Tokyo Disneyland Resort

[saint.piss]

 

[PenguinCowboy]

Just got back about a week ago from a three week trip over to Japan (we did Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto), and I may post some bigger collective thoughts on things eventually, but wanted to pop in a couple observations, tips, and tricks that helped us (or surprised us) in the meantime specifically for the Disney parks!

We did one day each at Disneyland and DisneySea, and our experiences were definitely a mixed bag between the two parks, net positive for sure, but definitely some frustration mixed in (equal parts "I wish I knew this" and "I knew this, but it still sucked" haha). I'll split this into two parts to avoid it being the Great American Novel, but wanted to put some thoughts out for sure.

For Disneyland, one day to see the park was a perfect amount of time for us! We had no Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain, so your mileage may vary there adding those two back into the mix, but truthfully even if we had to juggle them as well, it was very doable. We booked our tickets through Klook, and the booking was super simple (we got them right at our two month window, but truthfully there was no need to get them that early.). For Disneyland/Sea, the tickets are linked directly to a specific date, meaning we could have added them right to our app as soon as we got our confirmation email, but we didn't want to chance things so held off on adding them to the Disney Tokyo Resort app until the night before (Universal tickets are divided into A,B,C etc days, so they can't be added in advance, so we were just wary). The app is very familiar, especially if you've used the stateside MyDisney type apps, and we ran into no issues with translation or other localization stuff. You can scan in your tickets on your individual phones for each member of the group, or do all the tickets on one central phone if you wish, but we put them on each of our phones individually to increase standby pass chances. The app then allows you to create a group so any reservations, tickets, etc will include all in your party (not sure if the US parks app does this, but it was a definite unknown before getting there how the tickets would be linked, and it was a snap). The only issue we ran into was the occasional data lag, but this was more due to high user traffic than anything else, so would chalk that up to the day.

The single most important feature of the app we used was the Premier/Priority Pass function. Premier Pass is the paid Lightning Lane/Genie+/Fastpass/whatever you want to call it feature, and allows you to pay for reservations (if they're even available), while the Priority Pass is a free reservation system available for the 40th anniversary celebration. Not sure how long this will stick around, but as of September 2024 this was our saving grace when it came to seeing a number of attractions. Like the US parks, you do kind of have to be glued to your phone, but it's a free attraction essentially, so don't sleep on the utility of it. You can access this as soon as your ticket has been scanned of the day and you are in the park, and will show you what is available and for what times. These update semi-frequently during the day, so keep watch, but also don't be afraid to get something less than ideal first, as you can book again after a cooldown period (about an hour and 45 minutes after the time you booked it at, or right after the return time). For Disneyland the main free attractions you want to keep an eye out for are Pooh's Hunny Hunt, Monsters Inc, Big Thunder Mountain, and Haunted Mansion.

We started our day getting there at about 7:45 for a 9am park open. They opened security not too long after, and then we sat in front of the gates until park open. Don't be afraid to bring some food or drink (prepackaged, sealed, you shouldn't have an issue with security), and an umbrella to shield from the sun, it is BRUTAL. They opened the gates to hotel guests at 8:30 and then regular guests at 8:45, so it pays to be there early. Our main interests were in doing the attractions exclusive to Tokyo, so those are the ones we wanted to hit hard and early. Everything else kind of falls into the available space between, haha. This meant Pooh, Monsters Inc, and Beauty and the Beast were the big three (we don't really care about Bamax)

Right away we made a b-line to Beauty and the Beast, which was unfortunately down. We immediately got onto the app and booked a priority pass for Pooh at 10ish, and went back to Monsters Inc. We did standby for Monsters, which was lengthy, but not unbearable. If you can get it early you can avoid the crowds you can avoid having to use a Priority Pass for it. When we finished Monsters we immediately checked Beauty in person (app still said it was down), and by a stroke of luck we ended up walking right on as they opened it up. We had essentially no wait for the ride, finished up, and were right at our Pooh window. As soon as we scanned our Priority passes for Pooh I got right on the app and booked a Big Thunder Priority Pass for later in the evening. This was probably 11am, and that was the final Priority Pass we booked for the whole day. This shows how quickly they can be exhausted sometimes, so definitely the earlier the better.

From that point it was kind of a looser day, keeping an eye on wait times, we were able to knock out Fantasy Land after Pooh (Pinocchio, Small World), move to FrontierLand (Country Bears, lunch at the Hungry Bear, the curry was amazing, Riverboat) then finish our arc into AdventureLand with Jungle Cruise, the train, Tiki Room, and Pirates. We doubled back to Snow White later in the day, and we kept an eye on Splash the whole day, but waits never went down. We killed time looking through the Main Street shops, and then headed back to Roger Rabbit (detour for some treats at Queen of Hearts). Kind of a hike, but we were in sort of a waiting period at this point until our Big Thunder time came up. Finally, we made our way to Splash after Thunder and just decided to stick it out and waited for the hour posted wait.

