stashing my haul I left with a big smile on my face. This was the calm before the storm. Much like Lotte World the day before, the locals were out in force today, prepared to queue insanely long for everything and anything. Blackhole 2000 https://rcdb.com/1345.htm - We queued almost 2 hours for this piece of crap coaster, got the cred but at what cost. Columbia Double Loop Coaster https://rcdb.com/1344.htm - This coaster was ever so slightly better and we only queued 40 minutes for it! Crazy Mouse https://rcdb.com/1617.htm - Not even sure what the hell this thing is meant to be, it wasn't awful though. Tikitoc Train https://rcdb.com/1513.htm - This almost wacky worm was easily the best coaster in the park, one part of the coaster had insane sideways ejector air, I'm not even sure it was meant to do it, but it did! Tobot Train https://rcdb.com/1406.htm - What better way than to finish this trip of many powered helixs than with the best one in the World, it kicked ass. So that was Seoul Land, nothing at all special, just +1s, at least I don't have to darken it's doors again on my return trip! Day 12 Woke up feeling a sense of depression I've never felt before. This was it, this was the end of the best trip I've ever had. Somberly packed all my new purchases neatly into my suitcase. Now weighing several tons it was a slow walk to the subway that took us to the airport. BA were even more awful on return trip. Spaying aerosols into the cabin of the plane, "to kill diseases", the only disease here is you BA. Rude cabin bloke pulled the charging cable out of the seat of the Korean girl sitting next to me, who then asked me what he did it for, oh how I wish I could of replied, "it's BA". Someone fainted somewhere over Russia, either from the aerosol attack or in amazement at how incompetent BA are. I watched the Japanese anime film "your name" and it was insanely good, then spent the next 1000 hours drifting in and out of sleep, getting DVT and watching in awe at BA being racist and assuming shouting at Koreans will overcome the language barrier. Good thing I had about 20 Kpop albums to import and browse through, many park maps to sort through, pictures to import and credits to count to keep me busy because it was a tough week or so accepting it was over. We are currently planning to go back to Korea and Japan next year to do the Busan end of Korea and Tokyo side of Japan, can't wait is an understatement. Thank you so much for reading, it's been fantastic getting to think back to how great this experience was.

Makes sense though. Adding a stupid loop with trims before it and a kicker wheel mid inversion is one thing. Imagine how much money and effort you'd have to spend in order to put wider or longer trains on Dodonpa. 1) Completely rebuild the launch system to be able to handle the increased weight, that's even if air powered launches could perform the insanity Dodonpa's launch offers with more weight involved. 2) Redesign the braking and blocking systems. 3) Wider or longer trains would mean redesigning the station, maintenance area and transfer tracks. Probably be easier to just build a whole new ride! As for the restraints however, WHY?!

Day 9 Lotte World https://rcdb.com/5016.htm We had planned to get Lotte World done by 4 in order to test our luck in getting another crack at watching Music Bank, this wasn't to be however. Lotte World is a strange beast, from the outside the entrance could just be another mall, of which there are many in the area too. Found our way to the ticket office just after opening. Told the man on the desk we had T Cards so we should get a 30 percent discount, his honest response, "UGRH"! The amazing man managed to screw up the discount too, instead of giving us 30 percent off, he made the price 30 percent, bargain! Now I reckon a few of you will know of the wackiness that is Lotte World, but for the others who don't. The park is 75% indoors, over 4 or 5 floors and 25% outdoors. The engineering that must of been involved in this place excites a nerdy fool like me. Stuff like a full blown rapids on the 5th floor of a building and the indoor coaster, that's outside, is underground, despite the area being surrounded in water, madness. Atlantis Adventure https://rcdb.com/1646.htm - We got to the fabled AquaTrax just after opening, expecting everyone to be enjoying the indoor attractions thus giving us the ride to ourselves, wrong! The queue was about 50 minutes just after opening. We went and got a free fast track ticket that told us we can return between 5 and 5:15, there goes Music Bank then! Strangely, the coaster's queue can only hold about 10 minutes, which is very strange as you'll learn about