A Tokyo Disney Trip Report

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
I never bother posting trip reports on my trips to the US parks. I figure most readers of these boards don't need another trip report on WDW or DLR. But I did post a report on my trip to Disneyland Paris 18 months ago, and got a lot of follow-up questions on it. So, I figured that since I've just completed a trip to Tokyo Disney, I'll post a trip report on that as well.

I'll try to write this with a lot of logistical information as well, in an effort to help people visiting for the first time plan and be ready for how to get around, etc. at Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR).

Background

The trip to TDR was added onto a business trip to Tokyo. My business in Tokyo was Feb. 20-22, and I went to TDR Feb. 23-25. For those keeping score, that means I was at TDR on a Thursday, Friday, and half of Saturday in the dead of winter. School was in session, and there were no special events at TDR. As this was tacked onto a business trip, I was solo at TDR, which had its advantages and disadvantages.

I spent Thursday, Feb. 23 at TDL, and Friday and half of Saturday at TDS before heading to the airport for my flight home. I stayed in downtown Tokyo the nights of Feb. 20, 21, 22 for my business, and then headed to TDR the morning of the 23rd.

Accomodations

I stayed at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, which is one of the "Tokyo Disney Official Hotels". These are roughly the equivalent of the hotels along Hotel Plaza Blvd near Downtown Disney, except that at TDR, there is a monorail stop that serves the Official Hotels. There are six Official Hotels. I chose the Hilton because I have gold status, got a decent rate (15,000 yen/night -- about $170), and I figured (correctly) that the staff was highly likely to speak English.

The Hilton was pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a Hilton in the US. The room was pretty large, functional, and clean. There was a wired internet connection (free for gold members, 1500 yen/day otherwise), comfortable beds, a table and chairs, a desk, a safe, a closet, and a bathroom with a tub/shower and a toilet with fancy seat warming and bottom washing functions (remember Mater in the bathroom in Japan in Cars 2? -- well, Japanese bathrooms really do have all those buttons. My recommendation -- don't push any of them!). The hotel also has a pool (which I did not use), several restaurants, a store with Disney gifts, and a 24 hour convenience store (like a 7/11), which was extremely useful. On the downside, the television in the room had only 2 English channels.

My gold status gave me free breakfast at the hotel. The breakfast buffet was large, with Western and Japanese selections. About half of the unidentifiable (to me) Japanese selections were very good. I ate very large breakfasts before heading to the parks.

All of the signage in the hotel was in English, and the staff members I dealt with all spoke English as well. Service was extremely polite and helpful to a fault.

In addition to the six Official Hotels, which are all located in a row in the southwest corner of the TDR, there are also three Disney Hotels, which are located closer to the parks and are much more in the spirit of deluxe resorts at WDW, both in terms of amenities and pricing. I did not venture in to any of the other hotels, as my time was limited.

Getting There and Checking In

As I said, I was on business in Tokyo before heading to TDR. The quickest and easiest way from Tokyo to TDR is the train. The JR Keiyo line goes directly from downtown Tokyo to TDR, which is adjacent to the Maihama station on the Keiyo line. The Japanese subway and commuter trains are extensive, but, at least in the Tokyo area, they are not hard for Enlgish-speakers to deal because most signage is dual Japanese/English, and the ticket machines have an "English" button. In addition, street signs in Tokyo, and signs pointing out entrances to the Metro and commuter train stations are also dual-language. As a result, I had no problems navigating.

The Keiyo line actually begins in downtown Tokyo near the "Tokyo Station", a large commuter and long-distance train hub that also has several subway lines connected to it. Tokyo Station is massive and you can easily get lost. However, the JR Keiyo Tokyo Station stop is actually about 2 blocks south of Tokyo Station proper, and you can enter the Keiyo line station directly from the street, bypassing the massive confusion of Tokyo Station. Maps gave me a clue as to where these entrances would be and it was no problem finding one.

Although the Keiyo line is a commuter line, it operates like a subway line in downtown Tokyo. The fare to Maihama was 210 yen ($3). After purchasing my ticket at a machine, it was easy to figure out where to slide the ticket into the gate, and I made my way to the platform. Don't lose your ticket, because you need it on the way out as well (as fares differ by distance). Because Tokyo Station is the end of the line, trains only go in one direction, and both local and express trains stop at Maihama, so you can just hop on the next train. During rush hours, there are trains every 5 minutes. Outside of rush hours, every 10 minutes or so. Maihama is the 6th stop on locals, 3rd on express trains. The next train when I arrived was an express, and it took 15 minutes on the train to Maihama. The Maihama stop is clearly marked in English, and all signage in the station is dual-language as well. Never a doubt as to where to get off.

Immediately outside the Maihama train station is a Disney check-in facility where you can, if you are staying at any of the TDR hotels (either the 3 Disney Hotels, or the 6 Official Hotels of TDR), drop your luggage and check-in. I was afraid there might be a long wait to do this at 8:30 AM when the parks opened at 9, but I needn't have feared. I was checked-in in 5 minutes. They gave me my room key and delivered my bags to the room, so I was free to head right to the park.

