Fantasy Springs is opening June 6th 2024

[dunkindonut]

Pretty exciting news! Although a bit later than in thought it would open. I was thinking probably May, but at least it opens before Summer.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Wow, that looks amazing. Definitely on our bucket list to get to these parks, and this addition just adds to the desire!!

 

[Smugpugmug]

My sister and I will be there mid November 2024, so we're super excited to see this! I'm also looking forward to reading other experiences of how the standby pass/premier access goes for this area so I can prepare.

 

[ryggmom]

We had booked our hotel for 3-7 June thinking this would have been open for a month or two beforehand. Now wondering if we should try to shift our dates to later in June, or hope for the best with our original dates.

 

[dunkindonut]

We had booked our hotel for 3-7 June thinking this would have been open for a month or two beforehand. Now wondering if we should try to shift our dates to later in June, or hope for the best with our original dates.

The new attractions will have paid entry or a standby pass/virtual queue

 

[Runnsally]

Any word if the new hotel also opens June 6?

 

[Haley R]

We’ll be at Tokyo Disney next year from May 26-30. I was really looking forward to this and didn’t think they’d wait until June to open it. I’m hoping for a soft opening. Ds is obsessed with tangled and would love that area. We can’t change our flights because we booked them with points and they were super hard to get

 

[Absimilliard]

We’ll be at Tokyo Disney next year from May 26-30. I was really looking forward to this and didn’t think they’d wait until June to open it. I’m hoping for a soft opening. Ds is obsessed with tangled and would love that area. We can’t change our flights because we booked them with points and they were super hard to get

Soft openings are sadly very rare at Tokyo Disney. I visited in 2009 less than two weeks before the grand opening of Monsters Inc. Ride and Go Seek! and no way to ride it in any ways. There were no soft openings for the public, but I do know that sometimes, japanese guests with specific credit cards or memberships get early previews.

 

[Haley R]

Soft openings are sadly very rare at Tokyo Disney. I visited in 2009 less than two weeks before the grand opening of Monsters Inc. Ride and Go Seek! and no way to ride it in any ways. There were no soft openings for the public, but I do know that sometimes, japanese guests with specific credit cards or memberships get early previews.

I read Tom Bricker’s blog post a little bit ago and he said the opposite. He said they have a history of prolonged soft openings with major new additions.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/fantasy-springs-opening-date-tokyo-disneysea/

 

[rtill]

We will also be visiting TDR for a few nights the last week in May as part of a longer Japan trip for the first time. My mindset was the opposite, I was worried that the opening would coincide with our visit and we would have to deal with the crush of people. I'm hoping that some people will be holding off their visits until after June 6th now.

 

[gmi3804]

We had booked our hotel for 3-7 June thinking this would have been open for a month or two beforehand. Now wondering if we should try to shift our dates to later in June, or hope for the best with our original dates.

Comfort is subjective, but I wouldn't want to go when it's really hot. We were planning on our first trip in early May 2024 (May seems to be our sweet spot), but postponed it by a year in anticipation of seeing Fantasy Springs as well.

 

[Haley R]

We will also be visiting TDR for a few nights the last week in May as part of a longer Japan trip for the first time. My mindset was the opposite, I was worried that the opening would coincide with our visit and we would have to deal with the crush of people. I'm hoping that some people will be holding off their visits until after June 6th now.

My dh is saying the same thing. He wanted to get there before it opens to avoid the crowds

 

[gelatoni fan]

I was in Disneysea for multiple days around the time of Soaring's soft opening. It's very very difficult to time because CMs in uniform were doing stuff around the ride for about 2 weeks but there were only several hours of previews for normal guests on 2 days. So you may go multiple days in a row seeing activity around the attraction but the only people allowed in are the press and people who had won special loterries. Within a 1/2 hour of it sneak opening to general guests, the wait hit 4 hours (240 min) and they cut the queue. Back then, they also had fastpass and it was completely gone within 1/2 an hour after suddenly being made available.

From my experience with seasonal event soft openings, the crowds on those days are usually not as bad as the first week of the new seasonal event so it's a decent way to see a new show. But the best time is usually about a month into the new show.

 

[dunkindonut]

I can't even imagine how many people will be trying to book reservations or how crowded it will be. This is the biggest expansion to a Disney park in a very long time, practically as big as the grand opening of DCA. I'm not sure if they do soft openings, and if they do, I would imagine it's going to be very difficult to be able to ride all 3 attractions.