this park. So the 50 minute queue was over flowing way out into the outdoor area of the park, don't worry it gets better later! The theming on this ride is just incredible, both inside and out it looks wonderful, only thing missing is a soundtrack really. The ride itself then, it's very good, but could of been much much better, let me explain. Moments of the ride are insanely good but then amazingly bad pacing kills it completely. First launch is very fun, straight into a crazy intense twisted air time hill in the themed structure, it really does feel like you're going to be ejected into the ceiling, it's brutal. Then you fly around in and outside of the structure which is very good fun. Then brakes! You slow to a crawl, traveling past some random I presume broken animatronics and a transfer track. You then go up a slow lift hill, trim before you go down said hill, then it picks up again. More brutal indoor airtime and fast high speed corners, before trims and end brakes. It looks lovely and in moments it's very good, but what were they thinking with the layout though, what this coaster could have been! Comet Express https://rcdb.com/1336.htm - This crazy indoor spinning coaster is almost as good as the AquaTrax! As you can see by the RCDB info, riders find this thing impossible to describe! Fast, non stop spinning (with crazy changes in direction), long and well themed. Oh and you get eaten by a big space monster at the ending, need I say more! French Revolution https://rcdb.com/1335.htm - A full blown Vekoma looper built in the indoor part of the park. This coaster has VR but considering how it interacts with itself and other parts of the building we opted to do it without. Nothing special but I enjoyed it. Lotte World is unlike any park I've been to in regards of queueing. The Korean's would grab some nice snacks and drinks (huge choice in this park), grab their friend/lover, turn on their phone and just happily queue for hours and I do mean happily, having the time of their lives standing there. French Revolution's queue reached over 2 hours at one point and Atlantis Adventure was up to 4 hours as we left the park. Everyone around you being happy and having a good time helped make the queues less tiresome. Now for the dark rides. Fantasy Dream - This was basically a drug fulled nightmare. Slow train ride past singing sunflowers and candycanes, get me off this thing! Sinbad's Adventure - This park must of used dark magic to fit this thing in. Long and very well themed dark ride based on the adventure's of Sinbad. Jungle Adventure - Full blown rapids ride, in a building! Ok so maybe nothing happened and the rapids were weak but it's in a freaking building! Dragon's Wild Shooting - Interactive shooting dark ride. Felt mean shooting the cute little dragons! This ride was very good fun, think we rode it like 3 times. Like I said before this park had a huge amount of food on offer. Having barely eaten for what felt like weeks I ended up eating so much junk today. Had a good day at Lotte World and felt satisfied when we left at about 8. First we popped into the Lotte Mall next door and dipped our toes into the elusive World of buying Kpop in Korea, we went to their Hottracks store, think Korean HMV and found a fair selection, there was more research to be we decided. We then on the recommendation of the girl in our group went to the supposed World's top 10 tourist attraction, Banpo Rainbow Bridge. Walked about a million miles, almost getting run over 50 times to watch some crap fountains dribble water off the side of a bridge, while some LEDs didn't quite light it well enough, useless but the memory gets funnier every time. Day 10 Today was a cred free day that involved visiting many Kpop shops in various places, sounds dull but was essential work. In the evening we visited a tall building (I forget the name) which had an art gallery and a viewing platform, the art gallery was hilarious and the view was alright, as mentioned previously I'm big on culture, honest.

