I just returned from a trip to Tokyo, and while I'll also be giving a full review on my podcast, I wanted to write something here as well.
As I've said in other threads, while some singular attractions stand out (Hunny Hunt, Journey to the Center of the Earth) no single attraction is worth the trip alone. It really is the entirety of the resort (and more specifically the entirety of Tokyo DisneySea) that made the trip worth it.
We started at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. It's one of their good neighbor hotels and across the street from one of their monorail stations. To the uninitiated, the monorails have a small daily fee (I believe we got a 3 day pass here for 1100 yen/$10). The resort is closer in feel to Disneyland in that you can see backstage areas when you're offsite and/on the monorail. We could see the backside of Lost River Delta from our room at the Sheraton and we had good views of the fireworks and Mt. Prometheus.
I would definitely recommend the Sheraton. Of the three hotels we stayed at, the Sheraton had the nicest beds and pillows and was the cheapest.
Later in the trip we stayed at Hotel Mira Costa. This hotel is absolutely beautiful, and we had an in park view looking over the Venetian Gondolas. We didn't take advantage of our proximity to the parks when we were staying at the Sheraton, but when we were staying at Mira Costa we took afternoon breaks to relax for the days we spent in the park. Mira Costa's beds were a bit firm and the pillows were ok, just not as good as the Sheraton's. The worst pillows were by far at our Kyoto hotel, while Mira Costa had the worst beds.
Another significant complaint about Mira Costa. The hotel is literally in the park, and there is such a ridiculous amount of detail throughout DisneySea that I have to nitpick. I'd say about 70% of the exterior of Mira Costa is fully detailed with depth and proper masonry. However, there are parts of it that face Mediterranean Harbor that include painted detail similar to Portofino at Universal Orlando. Don't get me wrong, the hotel is still spectacular, but it is odd that there is detail everywhere else in DisneySea yet the skipped out on part of the hotel detail.
To the parks:
Tokyo Disneyland is your typical castle park. What really surprised me is that attraction marquees and even some attractions have a lot more English in them then you'd imagine. Pirates is almost entirely in English and it probably contributes to it's lack of popularity. I'd say most people speak little to know English, yet signage is at least 50/50 in favor of English.
Hunny Hunt was only open the first day we visited Disneyland and we wound up doing it three times. It was my first experience with the trackless system and it really was a lot of fun. Different ride profiles, and even different areas of the room that you visit on each trip. I'd imagine that Mystic Manor is even a step above this.
Monster's Inc Ride and Go Seek was a lot of fun. Not super elaborate animatronics, but the interactive flashlights makes for a fun ride without the need for competition.
Haunted Mansion is Florida's version pre attic update. Florida's Haunted Mansion really is awesome now, and this is just a reminder of what the old version used to be.
Both Space Mountain (similar to Disneyland sans on board audio) and Splash Mountain (Florida's version) have what I called "taint buster" seats. Seats that were more exaggerated than many major roller coasters that hit you near an unpleasant spot. Splash Mountain also had strings of leaves and grasses hanging from the ceilings and absolutely no light bleed which helped add to the theming of the ride.
We only rode Jungle Cruise once (it was down the first day we were there when we tried to ride it). Nothing was gained in translation, so really the ride was about seeing the scenery. It felt more like Florida's version with the temple, but the temple has projection effects inside. They also had music throughout the ride, including the opening bars of Circle of Life on the African Veldt. I appreciated the music because we don't speak Japanese so it added something to a ride that was otherwise just going to be a tour of the Jungle Cruise.
All in all, Tokyo Disneyland is an excellent park with solid versions of old favorites plus a few new to us things that we really enjoyed.
Disney Sea is a virtually flawless theme park. Aside from the Mira Costa gripe mentioned earlier, everything in this park is done at the highest level of quality. I also don't think this park could be built in the US. The water ways leave the park with a lot of stairs and steep ramps that Americans would complain about, it's unfortunate because the park truly is magnificent.
The American Waterfront has some Streets of America and Sunset Boulevard feel with the Toy Story section feeling like a mini Paradise Pier. Tower of Terror's story is well done, and the effect of the disappearing Shiriki Utundo in the pre-show is very impressive in person, even after you see how it's done. Unfortunately with the different theme, Tower is still a better version of DCA's Tower, I'll give the nod to DHS's version but this was still very enjoyable. Big Band Beat was also entirely in English. The show is about swing music and is quite enjoyable. For major Disney stage shows, I'd put it just behind Aladdin and Lion King in my book.