 

[Absimilliard]

I read Tom Bricker’s blog post a little bit ago and he said the opposite. He said they have a history of prolonged soft openings with major new additions.

https://www.disneytouristblog.com/fantasy-springs-opening-date-tokyo-disneysea/

If I remember correctly, they did open Soaring Fantastic Flight to the general public, but it was unannounced and for short periods of time in the week or so before.

I went to Tokyo DisneySea on a special 4 days trip to ride Soaring Fantastic Flight a few days after it opened officially to the public in July 2019. I could not get an on site hotel on short notice, but stayed at a "good neighbor hotel" nearby that allowed me to take a bus back to the hotel after the park closed, sparing myself the closing crush at the JR station, Maihama.

I took the first JR train to the resort and by 6:15, was in front of Tokyo DisneySea. I was only 10 people away from the gate, yet by the time they opened to us, I could only get at 1:30 pm fast pass return time for Soaring on the app. I did manage to book Magellan's and LOVED the Soaring special menu.

So, plan to be there as early as possible and consider this: every guest around you at Tokyo Disney is as prepared as someone with 15 years experience of going to WDW and plans galore if you transposed that to Walt Disney World. Expect the free and paid passes to go by quickly.

 

[Absimilliard]

If I remember correctly, they did open Soaring Fantastic Flight to the general public, but it was unannounced and for short periods of time in the week or so before.

I went to Tokyo DisneySea on a special 4 days trip to ride Soaring Fantastic Flight a few days after it opened officially to the public in July 2019. I could not get an on site hotel on short notice, but stayed at a "good neighbor hotel" nearby that allowed me to take a bus back to the hotel after the park closed, sparing myself the closing crush at the JR station, Maihama.

I took the first JR train to the resort and by 6:15, was in front of Tokyo DisneySea. I was only 10 people away from the gate, yet by the time they opened to us, I could only get at 1:30 pm fast pass return time for Soaring on the app. I did manage to book Magellan's and LOVED the Soaring special menu.

So, plan to be there as early as possible and consider this: every guest around you at Tokyo Disney is as prepared as someone with 15 years experience of going to WDW and plans galore if you transposed that to Walt Disney World. Expect the free and paid passes to go by quickly.

I also just wrote this for someone else in regards to the various attraction access options at WDW:

On the Tokyo Disney app, once your ticket is scanned, you can start booking both kind of passes. Premier Access is basically a paid fast pass where you book a time and those are offered at:

Tokyo Disneyland:

Beauty and the Beast (2000 yens), Splash Mountain (1500 yens) and Happy Ride with Baymax (1500 yens) in addition to parades and shows.

Tokyo DisneySea:

Soaring Fantastic Flight (2000 yens), Tower of Terror (1500 yens), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1500 yens), Toy Story Mania! (2000 yens) in addition to shows.

Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey, Rapunzel's Lantern Festival and Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure in Fantasy Springs will all offer paid Premier Access.

In addition to that, Standby Pass is used like the WDW boarding groups. You cannot queue in standby. It will possibly be a lottery for the new Fantasy Springs rides sadly. In addition to the three rides above in Fantasy Springs, the fourth one, Fairy Tinker Bell's Busy Buggies will only be available using the free standby pass.

Of the four rides, concentrate on Frozen and Peter Pan.

In addition to all that, seven attractions in each park offer Priority Pass, which are like the old fast pass + at WDW that you book each day on the app.

Raging Spirits and Indiana Jones Adventure have single riders queues.

 

[gelatoni fan]

I also just wrote this for someone else in regards to the various attraction access options at WDW:

On the Tokyo Disney app, once your ticket is scanned, you can start booking both kind of passes. Premier Access is basically a paid fast pass where you book a time and those are offered at:

Tokyo Disneyland:

Beauty and the Beast (2000 yens), Splash Mountain (1500 yens) and Happy Ride with Baymax (1500 yens) in addition to parades and shows.

Tokyo DisneySea:

Soaring Fantastic Flight (2000 yens), Tower of Terror (1500 yens), Journey to the Center of the Earth (1500 yens), Toy Story Mania! (2000 yens) in addition to shows.

Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey, Rapunzel's Lantern Festival and Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure in Fantasy Springs will all offer paid Premier Access.