Day 8 Putting yesterday's complete failure behind us... It was with heavy hearts that today marked our last day in Japan. On route to our final park we came across our first Japanese only train ticket machine. We must have looked as confused as we felt because within a minute a friendly lady came over and pretty much did all the work while we handed her the cash and kept saying thank you (in Japanese of course). A short but pleasant train ride later and we arrived at... Hirakata Park https://rcdb.com/5004.htm Having done stuff before setting off to the park and having to be at the airport at 5 we knew we had to put the run into credit run as soon we entered this charming little park. We were pretty much the only visitors in the entire park, which of course in this case was a good thing. The park was very well looked after, had that quirky Japanese feel and the staff were so incredibly friendly, it was the perfect park to end our Japanese tour on. Crazy Mouse https://rcdb.com/1303.htm - Reverchon spinner, but this one didn't spin making it completely pointless really. The staff were so happy to have customers though so I pretended to love it to keep them happy, I'm such a nice person. Elf https://rcdb.com/1304.htm - Cute tiny Intamin woodie, was completely forceless but for what it was I really enjoyed it. Fantastic Coaster Rowdy https://rcdb.com/1305.htm - You're jealous you don't have that name on your coaster count, I'll admit that for you. Peekaboo Town https://rcdb.com/2501.htm - Japan saved the best for last, no not the coaster, the operator, easily one of the most stunning women I've ever seen, therefore this coaster is great, end of review. Red Falcon https://rcdb.com/1306.htm - Probably the best Jet Coaster I've ridden, bring on next time I say, can't get enough of these pointless things. Leaving the park very happy and with over an hour to spare we were feeling very pleased with ourselves, then it all went to hell. Somewhere between Hirakata and the trip to the hotel to collect our bags we collectively and fully ran out of cash. You can just card the trains I'm sure, I remember saying, but no, Japan's subway is cash only... After spending a while trying to find a cash point that 1) did debit cards and 2) didn't have a minimum spend (we needed enough to get to airport, not enough to buy a house) we finally got to the hotel and got our bags. Power walked to Osaka station to find that 1) taxi drivers in Japan that are clearly taxi drivers, don't understand the word taxi and just stare at you till you back away laughing 2) Osaka has 2 airports and we don't know how to get to the one we want. We asked the tourist help women (desperate times) and she said it's over an hour from here to your airport. We paid our money and got our tickets. Spent about 30 minutes trying to check into the flight while on the trains, just about did it. We were going to arrive at 4:15, for a 5 take off flight and we had checked luggage, we were screwed! Or maybe not, literally running through Osaka airport we got to the Asiana desk to see the 2 Korean women running it weighing themselves on the luggage conveyors. Walked over, "Seoul?", "yes!", "whose bag first?", so at the very least our bags were going to Korea that evening. It's now 4:30 plane is delayed but due to take off at 5:15, one of the most intense queues for security of my life and we finally made it. Thank you Asiana! We got back to Korea at about 8 and went to our first Lotteria (like much better Japanese version of McDonalds) and got their cheese sticks, bliss. This time for cost purposes, Japan had shaken us in the money department, we took the subway the whole way from airport to our hotel, which was just outside Lotte World, it took forever! After too much faff to even try to remember we arrived at our hotel. The adorable girl working the desk didn't know what she getting herself in for! Firstly booking.com had somehow screwed some part of the booking, so she spent about 15 minutes slapping her computer, saying she was sorry for the wait and repeating. We got our rooms, I should of had a double room to myself, walked in, 2 twin beds, damn. I had been dead on my feet for the last 5 hours so wasn't at all bothered. Took off my shoes and went to wash my face. Knock on the door. It was the lovely girl from downstairs, I've pulled I thought to myself as I opened the door. She said sorry about a million times and gave me my new room key, walking off forgetting to take the old one. Shoes back on. Lift downstairs. Return the unneeded key to her and told her not to worry, it's fine. Went to my new room and the key didn't work, I almost at this point felt like sleeping in a hallway. I'm not sure my body can take this anymore plus I can't keep doing this to her. Lift downstairs again. As doors open and she sees me I hear her shout the Korean expression for "what can I do" and she begins slapping her computer again. Finally sorted I left her to enjoy her night and realised it's now midnight and I need to get up in 6 hours. How did I survive this trip, I'm sure there's something in the air in Korea and Japan that helped us, Lord know if this was Europe I'd have been 6 feet under by now. Sorry for lack of pictures again, was powering round the park too fast to take any. They will return tomorrow in style as I take on the fabled Aquatrax!

