I've been to both, and call me crazy, but I think this is actually a fair fight. To be sure, DisneySea is every bit the crown jewel of park design that everybody says it is, and it does have a lot more rides than AK. But when you look at the list of what those actually are, you've got:
- a bunch of cloned things (or slight variations) from stateside parks or Paris
- a glut of transportation-y attractions and simple carnival rides (admittedly well-embellished with themes, but still)
- two rides smack-dab in the middle of the park that are mind-blowing but almost incomprehensible if you don't speak Japanese (although that kind of adds to the fun)
- one unique dark ride that's Fantasyland on steroids
- Aquatopia
Plenty of cool stuff, but only a few experiences that would keep me coming back to re-ride them even if the surrounding ambiance wasn't a factor. I haven't done the Magic Lamp Theater, and I wasn't even aware until now that they re-themed StormRider to Finding Nemo, but those don't seem like major plusses.
I mean, I love it at Tokyo Disney (especially the dozens of weird popcorn flavors), and I think I'm probably going to vote for DisneySea in this matchup, but Animal Kingdom is almost as well-crafted an environment, and it has Pandora/Flight of Passage, Dinosaur (even with its flaws!), Everest (even with its!), Festival of the Lion King, Kilimanjaro Safaris, and all the animals in general. That's where people always get hung up when judging it...if you want it to be nahtazu, it's a lot less impressive than it is if you care enough to spend half your day looking at zoo exhibits.
AK still needs several more rides and some reimagining in Dino-Land and Asia. (Personally, as someone with a slight bug phobia, I'd love to see a new, non-insect-focused show inside the Tree of Life...my dream would be a sweeping Epcot-style edutainment thing that illustrates the all-important concept of natural selection, but that's probably too much to ask.) But it's a very strong park. Much better than DCA or either of the Studios parks, and, though it pains me to say it, probably objectively stronger than 2021 Epcot.
To me this is an intriguing comparison, because these are two staggeringly beautiful and thoughtfully themed spaces that both still await the day when they'll have the deep bench of irresistible attractions found at their corresponding castle parks. But they were both designed well from day one and can grow sensibly from there, unlike some of the more haphazard layouts of other recent parks.
