I was SO SO SO excited to be heading to Disney. My husband and I are big park nerds - my husband even more than me, and we never thought we'd get to see DisneySea or Tokyo
Disneyland. We FB lived our walk to the train station right through Love Hotel Hill and our friends at home got a kick out of it.
The park opened at 8, so our goal was to be at DisneySea by 7 as we had heard about the crazy crowds. We were at Shibuya Station by 6:00 and had to make a transfer at Tokyo Station but arrived at DisneySea by 7:00 as planned. We ended up buying two day monorail passes, but then I realized you could use Suica too. It still might be cheaper to use the monorail passes because there's a huge discount on the second day, and it wasn't complicated to get the monorail passes - but I never read anywhere that you could also just use your Suica card if that's easier for some people or they're only going for one day.
Even the monorail was decked out for the holidays:
When we arrived at the park entrance, we were a little confused about where to go. There were a bunch of lines that looked like they were for the ticket booths and a long line past them. We had already purchased our tickets at the
Disney Store, so we got in the other long line. Oops, that line was for the Happy 15 (the extra 15 minutes the hotel guests get in the parks) so after standing in that line for 30 mins, we had to go back to the other lines.
We KIND OF had a game plan, but we didn't download the Japanese Disney app, so we had to decide whether we were going to make the early dash for Soarin FP or not. I really love Soarin, but the ride is almost identical to theUS rides (with a vastly different queue, pre-show, and you ned flying over Tokyo, of course). It was for sure pandemonium when the gates finally opened, but we decided we should get the Soarin FP so we didn't have to wait in line for 3 hours later in the day. We went straight to Soarin and our FP was for about 4:30 in the evening. Yowza.
When you get FP, the machines spit out a reminder slip that tells you the time of your FP and the time you can get your next FP, but you use your actual tickets as the FP when you get in the FP queue.
Everything you read or see says "The crowds at Tokyo are insane." and if you're like me you think "I've been to WDW at busy times, and we're going to Tokyo at a slower time, so we're good." YOU ARE NOT GOOD. I REPEAT: YOU ARE NOT GOOD. :lol: Kidding, sort of. Everything will be fine, but I have never seen crowds like I saw at DisneySea. That being said, it seemed like the ride lines weren't horrible if you had a plan and utilized FP as much as possible. I would guess that there were a lot of people there to shop for holiday merch (which had just released about 5 days earlier), and see Disney characters? I still can't quite figure out how it was that crowded and the lines were pretty reasonable.
We grabbed some Chinese Spice popcorn and headed to Tower of Terror. It was our longest wait of the day at about 60 minutes.
What a cool queue. In fact, all of DisneySea is just so cool. There is not an INCH of that park that isn't themed in some way, it's an interesting reminder of what can happen when executives don't keep cutting back on the plans for a world to save money at the expense of theming. I'm looking at you, Bob Chapak.
Anyway, Chris and I love the lore behind the Society of Explorers and Adventurers and it was so cool to see it integrated in so many different places inDisneySea. I'm a big fan of the ToT, and I like Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout even more, but I think the DisneySea ToT is my favorite of all now.
We were pretty close to the location for the show lottery, so Chris waited in line for that while I ran off and purchased myself some Dumbo ears, a Tokyo Disneyland beanie, and the Mickey Hamburger pass holder.
I will admit here and probably nowhere else that I agonized over which passholder to get as though it was the most important decision of my life. Roger Rabbit? Cool! Oswald? LOVE IT. Randal, Sully, Mr. Potato Head, Dale, etc etc etc.. LOVE LOVE LOVE! I ultimately decided on the Mickey Hamburger because it's SUCH a Tokyo Disney thing. Why are they all so cute thought?
After ToT, we headed toward Aquatopia and Finding Nemo. We could get a new FP by now, so I grabbed Finding Nemo since the return time was only 45 minutes later. We did standby for Aquatopia (about 15 mins) and rode on the right side. Then we snagged some lunch at the restaurant right there:
Oh hi, you wanted a glass of wine? How about a half bottle? Don't mind if I do! I thought the food was pretty darn good! I mean, it's not like eating in a little restaurant in Tokyo but as far as quick service theme park food goes? Top notch.
We jumped into the FP line for Finding Nemo and it was super cute! I don't need to ride it again, but I'm really glad we did it the once because it was adorable.
We headed off toward Indiana Jones, grabbed FP, then had ourselves a cocktail. How great is the theming here? C-3PO? I DIE.