Day 7 During trip planning we had originally planned to have 1 less day in Japan and 1 more in Korea but we got a bit excited when we discovered if we put in A LOT of effort we could have a day at Nagashima Spite Land and ride Spite Dragon 2000, the World's longest roller coaster, We rented a car from the hire place 1 minute walk from our hotel. Even with picking the hire car up as soon as the place opened we knew we wouldn't make the park for opening, it wasn't an option to rent the day before and park it as no hotels in this area had parking, it would mean paying insane money to park it on the street. Setting off after way too much faffing about and we were now due to arrive at 10, the park opened at 9, spite. Nagashima Spite Land https://rcdb.com/4958.htm Pulling into the empty car park was a great start and we saw Spite Dragon 2000 cresting it's many hills, it looked wonderful. We got to the ticket office and by now it was lightly spitting with rain. A sign to the right hand side of the ticket office seemed to imply almost half the park was closed today, WTF. A sign on the ticket office window implied only Acrospite, Spite Cyclone and Ultra Spiter were down. We asked the quite rude man on the desk what was going on, he told us, the 3 coasters listed would be down all day but the other ones listed on the other sign were down because of the very light rain. He PROMISED us if the weather improved everything other than the 3 coasters listed on his window would reopen, liar. Paid our money, more fool us and in we went to the still running Spite Dragon 2000 and joined the back of what must of been an hour queue. Spite Dragon has 3 trains, it was running 1, with a 60 minute queue, why?! Spite Dragon's entrance sign said the ride was closing for the day at 3 for maintenance. It was now 11, the park was closing at 5, Spite Dragon was closing at 3 and we have at least 10 more creds after this to hit and how many of them will close early. We left the Spite Dragon's queue to purchase the fast track for it, from the ORP women. Can we please buy 2 fast track tickets, she shook her head and snapped back that the ride was now closed and low and behold they had just evaced the queue because the rain had changed from light to standard rain, stay calm. Arashi https://rcdb.com/14052.htm - We then joined a 45 minute queue for the brand new S&S Free Spin, Arashi, one of maybe 4 things operating in the entire park. I hate Zac Spins with a passion and this is no where near as bad but still not my idea of fun whatsoever. I really didn't like the constant flips and the intense feeling that comes along with it. Not sure I'd ride Arashi again but I've heard the American Free Spins are tamed down, so maybe they are more suited for more, I'm normally brave honest! Spite Dragon now had an angry looking man standing outside the entrance, time for a chat. "If this rain stops, the coaster WILL reopen?", he snapped back with a aggressive yes. Corkscew https://rcdb.com/1175.htm - More rude staff and me trying to sneak under a girl in the queue's umbrella later and it was time a Vekoma Corkscew. I cant' even remember how it rode other than wet. Spite Dragon's still not testing... Jet Coaster https://rcdb.com/1180.htm - After deciding at Universal that Japanese school kids are so respectful and friendly it wouldn't be an issue to visit during school trip times in Japan, Spite Land decided to prove me wrong, got queue jumped when there wasn't even a queue, why Spite Land why?! Thinking of Spite Dragon maybe not opening and how crappy this supposed World class park was turning out to be I can't even remember this cred. I just want you to know Spite Land close their Tivoli Small in the rain... Peter Rabbit Coaster https://rcdb.com/10873.htm - But they opened a powered coaster, amazing. So 3 credits and a powered were the only things running in the entire park, so we went to a children's pizza restaurant, mainly because most other places were shut, I'm starting to notice a pattern here Spite Land. We sat in the pizza restaurant for over an hour, staring at the lift of Spite Dragon the whole time. Rain now fully stopped, sun out, it was time to man up and hold that man to his word! Walked to Spite Dragon, no staff on platform, engineer in control box, rest of staff cleaning queue. Make our presence known time, stood there at the entrance for 15 minutes while they ignored us. Time to take this up a notch, we walked up the exit stairs and STOOD on the platform of the abandoned ride, the engineer in the control box HIDING under the console to ignore us and the staff in the queue not paying attention to the 2 white guys standing there losing yet more faith in Nagashima Spite Land. We asked the operator of the still running Arashi will they re open Spite Dragon, she said tomorrow. No other coasters reopened either. It looked as though all the staff had gone home and now it's 2pm and lovely weather there's no one here to operate the rides. Fuji Q gets shot down all the time by enthusiasts for this very reason, I think it's time Spite Land got viewed in the same league. We had ice cream in Cold Stone Creamery in the mall next to the park to cheer us up and hit the road, paying over 40 pounds worth of tolls on the way back to hotel, I was now out of money and my friend was getting low, oh god. Nagashima Spite Land really let me down. Stopping rides in the rain is something I've heard about in Japan so I'll let them off for that. Not reopening when weather improves, that isn't sitting right with me. Useless and rude staff letting Japan down, now that just isn't acceptable. I will have to return here on my next trip but because of this visit I'll be returning in fear of a repeat of this. It will also just be a return for the creds because the park as a whole is dead to me. That night we went to Joypolis, basically a big arcade thing, some of them have credits, this one did not. My friend was spunking the last of his cash on trying to win on the evil machines while I was distracted by the staff. The place was staffed by 2 Japanese girls dressed as soldiers, who went around shouting on mega phones, it was weird but I loved it. Joypolis, or at least the Osaka one is a little disappointing, 90 percent of the arcade is these weird beauty machines, where girls take their photo and then play about with the image to make it prettier. Couple of things, Japanese women don't need that, they are almost perfect as it. Also photoshop is a thing girls. Give me Coral Island any day over this. That night I pondered if Japan would redeem itself tomorrow (our last day in Japan), of course it did! Sorry for lack of pictures, I have a weird habit where I don't take photos of coasters that spited me and well they all did...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-40624822 BBC article and one of the videos on the site Matt posted seem to imply a train didn't stop in the brakes and crashed into the back of another waiting in the station, very strange.

