A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 15 – Tokyo Disneyland

“All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” – Walt Disney

I woke up at 7:30 AM today which was the first day I actually slept a decent amount in a quite a while, and Lucy and Kendall get up shortly after. We all eventually take a shower and get ready.

Today rather than a fancy sit-down breakfast like yesterday, we opt to do the hotel buffet at the Sherwood Garden Restaurant. It’s a hotel buffet and very expansive and large. It reminded me of a buffet on a cruise ship to be honest in terms of the size and selection of foods. They have some cute Mickey plates I feel the need to use.

One of the problems we’ve been running into is that there just isn’t a lot of food available in the hotels after we get back from the parks at night. Our options are typically just room service or some snacks from the convenience store in the hotel if it’s even open. For this reason we decide to go ahead and hit up the convenience store for some Raman as a late night snack as sometimes we don’t make it to the store before it closes. They have a very large raman selection. We opt for the standard flavored Cup Noodle that we are familiar with.

I initially couldn’t figure out how they warm up the ramen they sell in the store as there is no microwave an any of the rooms. It then dawns on me the tea kettle is also used to boil water for the ramen, and not just for tea. I felt so stupid.

Then we head to the hotel gift shop to get our Vacation Package merch. The Vacation Package comes with 1 shoulder bags per person and 1 gift. We choose as our gift one blanket and two cushions.

In Japan people sit on the sidewalk for shows and parades rather than stand, so everyone brings a cushion or blanket to sit on. We also buy some Mickey knit hats and 3 magnets. It was only $73 dollars for all the stuff. In the US it would be at least $125 ballpark at least for 3 hats and 3 magnets and that’s probably underestimating.

Afterwards we pack up our room and stop by bell services and ask to transfer our luggage to the Hotel Miracosta. We then head to the park which is not even 100m from our hotel.

We cross the turnstiles and head to the wheelchair rental. As always it’s not far from entrance and there are ample wheelchairs lined up unlike at Disneyland Paris. The Tokyo prices could time to shock as a wheelchair rental is just 3.59! It’s cheaper than a cup of Starbucks coffee! An ECV was just 12.73 to rent but they were out. For comparison an ECV to rent for a day in the US is $60.

The World Bazaar is the equivalent of Main Street USA in Tokyo Disneyland, and unlike other Main Streets, this one is actually covered. While not as aesthetically pleasing as an open air Main Street, I do love the practicality of this.

As with all castle parks our first priority is our castle pic, so we march down the World Bazaar straight to Cinderella’s Castle.

I must say, I do prefer the original grey color scheme in comparison to the newer pink one that Magic Kingdom has. It just looks more classic.

We then head over to Fantasyland to do Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast. This is supposedly the BEST ride in all of Tokyo Disneyland and one of the best in the ENTIRE world. It has gotten rave reviews, so we are very excited to see this ride. I have avoided any and all spoilers, while Kendall has seen a handful of Tik-Tok videos.

Thankfully, we have have unlimited Premier Access to rides to rides today via our Vacation Package so any ride with a Premier Access line we can just do over and over again with minimal wait. Thank goodness, as the wait today was 180-220 minutes all day long.

We just would not be able to accomplish that much if we did not utilize some degree of line skipping.

The queue was beautiful, and felt like you were walking right into Beast’s castle.

It was themed incredibly well and the atmosphere really put you into the story. The wait was about 15 minutes to get to the preshow. The preshow took place in the grand staircase room.

Then you had about another 10 minutes or so in line after the preshow.

They had a variety of animatronics in the queue such as Lumiere and Cogsworth and used shadows as as well to convey the story.

The ride vehicles were super cute in that you boarded onto large size tea cups.

The ride itself is a dark trackless ride akin to Rise of the Resistance. The teacups have the ability to sway as well as move and the movements are synchronized to a variety of shows scenes and music. This combination makes for an absolutely spectacular experience.

The story picks up from “Be Our Guest” and the ride incorporates many scenes from this point in the movie onward.

The ride definitely lived up to the hype and then some.

I absolutely loved it. The music, the show scenes, the animatronics, the special effects. It just all clicked and made you feel like you were part of the story.

The animatronics did not really stand out to me, but the show scenes and scale were just incredible. The combination of the practical effects, the music, and ride vehicle was just perfect. There is no dark ride in the US or really any park that could come close to competing in my opinion except for Rise of the Resistance, and I actually liked this better. Rise of the Resistance is really just an incredible testament to technology but this beats it for me in terms of sheer enjoyment.

Next up is Poohs Honey Hunt which is right next door.