If I wasn't staying at an Official Hotel, I could have used lockers at the JR Maihama station or outside TDL to store my luggage in. There are lockers at both spots big enough for suitcases.

Also adjacent to Maihama station is Ikspiari, the TDR equivalent of Downtown Disney, with over 100 shops and restaurants. I did not explore, but it looked an upscale mall with the expected array of shops and restaurants. Ikspiari also has a movie theater (English and Japanese films) and there is a Cirque du Soleil show nearby as well.

From the Maihama/Ikspiari area, you can get on the Disney Resort Line, which is the TDR monorail. This monorail line is, essentially, a privately operated public transportation line. You need a ticket to ride it, and anybody can get on. It even appears on Tokyo area public transportation maps. The DRL has 4 stops -- Resort Gateway (Maihama station/Ikspiari/Ambassador Hotel), Tokyo Disneyland (Park and Hotel), Bayside Station (Official Hotels), and Tokyo DisneySea/MiraCosta Hotel. The cost is 250 yen per trip, and they also sell unlimited passes for 1, 2, 3, and 4 days. A 2 day unlimited DRL pass is 800 yen, 3 day is 1100 yen. The DRL has cool Mickey Mouse-shaped windows and straps to hold onto.

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I'll continue in a few days with details of my time at the parks.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
interesting...ive never really heard or seen much about Tokyo Disney...do you have any pics from the trip?

Pics and much more will be coming. Busy at work and with some travel, so the report will continues slowly over the next couple weeks.
 

zulemara

Well-Known Member
In the Parks
Yes
This is SO helpful! I will be in Tokyo in April for business and plan on doing essentially the same thing, doing business and then visiting TDL. Please keep the info coming as much as you can!
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
This is SO helpful! I will be in Tokyo in April for business and plan on doing essentially the same thing, doing business and then visiting TDL. Please keep the info coming as much as you can!

Finally have a chance to resume posting. More coming later tonight.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
After much delay, I am now finally continuing to post Tokyo Disney trip report. The delay in posting was caused by 1) me getting busy at work, and 2) the fact that I discovered a week after the trip that most of my photos had somehow disappeared off my camera’s SD card. After much work, I have recovered many of my pics from Tokyo Disneyland, but very few from Tokyo DisneySea. This is a shame, as DisneySea is the more beautiful park. My words and a few iPhone pics will have to suffice (mostly) for DisneySea.

Now, onto the trip report. I will start with a few general points about TDR.

First, I was a bit shocked upon arrival at TDR to note that all of the signage welcoming me to the resort was in English – ONLY in English. No Japanese. As I was to find out later, this is not out of the ordinary. Indeed, all signage, all over the resort, whether it be attraction entrances, props, safety warnings, menus, decorations, or anything else, is in English. When necessary (menus, safety) and a few other places, it is also in Japanese. But, if you didn’t look at the people, you could walk around either park and not realize you were in Japan. This, of course, made getting around quite easy (as long as I didn’t have to talk to anybody --more on that later). While one might attribute the English signage and props to theming in Westernland (their Frontierland) and the American Waterfront (a land at TDS) that argument falls apart in the rest of the parks, so this was clearly a deliberate choice by Oriental Land/Disney, one which they repeated at TDS.

Attraction audio is, however, with a very few exceptions, entirely in Japanese. This strikes me as an odd combination, because, in order to fully experience the attractions, you must be able to understand spoken Japanese and written English. Getting on an attraction was almost jarring a couple times, because the atmospheric decorations in the park and in the queues were all in English, and then the ride was all in Japanese. I’ll comment further on audio in relation to specific attractions, but the general rule is that all signage is in English, and little audio is in English, other than automated safety spiels.

The visitors to the parks when I was there, and, as I understand, in general, were about 97% Japanese, 1% Chinese, 1% Korean, and 1% other. I heard only about 20 other people speaking English in conversation during my entire 2 ½ days at TDR. Cast members generally speak enough English only to direct you as needed to which line to go in (“Row 2, kudasai”), and perhaps, to give you a few hints if you are lost. There are a decent number of cast members that are more fluent in English, but don’t count on finding one quickly.

Directions on when to board, removing hats and glasses and bags, stowing things, etc., are all spoken by CMs in Japanese, and repeatedly. These announcements are made by a cast member every few minutes towards the front of queues, and then again as you board. There are tons of CMs at boarding. The announcements are accompanied by a series of hand motions that you will become quite used to. The hand motions are well-done and easy to understand even if the only Japanese words you can follow are conichiwa (hello), arigato (thank you), and kudasai (please). Indeed, those are about the only words I understand.

Hand motions are also the way you tell the CMs how many are in your party, and the CM will respond by raising the right number of fingers for what row you are to go to, along with saying the row number in reasonably good English.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Food

All restaurants have menus in English (as I mentioned – everything is in English), but CMs may speak only Japanese. If needed, at QS spots, they have a prop to pull out with pictures and English (as well as Chinese and Korean) captions, so you can point at what you want. Might cause problems if you want a special order, but it worked great for me.