Mysterious Island was my favorite area of the park. A fully enclosed rockwork area dedicated to Jules Verne. The combination of rockwork with steampunk (that extends into Port Discovery) looks fantastic. Journey to the Center of the Earth is a high quality ride with incredible detail. I'd love it with a longer high speed portion, but even without it it's far superior to Test Track.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was cool, but unfortunately we kept getting the same seat every time we rode. You're in little capsules that are presumable on a ride system similar to Peter Pan's Flight. The capsules are fully enclosed and make it feel like you're under water. Seats face out the center, left and right and we were consistently on the right side. They addressed the capacity issue that previous versions of the ride had and we were able to walk on this every day we visited the park.
Storm Rider closed the day we arrived at Port Discovery so we didn't get to experience that, but the area's music was various Epcot tunes including Future World loops and Illuminations. We really liked Aquatopia. It's probably only a B-ticket attraction, but we absolutely loved it and I really want to see a version of this stateside in Tomorrowland.
Lost River Delta is the Indiana Jones/South America section. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was very similar to Indy Adventure in Disneyland, but a few things have been simplified. Indy at Disneyland is one of my favorites so it was nice to experience this variant. Raging Spirits was the weakest major attraction in the park. We only did it once because it was a bit of a production for me to ride (I'm overweight and they had to bring me to a test seat).
Arabian Coast: We really enjoyed Sindbad's Storybook Voyage and the song, despite not being in English is still stuck in my head. While a bit cartoony for World Showcase, it would be a better fit in Morocco than Frozen is in Norway.
Mermaid Lagoon looked better than I expected it to in person, the Triton's Concert show was also pretty solid and a step above he DHS Mermaid show.
We also loved the kinetics of every land that was aided by trains and watercraft. On the Disney Steamer boats you could see how layered the detail was throughout the park. There are no siteline issues at all when you're in the park and even the underside of bridges were appropriately themed. Everything in the park felt right.
My biggest complaint is that the merchandise offerings were awful. DisneySea attractions are largely devoid of Disney classic characters yet they are everywhere on the merchandise. Combined with Duffy it's very difficult to find attraction specific merchandise. I struggled to find anything I could consider a worthwhile souvenir. I wound up with a tin that said Pooh's Hunny Hunt, a magnet that said Tokyo Disney Sea's 15th anniversary, and a Mickey Mouse plush dressed in a Mira Costa bellhop outfit. I didn't see a Chandu (the tiger from Sindbad's storybook voyage) plush or Shiriki Utundu (the evil monkey from Tower) figure for sale. I know versions of both exist and I'm disappointed eBay will be my only option for either.
We did other things as well, but since this is a Disney site I'll keep the detail to Disney stuff. I could go on a lot longer than I did, and would be happy to answer any questions people may have.
As I've said in other threads, while some singular attractions stand out (Hunny Hunt, Journey to the Center of the Earth) no single attraction is worth the trip alone. It really is the entirety of the resort (and more specifically the entirety of Tokyo DisneySea) that made the trip worth it.
We started at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. It's one of their good neighbor hotels and across the street from one of their monorail stations. To the uninitiated, the monorails have a small daily fee (I believe we got a 3 day pass here for 1100 yen/$10). The resort is closer in feel to Disneyland in that you can see backstage areas when you're offsite and/on the monorail. We could see the backside of Lost River Delta from our room at the Sheraton and we had good views of the fireworks and Mt. Prometheus.
I would definitely recommend the Sheraton. Of the three hotels we stayed at, the Sheraton had the nicest beds and pillows and was the cheapest.
Later in the trip we stayed at Hotel Mira Costa. This hotel is absolutely beautiful, and we had an in park view looking over the Venetian Gondolas. We didn't take advantage of our proximity to the parks when we were staying at the Sheraton, but when we were staying at Mira Costa we took afternoon breaks to relax for the days we spent in the park. Mira Costa's beds were a bit firm and the pillows were ok, just not as good as the Sheraton's. The worst pillows were by far at our Kyoto hotel, while Mira Costa had the worst beds.
Another significant complaint about Mira Costa. The hotel is literally in the park, and there is such a ridiculous amount of detail throughout DisneySea that I have to nitpick. I'd say about 70% of the exterior of Mira Costa is fully detailed with depth and proper masonry. However, there are parts of it that face Mediterranean Harbor that include painted detail similar to Portofino at Universal Orlando. Don't get me wrong, the hotel is still spectacular, but it is odd that there is detail everywhere else in DisneySea yet the skipped out on part of the hotel detail.
To the parks:
Tokyo Disneyland is your typical castle park. What really surprised me is that attraction marquees and even some attractions have a lot more English in them then you'd imagine. Pirates is almost entirely in English and it probably contributes to it's lack of popularity. I'd say most people speak little to know English, yet signage is at least 50/50 in favor of English.
Hunny Hunt was only open the first day we visited Disneyland and we wound up doing it three times. It was my first experience with the trackless system and it really was a lot of fun. Different ride profiles, and even different areas of the room that you visit on each trip. I'd imagine that Mystic Manor is even a step above this.
