Trip Report: Nagashima Spaland 29th December

[Gazza]

Ok the forums seem a bit busier again so i should really finish off these Japan trip reports.

I went to Nagashima Spaland on a Sunday in December, the park was lively but not heaving.

https://www.parkz.com.au/parks/JP/Kuwana/Nagashima_Spa_Land/

It seems to be every trip report of this place is dead in terms of crowds, so people tend to enjoy a fairly easy day.

The issue I discovered with Japanese parks is that when they become even slightly busy, the slow operations they all have (Outside Disney and Universal and Legoland) just becomes a bit painful so even short queues just eat up time. Over the course of my day, I managed to ride the main coasters once*, and that was relying on using express passes, so tragically, I only got to ride Hakugei once (And they shut the queues before closing time, so my recommendation would be making sure you get a few express tickets for earlier in the day if you want to re ride....and avoid weekends (Which were unavoidable in my case)

Also, Ultra Twister was closed, as was the Intamin first Gen Freefall ride. Genuinely miffed about both.

To get to the park you can get a train from Nagoyas main station to Kuwana, then a bus.

Or you can get a direct bus from the central bus station. The latter option is about 10 min longer, but much easier. If you do get a bus, sit on the drivers side so you can get pics of the coasters as you approach the park.

The park has two entrances, a front one under Steel Dragon,

or a back one near the resort/ SW corner of the water park. The bus will drop you at the latter.

 

Pre purchasing tickets is a pain for foreign visitors, so make a beeline for the ticket booths.

I opted to wander around the outside of the park briefly for some pics before opening.

 

The park itself is neat, tidy, and well maintained, and surprisingly compact for the number of rides it has, so is easy to navigate.

There's also a wide variety of flats, none of which i got to ride

So I'll do a run through of everything

Hakugei

2 hour queue as soon as it got here at opening so I noped out and got a fast pass.

A couple of minutes of coaster heaven, being thrown in all directions, unexpected twists, heaps of airtime. I went to go back for another ride later in the day but the queue had been closed fuuuuuuuuuu, so I really have to judge it on that one ride. I probably liked it better than Steel Vengeance, this one seemed more spread out and varied, had a zero g stall, and didnt rely on a shitload of painful airtime bumps to pad out the last half of the ride. Superb.

Steel Dragon 2000

This one is Morgan hypercoaster with B&M trains, so runs very nicely. It's not the most imaginative hypercoaster out there, but it does shine in the latter half with the long line of airtime hills at the end. again, Only a single ride on this one sadly.

Bobkart

Bobkarts are like those toboggan runs, but on flat ground, with a motorised kart. They are moderately thrilling, with tiny pops of air over the bunny hops along the course. Naturally though you just push the lever foward and go as fast as you can, but the max speed is only fairly moderate. You dont get the fear factor of the gravity driven toboggan runs where you can go fast, but have that fine line of almost tipping it.

Acrobat

This flying coaster is a clone of Manta at SeaWorld Orlando. It's a good solid layout. The park run it like idiots though, with one train and one station open, and the train is parked before they let you in to the gate area put your stuff in the lockers, so forking out for a fastpass is a must to avoid their fuckwitted operations that cause slow lines.

The pretzel loop is crazy of course, but these become a bit harder to tolerate the older you get.

This was the only coaster i got a 2nd ride on because I basically hot footed it there around 4pm when it was apparent the queues for the other coasters were closing and managed to snare a pass just before they turned off and emptied the machine for the day.

 

Corkscrew

I think this was the first coaster i had to actually queue for at this point, and it still took 30 mins for a few trains. Well taken care of, this ride is like the SW Corkscrew if it didn't have a loop.

Wild Mouse

This was obviously bought from the German fair circuit, because the pay box had Euro plugs in it.

As you probably guessed, only one side of the coaster was open, so another 30 min wait. Not sure what else I'd need to write about a mouse coaster.

I did get this cool pic though.

Giant Wheel Aurora

Japan = Land of the massive Ferris wheels. I got on this one around midday when the sky was clear and there were minimal shadows. You can see just how logically the park is laid out and how neatly attractions are slotted together.

Farm De Bang Bang

Farm De Bang Bang was a toy story mania type ride with ugly 4 person cars:

I did find the pull cords were a bit worn out on this one so it was hard to get points. All of the games had a farmyard theme, with the last one involving setting off fireworks at sunset.

 

Jet Coaster

When you go to Japan, you have to ride a jet coaster, a ride type with long drawn out shallow drops and wide turns. Imagine DWs thunderbolt after the loops essentially. Another short queue/long wait situation, but the ride was relaxing, with a nice leafy setting compared to the rest of the park.

Looping Star

A couple of bites of the cherry with this one. First time around it broke down while i was waiting, thankfully it was up and running again towards the end of the day. These things are great, with a powerful loop and fast turns, and even a couple of speedy pops of airtime towards the end. A true classic.

Shuttle Loop

Not too much of a wait for this one, i dont mind shuttle loops actually (Arrrow ones are my fave) but i guess it feels a bit underwhelming in the same park as Looping Star.

Children Coaster

This thing was deserted, no queue, things are looking up!

Arashi

I've Ridden Batman at SFFT, Joker at SFGAdv and now Arashi, and Arashi is the craziest. On the first level alone you get 4 flips, and tumble non stop through the rest of the course. Lucky it is so short because i dont think you could put up with it if it was any longer)

Jumbo Viking

 This one was a must do for me.  Look at the size of the regular pirate ship on the right, and then the massive double one on the left.

I cannot think of any situation where this thing would utilise its capacity, and to be honest the park would probably be utterly heaving with crowds if both sides were running and it had a queue.

They only run the ride once every 15 mins , and even then its not even full. It felt a bit gentler compared to a normal pirate ship due to how long the swings are.

Peter Rabbit Skyliner

Once the coasters were shut and I'd done my 2nd ride on Acrobat there wasnt much else to do, so i did a lap on this one to get some photos, which was a similar ride to the monorail cablecar thing at Tobu Zoo. Photos somewhat unsuccessful due to the poor light at that stage of the day.

Haunted House

This walk through was one the last things I did for the day. No actors, just static props through nicely done scenes of a traditional Japanese village with stuff the local market seemingly find scary, like wolf headed men and sobbing women.

 

Overall, yes the park is decent with some must do attraction, but just be prepared for queues if the park is anything other than dead. If i was visiting for the first time, 1.5 days might actually allow a more comfortable pace, and if you are done early, well then there is plenty of other places to see nearby with your new found extra time.

At the end of the day be prepared for traffic congestion. I had to get a bus back to make an evening train, and it was lucky i had left a buffer and taken an earlier bus, because i didn't have a whole lot to spare in the end.