As we left Splash we ended up stumbling across the nighttime parade, so an added treat that we caught it (although we were fighting and weaving past it as we made our way to our final stop, Beauty and the Beast). We ended up right in line for Beauty just as they capped it for the night, which was amazing, but it did unfortunately mean we sacrificed getting back to the Main Street shops for nighttime shopping.

This is the final point about the Tokyo resort (and Japanese theme parks in general) that I wish I had been more clued into before going. When they say the park closes at 9, this is a HARD stop. The employees largely rely on public transit to get home, and service ends pretty promptly at midnight, so they really have to push to get guests out in order to get the cast members home on time. We very much so lucked out with getting in line for Beauty at 8:45 (park closed at 9), because they will absolutely start closing lines as early as an hour prior to closing if they want to (this came back to bite us at Universal a week or so later). The Main Street emporium shops stayed open for a bit longer, but unfortunately the side shops very much close right on the dot (much to my dismay, I really wanted the magic rising churro from the Magic Shop, ugh).

Over all an amazing time, but definitely a little learning curve too. Hope that these tips help with DisneyLand travel, DisneySea is it's own beast, and I will cover that in an eventual part two, haha.

 

[Mad Dog]

Just got back about a week ago from a three week trip over to Japan (we did Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto), and I may post some bigger collective thoughts on things eventually, but wanted to pop in a couple observations, tips, and tricks that helped us (or surprised us) in the meantime specifically for the Disney parks!

We did one day each at Disneyland and DisneySea, and our experiences were definitely a mixed bag between the two parks, net positive for sure, but definitely some frustration mixed in (equal parts "I wish I knew this" and "I knew this, but it still sucked" haha). I'll split this into two parts to avoid it being the Great American Novel, but wanted to put some thoughts out for sure.

For Disneyland, one day to see the park was a perfect amount of time for us! We had no Haunted Mansion and Space Mountain, so your mileage may vary there adding those two back into the mix, but truthfully even if we had to juggle them as well, it was very doable. We booked our tickets through Klook, and the booking was super simple (we got them right at our two month window, but truthfully there was no need to get them that early.). For Disneyland/Sea, the tickets are linked directly to a specific date, meaning we could have added them right to our app as soon as we got our confirmation email, but we didn't want to chance things so held off on adding them to the Disney Tokyo Resort app until the night before (Universal tickets are divided into A,B,C etc days, so they can't be added in advance, so we were just wary). The app is very familiar, especially if you've used the stateside MyDisney type apps, and we ran into no issues with translation or other localization stuff. You can scan in your tickets on your individual phones for each member of the group, or do all the tickets on one central phone if you wish, but we put them on each of our phones individually to increase standby pass chances. The app then allows you to create a group so any reservations, tickets, etc will include all in your party (not sure if the US parks app does this, but it was a definite unknown before getting there how the tickets would be linked, and it was a snap). The only issue we ran into was the occasional data lag, but this was more due to high user traffic than anything else, so would chalk that up to the day.

The single most important feature of the app we used was the Premier/Priority Pass function. Premier Pass is the paid Lightning Lane/Genie+/Fastpass/whatever you want to call it feature, and allows you to pay for reservations (if they're even available), while the Priority Pass is a free reservation system available for the 40th anniversary celebration. Not sure how long this will stick around, but as of September 2024 this was our saving grace when it came to seeing a number of attractions. Like the US parks, you do kind of have to be glued to your phone, but it's a free attraction essentially, so don't sleep on the utility of it. You can access this as soon as your ticket has been scanned of the day and you are in the park, and will show you what is available and for what times. These update semi-frequently during the day, so keep watch, but also don't be afraid to get something less than ideal first, as you can book again after a cooldown period (about an hour and 45 minutes after the time you booked it at, or right after the return time). For Disneyland the main free attractions you want to keep an eye out for are Pooh's Hunny Hunt, Monsters Inc, Big Thunder Mountain, and Haunted Mansion.

We started our day getting there at about 7:45 for a 9am park open. They opened security not too long after, and then we sat in front of the gates until park open. Don't be afraid to bring some food or drink (prepackaged, sealed, you shouldn't have an issue with security), and an umbrella to shield from the sun, it is BRUTAL. They opened the gates to hotel guests at 8:30 and then regular guests at 8:45, so it pays to be there early. Our main interests were in doing the attractions exclusive to Tokyo, so those are the ones we wanted to hit hard and early. Everything else kind of falls into the available space between, haha. This meant Pooh, Monsters Inc, and Beauty and the Beast were the big three (we don't really care about Bamax)

Right away we made a b-line to Beauty and the Beast, which was unfortunately down. We immediately got onto the app and booked a priority pass for Pooh at 10ish, and went back to Monsters Inc. We did standby for Monsters, which was lengthy, but not unbearable. If you can get it early you can avoid the crowds you can avoid having to use a Priority Pass for it. When we finished Monsters we immediately checked Beauty in person (app still said it was down), and by a stroke of luck we ended up walking right on as they opened it up. We had essentially no wait for the ride, finished up, and were right at our Pooh window. As soon as we scanned our Priority passes for Pooh I got right on the app and booked a Big Thunder Priority Pass for later in the evening. This was probably 11am, and that was the final Priority Pass we booked for the whole day. This shows how quickly they can be exhausted sometimes, so definitely the earlier the better.

