Seaing Disney
Trip Start
Dec 16, 2007
1
41
42
Trip End
Feb 24, 2008
Urayasu,
Tōkyō,
Japan
Thursday, February 21, 2008
To sail into a port of awesome wonders / On a breeze that sets your heart and spirit free / To hear the song that floats from Porto Paradiso / You can feel the magic glisten / As you close your eyes and listen to the sea
The waves of wild enchantment break around you / On the shore that called from far across the sea / And all you ever need is your imagination / It's a dream you want to christen / As you close your eyes and listen to the sea
A renaissance of beauty will enchant you / Bewitched with grace and charming history / Waves of wonder gently swirl around you / And wash away your troubles instantly
New pleasures and discoveries astound you / The sky ignites at night above the bay / A symphony of sight and sound surrounds you / And gondoliers will sing you on your way
I hope this has painted a vivid image of the fun that lay in store for us at Tokyo DisneySea, but before that I must discuss our first park day, at Tokyo Disneyland. Despite being a weekday during a relatively low season of the year the park was openning at 9am and closing at 9pm. I had heard that the Japanese like to queue up well in advance to get into the park but the earliest we could get there with a decent wake up time was 8:40am.
Daytime Castle
As the monorail curved around to the entrance of the park it was clear that at this early stage the park was going to be pretty full and it was going to take a while for the amassed crowds to even get in when the gates finally openned.Unlike any other Disney park I can remember visiting they leave the gates closed until the openning time and then let everyone rush into the park, instead of letting people in onto Main Street for shopping and dining before openning the rest of the park at the advertised time. The local response to this crowd management scenario is odd for Japan - mass running. As soon as someone passes through the turnstyle, the proper etiquette is to run as fast as you can for your favourite attraction and maybe stop to get a photo with one of the characters, who are strategically placed at the entry and on the main routes to the big rides. Since this was Steve's first time inside a Disney park it was decided to take it at a normal pace - no running.
Disappointingly, Tokyo Disneyland is not so well suited to a Disneyland virgin because Main Street is covered (ruining the semi-legitimacy of an American street; it's clearly fake and not outdoors) and called "World Bazaar" as well as there being no steam train circling the park so we couldn't begin with a round trip to sample the lands and rides. Nevertheless we headed into the park up to the hub before taking a right into Tomorrowland. I was quite shocked as to how many people had already made it to this part of the park and were swarming around the place.
Pirates!
At this point I found it amusing that the stories I had heard of there being queues to use FASTPASS machines were definitely true; Space Mountain's machines had a huge queue! Deterred by the concept of queuing to get a virtual queue place, we headed into the regular standby queue for Space Mountain.Tokyo's Space Mountain is the classic version, a near carbon copy of the one at Disneyland and thus was a new experience for me. You travel up an old-fashioned rubber travelator to the first floor, where the queue zigzags along the roof platform before descending inside to the loading platform. This incarnation was sponsored by Coca-Cola and this was made very clear in the large promo video in the queue. It was around this promo in the queue that the group of girls behind us decided to try out their English. Of course the purpose of the conversation was to ask for photos with my hair, although Steve ended up in a few as well. You have to feel sorry for Steve sometimes - not only do I have the blond hair but I'm also taller so I do the western cliché thing better. We hadn't been in the park for 30 minutes, ridden any rides but were already in some nice Japanese girls' photo collection!
The station itself was very cool - a giant ship rests overhead, being refueled with a changing lightshow to match. The track layout is the same as I have experienced at Hong Kong and begins with a few lifts up into the dome. The effects on these lifts were different and impressive so I arrived at the top expecting a good ride.
Bazaar
It is a shame that Tokyo's version has no onboard audio and hence no synchronised soundtrack. To add insult to injury there are no effects inside apart from the projected starfield so there was little to look at. The result was a less fun, less thrilling ride that was a non-event after the lift. How I miss Hong Kong's modern take on this ride!The plan was to progress around the park in an anti-clockwise direction, hitting the big rides for FASTPASSes as much as possible in advance to reduce our waiting times. To this end we found ourselves transitioning to Fantasyland and joining the extremely long queue for Winnie the Pooh FASTPASSes. How long? At least 150m of snaking people, carefully managed by attraction cast members. Thankfully this queue only took a few minutes and we soon had passes to return after 3pm. I know it sounds like a waste to get a FASTPASS for a family ride like this but you'll see that this ride is worth it. Here we discovered our first odd popcorn flavour vending cart: honey. Across the way was It's a Small World and Steve had wanted to give this annoying attraction a go since it's so famous so it was our next stop.
