HydroGuy
A Pirate's Life For Me
- Joined
- Jun 5, 2005
Abbreviations
AK - Animal Kingdom (at WDW)
DCA - Disney's California Adventure (at DLR)
DHS - Disney's Hollywood Studios (at WDW)
DL - Disneyland park (at DLR)
DLP - Disneyland Paris (at DLRP)
DLR - Disneyland Resort (in Anaheim, CA)
DLRP - Disneyland Resort Paris (Paris, France)
MK - Magic Kingdom (at WDW)
TDL - Tokyo Disneyland (one of the two theme parks at TDR)
TDR - Tokyo Disney Resort (TDL, TDS, 3 Disney hotels, and Ikspiari - a DTD-like place)
TDS - Tokyo DisneySea (the second theme park at TDR)
WDS - Walt Disney Studios (at DLRP)
WDW - Walt Disney World (in Orlando, FL)
Summary
In November 2009 I had some business in China and decided to take a side trip to visit Tokyo Disney. When I travel internationally I often take one of my four sons with me, and this time it was my youngest's turn who is 13. After doing business and all the tourist things in China (Great Wall, etc.) we were over our jetlag by the time we arrived in Tokyo.
We stayed at one of the TDR official hotels called SunRoute Plaza. It was a short 3-5 minute bus ride to TDL or the monorail station to reach TDS.
TDL and TDS are amazing parks. The detailed theming and immersion is overwhelming - especially TDS.
From our experience the TDR parks are for the Japanese. They are as accommodating as possible to the rare westerners like us, but the attendance is predominantly Japanese. On our first day at TDS we saw two other Westerners all day.
It was apparent to me that the Japanese take their Disney very seriously. They arrive at the gates very early (lines form an hour before park opening), they are FASTPASS experts, they know where they want to go, they are willing to wait in insanely long lines for rides and (more on this later) for flavored popcorn, and they eat up all the Disney theming and characters.
Since so many who might read this have never been to TDR, I feel it would be worthwhile to give more description about TDR. However, Kevin Yee's book (referenced in the next section) is so thorough, I will just defer to his book. If you want to know more details about TDR you should buy a copy. Hence I will not try to make this thread a planning resource by giving all the helpful details you might want. Rather I will give an overview and discuss some details here and there, but mostly refer you to Kevin if you want more planning details.
Planning Resources for TDR
Normally I would add a section on planning resources later in a thread like this one. But I refer to Kevin Yee's book so much in this thread I will just get this addressed upfront.
Online resources for Tokyo Disney Resort for westerners are very skimpy compared to those found for WDW, DLR and even DLR Paris. Fortunately Kevin Yee, a respected editorialist on MiceAge, wrote a book on TDR - "Tokyo Disney Made Easy". I found virtually everything in his book to be spot on. About 95% of my planning derived from his book. If you are going to TDR it is an absolute no-brainer to buy a copy. I could not find it on Amazon but Barnes and Noble does carry new copies. Here is a link: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/To...vin-Yee/e/9780977375868/?itm=6&usri=kevin+yee
***********************************
Overview of TDR
***********************************
The two bright lights of TDR are Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) and Tokyo DisneySea (TDS). TDL is an MK/DL type park with many of the familiar rides - Space Mtn, Splash Mtn, etc. TDS is a one-of-a-kind park which is a sight to behold. Its overall theme is based on water, with different themed lands - Mediterranean Harbor, American Waterfront, Arabian Coast, Port Discovery, Mermaid Lagoon, Lost River Delta and Mysterious Island. The detailed theming in each land is exceptionally done.
The two parks at TDR receive huge attendance. In 2008 TDL was the third most attended theme park in the world, close behind DL and MK. TDS was in fifth place just behind DL Paris and thus the most attended second gate in the world and ahead of sixth place Epcot. From this report
http://www.teaconnect.org/etea/TEAERA2008.pdf the top eight are all Disney:
1. MK 17.1 million
2. DL 14.7
3. TDL 14.3
4. DLP 12.7
5. TDS 12.5
6. Epcot 10.9
7. DHS 9.6
8. AK 9.5
13. DCA 5.6
I am not a DCA basher but I am a DCA realist, and thus I have to throw in that while I was at TDR it occurred to me more than once that TDS as a second gate compared to DCA is laughable. DCA looks like a cheap, pathetic park next to TDS. I have been to DLR many times, WDW twice and DLR Paris once. When DLR starts looking ahead to adding a third gate they should look to TDS. Building a TDS in Anaheim would be huge.
TDR has a DTD-type place called Ikspiari. We only had a short time there on our arrival evening when we went over there to eat at the Rainforest Café.
TDR has three Disney hotels - The TDL hotel which is adjacent to TDL, the Mira Costa which is inside TDS, and the Ambassador. In addition to these three, there are six "official hotels" which are not Disney but served by the Disney bus and monorail transportation system. We stayed at one of the official hotels as everything else was booked. Further off-site are Disney "partner hotels" which I did no research on but are discussed by Kevin Yee.
TDR sells entrance tickets of one to four days. If you buy 2+ day tickets you must declare at time of purchase which park you will visit on day 1, and then day 2 must be the opposite park. On days 3 and 4 you can park hop and do not need to pre-declare parks. The tickets must be used on consecutive days. There is no taking off days in between.
There is no official Disney transportation from the two local airports Narita and Haneda. There is bus and train service to TDR. We flew into Narita and, because our flight was delayed into Tokyo, missed the last bus to TDR. So we had to shell out $200 to take a taxi to TDR because I did not want to risk the Tokyo train system with all of our luggage. We got back to the airport on a bus for about $25 each.
Kevin Yee goes into all the details of hotels, tickets and transportation.
