It is your right to see it as a form of Orientalism, but I disagree, at least for me personally. Sometimes the best is just clear as night and day. It also depends on what you need and what you value in the park experience.
But if some people are saying they think TDR is better because of misguided Orientalism, so too do feel like a lot of the people who say the US parks are better are doing so out of misguided nationalism rather than looking at objective quality. Americana is AN aspect of the Disney parks, but not THE aspect of it (and THE aspect is NOT IP, Iger!), certainly not since Eisner took the helm. If more people had been to the Internationals and still felt the American parks were better, as you do, it would be easier for me to understand; but the reality is that many people haven't, for understandable reasons. That's fine. But it also means that people tend to have a lopsided view of the parks and automatically assume that the familiar is better (and we would certainly hope that the version we're most familiar with is the best one!) Even between the US parks you see this: when I was young, I wanted to learn everything about the different Disney theme parks in the world, and it has always surprised me that I'm definitely in the minority on that. It's not hard to look in forums like this and find people who clearly have no idea how anything works at the OTHER US resort, and immediately make all sorts of judgments about which is "better" (read: 99% of the time the first one they went to and/or the one they have been to most). So everyone comes to these conversations with their own biases, conscious or not, myself included.
But anyway, as for a critique of TDR vs. the others? Here's my attempt at a fair take, for the good of the group (I mean, I know
you know, but you also like DCA better than TDS, so...
)
TDR Pros:
-Better versions of many attractions, particularly when compared to Floridian versions.
-NOT trying to add FP to every attraction
-Better customer service
-Way more staff
-More rule enforcement
-Day & Night Parades daily (and spectacular ones at that)
-Sitting for parades and spectaculars! Mostly. No children on shoulders!
-Respectful clientele who follow the rules and know how to behave in a theme park! No (or at least minimal) meltdowns!
-Minimal usage of strollers; no battered heels, no massive stroller parking areas...
-Entertainment! So much of it, and so much of it is fantastic! All of it regularly refreshed.
-Seasonal offerings up the wazoo! Food, festivals, parades, all of it included in your admission ticket. No upcharges, no nonsense.
-Maintenance is better, MUCH better! I won't go so far as to say everything is 100% flawless all the time as some would say, but I'd say it's more like 95% of everything in great shape vs. the ~60% the US parks settle for. You know how there are attractions like Splash or Indy that you can make a drinking game out of how often they have regular, predictable issues in the US? Or how HMH leaves all sorts of things out of whack in the regular Mansion once it returns? Doesn't happen over there.
-Prices? Cut them in half. Maybe not for souvenirs, but certainly for admission and food.
-TDS is the best non-castle park in the world, easily. No contest.
-Both parks have enough to occupy you for an entire day. None of this "half day park" nonsense.
-WAY Better Monsters Inc and Pooh rides!
-TDL has the best versions of the US rides in one park. DL (more or less) Pirates and MK Mansion in one park? Heck. Yes.
-Lots of "extra polish" that the US parks have largely not gotten in the past two decades or so.
-Do you ever get tired of seeing Marvel and Star Wars in the parks? That no matter how much Disney tries to make it so, they're Not Disney? Guess what? Tokyo agrees with you! Other than Star Tours being there, Star Wars and Marvel are largely not present at TDR.
-Generally willing to spend more money than the US parks.
-Park operations, characters, design (especially at TDL), service, and overall philosophies skew old school Disney. It can feel like a time warp, usually in the best possible way.
-If an attraction is bad in Tokyo, or doesn't live up to expectations, it is NEVER because of slashed funds, or because an idea wasn't allowed to breathe. There are only a handful of bad attractions, and even the worst of these cannot BEGIN to approach the worst attractions in the US parks.
-"Change for the sake of change" is not a thing when it comes to attractions, unlike the US parks. So you still have the original Pirates auction scene (and the chase scene is likewise still original), a cool old-school Snow White dark ride, the original Haunted Mansion attic scene. Sometimes this can make things feel dated, but most of the time it means the park has been well-insulated from bad creative decisions made in the US parks.
Cons:
-LONG, $$ plane ride to get there!