Food is expensive, and eclectic. There are places in both parks for Japanese, Chinese, Thai, American, Italian, Mexican, and Mediterranean food. A typical QS meal with an entrée, side and a drink was around 1,000 Yen, or $13. I didn’t do table service, but the prices appeared to be in the 2,700-3,300 Yen area. The meals I had were all good, and I never waited more than 4 minutes to order and get my food.

Snacks around the parks are everywhere, and yet, many of the carts had huge lines. It would appear that Japanese prefer to grab and go rather than eat at a counter-service restaurant. This could not have saved them time, because lines for things like turkey legs, stuffed gyozas, hot dogs, etc. were 20-30 minutes long. The equivalent to Dole Whip seemed to be freshly popped flavored popcorn, although it wasn’t only available in Adventureland – instead, there was a popcorn cart in each land, serving a different flavored variety. I saw chocolate, strawberry, curry, black pepper, caramel, spicy, and salted. I’m sure there were more. All that I tried were very good. Virtually every family was walking around with at least one big huge refillable popcorn bucket.

Soft drinks are available at carts, counter service restaurants, table-service restaurants, and in bottles from machines. The selections varies from location to location, with both Coca-cola and Kirin products available. I concluded that buying a soft drink at a QS restaurant is not the way to go. Sizes are small, and cost is large. Instead, grab a bottle from a machine before going in to grab your lunch. And then refill the bottle with water throughout the day to avoid the needless and excessive cost of soft drinks.

Bathrooms

Ok, you are probably wondering why I'm mentioning this. It isn't because they have "Asian-style" hole in the ground bathrooms. No, the facilities are all what we're used to, mostly. I noticed, however, that every rest room is entered without a door, Instead, you pass through an entryway and around a corner or two. This is not uncommon in places that have a lot of visitors, but what was different here is that the bathrooms themselves are not nearly as climate-controlled as we are used to. In short, it was Februrary, and the rest rooms were cold. More striking, however, was that only cold water came out of the sinnks. I mention it only so you'll avoid the shock that I had!

Characters

Characters were out quite frequently, and not only in specially built meet n greets. No matter where they were – lines were long. Some interaction was permitted, and several times, I saw characters run around an area shaking hands and high-fiving patrons without ever actually stopping for a photo set. It was nice, but odd as well because the character greetings in many areas were incongruous. Witness Goofy dressed as a wizard at Mysterius Island in TDS. Huge line of people materialized as soon as he did.

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Unusual characters were out as well. I high-fived Abu as he ran around, almost got run over by a group of people chasing after what I think was Phil (from Hercules), and caught this foul fellow mingling with the crowd.

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But no discussion of characters at TDL is complete without Duffy. Particuarly at TDS, he’s everywhere. At both parks, everybody had their Duffys in little outfits, some of which were clearly custom-made. He does meet-n-greets at TDS, and the line was 50 minutes (seriously, they had one of those “From this point, the wait is XX minutes” signs. The stores that sell Duffy stuff have lines to get IN them, let alone to buy things (I just looked in the windows). Duffy has a girlfriend named SallieMae as well – she’s just about as popular. They even have picture spots where you can set your little stuffed Duffy on a little platform and take a picture of him (not you and him – just him) with nice scenery in the background. No words can describe the length of Duffy-fondness that was evident. You must see to believe.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
TDR is well organized. There are plenty of CMs everywhere – helping get fastpasses, load rides effeiciently, cleaning up, welcoming you places, directing traffic. Everywhere. If you can't find a CM, you must have your eyes closed.

It rains at TDR a lot, so most queues are covered and several other things (see further discussion) are arranged to deal with rain as well. Oriental Land has installed the latest technology to dry out public areas after it stops raining, too, as you can see in this pic from TDS --

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maybe they have a few too many CMs -- they were actually taking bath towels, laying them on pavement, and then walking over them to soak up water. Over at TDL, CMs were bailing out the explorer canoes with cups from a nearby QS restaurant.

Finally, before I get into the attractions and atmosphere of the parks, a word or two about the Japanese people, at least those at Disney. Polite to a fault. Helpful as can be. Although almost everybody in the place was Japanese, most people seemed embarrassed that they couldn’t speak English to me. They went out of their way to assist when needed. Almost invariably, lines were a pleasant, orderly function at TDR – no pushing and shoving, no rushing (with one exception at park opening – I’ll mention later because it’s important). WDW, DLR, and especially Paris would be more enjoyable if guests were as polite and helpful there as they are at TDR. That said, there were very few attempts at conversation. This was OK with me, but noticeable. And everybody, I mean everybody, was playing with their smart phones in queues, while eating, watching parades, etc.