Thank you Mark, means a lot coming from you. Day 6 Breakfast time and friend's wife swore that I needed the McGrilled in my life, it's the McMuffin we know and I used to loved but made with sweet honey bread, it was easily one of the worst things I've ever put in my mouth, instantly every nerve in my body shouting please stop, terrible! On the up side it has stopped me having McDonalds full stop since this episode, so once again thank you Japan for helping fix my pathetic life! A short and easy subway trip later and we arrived at... Universal Studios Japan https://rcdb.com/5492.htm For too many years now I've watched YouTube videos from Disneyworld and Universal Studios Florida, I still haven't visited either but hopefully I'll break that very shortly. Universal Studios Japan is described by a few people as the best of the Universals, so I was extremely excited to try this one out! Was greeted by a half hour queue to purchase tickets, which isn't the best of starts, I believe this queue was down to the selling of fast track packages, bit of a weird place to sell them if you ask me, very hard to judge which package you'll need (there are many) based on only seeing the amount of people waiting to buy tickets, strange. Even though at the entrance it looked so busy you'd NEED fast track just to survive this park, once in very few things were stupidly busy, I also noticed they inflate the queue times on the LED boards by sometimes half an hour, is this to sell more fast track packages or because they want you to be amazed a 90 minute queue has been cleared in 60. Space Fantasy The Ride https://rcdb.com/9034.htm - This allegedly World class roller coaster was in VR mode as part of Universal's "Real Japan" event they were having. This meant they were only loading the front facing seats and had disabled the coaster from spinning. The VR was quite good and featured giant robots and giant aliens destroying Tokyo while you flew around in a little spaceship, what is Japan's obsession with giant things destroying things? I don't really feel it's fair to review Space Fantasy because of this, however as far as I could tell the layout was rather boring with lots of slow block sections, so maybe it's the spinning and theming that normally makes this coaster World class, that or it isn't and Mitch Hawker has misled again. After McDonald's spite I was really hungry, so powered into the snoopy restaurant and grabbed some chicken nuggets, fantastic staff in here, could tell they were getting a real kick getting to try out their English. Stood outside Jaws watching the shark outside eat a never ending stream of Japanese school girls while I finished my food. Jaws - You know what this ride is, I knew what this ride was going to be but it was still extremely good fun. The most energetic Japanese girl ever was our skipper and she was fantastic, from POVs of the American one, it really does look as though a skipper can make or break this ride, so I was very happy. Jurassic Park The Ride - Another ride that from POVs I knew exactly what was going to happen but that didn't stop my amazement when the T Rex came out of nowhere, so impressive. The drop was also surprisingly intense to further my praise of this ride. Backdraft - I always enjoy these special effect attractions. Armageddon in Paris is awesome but I think I like Backdraft slightly more. The main show is nothing short of intense and the heat from the fires were insane. Spiderman - I know this ride technology has been around for years but this was my first time riding one these incredible dark rides. I loved it, spent the whole ride laughing and smiling, didn't expect much from this but came off very very impressed. Snoopy's Great Race https://rcdb.com/2519.htm - I know it's a kids credit and I shouldn't moan but this thing rode awful, stupidly rough thing. Then we ventured into Potterland, I knew I wasn't going to enjoy it but it tried it's best to make me even less impressed. Harry Potter & The Forbidden Journey - It was madness even trying to get into this attraction. 10,000 people crowded outside, then 2 entrances to fight your way to, 1 for castle walk through, one for this attraction and even once you think you're in the right one it's still not clear. Spent the whole queueline (impressive at least) confused to if we had entered the correct queue. Then we got to the front, told nothing can come on the ride, go to the this room full of lockers, it was even more stupid than the awful set up at Arthur at Europa, complete madness. After many hours and accidentally exiting through the gift shop but fighting my way back in we had a locker. Now the ride, oh boy. 3D glasses, screens 2 inches from your face and you are attached to a robot arm that can flip around and do all kinds of uncomfortable movements, needless to say this thing gave me motion sickness. Couple that with the fact it's just a collection of key scenes from the movies randomly mashed into a 2 minute ride experience I really wasn't impressed. Flight of the Hippogriff https://rcdb.com/11885.htm - Roughest Vekoma Junior coaster to date. After thankfully escaping Potterland, it was time to experience the big boy coasters of Universal Studios Japan. Flying Dinosaur https://rcdb.com/12959.htm - This B&M Flying Coaster is breathtaking. The queueline board said the queue was 90 minutes all day but we queued 40 the first time and 60 the second time, perfect! This ride operates a fantastic loose article system that wouldn't work anywhere else in the World but I wish it would. 