Monster's Inc Ride and Go Seek was a lot of fun. Not super elaborate animatronics, but the interactive flashlights makes for a fun ride without the need for competition.
Haunted Mansion is Florida's version pre attic update. Florida's Haunted Mansion really is awesome now, and this is just a reminder of what the old version used to be.
Both Space Mountain (similar to Disneyland sans on board audio) and Splash Mountain (Florida's version) have what I called "taint buster" seats. Seats that were more exaggerated than many major roller coasters that hit you near an unpleasant spot. Splash Mountain also had strings of leaves and grasses hanging from the ceilings and absolutely no light bleed which helped add to the theming of the ride.
We only rode Jungle Cruise once (it was down the first day we were there when we tried to ride it). Nothing was gained in translation, so really the ride was about seeing the scenery. It felt more like Florida's version with the temple, but the temple has projection effects inside. They also had music throughout the ride, including the opening bars of Circle of Life on the African Veldt. I appreciated the music because we don't speak Japanese so it added something to a ride that was otherwise just going to be a tour of the Jungle Cruise.
All in all, Tokyo Disneyland is an excellent park with solid versions of old favorites plus a few new to us things that we really enjoyed.
Disney Sea is a virtually flawless theme park. Aside from the Mira Costa gripe mentioned earlier, everything in this park is done at the highest level of quality. I also don't think this park could be built in the US. The water ways leave the park with a lot of stairs and steep ramps that Americans would complain about, it's unfortunate because the park truly is magnificent.
The American Waterfront has some Streets of America and Sunset Boulevard feel with the Toy Story section feeling like a mini Paradise Pier. Tower of Terror's story is well done, and the effect of the disappearing Shiriki Utundo in the pre-show is very impressive in person, even after you see how it's done. Unfortunately with the different theme, Tower is still a better version of DCA's Tower, I'll give the nod to DHS's version but this was still very enjoyable. Big Band Beat was also entirely in English. The show is about swing music and is quite enjoyable. For major Disney stage shows, I'd put it just behind Aladdin and Lion King in my book.
Mysterious Island was my favorite area of the park. A fully enclosed rockwork area dedicated to Jules Verne. The combination of rockwork with steampunk (that extends into Port Discovery) looks fantastic. Journey to the Center of the Earth is a high quality ride with incredible detail. I'd love it with a longer high speed portion, but even without it it's far superior to Test Track.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was cool, but unfortunately we kept getting the same seat every time we rode. You're in little capsules that are presumable on a ride system similar to Peter Pan's Flight. The capsules are fully enclosed and make it feel like you're under water. Seats face out the center, left and right and we were consistently on the right side. They addressed the capacity issue that previous versions of the ride had and we were able to walk on this every day we visited the park.
Storm Rider closed the day we arrived at Port Discovery so we didn't get to experience that, but the area's music was various Epcot tunes including Future World loops and Illuminations. We really liked Aquatopia. It's probably only a B-ticket attraction, but we absolutely loved it and I really want to see a version of this stateside in Tomorrowland.
Lost River Delta is the Indiana Jones/South America section. Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull was very similar to Indy Adventure in Disneyland, but a few things have been simplified. Indy at Disneyland is one of my favorites so it was nice to experience this variant. Raging Spirits was the weakest major attraction in the park. We only did it once because it was a bit of a production for me to ride (I'm overweight and they had to bring me to a test seat).
Arabian Coast: We really enjoyed Sindbad's Storybook Voyage and the song, despite not being in English is still stuck in my head. While a bit cartoony for World Showcase, it would be a better fit in Morocco than Frozen is in Norway.
Mermaid Lagoon looked better than I expected it to in person, the Triton's Concert show was also pretty solid and a step above he DHS Mermaid show.
We also loved the kinetics of every land that was aided by trains and watercraft. On the Disney Steamer boats you could see how layered the detail was throughout the park. There are no siteline issues at all when you're in the park and even the underside of bridges were appropriately themed. Everything in the park felt right.
My biggest complaint is that the merchandise offerings were awful. DisneySea attractions are largely devoid of Disney classic characters yet they are everywhere on the merchandise. Combined with Duffy it's very difficult to find attraction specific merchandise. I struggled to find anything I could consider a worthwhile souvenir. I wound up with a tin that said Pooh's Hunny Hunt, a magnet that said Tokyo Disney Sea's 15th anniversary, and a Mickey Mouse plush dressed in a Mira Costa bellhop outfit. I didn't see a Chandu (the tiger from Sindbad's storybook voyage) plush or Shiriki Utundu (the evil monkey from Tower) figure for sale. I know versions of both exist and I'm disappointed eBay will be my only option for either.
We did other things as well, but since this is a Disney site I'll keep the detail to Disney stuff. I could go on a lot longer than I did, and would be happy to answer any questions people may have.