Scaredy Cat Travels

Tokyo – DisneySea

You may be wondering why I am spending so much time and so many words writing about the trip before we even go on the trip. As I mentioned in the very first post, I am writing this primarily to chronicle it for our family, and I recognize that, based on previous experience, there is a high likelihood I will become too distracted while traveling to write about it then. Better to get info down now while I can.

So on with Day 7 Extended Version.

Transportation: just a shuttle bus, I think? 

Hotel: Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay 

Plans: DisneySea

Yes, I can see that knowing smirk on your face from here. Did you really think we would travel halfway around the world and not go to the “best Disney park in the world” as voted by all the Disney geeks I follow on social media? As a bonus, Tokyo Disney tickets are less than half the price of US park tickets so the plan for Day 7 is to return to DisneySea and finish whatever we missed the night before.

The $$$ – Tokyo Disney does not sell multi-day passes or park hoppers so we have to buy individual days for the parks. But the single day price for all three of us is $175. In comparison, the price for all three of us to visit Disneyland on the same day with a single-park, one-day ticket would be $477. Magic Kingdom would be $492. That’s a lot of churros.

I purchased the tickets through Klook. I started to fill out the reservation thing at the Sheraton but halfway through it decided Klook was the lesser of the two evils.

Now beware smirkers, you may want to drop out here, I am about to dive into the Disney depths.

It’s interesting and important (at least to a Disney geek) to note that the parks in Japan are not actually owned by Disney. Instead, Disney licenses its name and rights to the characters and rides to The Oriental Land Company, a Japanese management company. I believe this is why many people feel the Japanese parks are the best Disney parks in the world. From what I have read, the parks include what we love about US Disney but combine it with even better service and more live entertainment. On top of that, it is said that the attractions in Tokyo are cleaner and in better operational condition, meaning that on “It’s A Small World” all the scary children are working. There’s not one missing his tambourine or one dancer twirling a half beat behind the others. And there’s certainly not a giant Yeti animatronic that’s the central figure for a ride that hasn’t worked in ten+ years so they just throw a strobe light on him. Sorry, Expedition Everest side rant over.

The other difference seems to be the theming. Lately, for us longtime geeks, it’s been frustrating watching the Disney company in the US attempt to tie all attractions to Disney-owned movies and characters. It makes sense from a business standpoint because it cross-promotes all parts of the company. But it means that interesting and slightly educational rides like Epcot’s Maelstrom, a dark boat ride that cruised through vignettes about Norway, was rethemed to Frozen a few years ago. As time goes on, it gets harder and harder to find this sort of unique attraction in the parks.

However, DisneySea is full of non-Disney character rides. The park is inspired by “ocean tales and legends” with seven ports instead of lands like other parks. These ports include Mediterranean Harbor, Mermaid Lagoon, American Waterfront, Lost River Delta and the Arabian Coast. While many of the rides still tie into a character somehow like Jasmine’s Magic Carpets in the Arabian Coast, there are several based on other well-known stories like 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea and Journey To The Center Of The Earth.

Since we don’t have a lot of time, we’ll prioritize rides that are unique to Japan and then fill in as many of the others as possible. Japan, like the US parks, ended the free FastPass system during COVID. They replaced it with a version of the Genie+ Lightning Lanes (which should more accurately just have been called “not free FastPass”). In Japan (and I think also in France) it’s called Disney Premier Access. For between $10-$20 USD per person per attraction, you can skip the regular line. Each park has 3-4 rides with the option. It’s also available for each park’s feature show.

As expected, if I can’t sleep and I have scrolled through all the hotels on TripAdvisor, I have been using the Tokyo Disney app to monitor wait times at the two parks. So far, it looks like weekdays are pretty light so I don’t think we’ll need to purchase DPA.

One of my favorite parts of Disney, is the attention to detail in the surroundings. The music, even the landscaping, so we’ll also want to spend time just enjoying the atmosphere and the non-attraction parts of the park like the Venetian gondolas.

Some key attractions we’re interested in at DisneySea:

Tower of Terror – I know Tower of Terror is not unique to Japan but this version is different than the Tower of Terror we know and love at Hollywood Studios. Unlike the US version which is based on a celebrity family disappearing from a Hollywood hotel as told by Rod Serling and The Twilight Zone (really hoping Disney doesn’t have its sights set on this one too), its Japanese counterpart seems to have a more elaborate backstory accompanied by more elaborate effects about an intrepid explorer (who is not Indiana Jones yet) who triggers a curse by removing an ancient statue from its resting place.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea – a submarine ride exploring “fantastic underwater worlds”. I believe this is the same as the old submarine ride at Disneyland in California which has been rethemed to Finding Nemo (further illustrating my point above). The last time we rode the CA version, the kids were too little to remember and my memory is shot so this will be like new for us.

Journey To The Center Of The Earth is built in and around the park’s weenie which is an enormous volcano. The ride is loosely based on Jules Verne’s novel and uses the same car-on-a-track ride system as Test Track in Epcot and Radiator Springs Racers in CA Adventure.

Fun Fact – In Disney terms, a “weenie” is an iconic building that lures guests toward the center of the park upon entry. While Cinderella’s Castle and Epcot’s giant golf ball look great on brochures, their main purpose is crowd control. Walt Disney himself came up with the term because it reminded him of how his dachshund followed him around the house whenever he had a hot dog.

The Teddy Roosevelt Lounge – I know it’s not an attraction but Teddy Roosevelt is one of Rowan’s favorite presidents. I just like an overly themed bar and overly priced drinks.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull uses the same ride system as Indiana Jones Adventure in California but has a slightly different storyline. This will be a good test of the ride conditions in Japan. Whenever I’ve ridden Indy at Disneyland, it seems there are always a few parts that aren’t working. Dinosaur in Animal Kingdom (which is also a dark ride in a Jeep-like vehicle on a track) is even worse. There, when a dinosaur animatronic stops functioning, they just turn off the lights around it. It is less a dinosaur dark ride now than just a ride in the dark. Pretty sure they are planning on scrapping it soon.

Jasmine’s Flying Carpets – it looks exactly the same as Aladdin’s Magic Carpets at Magic Kingdom and I only want to ride it to irritate the kids.

Fun Fact – DisneySea is in the midst of its biggest expansion to date, a $2 billion USD entirely new port with sections themed to Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan. This new area will have four brand new rides, three restaurants, one hotel and one gift shop. I think the gift shop number must be a typo. There’s no way Disney is adding four rides and one gift shop. This port was originally expected to open this year but COVID delays pushed the opening back to sometime in 2024. Thanks again, COVID.

Scaredy Cat rating: Zero paws. Shockingly, I am not afraid of roller coasters.