And they love Disney. In addition to the remarkable Duffy-love I already mentioned, almost every family or group of young people had at least one stuffed animal with them. Many people, particularly (but not only) women, had furry hats with sort "tail arms" that hung down to their waist of some Disney character -- Pooh, Goofy, and the Princesses were popular in this regard. And quite a few people were in costume as a Disney character -- and we're not just talking little kids; adults as well. And stores, while not as busy as the Duffy stores, were generally mobbed. Anything small and cute was bought up quick. OLC must do a fortune in merchandise sales.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Ok, enough of that. On to the actual parks. Rather than give you a chronological blow by blow of my days at the parks, I’ll instead mostly talk about aspects of the park by theme or land. But park opening all three days deserves special mention. So, starting with Day 1.

This was my Tokyo Disneyland day. That day, TDL was to open at 9. I arrived by train from central Tokyo around 8:40. After checking into my hotel and dropping my luggage at the extremely convenient visitor center (see previous post), I was ready to head for the park by 8:50. From the train station, you can take the monorail one stop to TDL, or walk about 1/3 mile. I did the walk, as did most. As I passed by the Bon Voyage store (their equivalent of World of Disney, only about ¼ the size and with much less interesting merchandise) and rounded the bend toward the TDL entrance area, I was shocked at the number of people in the entrance area.

It was Thursday. There was no holiday and school was in session. It was cold (9 degrees Celsuis), and it was raining (an inch of rain that morning). And the entrance area outside the gate, which huge, is full of people. I would guess there were about 20 lines, each with roughly 250 people in them. Imagine the entire entrance area of the WDW MK, from monorail station to bus turnaround, from the gates to the water, completely full of people, and then double it. Kudos to Disney, as the size of the entrance plaza shows that Disney/OLC was clearly aware that the Japanese really do follow the advice of arriving before park opening, and kudos to the guests, who were calmly standing in line with rain slickers and umbrellas waiting for park opening.

After I got over the shock of the number of people, I needed to find a ticket window. My first attempt (Guest Relations, who only distribute prepurchased tickets) failed, and I was shown that the ticket windows were in between the huge mobs of people in line to get in. Short line at the window, and I purchased my 3 day pass. I could have purchased that pass at the visitor center at the train station had I had enough cash. However, while a few places other than the parks do sell Tokyo Disney passes, only at the park ticket windows can you use a credit card.

A few things about passes to TDL. They sell 1, 2, 3, and 4 day passes, in addition to annual passes. The 1 and 2 day passes are good at one park per day. The 3 and 4 day passes are one park per day for the first 2 days, and both parks the 3rd and (if applicable) 4th day. The days must be used consecutively – no breaks. And you must specify which parks you want the first 2 days when you buy the ticket. You can pick the same park the first 2 days if you wish. Tickets are on flimsy paper stock, easy to wrinkle, fold, and tear. They have a bar code for reading at the gate and for FastPasses. And they clearly have printed (in Japanese and English) which parks you can go to which days.

After purchasing my ticket, I made my way to the back of a line right at 9 am, and we started moving forward. As I had come to expect from my few days in Japan, the line proceeded quite calmly, orderly and efficiently. In fact, as we went under the bag check awning, everybody put down their umbrellas, only to raise them again for the 20 feet between that awning and the gate, whereupon we put down our umbrellas again, only to put them up 10 seconds later after clearing the gate. The Japanese are amazingly courteous.

Upon entering the park, all of the calm orderliness was gone immediately. Japanese people of every age and size set off at high speeds for whatever attraction they were running for. It was insane. I was always taught not to run while carrying an umbrella, but there was little choice here. As it turned out, the rushing and running was really apparent only in the first hour the park was open. Things were calm after that, but the initial rush was surprising.

TDL is very recognizable as the MK park. The castle is virtually identical to MK. The lands are roughly where you expect them to be and the attractions are generally where you expect them to be as well, with a few minor rearrangements and changes in name.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
World Bazaar

TDL’s equivalent of Main Street USA is called World Bazaar. It looks, however, just like Main Street USA in terms of the shops and buildings, so I’m unsure why they gave it a different name. There are three big differences, though. First, the town square area doesn’t really have anything in it – there’s no train station, the parade doesn’t come through here, and the omnibus and horse transport don’t come down here either.

This may be due to the second difference, which is that the area of the shops and restaurants is covered by a huge sort of greenhouse roof. It does protect from the rain (a wonderful thing on the morning I was there), but also kills the entry view of the castle. Odd decision I think.

Third difference is that center street (the cross street) goes places. Head right off World Bazaar’s main street and you wind up in Tomorrowland, left and you get to Adventureland. Makes it easier to get around the park not always needing to traverse the hub. Also makes Tomorrowland and Adventureland huge, and gives room for extra World Bazaar storefronts restaurants on the backside – facing Tomorrowland and Adventureland. Makes for more room, but it also gives you the horribly jarring possibility to be on a walkway with Main Street-style architecture on one side, and Tomorrowland-style on the other. It does not look good.

