Disney Sea
We have several bucket list items that we would love to - but will not- accomplish before we leave Japan. I guess that means that someday we will just have to come back! Anyway, one item on the list that we decided we must do this time was visit Tokyo Disney. We are only living 1.5 hours away by train and we do have two kids...it just makes sense to do it now.
Tokyo Disneyland is actually two parks - Disneyland and Disney Sea. We could've done one or both. After talking to people and reading a bunch of reviews we decided to do just one park, Disney Sea. Disneyland here is said to be much like Disney everywhere else, but Disney Sea is unique in that this is the only one. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, just that we had to go into the city to do something important before we left. 5 AM wake ups!
Once the kids realized where we were going they were super excited! When you get off the train at the station near Disney you then get on a special monorail that takes you to the parks. The monorail was cute - Disney everything. Even the hand grips that hung from the ceiling were mouse themed!
These are the entrance lines at one of the gates 45 minutes before opening (R). Once we got off the monorail we had to stand in two lines - one to buy tickets and one to get in. Once we were in people were literally running, pushing passed us to get to rides. I have to say, it was a little insane! At least, that is what I thought at the time. My opinion changed a bit later...
Disney Sea has 6 worlds or areas in it, each with sort of a main ride and a few smaller attractions. We went to the back of the park first and rode "Journey to the Center of the Earth", one of the kids favorite movies. The line took about 50 minutes and the ride took maybe 4. But it was a cool ride with a nice scary part and some nice details.
Next we got our Fast Pass for "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". The Fast Pass allowed us to go eat lunch and come back later, jumping to the head of the line. The ride was okay, nothing amazing.
After, we went to "Indian Jones", only to find that the line to get on the ride was 4 hours long and the line to get a Fast Pass was equally long. The passes they were giving out were to ride at 7PM, it was only 12PM at the time. We were super disappointed because that was one ride we were all looking forward too. Unfortunately, that would be the case for the remainder of the day. All the main attractions, the big rides, had 4 hour lines and were out of Fast Passes by 2PM. We were able to ride some smaller rides, but we missed most of the good ones. None of us wanted to stand in line for 4 hours - especially for a 5 minute ride. *Here is something that Jason and I have noticed a few times here in Japan. Japanese people are patient - they will wait and wait. Sometimes there are lines at the mall - they call it a lottery or something - where each person gets some samples and a box of tissues - these lines will be 200 people deep. And everyone just stands...waits. Same at Disney. If we had waited in one of those 4 hour lines, that's basically a third of our day, for one ride...So, that was kind of rotten.
The guest at Disney Sea were interesting. I'd guess that there were at least 3 adults for every 1 child. And the adults there were very into it all - grown men and women walking around in head-to-toe Disney garb. And not just sweatshirts and ball caps - we're talking pink, fuzzy hats, large sunglasses, etc. At one point we say a character walking around. It was completely mobbed by adults wanting to hug it, take pics, and get autographs.
This girl was wearing a pretty common outfit. Fuzzy character hat with long ears that have mittens on the end, with matching fuzzy leg-warmer things. With big bows. This one isn't too bad - being white. The bright pink and purple ones were crazy.
There was some great scenery, some of the houses and castles were very real looking. There were times that we couldn't really stand and look at much because the crowds were just too large. Food was not over priced, but there didn't seem to be that many places around - lots of restaurants but not very many quick food type places. The one cool thing there is the popcorn buckets. You can buy a souvenir bucket for about $17 and refills are $5. There are popcorn carts all over the park with different flavors of popcorn - caramel, salt, black pepper, milk tea, apple cinnamon...There were people carrying buckets around that said 2007. Pretty good deal, if you like popcorn.
Tokyo Disneyland is actually two parks - Disneyland and Disney Sea. We could've done one or both. After talking to people and reading a bunch of reviews we decided to do just one park, Disney Sea. Disneyland here is said to be much like Disney everywhere else, but Disney Sea is unique in that this is the only one. We didn't tell the kids where we were going, just that we had to go into the city to do something important before we left. 5 AM wake ups!
Once the kids realized where we were going they were super excited! When you get off the train at the station near Disney you then get on a special monorail that takes you to the parks. The monorail was cute - Disney everything. Even the hand grips that hung from the ceiling were mouse themed!
These are the entrance lines at one of the gates 45 minutes before opening (R). Once we got off the monorail we had to stand in two lines - one to buy tickets and one to get in. Once we were in people were literally running, pushing passed us to get to rides. I have to say, it was a little insane! At least, that is what I thought at the time. My opinion changed a bit later...
Disney Sea has 6 worlds or areas in it, each with sort of a main ride and a few smaller attractions. We went to the back of the park first and rode "Journey to the Center of the Earth", one of the kids favorite movies. The line took about 50 minutes and the ride took maybe 4. But it was a cool ride with a nice scary part and some nice details.
Next we got our Fast Pass for "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea". The Fast Pass allowed us to go eat lunch and come back later, jumping to the head of the line. The ride was okay, nothing amazing.
After, we went to "Indian Jones", only to find that the line to get on the ride was 4 hours long and the line to get a Fast Pass was equally long. The passes they were giving out were to ride at 7PM, it was only 12PM at the time. We were super disappointed because that was one ride we were all looking forward too. Unfortunately, that would be the case for the remainder of the day. All the main attractions, the big rides, had 4 hour lines and were out of Fast Passes by 2PM. We were able to ride some smaller rides, but we missed most of the good ones. None of us wanted to stand in line for 4 hours - especially for a 5 minute ride. *Here is something that Jason and I have noticed a few times here in Japan. Japanese people are patient - they will wait and wait. Sometimes there are lines at the mall - they call it a lottery or something - where each person gets some samples and a box of tissues - these lines will be 200 people deep. And everyone just stands...waits. Same at Disney. If we had waited in one of those 4 hour lines, that's basically a third of our day, for one ride...So, that was kind of rotten.The guest at Disney Sea were interesting. I'd guess that there were at least 3 adults for every 1 child. And the adults there were very into it all - grown men and women walking around in head-to-toe Disney garb. And not just sweatshirts and ball caps - we're talking pink, fuzzy hats, large sunglasses, etc. At one point we say a character walking around. It was completely mobbed by adults wanting to hug it, take pics, and get autographs.
This girl was wearing a pretty common outfit. Fuzzy character hat with long ears that have mittens on the end, with matching fuzzy leg-warmer things. With big bows. This one isn't too bad - being white. The bright pink and purple ones were crazy.
So, all in all, it is potentially a pretty great place. We would have had a fantastic time if we'd been able to enjoy more of the park - ie the rides. I think that the park needs more space and more rides, so that the huge crowds can spread out a little bit. There were just so many people packed into the park and a total of maybe 15 rides. There were also shows, but in Japanese of course. We didn't see any of those. As it stands, it was a good day and something we were able to say we've done, you know?
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