A once world record holding theme park with a view... but just not today!
We're only at one location today, so I'd say this post will be short and sweet, but it probably won't be with my waffling.. but the pictorial will be! In fact, I barely took any being on rides n all, so I won't bother with a video pictorial and just upload a small gallery instead.
So here a few facts I stole of the tinternet as to why we figured we'd visit Fuji Q.. but I have just filled in the translation gaps a little.
In 1996, the FUJIYAMA coaster was certified a Guinness World Record for the height, the difference in elevation, and the speed. Dodonpa followed in 2001, which was the then fastest at 172km/h, alongside the "Super Scary Labyrinth of Fear", which is the longest-running haunted house in the world. In 2006, they opened the "Eejanaika" coaster, which has the highest number of spins in the world, before 2008's "Nagashimasuka" whose signature is being the world's largest pair of lucky cats covered with gold leaves, which is also certified as the biggest lucky cat in the world. 2011 introduced the Guinness-certified roller coaster "Takabisha", which had the steepest drop at 121°, and in 2017, the "Dodonpa" roller coaster was renewed to "Do・dodonpa", which has the world's fastest acceleration.
We're pretty sick of trains and long journey's by now, but thankfully today is our last one, and we'd pushed it back in a hope of getting better weather and to break up the previous long journeys given we'd pencilled this in originally for the next day after we arrived in to Tokyo from Koyosan (I think). While the weather in Japan has been consistently hot, we were also met with plenty of overcast days, and that's despite very few rainy days that really stopped play. One of the major appeals of Fuji Q is the views of Mount Fuji as you hit new heights on rollercoasters. You can't miss it on the ground, never mind up in the air, but that was a luxury not afforded to us despite being near the base, as the weather was a solid white-out for the majority of the day, and throughout the duration it certainly was while facing towards Fuji. Just over two hours from Akihabara, Tokyo, and we arrive in to fujikyu-highland station adorned with loads of Thomas The Tank Engine stuff. I gather it's also the home of Thomasland, but I'm not sure if it's a separate attraction you pay in to as I don't remember seeing much Thomas stuff past the station and entrance, yet online it shows you being able to ride with Thomas amongst other tank engine attractions - it's probably aimed at a much younger demographic anyway. It's quite a simple park with few bells and whistles, as unlike your Universals or even Alton Towers back home, you're not surrounded by fantasy and perfectly presented areas, so it's definitely got more of a rough and ready vibe to it. With a bit of spittle in the air and empty walkways, we're pretty buoyed by the fact that it seems like a quiet day, as we know your average park ride queue waiting times can number in the hours at most major parks.
We head to the nearest coaster which I believe was Eejanaika, where despite the seemingly empty park, had a waiting time listed of at least 45 minutes. We weren't sure whether that was accurate or a general time they throw up for most days, but decide to move on to come back to later. Now with Fuji Q, and I imagine many parks, rides close with bad weather and high winds, so given today isn't great, we were a little concerned, especially as we head up a dead end that looks like it has been closed off in a makeshift way. There we wait in a small queue for the Red Tower.. one of these rides that heads straight up and then free falls while your legs are dangling. At some point in life I become not the greatest fan of heights, and while it seemed a good idea at the bottom, about halfway up, we all looked at each other and exclaimed, "whose stupid fucking idea was this"? To ease the fear, it's easy to think "I bet the views of Fuji are lovely on a nice day", but I think we were seated with our back to it anyway. While mooching our way around the park, we head through the 'Naruto × Boruto Fuji Hidden Leaf Village', which is a self-contained section dedicated to the anime, as the name suggests. There are plenty of visuals and Insta worthy selfies to be had here, and in there we went on a 3d ride where you have to shoot things on different screens by manually pulling a string as a trigger as you make your way around the course - which not being fluent in Japanese, isn't immediately obvious. You're competing against your friends as their scores pop up, and by the time you work out how to fire not via the plastic fixed trigger but by yanking a string as fast as possible, you've missed the first screen or two with confusion, while the kids are smashing away. Despite this, I was in the lead at one point, but I lost it at the end... boo! You can get a serious case of tennis elbow if you're no careful, so i blame that! It was genuinely one of the more fun rides because of the competitive spirit and interaction. Now I like coasters, but the one thing I hate is being strapped in to a seat where there's room between you and the harness, and what I mean by that is, many coasters have wiggle room, so even though you're against a solid pull down over the shoulder bar/harness, as soon as you're inverted, your arse is off the seat by a few inches, and it's the fact that you're not pushed right down and trapped against the seat and are solely relying on that harness that gets my brain failing. Going through a few loops, this isn't the end of the world as these transitions are quick, but when you're riding an incline backwards and inverted for a short while before the drop, then you have time to wonder just how much you should be floating - and there are rides here that do that to you. We also went on Tentekomai, one of these plane flyers that raises up and spins around, and where your plane is on like a gyro. You can manipulate the wings by tilting them, and eventually you'll spin using the joys of physics. Damn, we were confident we'd smash that day's rotation scores, but once you get up and start the motion and have to counter it with precision timing in the opposite direction (imagine being on a swing and using your leg motion and timing to get higher) to get to the point you can do 360's, then your practice run is quickly running out - and again, there's that bit right at the top just before you break in to the 360 where you're seemingly hanging upside and can't quite tip it over the edge, so you have to pull back.. that paused inversion just on the harness puts the willies up you a little too.
Along with the Red Tower, Naruto and Tentekomai, we did a few smaller rides like the Attack on Titan 4d ride, but in the end we bought fast passes for a coaster too, because despite it looking like an empty park, the queue for the major coasters were accurately timed, and we'd never have got on them all in time before the park closed - so bare that in mind on top of your entrance fee. It seems a little crazy that parks can charge so much for entry, and then you have to pay extra just to make it on half the rides via the major coasters, but I guess that's the reality of parks these days unless they introduce a smaller sold out caps, which lets face it, they're not going to damage their profits for. So with that being said, it's not the greatest ran park and the aesthetics outside of the self-contained worlds aren't the best either, but I do remember Fujiyama being my favourite coaster there, and some of the others were decent too. I'd have to leave it to your digression as to whether it's worth the (at least ) two-hour trip out of Tokyo for it, but I guess given the history of their once record-breaking rides, if you're a coaster fanatic, then it's a must, but as a casual theme park fan, maybe not so much. While I'm sure the view of Mount Fuji is spectacular, I can't imagine what it would be like on a day with better weather either, as I imagine it would be far busier.
The journey back to our hotel I seem to remember being longer too. Depending on when the park closes (it can be flexible) and the train options, that journey can approach, if not be more than three hours, and I remember it feeling like a long old slog after a full day of standing around in queues, and that's despite getting to ride the funky anime train back part way of the journey. I think the park left a bitter taste in Marc's mouth as he left angry words on Google, such was his overall experience with it all and it's logistics. Again, I think it's maybe not a day you need to tie up on your possibly once in a lifetime Japan experience, unless of course you're a big coaster fan and that's one of the big reasons you're heading over rather than the culture.
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