Steel Dragon 2000

As most of you may know, Steel Dragon 2000 had an incident last year and has been SBNO ever since. Thats disturbing, that such a large coatser/investment is still down. No one so far has been able to tell me why:(.

I'm hoping that its up if I go in 2006, but I was checking out Nagashima's website (translated thanks to Babel Fish), and this was their quote about SD2K:

"Merely now, we put off operation.
We have become undecided concerning future operation."

Granted, thats a literal translation of the words, and not the grammar, sentence structer and all, but it makes me wonder...

The we have become undecided concerning future operation part makes me think. Could it just be the translation, or are they thinking of getting rid of the ride? The problem is that in translation, their meaning may not be clear.

Does anybody have any more info on why the coatser is still down, and what, if anything the park is thinking of doing with it?

As always, any info appreciated!

clint b.

Hey man,

From everything I understand, the Japanese tend to be very superstitious about things and either are being sketchy about biding their time to reopen the attraction or are looking into cutting their losses and shipping it to someone else.

They certainly don't like controversy.

On a brighter note, from what I gathered from Robb and Elissa's report from Japan is that Nagashima Spaland was one of the biggest disappointments in Japan anyway.

Well, not to slam Robb, but he's WAY off. I read his TRs over at Westcoaster, and in his case, it's certainly possible that he and Elissa suffered from anticipointment, but he didn't get to ride SD2K, nor did he spend any time at the waterpark, which is really what the park is all about. His trip was so "coaster heavy," it appears, that he wasn't able to experience some of the greatest, most curious flats, and darkrides in existence.

1) Did he try the 200 foot tall pirate ship? I think not. Did he mention it? I think not.

2) He didn't even consider the Hospital attraction at Fujikyu (I admit I made the same foolish error), because the line was long. If he had chosen it, I guarantee he would have had a "favorite" moment sewn up right then and there.

BTW, I'm not Robb bashing.... we're aquaintances, and he's very nice. I just wish he could have taken the time to enjoy some of the off-the-beaten-path curiousities, simply because I love Japan so much, and I want others to experience it like I do.

About SD2K, I haven't heard anything. I can imagine it may never reopen. When deaths occur, you can pretty much scratch a ride, yet something may be done differently in this case, simply from the cost perspective, let alone the fact that no park in the world (with the exception of Michigan's Adventure, alongside ST ;) ) would have space for this ride.

Your guess is as good as mine. At least I have the credit. :) *** Edited 10/23/2004 3:33:18 PM UTC by nasai***

I agree with Nasai and disagree with Robb A on most of that stuff he said.

I enjoyed reading his stuff, but they seemed interested in "conquering places" rather than enjoying parks.

Nagashima kicks ass without SD2K. That's all there is to it. Even if all the coasters are closed they have some of the coolest rides anywhere and maybe the best waterpark in the world. (And I can't ride spinning things/fats) Sadly, I wouldn't count on SD2K being open again, at least anytime soon. It may never reopen there. Honestly, it was great, but not my favorite thing there.

Fuji-Q is awesome too. Robb missed the 3 best rides/attractions there (non-coasters!), so his view of the place didn't surprise me.

Go anyway, and enjoy how special some of these Japanese parks are. Take your time, soak in some of the wacky rides, the unique rides, etc. Forget about SD2K :)

And if you get tired of coasters, just marathon on "The Death Chair", right Nasai? ;) *** Edited 10/23/2004 5:28:37 PM UTC by Peabody***

The Death Chair! Oh LORD......... *eeep!* F-that!

I screamed like a little girl! That ride, the Hospital, the James Bond walkthrough (runthrough!) thing (never got a real name for it), the Pirate Ship, etc were all some of my highlights.

I don't know about any of that Rob, but I DO know Elissa does not ride pirate ships of any size. She doesn't like rocking motions, so that may be the explanation for that.

*Shrugs* I didn't mean to cast judgement on the park, I've never been.. yet.

Yeah, I guess Elissa and I share some similarities. I don't like spinning rides, even though I took a spin on Chaos with you, Brian. ;)

I hate spinning rides as well. For some reason, I can take ONE ride on a Chaos.

Actually, we did enjoy a lot of the 'little' curiosities, and by reading our entire trip reports you'll see that we *LOVED* Japan and came back wanting to immediatly go back!

In fact, our favorite parks were the 'smaller or less known' parks - Parque Espana, Sea Paradise, Hirakata, etc.

As for Nagashima, I was bummed that the water park wasn't open as we LOVE water parks too. And we actually found Nagashima to be the better of the 'big parks', but still we were done with it in about 3 hours. And we did everything that was open, some things multiple times. But if you look at the coaster selection, there isn't that much there:

- An Ultra Twister
- Shuttle Loop that's heavily braked on the way back.
- An AWESOME looking woodie, but it didn't ride very well.
- A mouse.
- A mine train.
- An Arrow Corkscrew.
- A compact Schwartzkopf looper (best ride in the park!)
- Closed kiddie
- Closed Steel Dragon.

And with no lines for ANY of those coasters (we had to wait for 10 people on the shuttle loop!) you can see why it was very easy to get through all the park's coaster offerings very quickly.

