Sapporo Weekend - Part 2: Rusutsu Resort

[Gavin]

Rusutsu Resort in Japan has been a personal vendetta for way too long. I’d intended to finally get to it last Easter, but because of its location in the north, it was still a few weeks off opening. I ended up using a long weekend a few weeks ago to finally get it done.

Since direct flights from Hong Kong end up arriving in Sapporo in the afternoon, taking a direct flight on the Saturday wasn’t really an option since that day would be pretty much completely lost. Instead, I took a late flight to Tokyo on Friday night, hung around at Narita Airport for a few hours and took the first domestic flight to Sapporo on Saturday morning, arriving sometime before 8am if I’m remembering correctly.

Since I only had a smallish backpack for the 2 nights, rather than heading to the hotel first, I went straight out to Hokkaido Greenland, which involved taking the train into the city, transferring to another train and then finally a bus, taking a couple of hours altogether, but being mostly straightforward.

Hokkaido Greenland

I don’t think this place will ever be on anyone’s “must visit” list, but it would be a bit daft to not just knock it off if you’re planning on hitting Rusutsu. Gorgeous weather and a not too busy park considering it was the weekend. There were two kiddy coasters, one of which had a unique conveyor belt for a lift hill, like something you’d see on a log flume, but otherwise they were pretty nondescript.

The Senyo Kogyo looper was vile. Anyone who rags on Togo really needs to ride stuff from some of the other Japanese manufacturers. The first drop is also the most stupid coaster element I’d seen in a long time. It looked great with the very green grass and very blue sky at least, like if the Teletubbies built a cred.

The highlight coaster here is GO-ON from Meisho, a manufacturer I find to be very hit and miss. This one should have been excellent, and for many people it probably is. Unlike the usual “jet coasters” with triangular hills that don’t do anything, this one had some proper airtime. However, the cramped seats (a Meisho fixture) and awful OTSR that sat right on my collarbone, coupled with being taller than 5 feet 2, made for quite an unpleasant overall experience. It wasn’t rough, but the strong airtime coupled with how the hard OTSRs were sitting on me left me with actual bruises. With lap bars, I would’ve loved it.

Bunch of pictures, including from the oven-like Ferris wheel. I’m so used to the Chinese air-conditioned ones that I forget how stiflingly uncomfortable a lot of the Japanese ones are. “Japan is living in 2050” my arse.

Since it was relatively stress free to get to the park, I assumed that the buses back to the nearest station must run pretty regularly, but it turns out that I’d accidentally just timed it perfectly on the way in. It was lucky that I hadn’t taken the quick detour to leave my bag at the hotel, since I would’ve missed a bus and ended up waiting around for ages. The buses only ran once every couple of hours, and when I finally noticed that when checking the return trip, I had the option of either leaving pretty much straight away (all creds and Ferris wheel done) or hanging around for another 2 hours. I went for the first option. Had GO-ON been more comfortable, I would’ve stuck around for a few rerides. Have the rest of the pictures I’ve uploaded, and further behold the stupidity of the looper’s first drop.

Hokkaido Greenland? Meh. It’s just one of those typical smaller Japanese parks that continues to cling on despite relatively few visitors and no new rides for years. Go for the +4 if you’re in the area.

My hotel was just across the street from the main train station, and I ended up getting there by mid-afternoon, so had plenty of time for a wander around Sapporo city centre. I’d left time on the Monday for this as well. I just walked across to some old(ish) building that were highlighted on tourist maps but weren’t actually very interesting, and through a bit of long, narrow park that runs across the city.

There’s nothing wrong with the place. It’s probably very pleasant to live in for the few months a year it’s not buried in snow, but it was all a bit non-descript. People come to Hokkaido for the scenery/nature/skiing though, not the cities.

Rusutsu in the next bit.

 

[Gavin]

On to the main point of taking this rather excessive trip then.