We just used our Premier Access and the wait was not even 10 minutes after entering the line. They set the queue up as though you were walking between a bunch of pages of the books.

We didn’t know what to expect from this ride, but I must say we were very impressed. This was a trackless dark ride, and you board a honey pot as a ride vehicle.

It is hands down the best pooh ride we’ve ever been on, and somewhat similar to Beauty and the Beast at times.

Beauty and the Beast is just bigger, grander, and has better songs. I suspect they looked at this ride design and thought about how they could improve it even more and then decided to do that with Beauty and the Beast. I must say we all found having Pooh speak in Japanese to be quite jarring, as Pooh has such an iconic voice and hearing him in Japanese was just odd.

Haunted mansion is in Fantasyland here so we make a short walk to it next.

At this time it has a holiday overlay, Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare which features Jack Skellington. The preshow was changed to include Jack, and the whole queue was redecorated as well.

We’ve never seen the Disneyland Holiday overlay, but I’m betting this is likely very similar.

I know that the Disneyland overlay is somewhat controversial, but we enjoy it overall.

It is a pretty impressive overlay, and much more thorough than the Jingle Cruise or some other overlays we’ve seen over the years.

We head over to Adventureland next as we are starting to get pretty hungry and there is a quick service restaurant there that serves gumbo and we want to try it out. This is one of the busiest days of the year and I had been warned of the crowds by everyone, but to be honest it’s not any worse than Disney World crowds in my opinion. It is definitely crowded but I have seen Disney at Phase 4 capacity so anything compared to that feels light. It also helps that the Japanese are just more orderly than the US crowds and they are also just more respectful. Thus far in the time we’ve been in Japan we have seen zero “Karen” type moments, whereas in the US, at least once per day I typically see someone making a scene either with a cast member or other guest. On our way to Adventureland we notice everyone is sitting for the parade.

I read that for shows and parades everyone here sits, but it’s still neat to see in person. I really wish this was how things were in the US as it would make it so much easier for everyone to see. Also something we really noticed today is that there is no trash or food on the ground. Despite the obsession with popcorn, somehow Tokyo Disneyland has the most efficient cleaning crew ever. There is also no trash on the ground or gum either. In general the park just felt immaculately clean. What’s also odd, is that trash cans are few and far between unlike in the US. So despite the lack of easily accessible trash cans and a cultural obsession with Disneyland popcorn the parks are somehow notably cleaner and better maintained than the US parks.

We eventually get to Cafe Orleans for a taste of home.

Kendall is from New Orleans so she is somewhat skeptical that this is gonna be any good. While I stand in line for food, Kendall goes to a nearby popcorn stand to get our popcorn bucket included in our vacation package.

We order three bowls of gumbo, and also three soft drinks.

There was some confusion as included in our vacation package is unlimited nonalcoholic beverages in the park. You only need to show your beverage ticket. Apparently, the beverage ticket is also good soup and I did not know this. They thought I was trying to get 3 drinks and 3 soups for free, and I only thought the drink was an option, and was happy to pay for the gumbo. Eventually with some google translate they understood that I was happy to pay for the drinks and get the gumbo for free, and did not expect 6 free items. We also ordered a Mickey Cinnamon roll as a back up option in case the gumbo turned out to be a bust.

Believe it or not, but the gumbo was actually really good. It had a hint of some tomato in it that I’m we’re not used to in any gumbo we’ve ever had, but we all really enjoyed it. It was probably the best thing we’ve eaten in a park since leaving the US. It was really nice to eat something that wasn’t a burger, pizza, pasta or lounge food which has been our primary diet over the last two weeks. Lucy hasn’t been eating too great since we hit Asia so it was good to find something she liked. Of note the prices were very affordable with a cup of gumbo not even costing $5 USD.

After we are pretty close to Big Thunder Mountain, so we head toward it. On the way we pass by the Enchanted Tiki Room which apparently is run by Stitch here. We wished we had time to do it as Lucy love’s Stitch.

The queue and theming for Big Thunder Mountain is pretty identical to the US, but the track is not.

We found it pretty tame compared to other versions of Big Thunder Mountain.

We still do it twice because we have the Premiere Access and the line isn’t even 5 minutes via the Premier Access. The standby line is pretty intensive though extending far outside the attraction in the walkway area.

We then take a bathroom stop which just happens to be next to the Western Shootin’ gallery.

The irony here is that there is a 5 minute wait to pay 200 Yen for 10 shots. In the US, the WDW version was free, and there were so little playing it that it is now being removed and being replaced by a DVC lounge.

To be continued here

Read about the previous day here.