We rode the Giant Frisbee which was GREAT! And the BobKart was a really fun, funky ride. So we did lots of other 'non coaster' stuff at all the parks. But Nagashima was a dissapointment because people kept telling us it was like the "Cedar Point" of Japan...and while it was a good park, it was no Cedar Point. At least in regard to the amount to do, I actually thought the park was being run VERY well and I don't ever think I said in any of our TR's that we didn't like the park...it just didn't *quite* live up to what we had heard. And also, when you read our captions and TR's keep in mind our 'sarcastic sense of humor.' If you *know* us, you'll know that we don't mean half of the negative stuff we say, it's just our poor attempt at being funny. :P

So it wasn't for a lack of wanting to do more, it was that we ran out of things to do! So I don't think we were 'way off'...I just think we may have had a very different visit than when other people were there. Had Steel Dragon been open, the water park been open, the place a little crowded, it probably would have been very different. Of course, our biggest dissapointment was finding the "two naked women in the spa" ride closed! :D

Fuji-Q on the other hand, maybe we were there on a bad day, but we found poor operations all over the place. One train operations on Fujiyama on a VERY busy day, slow loading on Dodonpa, poor crowd control, etc. And both coasters we were looking forward to, Dodonpa and Fujiyama were both VERY rough and a let down. We would have LOVED to do more at this park, but the poor operations all over the place made for hour-long lines everywhere. So we were limited with what we could do. BUT, even having said that, we would still go back to the park and give it a 2nd chance, and we would certainily not discourage someone from visiting, we'd just let them know about the day we had, and hope that maybe their day would be better.

Our trip was not about 'conquering parks' - We joked about that on our Parque Espana video, because of the effort it took to get there...TWICE! And because we beat the damn typhoon! =) But when we say that in our TR's it means "We got through everything we wanted to do and more in less time than we had expected"

But really, we did TONS of non-coaster stuff at almost all the parks! We did almost every dark ride and water ride we could find. It just so happened that the time of year we went, all the parks (other than Fuji-Q) were empty! We never expected to get to parks like Universal Studios, Hirakata, or Festival Gate because we schedules one park per day. It just so happened that we were able to hit all those other parks.

Anyway, I just thought I'd post some more thoughts so people didn't get the wrong idea of our trip. You can read all about it if you want...you know where the site is at! =)

--Robb *** Edited 10/23/2004 7:36:19 PM UTC by Robb Alvey*** *** Edited 10/23/2004 7:36:57 PM UTC by Robb Alvey***

Robb, I didn't get the wrong idea. I hope my reply above wasn't *****y, as it wasn't intended.

I just tend to defend all invaders against anything potentially harmful to my lovely home away from home. ;)

I'm still jealous as hell that you have been to Parque Espana and I haven't. :p

Ditto what Nasai said, Robb. I hope you did not get the wrong intention of what I said too.

Your TRs were very enjoyable, as are the videos!, and I'm sorry you caught Nagashima and Fujikyu on off days. I guess that's just an excuse for you to go back, huh? :)

Robb, please, oh PLEASE tell me you did "The Death Chair". That thing scared the piss out of me!

How about the walkthrough thing near the turn of Dodonpa where you run through the nuclear missle silo trying to find the stuff to unlock the escape door before the missles explode?

they have a Giant Frisbee there???

WAH! Here I thought my baby Delirium was the only one still!

^^ Not at all guys! It's totally cool. Just wanted to post a bit more about our experiences. And absolutely it's a reason for us to return. =)

^ We didn't do much else other than the coasters at Fuji-Q. It took us about an hour per coaster, and Dodonpa and Fujiyama took nearly two hours each. And we never even made it on all the coasters! =( And then it started to rain which meant ALL the walk throughs had a 1-2 hour wait. It wasn't the best of days, that's for sure.

Oh, well, we're already planning out 2006 Japan trip!

--Robb "Will go back in a second for Tower and Raging Spirits!" Alvey

Dude, Robb, You going in 2008!!?!?!? I've decided thanks to you that I'm going there in 2008 summer! It's Cal of course. I hope Spirits is not the same layout as Indiana Jones at DLP because that would be disappointing.

-Cal "Robb put me in his video game for heaven's sakes!" Lasister

I actually did take the time to read the Japan thread @ West coaster. I'm not so much going to Japan to ride coasters as I am just to go to japan. I mean, we'll go to some parks, but I'm going for Tokyo, Sushi, and culture. I had 2 years of Japanese whilst I was but a wee lad, and am planning on re-emersing myself (along with my friend who also had 2 years of the language), before I go.

When are you planning to go, Robb? Just curious. I think we're going to go in summer, or atleast thats what nasai told me when to go.

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pkidelirium said:
they have a Giant Frisbee there??? WAH! Here I thought my baby Delirium was the only one still!

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There's one at Bobbejaanland in Belgium too. See my trip report:

http://www.bannister.org/coasters/trips/2004/0918.htm

Look on the bright side if they tear down steel dragon then MF is the tallest and fastest gravity based rollercoaster again!(non launched) And Maybe Nagashima will get all the money back and build a 800 foot tall rocket!

Who actually worries about things like that Giga? MF isn't good enough of a coaster to stand on what merits it as?