See next post for Day 1
AK - Animal Kingdom (at WDW)
DCA - Disney's California Adventure (at DLR)
DHS - Disney's Hollywood Studios (at WDW)
DL - Disneyland park (at DLR)
DLP - Disneyland Paris (at DLRP)
DLR - Disneyland Resort (in Anaheim, CA)
DLRP - Disneyland Resort Paris (Paris, France)
MK - Magic Kingdom (at WDW)
TDL - Tokyo Disneyland (one of the two theme parks at TDR)
TDR - Tokyo Disney Resort (TDL, TDS, 3 Disney hotels, and Ikspiari - a DTD-like place)
TDS - Tokyo DisneySea (the second theme park at TDR)
WDS - Walt Disney Studios (at DLRP)
WDW - Walt Disney World (in Orlando, FL)
Summary
In November 2009 I had some business in China and decided to take a side trip to visit Tokyo Disney. When I travel internationally I often take one of my four sons with me, and this time it was my youngest's turn who is 13. After doing business and all the tourist things in China (Great Wall, etc.) we were over our jetlag by the time we arrived in Tokyo.
We stayed at one of the TDR official hotels called SunRoute Plaza. It was a short 3-5 minute bus ride to TDL or the monorail station to reach TDS.
TDL and TDS are amazing parks. The detailed theming and immersion is overwhelming - especially TDS.
From our experience the TDR parks are for the Japanese. They are as accommodating as possible to the rare westerners like us, but the attendance is predominantly Japanese. On our first day at TDS we saw two other Westerners all day.
It was apparent to me that the Japanese take their Disney very seriously. They arrive at the gates very early (lines form an hour before park opening), they are FASTPASS experts, they know where they want to go, they are willing to wait in insanely long lines for rides and (more on this later) for flavored popcorn, and they eat up all the Disney theming and characters.
Since so many who might read this have never been to TDR, I feel it would be worthwhile to give more description about TDR. However, Kevin Yee's book (referenced in the next section) is so thorough, I will just defer to his book. If you want to know more details about TDR you should buy a copy. Hence I will not try to make this thread a planning resource by giving all the helpful details you might want. Rather I will give an overview and discuss some details here and there, but mostly refer you to Kevin if you want more planning details.
Planning Resources for TDR
Normally I would add a section on planning resources later in a thread like this one. But I refer to Kevin Yee's book so much in this thread I will just get this addressed upfront.
Online resources for Tokyo Disney Resort for westerners are very skimpy compared to those found for WDW, DLR and even DLR Paris. Fortunately Kevin Yee, a respected editorialist on MiceAge, wrote a book on TDR - "Tokyo Disney Made Easy". I found virtually everything in his book to be spot on. About 95% of my planning derived from his book. If you are going to TDR it is an absolute no-brainer to buy a copy. I could not find it on Amazon but Barnes and Noble does carry new copies. Here is a link: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/To...vin-Yee/e/9780977375868/?itm=6&usri=kevin+yee
***********************************
Overview of TDR
***********************************
The two bright lights of TDR are Tokyo Disneyland (TDL) and Tokyo DisneySea (TDS). TDL is an MK/DL type park with many of the familiar rides - Space Mtn, Splash Mtn, etc. TDS is a one-of-a-kind park which is a sight to behold. Its overall theme is based on water, with different themed lands - Mediterranean Harbor, American Waterfront, Arabian Coast, Port Discovery, Mermaid Lagoon, Lost River Delta and Mysterious Island. The detailed theming in each land is exceptionally done.
The two parks at TDR receive huge attendance. In 2008 TDL was the third most attended theme park in the world, close behind DL and MK. TDS was in fifth place just behind DL Paris and thus the most attended second gate in the world and ahead of sixth place Epcot. From this report
http://www.teaconnect.org/etea/TEAERA2008.pdf the top eight are all Disney:
1. MK 17.1 million
2. DL 14.7
3. TDL 14.3
4. DLP 12.7
5. TDS 12.5
6. Epcot 10.9
7. DHS 9.6
8. AK 9.5
13. DCA 5.6
I am not a DCA basher but I am a DCA realist, and thus I have to throw in that while I was at TDR it occurred to me more than once that TDS as a second gate compared to DCA is laughable. DCA looks like a cheap, pathetic park next to TDS. I have been to DLR many times, WDW twice and DLR Paris once. When DLR starts looking ahead to adding a third gate they should look to TDS. Building a TDS in Anaheim would be huge.
TDR has a DTD-type place called Ikspiari. We only had a short time there on our arrival evening when we went over there to eat at the Rainforest Café.
TDR has three Disney hotels - The TDL hotel which is adjacent to TDL, the Mira Costa which is inside TDS, and the Ambassador. In addition to these three, there are six "official hotels" which are not Disney but served by the Disney bus and monorail transportation system. We stayed at one of the official hotels as everything else was booked. Further off-site are Disney "partner hotels" which I did no research on but are discussed by Kevin Yee.
TDR sells entrance tickets of one to four days. If you buy 2+ day tickets you must declare at time of purchase which park you will visit on day 1, and then day 2 must be the opposite park. On days 3 and 4 you can park hop and do not need to pre-declare parks. The tickets must be used on consecutive days. There is no taking off days in between.
There is no official Disney transportation from the two local airports Narita and Haneda. There is bus and train service to TDR. We flew into Narita and, because our flight was delayed into Tokyo, missed the last bus to TDR. So we had to shell out $200 to take a taxi to TDR because I did not want to risk the Tokyo train system with all of our luggage. We got back to the airport on a bus for about $25 each.
Kevin Yee goes into all the details of hotels, tickets and transportation.
See next post for Day 1
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