-The opening day areas of TDL are weak, design-wise. In fairness, a lot of these things are based on designs that the US parks have moved on from (Tomorrowland and Fantasyland used to look like that at MK! Dumbo really did used to look like that at both US parks! And so on) that wouldn't have looked as out of place at the time they were built. The pathways are too wide (see also: EPCOT), the areas aren't as cohesive. Part of this actually matches with Epcot, as said above; part of it is because the park was very much not a priority internally and it was designed by the B-Team; still more because OLC literally went between the parks and picked out the elements they wanted. BUT everything added since then is of a much higher level. There have been plans for a long time to overhaul the original areas, and it's definitely frustrating that they have been trigger shy on that.
-Journey has been hyped to death and probably has single-handedly gifted the world with more anticipointment than any other ride. It took a few rides to really appreciate it after the ludicrous hype it got. ROTR may end up being similar once I finally experience it.
-TDS needs more rides. That said, it certainly has a better collection of rides than any non-Castle park in the US. DCA has more, technically, but most of that "more" is pretty worthless if we're being honest.
-The fireworks suck and never really graduated beyond FITS variations (on the upside, no fighting for a space!); also cancelled a lot. This is probably the one area the US parks consistently do better across the board. They do have very good projection shows, however.
-No food substitutions; rules are Rules in Japan, no matter how seemingly arbitrary; This makes eating in the park for vegetarians and vegans at best highly problematic.
-General, longstanding reluctance to accommodate foreign visitors with things like park apps and online restaurant reservations. This is improving-VERY slowly. In SOME fairness to TDR, this is a culture-wide issue and not unique to the parks.
-Hotel booking, if you want to stay at a Disney hotel, is an at-best convoluted process. But there are also hotels on the monorail line that are nice and cheap, so you can stay close even without staying at a Disney hotel.
-You have to pay for the monorail. I mean, they're WAY nicer and cleaner, and you're still paying far less with tickets & monorail pass than you would be in the States, but some people can't get past that.
-You can't parkhop every day if you buy a parkhopper. You have to choose your parks the first two days. To me this isn't a big deal because hopping isn't that convenient and if you can't find a way to fill a day in those parks, that's on you. But I suppose some people freak out because they can only see Dreamlights 3 out of the 4 nights of their trip or something.
-No real "Disney bubble." Oh well. In fairness, it is in a HIGHLY urban area, moreso than most of the other parks, really.
-Occasional weird rules, like the prohibition of photography in queues that is inconsistently enforced.
-It's not actually owned by Disney, which is A THING for some people. Oh no, it's generally operated better with less price gauging, the horror?!?!?
-Entertainment, while still best in the world, is not quite what it used to be. In particular, TDS hurts badly without Mythica or some kind of regular daily harbor show.
-Ticket days have to be consecutive. THAT's annoying.
-Speaking of tickets, buying them outside of Japan is a pain. Although I've never understood why people who say that couldn't go to the ticket booths the day before or a Disney store once they got to Japan? Once you're in Japan it's super easy. And again, way lower prices!
-No real early entry for anyone. Hotel guests get in 15 minutes early and MAYBE get to ride one thing; more often, they just move ahead of everyone else. Park gates aren't opened for anyone until the minute the park opens, and you have to get there early because there are ALWAYS a huge ton of people at the gate. You can work around this, but it can be irritating. Also, this is not a TDR thing, it's a Japan thing-same scenario at the Golden Pavilion, for example.
-Crazy crowds on weekends, but then again, every single person that has ever been to TDR says to not go on weekends, so I feel like it's kind of your fault if you go and don't know that. Presumably if you're going as tourist you have control over such things. Such hysteria is overblown for weekdays.
-People who aren't familiar with the parks will definitely judge you for going to TDR vs the US parks. Oh well; if it's not their money, who are they to tell you what to do with your life and your trip?
Hopefully this is sufficiently fair and balanced.
I imagine some people are going to look at this and their belief that the domestic parks are better will be reinforced. Personally, I still prefer the Tokyo parks and feel the pros
far outweigh the cons. YMMV.
.
There’s no point in trying to convince people. You’ve stated your opinion, great. There are others who disagree. Accept it.