The array of shops is familiar, including an Emporium, a Magic Shop, and ice cream parlor, the Disney Gallery, and other familiar things. The extra room means a few additional shops and more restaurants as well, but the shops still didn’t hold anything particularly interesting to me.

At end of the World Bazaar main street is the hub, which is HUGE. Really really big. The main street vehicles just go around the hub in circles. They are more like a ride than transport down main street. The parade route uses about 80% of the large hub on its route by coming in from one side of Fantasland, entering hub by passing one side of the castle and then exiting out around the other side of the castle and out the other side of Fantasyland. It's hard to explain, but there are good maps at the Tokyo Disney website in English that show it.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Fantasyland

Fantasyland is home to the things you expect, including Dumbo, Peter Pan, Snow White, Philharmagic, a carousel, etc. It also has Winnie the Pooh and the Hunny Hunt, which we’ve all heard is the state of the art dark ride. Well, I would say that what we’ve heard doesn’t do it justice. This is what all dark rides should be. The queue is richly themed, as you walk amongst huge pages of a Pooh story (in English, ‘natch – see the pic below). I amused myself in line reading the pages with a faux John Cleese/Sebastian Cabot accent, which amused the Japanese people in line around me as well.

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The cars (honey pots) in the ride aren’t on a track, but move independently with their motion controlled by computers, it would seem. The story hits the familiar blustery day, bounce with tigger (you can hear “The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers!” in Japanese, as all audio is in Japanese despite the queue being all in English), and heffalump areas, but instead of just moving through them on a track, each car does a slightly different route and sees different things. It was wonderfully enjoyable, and I rode three times. This is the ride to get your fastpass to first thing. The line was upwards of 75 minutes most of the day, except early in the morning, and last thing at night. This is what all F-land dark rides should be like. Every one in every park should be redone using this kind of ride system.

The rest of F-land is generally exactly what you’d expect, attraction-wise, and a disappointment, atmosphere-wise. IASW is familiar and fun, and the Peter Pan and Snow White dark rides are what you’d expect (although I think you get a little closer to the scenes than at WDW and DL). Philharmagic, strangely enough to me, was completely in Japanese – I had assumed they’d just run the same version, but they didn’t.

For reasons I don’t understand, the Haunted Mansion is in Fantasyland, across from Peter Pan. The queue generally winds through the mansion grounds, but you can look across and see Dumbo and Peter Pan, and it looks odd. The attraction itself is the one you are familiar with, with old-style hitchhiking ghosts, and no interactive graveyard in the queue (headstones are there, though, and in English). Audio is Japanese, so I could not understand my ghost host, but the ride was still fun.

The main problem with F-land is that the rides are just sort of placed there with little theming of the area. For example, this is an actual pic of Dumbo, not a flying elephant ride a local carnival. It just looked bad.

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MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Tomorrowland

Tomorrowland, as I mentioned, is very large. It has Star-Jets, Star Tours, Space Mountain, Monsters Inc Ride n’ Go Seek, Buzz Lightyear’s Astro-Blasters, a theater, and lots of restaurants and shops. And lots of room to roam. As I would come to find out, Disney built lots of wide open spaces in TDL. I understand that this was to be starkly different than most of Japan, which is very crowded. They succeeded – there’s unused space in Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Westernland, and, as mentioned earlier, in the entrance area that would be town square -- lots of it. Unfortunately, other than a wonderfully themed area of Critter Country, most of the empty space is themed as empty space. It looks…not good. And tomorrowland has a big swath of it around the Star Jets, which look like the Astro Orbitor looked in 1971 (white and black with USA painted on the center), except that there’s no peoplemover station under them (because there’s no Peoplemover), so they are raised over nothing.

Actually, architecture-wise, this is your father's Tomorrowland. Other than the Monsters, Inc building, it looks like MK TL did in the early 80s. It looks retro, but not in a good way. No matter -- onto the attractions.

Buzz is exactly like the DLR version, from queue to ride experience. Indeed, I visited DL-Anaheim one week later, and confirmed that the queues are identical. This pic is from Tokyo, but could be Anaheim.

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Space Mountain drew a huge line most of the day – up to 150 minutes I noticed. I rode with a fastpass, but the line was down to 40 mins at night. The ride is very much like Anaheim’s, including the queue, although the space ship visible in the loading area is a more modern-looking design. However, there is no on-board audio (like Anaheim) or ambient music (like WDW).

I also went to the stage show here, called One Man's Dream. It was a remarkable menagerie of various Disney characters dancing and singing, along with a talented crop of performers as backing singers/dancers. TDL has no problem mixing characters from different movies, it would appear. Here, for exmaple, is a shot of an early number, featuring Turk and King Louie.

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Other numbers featured villains from various films all together, and a pirate number that included Captain Hook and Jack Sparrow. Overall, the number of characters in the 35 minute show was remarkably high. The tunes were the ones you one, but it was all sung in Japanese, except for the theme song of the show, "One Man's Dream", which was all sung in Japanese except the title, and the song "Hooray for Hollywood", which was sung in Japanese except for the title and the line "You could be Donald Duck!". Odd, that one. Good show, and it was nice to be back in a tomorrowland theater. No parking lot here.