20 minutes before you reach the station, you are handed cards that explain the rules on loose articles, to sum up, none for the love of God, or we will eject you from the park and might send you to jail, noted! 10 minutes before the station you swap your card for a cute plastic tray to put your loose articles in, which you then put in shelving on the station platform. The many Japanese school girls in the queue also got handed big blue elastic bands to strap onto their shoes to stop them flying off on this intense as hell roller coaster, crazy but brilliant idea. By this point in the trip I knew Japan was awesome enough to trust putting my phone and wallet in the tray, you've already stole my heart Japan, you can have my phone if you want. The Japanese way of dealing with "assuming the position" is amazing. Ear bursting screams, turning into laughter, then silence as the coaster tilts up, then the exact same as the ride dispatches. While going up the lift of this beast, which is a lot taller than Craplactica and nothing at all below you, if you wave then everyone below waves back at you, must of triggered at least a hundred people to wave on our last lap. Flying Dinosaur is an extremely intense ride, something I didn't think this ride type would allow, it honestly bests Nemesis at points for sheer intensity and the pretzel loops are life altering. The pacing is fantastic and the intensity never lets up. Only complaint I can think of it, the ankle restraints are pointy and cut into your shins, I wonder why they did this, is it because of the Japanese market or because B&M think it's a better design? Hollywood Dream: The Ride https://rcdb.com/3621.htm - Having only ridden Silverstar before this (this one is better) I wasn't expecting much from this baby B&M hyper coaster, but I was wrong and it's very good fun. Combining both the standard and awesome B&M hyper airtime moments with a more compact and twisty layout was great idea. This coaster features onboard audio, I chose Jpop on the first lap and it was awesome. Hollywood Dream runs 2 of it's 5 trains fully reversed, yes you read right, 5 trains! At the end of the day, in the dark, we rode this beast backwards with the theme from some anime playing, it was so fun I don't know if I have the words to convey. Backwards airtime you can't see coming, twisty dips and drops you can't see coming, the dark and the epic soundtrack made this really special! Terminator 2 3D - Was bit lack luster for me, but was a nice rest for my poor legs. At the end of the day, the park were doing a brand new projection show on the Hogwarts castle, more Potterland ranting to come, I'm sorry. We had it in our head what show time we wanted, and proceeded to get there 10 minutes before hand but spite. On approach to Potterland staff told us we needed a timed ticket to enter and needed to go somewhere vaguely in the direction she was pointing to get it. 5 minutes of being lost later we found the touch screen machines, however you had to scan your park entrance tickets to get a time slot, 5 more minutes of faffing around in bags later we had our time slot but wait a sec. Shows start on the hour, and time slots are hour hourly, so you had a 50/50 chance of missing the beginning of the show. Not wanting to wait around any longer we decided to just enter Potterland at 8 for the 8 show and miss the beginning. Showed the women our ticket and starting sprinting through the long walk that divides Potterland from rest of the park. We missed the start but it didn't matter, it was complete crap. Dementors crudely flying around the castle was the only projection part of this "projection show", with the rest happening on a stage in front of you. Some bad acting and nothing much happening later and the FIVE minute show of which we missed 2 of had finished, complete waste of time and effort. Give me Disney Dreams any day of my life. Universal Studios Japan as a whole was a bit of a let down for me. As a park it didn't catch my imagination or do anything special enough to stir emotions by just being there. However the 2 B&Ms are World class and Flying Dinosaur on it's own is easily worth the effort of visiting this place, it's that damn good. Perhaps not getting Space Fantasy in it's normal set up didn't help the park by having 3 stand out World class coasters to flaunt, I will have to visit one day in the future to get Space Fantasy how it should be and ride Flying Dinosaur again until I bleed. That night we went to Tower Records, a famous music store and spent lots more money on more Jpop albums, this was probably a mistake as I shall get to in the next 2 days.

