Trip Report: Lagunasia Japan

[Gazza]

Lagunasia is a small, but well-ish themed* park located in Gamagori.

https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/JP/Gamagori/Lagunasia/

It’s “on the way” to Nagoya/Kyoto/Osaka. You can catch an all stops Shinkansen to Toyohashi, then switch to a local train to Gamagori, where shuttle buses run from the station to the park every 30 mins.

Once you are done at Lagunasia, you can jump back on the bus to the station, then train to Nagoya and be there in an hour.

First things first, would I bother making an effort for this place or recommend it as must do? Probably not.

The place isn’t “bad” per se, but it’s definitely past its prime. It would have looked great when it opened, but its weathered now, and has a shitload of tacky food stands and temp attractions / overlays that just clash and ruin the look of the park. There are only a small number of attractions, which are ok, but you’ll be done in a couple of hours easy, and to be honest, if you are headed to Disney etc, then the dark rides here wont offer you much, and only 1 out of 3 of the coasters was really enjoyable.

Past trip reports were quite glowing, and previously they had an Indiana Jones style multi motion dark ride (Which got replaced by a coaster) which would have been great, but yeah its def a has-been place now.

You can download a discount voucher from the English website and show your passport.

First impresions are good. A friendly staff member took my photo at the entrance.

But it just seems a bit hodge podge, with random photo ops, attraction overlays, temp food stands, and the lights and fountains set up in the pools.

As for the rides.

Stellar Coaster

Basically a spicy roller skater.

Pirates Blast

There used to be an Indiana Jones style EMV dark ride in here, and it's a tragedy this was removed, since they are so rare and special, and I'm obsessed with them.

They retrofitted a coaster through the same scenes, and it felt a lot like the first half of scooby in terms of pacing and intensity. Smallish drops and multiple short lifts through a temple environment that looked pretty good. Towards the end is a big drop below ground level in front of a glass window with the ride name written on it, a few more outdoor turns, and then the ride is over.

The ride has VR, with some awful additional theming to promote this, but of course i did it no goggles so i could see the theming.

Aqua Wind

Gerstlauer boblsed coaster, so its like a better version of a wild mouse. You can tell from the pics what to expect. I did think it was lacking bunny hops compared to other ones of these Ive done. At one point you pass through a building, which was just a big blacked out shed inside with a scale model glowing planet type thing in the middle.

Fire Fire Next

 

This one is a suspended dark ride like peter pan, except it went up and down some very steep hills so you'd move up several meters to scenes on the upper level then back down again, etc etc. The lighting was cool, and the targets looked like devil possesed pokemon.

 

Magic Powder

Everyone bangs on about this ride, and it's cute, but lets be honest, if you have ridden "its a small world" you don't need to go out of your way to see this.

The queue is well themed, like a toy factory. There was a great bit of theming where toys went into a machine where magic powder was applied, and through the use of peppers ghost and a screen, the toys would come to life.

The ride is a giant turntable, and you sit in rotating cans, and move past a few scenes. The story goes the magic powder is stolen so everyone is sad because they cant make toys. The elves in the toy factory travel to various locales (town, forest, under the sea etc) to find the thief. From memory the final encounter with the cartoon villain is very silly (he looked like a cross between Bart Simpson and Sonic the hedgehog) and vanishing magic powder is used to banish him.

Of course in the final scene everyone is celebrating that the toy factory is working again.

Legend of Labyrinth

I felt Bermuda vibes on this one, as you pass through themed caves. At one point is a lift hill, turntable, and backwards drop with a camel hump. The climax comes with a dragon animatronic, and then you seemingly pass into the "afterlife" in the next scene, which is filled with thousands of dots of white light. The final drop is outdoors, and a bit of a soaker.

Parallel Walk

A cycle monorai I did to get a few photos over the park.

As for the rest of the place....

So to sum up, if you are genuinley interested, go, but I wouldn't bother structuring your trip around a visit to this place.

Edited February 10, 2020 by Gazza

[New display name]

Please stop posting trip reports on Japan.  With the the coronavirus my lady has killed off any plans to go to Japan this year.😥

[Guest 239]

1 hour ago, Skeeta said:

Please stop posting trip reports on Japan.  With the the coronavirus my lady has killed off any plans to go to Japan this year.😥

We cancelled our Shanghai trip to go to Japan! There is very little to worry about. https://tdrexplorer.com/coronavirus/

[New display name]

45 minutes ago, CaptainLazerGuns said:

We cancelled our Shanghai trip to go to Japan! There is very little to worry about. https://tdrexplorer.com/coronavirus/

My lady has an immune system disease so we can't take any risks.  If it was just me, I would go.