Star Tours is still the original, so I got to ride it one more time, only this time, in Japanese! I did laugh in the queue when, amidst many announcements in Japanese, the unaltered "Kuchana Kuchana" played. Apparently, that needs no translation. The queue, the loading bay, and, especially, the exit ramp, are fare more detailed here than at DL and in the indoor part of DHS's version. Once they upgrade to the new version later this year, I'm sure this will rocket to the top of the crowd list, and they are well-equipped to handle it. One humorous note. Apparently, Japanese for "Light speed!" is "Wight-a speed-u".

The highlight of Tomorrowland for me was Monsters Inc, Ride & Go Seek. This is a great little ride. The plot is that Boo has come to visit Mike & Sully and they are going to play hide n seek in the laugh factory. You are loaded into a little car, which has flashlight in it, holstered like the guns in Buzz. You shine your flashlight looking for Boo and for friendly monsters hiding around the factory. It's great fun, and of course, at the end, you find Boo, but not until after evading Randall a few times.

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This is a fun ride with a great premise. Very different than both the WDW and DL Monsters, Inc. attractions. Humorous bit from this attraction. At the end, just like at the end of the DCA ride, you go past, and stop in front of, Roz. And she's interactive. She said something to my little group of three cars. Everybody but me laughed. Then she said something else. Everybody else looked at me and laughed. Then Roz turned towards me and said "Bye-Bye". So I was mocked by a Japanese Roz, and I don't have any idea what she said.

One further note is that I only knew the plot because I had read about it online. You can, however, stop at guest relations and get a packet of little flyers in English that explain some attractions. Most you won't need, but this one would have been helpful if I didn't already know about the ride. You can also find scans of the little flyers at several websites. Take the time to find them before you go -- big help here, and even moreso at TDS. I'll mention them again later.
 

coachwnh

Well-Known Member
sounds cool. my wife would love to do TDL! we are pass holders at WDW. we are planning trips to DL and WDW this summer. we would love to do either paris or tokyo next summer (although our kids want the cruise). your report helped alot. thanks. glad you had fun
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
sounds cool. my wife would love to do TDL! we are pass holders at WDW. we are planning trips to DL and WDW this summer. we would love to do either paris or tokyo next summer (although our kids want the cruise). your report helped alot. thanks. glad you had fun

Much more coming. When I get to the Tokyo DisneySea report later this week, you'll move Tokyo Disney way up on your desire scale.
 

flynnibus

Premium Member
The main problem with F-land is that the rides are just sort of placed there with little theming of the area. For example, this is an actual pic of Dumbo, not a flying elephant ride a local carnival. It just looked bad.

In a lot of ways.. TDL is frozen in time. FL, Dumbo, and TL really visualize it the best. They do get individual new attractions of course.. but in so many other ways it stays frozen in time compared to the other parks which have gone through other land reboots.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
In a lot of ways.. TDL is frozen in time. FL, Dumbo, and TL really visualize it the best. They do get individual new attractions of course.. but in so many other ways it stays frozen in time compared to the other parks which have gone through other land reboots.

TDL, visually, has two problems, I think. The first is the frozen in time problem with Tomorrowland. The second is that it doesn't seem that much attention was really paid to the visuals parkgoers would see -- attractions, restaurants, and shops were plopped down into the lands they belong in but with no thought towards sightlines or visual perceptions.

The second mistake was avoided when Splash Mountain was built, and then completely avoided for DisneySea, which has such perfect visuals from anywhere in the park that I could just wander around for hours looking at stuff and smiling.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Ok, continuing with the rest of TDL.

Westernland

The area we are familiar with as Frontierland is called Westernland at TDL, but is instantly recognizable. Architecture and style is what you’d expect. Westernland also has some rather unthemed wide open space as well, about as big as the unthemed open space in Tomorrowland.

The Rivers of America are here, with the riverboat and rafts to Tom Sawyer’s Island. Frontierland’s big attraction is Big Thunder Mountain, and it had 80+ minute lines just about all day. Finally, towards the evening, the line was around 40 minutes when I rode. Ride is comparable to the MK with no significant differences that I noted. However, Big Thunder and the Westernland Railroad (more on that later) run close to each other and close to the river in a way that creates nice visuals.

Westernland also has the Country Bear Jamboree, which rotates shows different parts of the year between the original Jamboree, the Vacation Hoedown, and the Christmas Spectacular. Unfortunately, Jamboree was playing on my visit – I’d have liked to see one of the other shows that I haven’t seen in a long time. Songs here are presented roughly half English/half Japanese, and it isn’t exactly the same set, but pretty close.