Day 5 We started today nice and early and grabbed some pastry products on route to the bullet train station from our hotel 5 minutes away. All the bullet trains are named after Japanese women, I can't recall what our's was called but I think it's a fun idea and she was a looker for sure. The train was easily the smoothest train I've ever used and fast, very fast. I exercised the facilities on board and it was the nicest toilet in Japan, heated seat and all, as I left the bathroom a Japanese man bowed at me, awesome! We were on a train on route to Osaka but stopped off at Himeji for culture and creds. As we were lugging around our large suitcases it was time to find a drop off point, we knew looking online the station had limited lockers, just as we saw them about 3000 Japanese school kids walked past blocking our path, all of them waving at the strange looking foreigners, in any other country I wouldn't have reacted but it's Japan so of course I waved back. Arms now aching we arrived just in time to steal the last 3 big lockers from some rude Americans, suck on that! Now feeling free we boarded the bus outside to take us to Himeji castle. Spent about 20 minutes looking at as much of the castle as you can for free and then we boarded another bus to take us to... Himeji Central Park https://rcdb.com/4966.htm The entry system for this park is a weird one, you buy an entrance ticket which let's you into the safari bit (which we didn't want) and the amusement park bit. You then have to buy a wristband to ride the rides on top of that. So this park ended up costing us 45 pounds each and if I'm honest with myself, it was a lot of money for what it is. The park feels very tired and out of date and with the fact we were the only ones there, it almost felt abandoned. Japan is home to the huntsman spider, one of the largest spiders on earth, I hate spiders, one of the toilets I went into was covered in cobwebs and the lights didn't work, one of the quickest drainings of my life this was. Camelback Jetcoaster https://rcdb.com/2277.htm - Another nice sit down. Diavlo https://rcdb.com/1208.htm - Batman clone B&M Invert. Rode like crap, no forces what so ever and could only ride in the front row, literally pointless. Hurricane Screw & Loop Coaster https://rcdb.com/3444.htm - Another Togo, unlike the World would have you believe it was fine. Imorinth https://rcdb.com/1210.htm - Cool name for a wacky worm, +1. Labryinth https://rcdb.com/1209.htm - This weird mini Meisho coaster was probably the star of the park coaster wise, yes the invert was that crap! Free Fall - My first Intamin first gen drop tower, this was the star of the park full stop. Giant Ferris Wheel - Another 400 foot ferris wheel, this time however made of so much rust that as soon as we reached a quarter of the way round the beams holding our pod up started making extremely concerning noises, so glad to get off this thing. Because this park had limited bus routes out of it, we ended up taking a taxi back to Himeji station, more money spent for this park then! Not sure I'll ever need to return to this park in my life and that's fine. We then took the slow train this time from Himeji to Osaka and spent ages looking for our hotel, one day I'm sure we will be good at this. An adorable trainee checked us in at the hotel, her English was great! Room keys in hand, waiting at lift and she came running over to us, trying to explain that because I had a hotel room to myself I had to pay a one off fee, in hindsight I really should of just asked her to come stay with me for the 3 nights we spent there but stupidly I just paid the 1 pound fee, spite! That night we took the subway into a place called Umeda (I think), it's a very busy place, great for starting panic attacks and features loads of knock off shops, avoid. Thankfully leaving that stain on Japan we went to a mall. First off we visited the Pokemon Center, which didn't really interest me but I did love getting my friend to name all the Pokemon I could find, he's rather well versed on the subject! We then went to HMV and spent far too much money on Jpop CDs. In Korea and in Kpop you can get a fancy CD package, normally with 60 page booklet, photo cards and somethings even balloons for about 7 pounds. In Japan you get a bog standard looking CD plastic case thing and nothing else for minimum of 10 pound, madness. To end the night we ate dinner at a snooty pizza restaurant and met the rudest people in Japan. I had been told Osaka is the ghetto part of Japan but after how lovely Fukuoka was it was bit off putting. The staff didn't really explain how the menu worked and then proceeded to stare at us while we ate, how welcoming! Back to the hotel we went carrying our life savings worth of Jpop and sat down to some free Japanese adult entertainment.

Just got back from War for the Planet of the Apes and I really enjoyed it! Very satisfying ending to a fantastic trilogy of films, unless of course they plan to do more and I'm not sure at this stage if I want that or not.