Thoroughly disturbed we emerged and continued our tour of the park, noting a 2 hour queue for the Haunted Mansion and Splash Mountain. Crowds were evidently worse than we had expected on a Monday. During the day we progressed around the park, returning to the big attractions to get FASTPASSes every 2 hours, once the system would let us get another and if they had any left.
Cindy's Joint
It was saddening that both Big Thunder Mountain and the Railroad (which just circles 2 lands at Tokyo) were down for maintenance so we couldn't enjoy some of the most enjoyable rides in the park and making Frontierland relatively dead and boring.Adventureland provided us with fun on the Jungle Cruise although trips were only offered in Japanese so we were unable to fully appreciate this ride. In addition the queue took us a good 30 minutes, pissing Steve off. Here was another ride that I'd encountered most recently in updated form at Hong Kong, but in Tokyo was presented in the classic way, without many alterations. I'm not sure which I prefer; Hong Kong's is more high tech and thrilling but Tokyo's was longer and had more scenes to enjoy.
No visit to a Disneyland (except Hong Kong) would be complete without riding Pirates of the Caribbean. Again, Tokyo has the classic version of this attraction, which came as an enjoyable contrast to Paris' updated incarnation. It was quite nostalgic for me because I remember riding this at Disneyland with my family when I was just 5 and this came really close to my memories. It had been updated with props, effects and characters from the movies so it was also fresh and new in some ways. The updated material hadn't been translated so we had the bonus of English dialogue and singing. Of note is the Captain Jack figure at the end which is a funny way to cap of a great attraction.
Throughout the rest of the day we rode most of the park's attractions, including the Mark Twain Riverboat, Splash Mountain (FASTPASS), The Haunted Mansion, the Fantasyland dark rides (Pinocchio, Snow White and Peter Pan) and Star Tours.
Lights of Romance
Along the way I pointed out the equivalent attractions that our friend Alicia works on at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. I enjoyed the opportunity to finally visit a "Toontown" land and ride Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin, which is a fun, immersive ride that is as wild and nauseating as you want it to be, which obviously means very wild for Steve and I. In contrast to Paris I prefer Tokyo's haunted mansion, which is far more creepy and foreboding, as well as their version of Star Tours because all of the fun, impressive and exciting effects (especially in the queue) are fully-functional in Tokyo, unlike Paris' run-down version. It should be noted that the only attraction we rode more than once on this first day was Pirates of the Caribbean, due to queues.For the record, brunch was from the bakery at the end of World Bazaar, which was another self-serve affair and had an interesting selection of items, including the now infamous "Meat Patty Danish". Dinner was from Pan-Galactic Pizza in Tomorrowland, which had a pretty crazy restaurant interior... but we had to eat outside because that's where the only free seats were.
As far as shows were concerned most of the stage shows were outdoors so we avoided them because of the cold, we saw the parade while we were in the 75 minute queue for the Haunted Mansion and we didn't bother watching the nighttime castle show "Cinderalla's Royal Coronation" as it didn't appeal to us and we hoped it take the crowds out of the attraction queues.
Melting Steve
It did shorten queues, but not to acceptable lengths, although we did use this opportunity to enjoy Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters with the shortest wait it had seen all day - 45 minutes. We did spend some time in the evening enjoying the seasonal "Cinderellabration: Lights of Romance" setup in the gardens around the hub and in front of the castle. Basically heaps of lights on arches and in trees all through the gardens, performing a constant show in sync with songs from Cinderella. It doesn't make up for the Electrical Parade not running but it's better than nothing.I've held off talking about Pooh's Hunny Hunt so I guess now is the time. Sure, Pooh is for kids and is generally not very entertaining to anybody over the age of 8. Sure, the characters can even be annoying at times and it can be painful to watch the show but this ride is different. Riders board honey pots, which roll out of the station in a group of 3, travelling independently without any tracks. After the first scene (a short intro movie) the pots progress through the rides scenes randomly, separating, travelling and spinning completely independently. There are a few near miss times with other pots travelling around as each moves to different activity areas in the scenes to interact with a different part. One scene even involved pots moving onto a section of floor that bounced up and down with Tigger, which was fun. All of the animatronics had very fluid movements - Disney immersion at its best. The fact that the pots are independent and are controlled individually by the central computer means that each ride is different and you can never be sure where you'll go or what you'll end up doing until you get to the end.