Visible from just about anywhere in Westernland is the Western River Railroad, which oddly boards in Adventureland. The RR has most of the elements from Disneyland’s railroad, including the scenes of settlers and Indians, and the Grand Canyon and Primeval World dioramas. It also does a complete circle around the Rivers of America, and in certain parts, is set up about 10 feet above the water level right by the shore, so it’s a nice view. It runs around and adjacent to parts of the Jungle Cruise and Big Thunder, offering views of parts of those attractions. It does not run through Splash Mountain, however. Narration is all in Japanese, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out what you were looking at. The big difference though is that this train is a round trip starting and ending in Adventureland – it does not provide transportation around the park. As such, it felt odd. A sort of eclectic group of things to see that don’t necessarily go together and don’t form a plot. But with some nice views. And the fact that the train travels around the Rivers of America makes for some nice view of the train from all over Westernland.

Critter Country

Critter Country is a small land that, rather oddly, branches off of Fantasyland around the corner from the Haunted Mansion. However, once you enter the area, it is very nicely themed. Winding paths go in various directions and take you in and out of the rockwork, allow great views of Splash Mountain, and go under the railroad tracks down to the shore of the Rivers of America. The paths are tranquil and interesting. You can tell this land was built after the rest of the park. The visuals that are missing or incongruous elsewhere are done very well here.

Unfortunately, Splash Mountain was down, so I couldn’t ride. The only other ride in the area is the explorer canoes (called “Beaver Brothers Explorer Canoes”, I think). I didn’t take time to ride the canoes, but the experience looked familiar, save the time I saw the CMs bailing out the canoes after the rain using plastic and paper cups.

Toontown

Toontown here branches off from the spot where Fantasyland and Tomorrowland come together. Seeing the three lands in one view was rather jarring. Once in Toontown, it looks like (and is) an exact mirror image of Disneyland’s Toontown. I spent little time, as I would be in Disneyland only a week later.

Adventureland

Adventureland, like Tomorrowland, is huge and benefits from having the extra entry direct from World Bazaar rather than only through the hub.

Pirates of the Caribbean is here. It is the version we know, updated for Sparrow, Barbossa and Davy Jones, and the audio is largely in English.

The Tiki Room is also here. The waiting area is beautiful. It has the Tiki god statues and descriptions (in English, like all other written signs) like at Disneyland, and is set up for a pre-show performance like at WDW. Unfortunately, there was no preshow, and the Tiki statues never did their little show either. Disappointing. The actual Tiki room show is very Hawaiian themed, with Stitch playing a large part, and is presented entirely in Japanese. It was enjoyable, and featured Hawaiian Roller Coaster, the Hawaiian War Chant, and other appropriate songs. Jose, Michael, Fritz, Pierre are there, but have Hawaiian names. Stitch wants to be in the show and pretends to be a Tiki god in order to join. In the end, of course, everybody ends happy. At this point, you may be wondering how I followed the plot. It’s because this show has a device available that shows the dialogue and lyrics in English during the show. Without it the only words I would have understood were "Stitch" and "Big Kahuna" which apparently don't translate to Japanese. Ask a cast member while you are in the lack of a pre-show area and she’ll hook you up with a translation device.

There is also the Jungle Cruise in Adventureland, but I did not have time to experience the backside of water in Japanese.

Adventureland is also home to another large unthemed area of wide open space -- one side back of World Bazaar, one side wall with a cast door, one side trees and shrubs and open to the hub, and one side Pirates of the Caribbean. It really looked bad.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Parades

I had heard good things about the parades at TDL, and watched both the afternoon parade, Jubilation, and night parade, Dreamlights. Both were great. Guests at TDL grab spots very early for parades. They spread towels or plastic mats and sit and wait…and wait. However, they also sit during the parade, very calmly, and don’t push and shove. The sitting combined with the fact that I’m taller than 90% of Japanese adults worked in my favor. I snagged spots to see both parades with only a few minutes of waiting.
Jubilation has intricate, colorful floats as you can see in these pics.

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It has a standard array of characters plus a few more, as several floats combined characters from different movies, but in a way that actually worked pretty well. Some of the singing in the parade was in English, and some of the princesses “spoke” in English as they went by. Most was in Japanese, however. The parade didn’t have a particular theme, but it didn’t need one. The floats and music were great. This is what MK should strive for in a parade. For those who have seen Soundsational at Disneyland, which generally gets very good reviews, I would rate Jubilation as even better.

As good as Jubilation was, Dreamlights puts it to shame. Dreamlights is essentially an updated Main Street Electrical Parade, and the MSEP music is used. But virtually all of the floats in Dreamlights transform using the lights, rather than just lighting up. Snow White’s tree, for example, “grows” as the parade moves, and Aurora’s dress goes from pink to blue as the fairies play.

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But the star of Dreamlights is Genie. The Genie float is essentially a rolling Las Vegas strip sign shaped like Genie. The lights on his body appear and disappear, change colors, dance, etc. He turns into a tiger, Nemo, and various other things. I had a great video of him which, sadly, disappeared with the rest of my pictures. Dreamlights puts MSEP and Spectro to shame. This is the parade that should replace MSEP when it’s done at WDW.