Rusutsu, through a surprisingly English-friendly website, offer shuttle buses between central Sapporo and the resort. Through sheer luck, the pick-up point was directly behind my hotel (chosen purely for train station access before I looked into the logistics of getting to the park), taking about 2 minutes from the time I closed my hotel room door. This was all organised exceptionally well, with a check-in desk (need to prebook the bus) and English-speaking staff. I got there about half an hour before the official leaving time, but as soon as the first bus was full (they had three waiting – I’m guessing based on how many pre-bookings they have), they sent it off.

It drops off outside the main hotel of the resort, which you then walk through to get into the park. It was all much bigger than I was expecting as in it was more of a proper “resort” than some other parks that just throw that word in as soon as a they shove in a few rooms for overnight stays. In the winter it’s a ski resort (which I imagine gets much busier), and in the summer it has the amusement park, which is actually a bit of a walk from the hotel.

I’d been expecting to arrive at the drop off at 10am, but since they sent the bus as soon as it filled up, I was in the park a little after 09:30. My plan had been to head straight to the ultra twister, but since I was one of the only people in the park at that point, I just did a few coasters as I got to them, starting with a solo ride on the Meisho shuttle loop. I thought I must’ve done a couple before, but I hadn’t. It turns out they were from Senyo Kogyo and were quite a bit different (and I’d argue better than this one).

I knocked off the Togo wild mouse thing and then headed up a hill in search of the ultra twister, knocking off the Ferris wheel before it started getting too hot. I had no idea they also had a first-gen Intamin drop tower, but it seems that, like most of the others now, it’s probably done for good. From the hill and the Ferris wheel:

Onto the bucket list coaster, with some slight cred anxiety since I hadn’t see it running during the Ferris wheel ride but also knowing there was nobody else around yet. It’s also in a very hidden and inconvenient location; if you didn’t know there was a coaster up there, it could be very easy to actually miss.

Anyway, yay, open. I got a solo ride on what must’ve been the first dispatch of the day. For anyone who’s unaware, this is a unique ultra twister in that it uses a dive loop at the far end to turn the car back around. With the standard model, it stops at the end and a switch/tilt track sends the car backwards through the return section. Because this one doesn’t stop, it absolutely hauls through the final two inversions.

The staff and operations here were great as well. The ride op was from the Philippines, spoke excellent English and actually encouraged me to hold the OTSR away from my body while it locked to make it “more comfortable and fun”. Typically, in Japan, you’re getting stapled. A lot of Togo coasters have restraints that lock but then don’t move again. They stay in position and don’t/can’t tighten once they’ve been locked. The ride op was getting me to hold the restraint just away from my shoulders while they locked it, so that it wasn’t actually touching me. This made for quite a freaky vertical lift ascent since I couldn’t feel the restraint, but definitely made for a better ride.

It had on;y just gone 10 by this point, so I’d already knocked off three coasters and Ferris wheel before the time I thought I’d be arriving. I also had a lot of time left before the bus back into the city, realsied that it wasn’t going to be getting very busy despite being a Sunday, so slowed everything down bit.

The family coaster was closed (SBNO?), but if anything here was going to be closed, I wasn’t too bothered that it was this one. It was also the first time in ages to do a Togo stand up. I’m pretty sure this was the same as Momonga, removed fairly recently from Yomiuriland, but whereas that had options of a sit-down or stand-up train, this only had stand-up. It had the same sliding station set up (think Mr. Freeze), but was only using one side and on one train. It wasn’t great honestly. As far as Togo stand-ups go, it’s the least inspired layout.

I rarely bother with log flumes, but did this one since I obviously had loads of time. There are some decent views of the parks crappy jet coaster from the entry/exit bridge, along with some brief views of the ultra twister, which is pretty much invisible from anywhere else except the Ferris wheel.