In addition to that, Standby Pass is used like the WDW boarding groups. You cannot queue in standby. It will possibly be a lottery for the new Fantasy Springs rides sadly. In addition to the three rides above in Fantasy Springs, the fourth one, Fairy Tinker Bell's Busy Buggies will only be available using the free standby pass.

Of the four rides, concentrate on Frozen and Peter Pan.

In addition to all that, seven attractions in each park offer Priority Pass, which are like the old fast pass + at WDW that you book each day on the app.

Raging Spirits and Indiana Jones Adventure have single riders queues.

Entry Request is the lottery system that Beauty and the Beast used at opening but Standby Pass currently is not a lottery system. It's more of a hybrid of virtual queue or boarding groups used in the US and digital fastpass.

Standby pass is like virtual queue in that you need to get it in order to access the attraction through the standby line and can only get a pass for an attraction once per day. But unlike virtual queue, you cannot get all the attractions at once and are subject to rules similar to fastpass and lightning lane. While the rules may change, my understanding of the latest rules is that you can obtain your next standby pass after the start time of your most recently obtained standby pass as long as it has been at least 60 minutes since you obtained it OR 120 minutes since you last obtained a standby pass, whichever is sooner. When an attraction goes down, your standby pass timer is not reset and you do not get a multiple experiences pass. You must have scanned into the park in order to obtain a standby pass.

Priority Pass has been marketed as a 40th anniversary thing so there is no guarantee it will continue to be offered after March.

 

[Absimilliard]

Entry Request is the lottery system that Beauty and the Beast used at opening but Standby Pass currently is not a lottery system. It's more of a hybrid of virtual queue or boarding groups used in the US and digital fastpass.

Standby pass is like virtual queue in that you need to get it in order to access the attraction through the standby line and can only get a pass for an attraction once per day. But unlike virtual queue, you cannot get all the attractions at once and are subject to rules similar to fastpass and lightning lane. While the rules may change, my understanding of the latest rules is that you can obtain your next standby pass after the start time of your most recently obtained standby pass as long as it has been at least 60 minutes since you obtained it OR 120 minutes since you last obtained a standby pass, whichever is sooner. When an attraction goes down, your standby pass timer is not reset and you do not get a multiple experiences pass. You must have scanned into the park in order to obtain a standby pass.

Priority Pass has been marketed as a 40th anniversary thing so there is no guarantee it will continue to be offered after March.

Given the horrific shape of the parks when I visited last march when most rides were running stand-by queues only, it will probably stay.

A 60 minutes queue for Big Thunder Mountain filled the middle of the street of Westernland, Journey to the Center of the Earth queue reached Magellan's, etc. The parks are not adapted anymore to run without some kind of reservation system.

Space Mountain queue meant that they had to squeeze 2000 guests somewhere, while with fast pass or something, an hour queue is barely 500 people.

 

[Seltzer76]

We will also be visiting TDR for a few nights the last week in May as part of a longer Japan trip for the first time. My mindset was the opposite, I was worried that the opening would coincide with our visit and we would have to deal with the crush of people. I'm hoping that some people will be holding off their visits until after June 6th now.

It’s my first trip, arriving June 24th. I hope the new land draws crowds away from everything else. I can hope, right? .

 

[soniam]

Entry Request is the lottery system that Beauty and the Beast used at opening but Standby Pass currently is not a lottery system. It's more of a hybrid of virtual queue or boarding groups used in the US and digital fastpass.

Standby pass is like virtual queue in that you need to get it in order to access the attraction through the standby line and can only get a pass for an attraction once per day. But unlike virtual queue, you cannot get all the attractions at once and are subject to rules similar to fastpass and lightning lane. While the rules may change, my understanding of the latest rules is that you can obtain your next standby pass after the start time of your most recently obtained standby pass as long as it has been at least 60 minutes since you obtained it OR 120 minutes since you last obtained a standby pass, whichever is sooner. When an attraction goes down, your standby pass timer is not reset and you do not get a multiple experiences pass. You must have scanned into the park in order to obtain a standby pass.

Priority Pass has been marketed as a 40th anniversary thing so there is no guarantee it will continue to be offered after March.

I thought TDR specifically said that 3 of the rides would take Priority Pass; whereas, the Tinkerbell ride would only use the Standby Pass.