Day 4 After skipping the clam chowder at breakfast, no really, we hit the road on route to... Space World https://rcdb.com/4962.htm Space World is closing at the end of this year, some say it is partly due to the backlash the park faced when they put dead fish in the ice rink, I really hope those moaning know how stupid they sound and certainly hope they don't get fish and chips for dinner tonight. We parked our stupid hire car in multi story opposite the park entrance, paid our entry and we were in! Zaturn https://rcdb.com/3454.htm - We started our day off with Zaturn after reading trip reports that they run it badly, they do. We were in the first train of the day's worth of people waiting at the air gates, then they made an announcement about loose articles, made everyone leave the air gates and go into a small room with paid lockers, all the Japanese faffed about for ages with everything in their pockets while we stood there lost having left our wallets with our non rider, I guess my phone is sneaking on then! Seated now and now they are pointing to signs and making speeches about safety stuff, please send the ride! Zaturn is a clone of Thorpe Park's Stealth, it rides EXACTLY the same as well, as I'm not really a fan of Stealth anymore and because of the faff, I'll rate Zaturn meh. Titan Max https://rcdb.com/1194.htm - This Arrow "hyper coaster" was awful. The weird non standard S&S trains aren't as flexible as the old reliable Arrow ones so you spend 90 percent of the ride jolting and crashing around. Going up the lift I had a mild headache, by the end brakes I was crying and holding my head still. If Amanda buys these for Big One... Hell I'd probably still ride it for a laugh but it would be awful too. Titan having given me my worst headache to date, I needed to go to the car for pills. Waiting at the hand stamp gate and no word of a lie, 6 Japanese girls came running to fight for the chance to stamp my hand, this is fantastic! The winner, let's call her the alpha held my hand and sung to me while she stamped my hand, Merlin parks don't even manage to apply the ink properly so this level of service almost fixed me before I got my pills. On my return, the scramble happened again, this time fighting for who gets to let me back in, of course the alpha won again and once again sung as she guided my hand into the ultra violet light to see the stamp, do we have to leave this part of Japan? Boogie-woogie Space Coaster https://rcdb.com/1197.htm - This amazingly named roller coaster was a lot better than it had any right to be. The operator was encouraging everyone to do amazing hand movements and say "Boogie-Woogie, Boogie-Woogie", not even I could refuse that. Venus GP https://rcdb.com/1195.htm - Easily the star of the park. Rare Maurer looping coaster that rode and looked like a Schwarzkopf. Fast, quite intense and a lot smoother than I was expecting, really hope this ride is sold and can live on, great fun. The ride plays rock music when it dispatches and the operator encourages you do devil horns as you go past him, madness. Clipper https://rcdb.com/1196.htm - Kiddy cred of the park but I remember it being better than expected. We got spited by the indoor coaster, Blackhole Scramble, but that's fine, I got my own scramble and loved it. We rode their 400 foot ferris wheel (that's 2), they give you binoculars and each pod has a note pad and pens so you can leave your mark. I got a banana chocolate ice cream crepe thing and it was excellent, Japan is apparently famous for it's crepes, or at least that's what at least 3 Kpop idols have told me. Some fools online have said Space World is run down and falling apart, they are wrong, while SOME parts of the park do look quite worn, there is nothing even on par with how atrocious Chessington has gotten. I enjoyed the park and found the whole thing quite endearing. The staff all seemed to be having a great time, despite their park closing down soon, so that's great to see. Followed up by quirky things like a graffiti wall, with pens included, for you to write your good bye message to the park and the capybara cafe, which I didn't do but I wish I had. The park was one of the busier parks on this trip and with how much I enjoyed myself I really hope the park finds a way to stay open, fingers crossed. Got back to the car and punched into the sat nav the co ords for Kijima Kogen, the sat nav replied we'd get there 5 minutes before close and had 70 pounds of tolls on route, spite! Coast2Coaster booted up after spunking a 5 pound data bolt on and saw there was a +2 nearby, score! Kashiikaen Yuenchi https://rcdb.com/5003.htm This was such a pain in the ass to find the car park and then even harder to find the park entrance. Bunbun Coaster https://rcdb.com/3007.htm - That's 3 powered twin helixes. Pegasus https://rcdb.com/1302.htm - Another fantastic sit down on 10 mile long jet coaster, bliss! We then drove back to hire car place, returned the car and took the metro to Fukuoka bullet train station. That night we bought our tickets for bullet train for the next day, 100 pounds, 1 way, not the full way, Japan why you got to be so expensive but so hard to say no to?