Chris also realized he didn't bring any sunglasses on our trip and it was SO BRIGHT at DisneySea, so I bought him these and they make me laugh. They're flight goggles for Soarin and they have a strap that goes around the back:
We were going to ride Raging Spirits, but the wait was pretty long, so we decided to try when we came back for Indiana Jones:
We kept following the path toward Mediterranean Harbor and had ourselves a quick ride on Sinbad's Storybook Voyage. SO CUTE! I cannot get over Chandu. I almost bought a Chandu passholder, but I wasn't even sure that one pass holder was useful so I definitely didn't need two. I kind of wish I had purchased a Chandu pin for my lanyard, though. It was basically a walk-on and I would have ridden it again if I didn't have to go on a 5 hour mission to find a bathroom. Kidding. Sort of. I did eventually find a bathroom.
I wanted to play some of the carnival games, but there was such a long line for them that we just moved right along.
Then I had my very favorite snack in all of Disney. EVERY DISNEY COMBINED. I want one right now.
Even Chris liked the curry bun, and he doesn't like curry. WHY IS BREAD IN ALL FORMS SO DELICIOUS IN JAPAN? WHAT IS THIS SORCERY?
We popped into Mermaid Lagoon and it is so cool inside there! It's mostly little kid rides, but we did take a ride on their teacups(I forget what they're called) because Teacups were closed at TDL while we were there.
After that, we went into the middle of Mount Prometheus. Journey to the Center of the Earth was under refurbishment while we were there, which was a total bummer. We grabbed FP for 20K leagues under the sea, and then had ourselves a beer in this cave-like quick service:
We tried to get into Magellan's lounge for a drink but the wait was so long and they didn't even really have a line, so we skipped it. I had intended to pop in earlier in the day to try to get dinner reservations, but forgot and I'm not sure how we would have fit a TS meal into our day anyhow. Instead, we poked around Fortress Explorations. We even watched their mid-afternoon show from up there.
We did some more shopping, and my husband threw his beloved Nintendo controller hat away, replacing it with Donald Duck. He is so ding-dang particular about his hats and the NES hat lived a good life but was showing some signs of wear. Farewell, NES hat:
It was dusk by then, and we stopped in for a glass of wine and a churro, then did 20K leagues under the sea (I thought it was so fun!) and finally Soarin:
If I understand correctly, you miss some pretty cool queue if you do FP. but I didn't want to wait in line for hours. That being said, the pre-show was THE BEST PRE-SHOW I'VE EVER SEEN. I loved every bit of it. I also liked that the actual ride vehicle looks like a DaVinci flying machine instead of the generic vehicle in the US Parks.
We still had some time before Indiana Jones, so we went to the Teddy Roosevelt lounge for a drink and snack. Chris had been DYING to go inside the Columbia. We had to wait about 20 mins but it wasn't too bad:
I had the seasonal cocktail which I BELIEVE was chestnut and rose?
The park was looking gorgeous at night:
Indiana Jones was awesome. I just loved some of the surprises that differ from DL. I ALMOST LOST MY PARK TICKET HERE! Because you use your actual ticket as the FP, I had removed it from the pass holder and then I DROPPED IT. Luckily I only got about 10 steps away before I realized and went back to find it.
We popped next door to Raging Spirits as well, and waited about 40 mins. It's quick, but it's a good little coaster!
On our way back to the front of the park we took another ride on the left side of Aquatopia since it was a walk-on.
The park was still open for another 45 mins or so, but we were pretty much toast, so we grabbed some Strawberry popcorn and we also had another couple of drinks somewhere in the day, and did some shopping on our way out of the park so we could get a decent night's sleep before Tokyo Disneyland the next day.
Overall thoughts:
* DisneySea is the most gorgeous theme park I've ever been to.
* SnoSnos kind of creep me out. LOOK AT THEIR EYES.
* We had these popcorn varieties at DisneySea and I will rank them as such:
3. Honey
2. Strawberry
1. Chinese Chili
I really wanted to try shrimp and garlic, but the line was stupid long.
* Duffy kind of grew on me, I've never been a fan, but you can't not kind of like him after spending a day at DisneySea
In order to accomplish all of that drinking and riding, this is what we skipped:
* We only watched the one show from Fortress Explorations. We didn't win anything in the show lottery and we kind of wanted to see Big Band Beat, but it just never really fit into our day.
* We skipped TSMM - I LOVE Midway Mania, but it's not any different than at home, and we wanted to make sure we prioritized what was unique. I did walk into the area of the ride because I wanted to see the theming and I thought it was really well done!