Umm... yeah
Speaking of the end, in the last scene, where Pooh ends up with tons of 'hunny', they make the room smell like honey! In short, if you're ever in Tokyo and you want some hi-tech fun go ride this ride, even if you hate Pooh!At the end of the day it was time for another monorail ride back to the hotel and to get Steve's impression of his first Disneyland experience. Unfortunately he was disappointed; he had always that Disneyland would be bigger from the hype of his childhood years. More than that it was the fact that guests cannot walk through the castle in Tokyo (it's a stage) and that the park was tired. This was especially visible in Fantasyland and Tomorrowland. Everything was immaculate, clean and working but it was old. Giant painted concrete paths and bare queuing structures aren't that much fun regardless of how clean and fresh they look. That said, the day was fun and some attractions (Pirates, Pooh, Roger Rabbit and Pooh) were very well done, creating that true escapist Disney environment. Returning to the MiraCosta only helped to reinforce that Disney can do better than parks designed in the late 1970's and create truly encompassing themed environments.
In accordance with the rules of our 4 day park passport we had nominated our 2nd day for Tokyo DisneySea, the park in which our hotel was located. We woke around the same time as the previous day so that we'd have time to enjoy another Oceano buffet breakfast before hitting the park, which openned an hour later than Disneyland at 10am.
Mt Prometheus
We were hoping for a more modern, detailed theme experience this day because the park was built together with the hotel and, being the most expensive theme park ever built has got to mean something, doesn't it?Hotel MiraCosta guests such as ourselves are given the unpublished privilege of entering the park 15 minutes before the commoners, through the hotel's exclusive entrance from the foyer. We unknowingly took advantage of this service because we got to the foyer 20 minutes early to queue to get into the park anyway. Once inside we didn't need to run; there were only a handful of other guests entering with us so we soaked up the atmosphere and fantastic scenery that this park has to offer, whilst walking slowly in the direction of the Tower of Terror.
I had heard that the Hotel Hightower (Tower of Terror [TOT] - a haunted hotel lift ride) had the longest lines in the park so it seemed like the logical ride to visit first. For us early-comers there were cast members creating queues for the standby and FASTPASS queues at the entry to the land, which was not yet accessible. Around the official park openning time the queues were moved to the attraction itself and we got on the first ride of the day. This ride is so massive and detailed, it just blows you away. In the pre-show the cursed idol causing havoc at the hotel comes to life before disappearing in the most believable way right in front of everyone. It truly is a "how did they do that?" moment. The theme and detail make this Tower of Terror the most detailed, intricate and visually appealing that I've been on but the dropping sensations on the lift part of the ride were a bit tame.
Hotel Hightower
Perhaps it's the over-the-shoulder seat belts restricting freedom and thus the freefall but the thrill part of the ride just wasn't as fun. Nevertheless I came out wanting more but the already 90 minute long queue and endless snake of a FASTPASS queue deterred us.Where to next? It's pretty hard to miss Mount Prometheus, the giant volcano in the centre of the park, so we made a beeline and grabbed a FASTPASS for Journey to the Centre of the Earth inside. The queue was only listed as 20 minutes so we joined and began to appreciate the attraction immediately. As an adaptation of the famous Jules Verne novel of the same name, guests are entering caverns inside the volcano for a tour to some of the locations described in the book. It's a bit of a bastardisation because the premise is that Captain Nemo, of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea fame, is organising this expedition and running the tours instead of the characters in the book. The queue is filled with details to provide context to the story - drawings of some locations discovered in the book, tools and samples from the expedition, excerpts from Nemo's diary and is all set in awesome-looking rock caverns. The late 19th Century industrial era theme runs strong with iron everywhere and the lights being powered by suspended cables that criss-cross the roof of the cavern.
