A Disney Parks Around the World Journey: Day 16 – Tokyo Disney Sea Revisited Part II

At this point we are in the corner of the park very close to Fantasy Springs and the Lost River Delta. We did all the Fantasy Springs rides twice two days ago so we decided to skip them for now and go back at the end of the day if we had time. So we went to the Lost River Delta and did Indiana Jones again. We use the Premier Access line and it’s much shorter today only took about 10 minutes. We find it ironic as the wait times are much longer today with Indiana Jones clocking in at 140 minutes but the Premier Access lines are shorter.

We all love this attraction and the moment we get off we decide to go right back into the queue and do it again. I mean why not? How often do we have the chance to do Indiana Jones as many times as we wanted? It really is a great ride with some really great thrills and effects. I’m so glad we still get to do it one last time in Anaheim. I still find it hard to believe it’s the exact same ride as Dinosaur. I’m so glad they are going retheme Dinosaur to Indiana Jones in Animal Kingdom.

On exiting the ride the weather clears up and the sun starts shining. It starts to warm up a just a little.

It’s time for lunch so we head over to Miguel’s El Dorado Cantina near Indiana Jones. We order some pork rolls, a churro, and some fries. The pork rolls ended up basically being rice with bacon rolled around it. It wasn’t bad. It was a little slimier in texture than I woulda have liked but it tasted about like what I’d expect bacon and rice to taste like.

We finish our food and walk toward Port Discovery. It has a bit of a steam punk vibe almost similar to Discoveryland in Disneyland Paris.

Port Discovery is a land that has Nemo & Friends Searider which is another ride we are able to access via the Premier Access line. It’s not more than a 5 min walk and we are there.

We don’t know much about this ride at all and haven’t heard much about it. That’s normally means it’s not super amazing but it’s also not super bad as you always hear about the extremes.

We enter the line and during the preshow it becomes obvious this is a simulator ride like Star Tours. The preshow is in Japanese but based on the videos it seems as though we board a submarine shaped like a fish and then the submarine is shrunk down to the size of a fish.

When we board the “submarine” we notice it’s MUCH bigger than other simulators.

This was definitely the largest ride simulator we’ve ever been on. The ride was also entirely in Japanese so not again not entirely sure of the story but execution was very good. They had some fun effects that separated it from Star Tours.

Afterwards we head on over to the Tower of Terror in the American Waterfront. We pass by a ride called Aquatopia on the way. It looked pretty fun. You board a floating craft and which is automated and it moves throughout the bay area, spinning and turning while you ride. We sadly did not have Premier Access for it and it was a 50 minutes wait at the time so we opted to skip it, but if we ever come back will definitely make an effort to do it. From my understanding you can get wet in the summer, but they reduce the splash elements in the winter for obvious reasons.

As well as continue our walk we spot some pretty impressive water art on the sidewalk as we continue walking toward the American Waterfront.

Just looking at the building from the exterior the Tower of Terror show building seemed much bigger than the US ones. It’s also much more elaborate in theming.

The queue inside was totally different as well.

The wait was 100 minutes but we use our Premier Access and it’s just a 10 minute wait. As is the case with all the preshows here it is in Japanese so we are not totally sure of the backstory. Unlike the US Tower of Terrors there is no Twilight Zone tie-in. From my best understanding there was a hotel owner named Harrison Hightower III and he collected artifacts and some were cursed.

There were a lot of these artifacts in the queue and preshow areas.

Interestingly enough, the preshow here is done by an actual live cast member and not a recording.

As for the ride, it is similar to the Tower of Terrors in Paris in that it just goes up and down and does not move through a track and you end in the same place you started. It was super fun as always and lives up to the Tower of Terror standard. After doing all three Towers of Terror, I think the US may actually be our least favorite with Paris being first and Tokyo coming in second.

Nearby is Toyville Trolley Park that contains Toy Story Midway Mania so we go and use our Premier Access to bypass the line.

The queue here is similar in theming to all the other Midway Manias with the only difference being the queue is just one massive room rather than multiple rooms.