The Vekoma SLC looked really nice with all the flowers around the base, and you could walk under the whole thing rather than it being fenced off. It was absolutely awful though – one of the worst I’ve done, but that could be an age thing – as was the Arrow corkscrew. I’m all for preserving the older Japanese coasters, which are becoming increasingly rare, but there’s no need to “save” these pieces of s**t.

Creds done by midday, with ultra twister and shuttle loop rerides, I took the cable car up to the top of a hill. This could be an upcharge, but it was included in the ticket option I’d gone for. There are some excellent views of the surrounding mountains, and a “Mount Fuji” style volcano that I’ve now forgotten the name of and can’t be arsed to check.

As well as the closed drop tower, there was also a closed Togo (at least I’m assuming Togo) spinning flat ride thing. No idea what these are called, but they’re generally very good. This seemed less SBNO than the drop tower, but who knows. Not sure if I’d have ridden it or not if it were open. I’ve done a couple of them, and they’re excellent, but I’m not sure how much I’d enjoy one these days.

Children gambling on duck racing was also a thing.













The ultra twister deserved a couple of rerides. I wasn’t massively feeling it at that point in the day since it is an absolutely ridiculous contraption, but there’s pretty much no chance of me riding it again. It seemed way better maintained than the other surviving ultra loopers, and was still running multiple cars, but it’s still only a matter of time really. I’d only make the effort for this park again with an extremely major new addition, and by the time that happens (probably never), the ultra twister will be long gone.

All the coasters here closed for around half an hour (mostly staggered). I found it quite entertaining to watch the maintenance workers have to ride the coaster to test their own handiwork. I suppose it guarantees a good job is getting done.

And that’s Rusutsu Resort finally done. I’d had a fair bit of hanging around, so had taken the day slowly after the initial cred grab, taking time for the views at the top of the mountain, actually sitting down to eat etc. I liked this place a lot. On paper, it’s just got a bunch of old coasters, but most of what they have is very rare these days. The amusement park area is small, but the whole resort is bigger than I’d thought it would be. I’d been expecting one of those crappy Japanese parks (see the park from the day before) that were just clinging on, but this place is still very much a major player. Everything was very well maintained, landscaping was lovely, everything was being run well etc.

Not that it’s something I expect or care about, but I was also surprised by the decent level of English from a lot of the staff throughout the park, right from the beginning with the bus check in, to hotel staff/ticket checkers, some of the ride ops and staff at food kiosks. At one point, I did my usual “point at that” when ordering snacks/drinks, and the guy behind the counter actually spoke to me in pretty fluent English. I’m wondering if that’s because they get a lot of international visitors during the ski season?

I had a flight mid-afternoon the next day, so had a morning to kill in Sapporo. I walked through the same park again, this time heading up the TV tower and then taking a bus (not too far) to the Sapporo Beer Museum, which I didn’t have the time (or inclination) to actually go inside, but it looks quite nice from the outside.

Back to the train station for the train to the airport and direct flight back to Hong Kong.

Yeah, this was a bit excessive for a weekend trip considering the distance, especially the need to travel overnight on the Friday and hang around in Narita airport until the first fights the next day, but I really just wanted to get Rusutsu done, especially for the ultra twister. I was getting tired of seeing so many “WOW THIS IS CRAZY! WOULD YOU RIDE THIS?!” basics getting it when I hadn’t.

 

[davidm]

I was in Sapporo for a few days many years ago (for the 2002 World Cup, when England beat Argentina 1-0 - YAY!) and really liked the place. Didn't do any of the parks (as I was non-goon-wise then) but did do the TV Tower, Odori park etc and the beer museum (which was good and they gave you several beers at the end of the tour too) and then we went to the associated beer-garden-barbecue thing which was a timed 90 minutes all-you-can-eat-and-drink thing. Which for a bunch of English football yobs was taken as a challenge - great times. Was also wowed by the underground shopping centre that seemed to spread for miles from the train station, obviously weather sealed for the winter-conditions.