At the head of the queue guests are put into lifts to descend to the expedition base station and board their craft. In fact we ended up figuring that the lifts travel up, not down, but the short trip is well done with wind blowing through the lift, passing lights and sounds as if we were really speeding downward in a dodgy iron lift.
Random
At the base station large, steam powered machines are generating electricity and we can hear reports from the workers at different stations further down; most good but the odd 1 bad. There is steam leaking from cracks in the wall, drilling sounds in the distance and a cool rolling steam wave down the back of the chamber. Oh and did I mention that the roof is held up by giant screws? We soon find ourselves on a 6-person iron vehicle with a massive cow catcher to take us into the depths of the Earth.The journey begins without any problems, passing through crystal caverns, wind tunnels and giant mushroom forests before something goes wrong. We bump and speed past a collapsing station and end up finding ourselves at a vast underground sea with an overhead lightning storm. Soon enough we travel deeper and find ourselves in next to a magma pool with flames going off next to the vehicle and a giant monster lurching for us. Naturally the only way out is forward and with a blast of steam we're speeding through the darkness, eventually popping out the side of Mt Prometheus before arriving safely back with Nemo's crew at the exit. I realise I've blabbed on about this ride but I love it that much - superb!
Also at Mysterious Island is the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride, which is another detailed masterpiece. It uses dry-for-wet effects to mimic actually being underwater as we travel in our submarines that are suspended from above using monorail technology. Each pair of passengers (again 6 per vehicle) gets a seat in front of a window and can operate a search light at select points in the ride.
Oh Yeah
Even though the narration was in Japanese we could figure out what was going on by the tone of voice and the gauges in the vehicles which showed us depth and remaining oxygen.We made our way around the park in no particular order, stopping in at the different themed ports as we passed through. Our other favourite attractions were Aquatopia and Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull (FASTPASS) but there was nothing to dislike about Tokyo DisneySea. Everywhere we walked things were clean, modern and detailed. No more wide concrete expanses or cheap queues, everything had a part to play in telling the story and everything was meant to look real and genuine. What's more, the park has waterways connecting all the lands so in lieu of a train encircling the park there is a boat system that guests can take for intra-park transport or just for a tour. This doesn't mean there isn't a train in the park - a 3rd rail elevated railway runs from the 1920's American Waterfront to Port Discovery.
Pretty much every experience we had in the park was a positive one. The only negatives I can think of were the all day 2 hour queue time for the Tower of Terror and the smoking area being too close to a high volume traffic area in Port Discovery. Even the crowds weren't so bad; they were less than at Disneyland and the locals have great queue etiquette. In addition so many of the queues in this modern park have a lot to look at so it takes a while to get bored.
On the food side the stalls here always seemed to have long queues.
That's Right
It wasn't unusual to see people line up for a good 50m just to get there hands on a churro or a gyoza (Chinese sausage) dog. We thought that curry popcorn in Disneyland's Adventureland was weird but the strange varieties at DisneySea were more numerous. Some flavours were cappuccino, sea salt, coconut, black pepper and strawberry. We tried all of those but sea salt and black pepper. We only snacked until dinner, riding on our bountiful breakfast. Dinner was an odd experience, had in the American Waterfront's Cape Cod area watching the continuously running Donald's Boat Builders show at the restaurant. There's just something about eating at the theatre that I find weird.Speaking of shows, this park has some interesting ones, though on our first day we only took the time to sample the main ones. We just happened to be around Mediterranean Harbour for the start of The Legend of Mythica, a show that I had not expected to enjoy and was not fussed about seeing. In reality this show about unlocking the realm of fantasy and communing with dragons etc was so much better than it sounds. Heaps of floats move around the harbour, there are people on jet skis, people on jet skis with kites, dancers, characters, people on and off of the floats as they dock around the harbour, people being raised high into the air, water being sprayed far and wide, fire, mist, pyrotechnics, dancing, singing all to the tune of an annoyingly catchy bubblegum song. I think Steve's comment at the end sums it up: "well they don't do things by halves!"