The ride is totally identical to the US version aside from it being in Japanese. I could at least could understand them counting down from 3 at the end of each round. Lucy normally isn’t a big fan of Midway Mania but today she got really into it, so we jumped back in line right after we finished. After the second time my arm felt like it was about to fall off.

Right outside the entrance they had some fun little free games for kids to play that stuck with the midway theme, so we played those for a little bit.

We then walked back to “Whoop! Jump scare!” AKA Journey into the Center of the Earth as we all wanted to ride it again. Interestingly enough, the Premier Access lines continue to be much shorter today but the crowd is definitely significantly higher than when we came on New Years Day two days ago. We’re not really sure why the Premier Access lines are so much more efficient today. The sun was setting at this point and the temperature was dropping fast.

There was a little extra time after we finished “Whoop! Jump Scare!” so we decided to do Frozen one last time. On the way, I snap a couple pics. I love nighttime pictures in the parks.

We get to Frozen and the Premier Access line extends outside the queue. So our luck with the shorter Premiere Access lines has ended. It ends up taking about 30 minutes to get through the line.

It’s now about 45 minutes till the nighttime spectacular, Believe: Sea of Dreams that is at 7:30PM so we go stake out a spot. At this point in the trip all the nighttime spectaculars are just running together but it has gotten really good reviews so we feel the need to watch it.

While we have had some terrible luck this vacation we had lucked out in one aspect in that the weather while cool had not been really cold until today. Ironically, up until now the coldest we had felt was the very first park morning in Orlando. We stop by a snack stand hoping there is some hot chocolate but not surprisingly all they have is a churro and some tea. We go ahead and get two churros.

It took a bit to figure out where to stake out a spot. Believe: Sea of Dreams is much like the Epcot nighttime spectaculars that take place in a lagoon, and the viewing area is basically any place around the lagoon. This makes for a large variety of viewing options each of which have their own advantages and disadvantages. We ended up choosing a spot opposite the Mediterranean Harbor sitting on some stairs that allowed us to not have to see over peoples heads. A lot of people recommended this area as they have projections on the Hotel Miracosta so from across the harbor you can get a great view of the projections. In retrospect I probably wouldn’t pick this spot again, as there was some minor obstruction from a ship on the left side which made for bad photography. While waiting for Believe: Sea of Dreams the temperature dropped into the mid 40s Fahrenheit with a mild breeze making the feels like in the high 30s Fahrenheit. Combining that temperature with just sitting still in the dark made for a very long cold wait.

Believe: Sea of Dreams was nice and like all the other nighttime shows in Asia it’s hard for me to give an accurate review as I don’t know Japanese so it’s hard for me to determine if the plot is coherent or if it’s just a random mishmash of songs and characters.

The production was top notch as always though as they had a large center piece with a ring like LED screen, large floats that also contained LED screens, pirates ships, fireworks, jet skis with stars, fountains, lasers, fireworks, projections, characters on floats, characters rising on columns from floats, and large set pieces floating through the lagoon all set to Disney music.

It was total sensory overload at times given the sheer number of different things going on. I had a very difficult time figuring out where to devote my attention. Should I look at the buildings? Should I look at the floats? What about the LED ring? Oh look characters! There goes a jet skit with a star on it! Squirrel!!! No, not really, but given all the set pieces I wouldn’t have doubt I missed one if there was one. The production was truly impressive and over the top.

It was fun to watch and I woulda appreciated it more if it wasn’t absolutely freezing.

Once the show ended the park was closing in about an hour. We had pretty much accomplished everything we wanted to do and were pretty tired and so we made our way to the entrance to drop off the wheelchair.

We walked to the Hotel Miracosta park entrance and returned to our room. It had been a long cold exciting day, especially with the Irish winning and moving into the semifinals of the playoff. Lucy had some late night ramen to try and warm back up, but she was so tired she fell asleep while eating it.

Thankfully, I managed to stay awake while eating my ramen and then went to bed.

Day 16, January 3rd, 2025 Step Count – 21,457 Steps

Total Step Count – 272,960

Continue to the next day here.

Read about the previous day here.