From that point it was kind of a looser day, keeping an eye on wait times, we were able to knock out Fantasy Land after Pooh (Pinocchio, Small World), move to FrontierLand (Country Bears, lunch at the Hungry Bear, the curry was amazing, Riverboat) then finish our arc into AdventureLand with Jungle Cruise, the train, Tiki Room, and Pirates. We doubled back to Snow White later in the day, and we kept an eye on Splash the whole day, but waits never went down. We killed time looking through the Main Street shops, and then headed back to Roger Rabbit (detour for some treats at Queen of Hearts). Kind of a hike, but we were in sort of a waiting period at this point until our Big Thunder time came up. Finally, we made our way to Splash after Thunder and just decided to stick it out and waited for the hour posted wait.

As we left Splash we ended up stumbling across the nighttime parade, so an added treat that we caught it (although we were fighting and weaving past it as we made our way to our final stop, Beauty and the Beast). We ended up right in line for Beauty just as they capped it for the night, which was amazing, but it did unfortunately mean we sacrificed getting back to the Main Street shops for nighttime shopping.

This is the final point about the Tokyo resort (and Japanese theme parks in general) that I wish I had been more clued into before going. When they say the park closes at 9, this is a HARD stop. The employees largely rely on public transit to get home, and service ends pretty promptly at midnight, so they really have to push to get guests out in order to get the cast members home on time. We very much so lucked out with getting in line for Beauty at 8:45 (park closed at 9), because they will absolutely start closing lines as early as an hour prior to closing if they want to (this came back to bite us at Universal a week or so later). The Main Street emporium shops stayed open for a bit longer, but unfortunately the side shops very much close right on the dot (much to my dismay, I really wanted the magic rising churro from the Magic Shop, ugh).

Over all an amazing time, but definitely a little learning curve too. Hope that these tips help with DisneyLand travel, DisneySea is it's own beast, and I will cover that in an eventual part two, haha.

What were your impressions of Beauty & the Beast, Monsters and Pooh?

 

[PenguinCowboy]

What were your impressions of Beauty & the Beast, Monsters and Pooh?

Beauty and the Beast was an incredibly fun little romp, hits many right notes, but also does fumble a tad during the middle.

Let me preface by saying, I had a stupid grin plastered on my face the entire time, so by no means is my criticism meant to imply it was a bad time at all!

The experience starts out on a fantastic note with the preshow room, the animatronics of which were just spectacular. It hits every note right, a little foreboding, but very mysterious, and not a bad place in the room when it comes to viewing.

The choice to start off with Be Our Guest means the whole thing is off to a bang to begin with. So many little things to appreciate about the building of the scene; it just continues to escalate until the ending, and is a visual treat! The whole scene plays out more or less in a sort of black void, but it's very true to the scene from the movie itself, so no complaints. Both times we rode we had different vantage points, but it was equally as enjoyable each time.

The second scene is where I feel like things kind of drag a bit. While Be Our Guest had a very dynamic build to it, Something There is kind of just one (very delightful) note the whole time. Some slight changes happen over the time you are in the room, but overall it felt like it would have been a better pass thru scene than a full stop moment. The gliding and dancing of the vehicles in the room was enjoyable, but you do find yourself looking around as the song wears on and just kind of taking in the ceiling a bit, haha. It definitely gives you the most time to recognize you are in a show building. Again though, both times we had great visuals no matter the teacup.

After this scene though, everything picks up so nicely and you've got the absolutely mesmerizing beast transformation followed by the ballroom scene. The effect is killer in person, and my boyfriend audibly gasped the first time, haha. I do feel like we got the short end of the teacup stick for these two scenes the second go through, but it was by no means unenjoyable.

Overall loved the ride, even with a little meandering toward the middle. Would love to see it come over here, but not entirely sure where it would fit in.

Pooh was adorable, and even having just done Beauty it still holds up as a cute little autonomous adventure! So much kinetic energy in the scenes to look at, I was more familiar with it from online videos than any of the other rides, but the familiarity didn't diminish the experience at all. Definitely a reason it is a gold standard to this day.

Monsters I could definitely summarize as "My First MIB" and not in a bad way at all! The variety of scenes, from the streets to the interiors, the variety of targets, and the maintenance for the ride cannot be understated. It has been meticulously upkept, and while there were a couple targets out of commission, I applaud the level of commitment to keeping it at tip top shape. Some incredibly fun little gags in here that still read as novel this 15 years down the line. Again, so much kinetic energy, it was a visual treat throughout.

I think the biggest takeaway across the board is how well maintained the rides are at TDR. Splash, Snow White, Pirates, all in their original form look like they just opened, it's incredibly impressive. To that end, I do also mean they look like they JUST opened, haha. Snow White is still as frightening and confusing as ever (no updates, haha, just kept it as a non-stop witch assault), and Pirates is complete with women-chasing lechers and auctions. Definitely wildly interesting to see as a theme park fan, but deeeeefinitely also drove home the reasons these changes were made, haha.