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Food

Just to wrap up from my day at TDL, I’ll tell you that I had lunch at Tomorrowland Terrace – apparently the food of tomorrow includes fried rice with ground beef and egg. It was fine, and it took me only about 4 minutes to order and get my food, so that was good. But the place was so crowded at lunch time that I actually had to sit on the floor. I was not alone, however. There were probably 100 people sitting on the floor of the extremely large entryway into the restaurant. Why there were no tables there I’m not sure. I can only assume the place was so crowded despite short lines because many families were taking up the tables with food they brought with them.

The lunch portion wasn’t large, so I was ready for dinner early. I ate at the nicely-themed Hungry Bear restaurant in Westernland. Japanese bears apparently like curry, so it was chicken curry for dinner. Quite tasty, but my “spicy” curry was on the mild side. Apparently, TDL restaurants cater to the masses like WDW restaurants.

Later that night, just before Dreamlights, I walked up to a little gazebo looking snack stand just off the hub figuring I’d get an ice cream or something. But this was a soup stand, so I grabbed a sampler with a little bowl of miso and a little bowl of clam chowder. Both were actually very good, although $8 for two small cups of soup seemed excessive.

That’s it from TDL. I’ll continue shortly with my next two days at TDS.
 

MichWolv

Born Modest. Wore Off.
Premium Member
Original Poster
Now to continue. My first day at Tokyo DisneySea was Friday, Feb. 24. Unlike the day before where it rained all morning, today was bright and sunny, if still quite cool (low 50 fahrenheit).

The park was open 9 to 9. Before heading to the park, I stocked up with a huge breakfast at the Hilton's great breakfast buffet. I highly recommend it as a good start to the day, in part to avoid the high price of food in the parks if at all possible. Of course, I have no idea what the hotel breakfast would have cost had I not gotten it free as a Hilton Gold member.

A quick monrail ride took me one stop to TDS. I arrived at about 8:45 to a ridiculously huge number of people waiting patiently to get in. I described earlier the line on Thursday in the rain to get into TDL. Friday in the sun at TDS was even more packed before opening. But Disney had planned even better for this. The entry area for TDS actually extends to both sides from the gates, which are situated perpendicular to the main thoroughfare inside the entry area of the park.

Surprisingly (because i had read that this doesn't happen at Tokyo Disney), the gates opened early, at about 8:50 am. I was in the park about 9:00, after the long line I was in made its way through the turnstiles. As I walked in, I got my first view of Tokyo DisneySea. I was stunned...it's gorgeous, and remained so wherever I walked for the next 1 1/2 days.

The Park is Stunning

In fact, before talking about any of the attractions, I want to try to give an idea of just how well this park is laid out and how strong the visuals are. This was even more amazing to me because of the failure to do these things well at TDL. Clearly somebody learned something.

TDS has 7 lands. 6 of them (Mediterrannean Harbor, American Waterfront, Port Discovery, Lost River Delta, Arabian Coast, and Mermaid Harbor) surround the 7th, Mysterious Island. Misterious Island is dominated (from the outside, at least) by a volcano mountain (Mount Prometheus), which can be seen from many parts of the park. The attractions in MI are inside the crater of the mountain, and therefore cannot be seen from anywhere else. The mountain itself just looks, from most places, like a mountain in the distance, so it isn't out of place anywhere. But it serves to block the views of one land to another.

Here is a shot of Mediterannean Harbor with Mysterious Island in the background. All around the harbor, the theming holds.

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In addition, the lands at TDS are built on multiple levels in a tiered fashion, with the lower tier away from the mountain and the upper tier closer to/on the slopes of the mountain. The bottom level is at the water level of the network of canals and lagoons that are all over the park. The top level of each land is closer to the mountain, so it looks and feels like you are just moving up the mountain slope. The beauty of the set up is that from the lower level (or levels) or each land, you look up and see more of that land, with the mountain behind. From the top level, you look down and see more of that land.

Even transitions between lands where you can walk from one to another are handled by way of arches or other openings that are big enough to allow traffic flow, but small enough to block visual noise, or by way of a corner or other path with trees or other natural barriers to prevent visual contamination. In short, this is just perfectly done.

I'll cover this more as I talk about each land, but the beauty of the way this is put together cannot be overstated.

DisneySea's One Downside

DisneySea really suffers from only one thing, which I'll mention here so as not to sully the rest of the report. It has a fairly low number of attractions. There are only about 17 attractions that aren't kiddie attractions. Many of them developed long lines quickly. I used several strategies (which I'll report on in excrutiating detail) to avoid 6 or 7 huge lines, but 3 or 4 more attractions in the park would certainly be called for. One of them (Toy Story Mania) is on the way. As things are, I can imagine that, on really busy days, it would be quite hard to see more than 6 or 7 attractions here if you wanted to see the blockbusters.

That's it. I'll have virtually nothing else negative to say about TDS as I go through my detailed report on the park.
 

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