The other spectacular we took in on our first day was BraviSEAmo!, which also takes place on the Mediterranean Harbour, except after dark.
Mysterious Island
Here Mickey introduces the story of the spirit of water and spirit of fire who end up falling in love. This was another grand production set to a sweeping orchestral score of the scale to match the visual part of the show. What they manage to achieve within the confines of the harbour is very impressive, and I guess the tons of pyrotechnics, flames, water and smoke, some coming out of Mt Prometheus helps in this regard. Definitely a must-see that lived up to my highest hyped-up expectations.We left the park that night buzzing about our day and excited at the prospect of hitting DisneySea again the next day. I think I should just mention that we managed to get a ride on Journey to the Centre of the Earth at the end of BraviSEAmo! by getting in queue just before the rush of others from the harbour so we finished the day in perfect DisneySea style. Again, it was such a bonus to be staying at the MiraCosta - we never actually had to leave the park!
The park passports allowed us to park-hop on the 3rd and 4th days so we were now free to travel between the parks and enjoy the best of both worlds. Although after our first day experience at Disneyland we were far more focussed on DisneySea. It was a non-Oceano breakfast day so we got up an hour later and headed straight into our local park to get FASTPASSes for the TOT. On this second day we did all of the other attractions that we had missed the previous day due to queues and other circumstances, resulting in an even greater appreciation for the place.
Transit Steamer Line
Of particular note is StormRider (a well thought-out simulator ride) and the fortress on Mediterranean Harbour. The fortress was a great place to run around and explore various little interactive rooms and it had a great view toward the park entrance.It was on this day that I began to wear my Pluto ears from Disneyland Paris, which caused quite of a stir. Sure, the locals are used to all kinds of Disney-related headwear in the parks but the Paris-exclusive Pluto ears were a novelty. Not to mention the colour of my hair, which was enough of a reason for photos already. This freak-ness did however earn us some benefits. In the queue between the pre-show and ride sections of the Tower of Terror, in addition to a group of Japanese girls waving at us, a cast member questioned me as to where I got the Pluto ears from. I showed him the tag and explained that it was from Paris. He relayed this information to his interested colleague and told me they looked really good - ha! Just when Steve and I thought it was all over the cast member returned, thanking us for coming "all the way" to Tokyo and giving us some free cards that are somehow tied to the park's then-current "Season of the Heart". We have no idea what they're meant to be for because the writing's in Japanese but we felt special all the same. Another cast member later in the day at the Magic Lamp Theatre (Arabian Coast) handed us some more cards with our surtitle displays - bonus!
We also took in a few of the park's theatre shows but always ended up coming out thinking "what the hell just happened?" They were all interesting and impressive but the reasoning behind them and the connecting theme/story always seemed to get lost in the action.
20,000 Leagues
Meh, we're in Japan - things aren't meant to make sense! In keeping with the park's modernity some shows offered little hand held screens (think a PSP) that we could request from the cast members. These provided personal surtitles to help with show comprehension, even if much of the shows was already in English.Of course we enjoyed our favourites again and again, particularly Indiana Jones, Journey to the Centre of the Earth [JTTCOTE] and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I'm not sure if it was that we rode later in the day but the drop sequence on TOT seemed more thrilling and intense than before. Then again, perhaps I'm just insane?
In the evening we transfered ourselves over to Disneyland to get some photos and video of the park at night. Specifically we had been impressed by the "Cinderellabration: Lights of Romance" light display around the hub and gardens in front of Cinderella's Castle. To better enjoy our days we had not taken any cameras with us on our first 2 days so the entire photographic task rested on days 3 and 4. Trust me, we definitely managed to get a ton of photos in just 2 days, it would've been insane if we had taken twice as many! We didn't hang around for any rides because of the restrictive queue times so we were soon back at DisneySea for some more rides and BraviSEAmo!. In retrospect this 3rd day was the most enjoyable; the day was well paced with meal breaks, we rode our favourite rides several times, worked our FASTPASSes really well and also got to enjoy some more new experiences.
Diving
We had a ball!The fourth and final day was on us sooner than one could hope. Not only was it our last park day but it was also the day we left MiraCosta for the Ambassador Hotel. We enjoyed a final Oceano breakfast before bringing down our bags and checking out. When we had checked in all those days ago at the welcome centre the staff had given us a hotel transfer receipt so when we presented this the bell staff labeled our bags and took them to be delivered to the Ambassador. We were then bag-free and ready to hit the parks, this time starting at Disneyland.
The strategy was to get on Splash Mountain first thing before the queues ballooned out to 2 hours, grab some daytime photos, ride Pirates and grab some associated merchandise before transferring back to the better park. This worked pretty well so we were in DisneySea about an hour after it had openned (2 hours after Disneyland), freshly laden with merchandise (we didn't yet have a room number at the Ambassador so could not use the hotel delivery service). I convinced Steve to wear the Mickey pirate hat he had just purchased on the monorail and at through DisneySea, which garnered some interesting looks. I guess you could say we were now in our element - me in my Pluto ears, Steve in his Mickey pirate hat running around in the now familiar park, riding the best rides, eating at the coolest places and generally mucking around.
A break was had in the early afternoon to check in to the Ambassador Hotel, earning us a room number.
The Coolest
Sure enough our bags had made it from the MiraCosta, all donning large tags with that hotel's logo so everyone would be able to see - ha! The room itself was the same layout as at the MiraCosta but the decor was now art deco, which was pretty funky and cool. Unfortunately the Ambassador can't meet the awesomeness of the MiraCosta, mainly because it isn't inside a theme park; instead it's connected to a shopping centre - Ikspiari. Though that's why this hotel is cheaper than the Ambassador; no monorail, no transporting you to another place and time, just cool Disney art deco style in a bad location.Freshly equipped with the all-important room number we hit Bon Voyage with our hotel guest discount vouchers. It would be an understatement to say that Steve bought up BIG. It took forever for the poor cashiers to wrap and bag his purchases so that they could be sent to the hotel, although they seemed to not be phased by this task. I bought a few little things as well but unfortunately half of the items I wanted were available only in the parks themselves and thus were not available for a discount. I suppose it's a good thing that the merchandise at Tokyo is generally not that relevant for westerners like ourselves - I found myself wanting to buy very little. The few must-have items like monorail monorails were in short supply so it was hard to buy anything that I liked!
Our day and indeed our Tokyo Disney Resort park experience ended in style at Tokyo DisneySea.
Arabian Coast
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening enjoying the atmosphere, food and rides of this superb locale. Over the course of our stay we had become increasingly familiar with our favourite rides so we had slowly begun to ride in a theatrical manner, reacting to the effects and scenes we knew were coming. This generally involved a lot of ducking, recoiling, throwing hands in the air in a panicked fashion and, of course screaming. All of our favourite 3 rides (Indie, JTTCOTE and 20,000 Leagues - TOT would've been if the queues weren't always horrendous!) involved something going awry and a near-death experience for the riders so they were all perfectly suited for such antics. Our fun ranged from panicked comments and pointing at gauges on 20,000 Leagues to ducking from fire and lightning on JTTCOTE to full on screaming and waving on Indie and the climax of JTTCOTE. The best thing had to be cheering and clapping at the end of JTTCOTE - all of the Japanese (especially the girls) would join in and have a laugh with us. All the fun and Japanese girls joining in, not to mention the hilarious on-ride photos from Indie, made the subsequent sore throats worthwhile.We had wanted to finish our 4 days with a final ride on JTTCOTE but as our FASTPASSes and queues worked out we had 2 back-to-back rides on JTTCOTE, including 1 during BraviSEAmo!, before finishing on Indie. By the time we disembarked at the end the park was closed so we walked slowly toward the exit through almost all of the lands, taking in the nighttime ambiance in relatively light crowds.
I can confidently say that both Steve and I throughly enjoyed our time in the parks at Tokyo Disney Resort and will definitely be returning to Tokyo DisneySea in the future! A testament to this is that somehow, sometime during our visit it had been decided that Steve was going to get married at the MiraCosta and I was getting Mt Prometheus to take home and live in. Don't ask me how this is all supposed to work but that's what we decided!
