TDR 1/6/19 and 1/7/19 - Report

nutshell

Oh, Disney!
Joined
Dec 3, 2007
Just got back from a couple weeks in Tokyo. Trip included DW, DD18, DS15, and me. We did TDL on 1/6 while they were still doing the New Year’s greeting, and we did Sea on 1/7 hoping for lighter crowds.

TDL - 1/7/19. We were expecting heavy crowds as it was a Sunday and the last day of the New Year’s holiday in Japan. Crowds were surprisingly moderate and easy to manage! It was certainly busier the last two times we went (March 2016 and November 2014). Here’s how are day at TDL went.

7:20. Arrived at the Maihama welcome center. The center opens at 7:30, but Hilton doesn’t open its counter until 8am. This was a rough start because the park opened at 8am that day and this out me behind schedule. Once I checked in at 8am, I tried to buy tickets but was informed that the Hilton desk was cash only. Ugh! This meant I had to go to a ticket booth, putting me further behind.

Tip. We walked from Maihama to TDL. There was a CM on the bridge with a sign that directed us downstairs to a room where we could buy tickets, which we did. So glad I saw the CM because once we got to the gate there were very long lines at the ticket booths.

We did the following once we were in the parks (and discovered crowds weren’t bad at all):

Grabbed a FP for Monster’s.

Rode Pooh. Such a great ride!

Rode Star Tours. First time in the Death Star.

Did the Stitch Encounter. We’d never dine before and loved it. Very cute.

Found a spot for the New Year’s greating. We thought it was an actual parade, but it was just one float with Mickey and Minnie in kimonos. Still loved it.

Got FP for Big Thunder.

Did the lottery for shows, but stuck out. I’ve been to TDR several times now and have NEVER won the lottery. Any tips?

Rode Monster’s.

Ate snacks and lunch, which included seafood pizza and cotton candy churros. Also had the apple tea soda and the golden soda. All of it was delicious!

Rode Pirates.

Did Country Bears. I like the nostalgia factor, but it’s not the same in Japanese.

Rode Big Thunder.

Grabbed FP for Space.

Watched the Dreamin’ Up parade - the TDR 35th anniversary parade. Lots of fun (although we’re not fans of the characters’ costumes for this anniversary - too busy).

Tiki Room w/ Stitch. Love it. DS15 is a huge Stitch fan.

Rode Space.

Did some shopping and got candy and other treats to bring home to friends.

Went to Hilton for a short break. Also got dinner from the convenience store on the first floor. Decent food that’s way cheaper than park food (although the park food is reasonably priced, IMO).

Watched the Let’s Party Gras! show. Loved it.

Rode Space again.

Watched the Electrical Parade. Almost seems to be a hybrid of the old electrical parade and Paint the Night.

Jungle Cruise. Wish they would add the token to DLR.

More shopping at a World Bazaar. Stepped out and watched fireworks a bit then caught a few minutes of Celebrate!

We were cold and tired (it was about 35 degrees), so we went back and crashed from there.

It was a great time!
 
I was also surprised by the low crowds on the 6th. They didn't even let regular guests in early.
Friday the 4th was the crazy crowd day. Less than 20 minutes after park opening, all Fastpass rides were over 100 minutes with most over 2 hours.

I feel like I win the show lottery just under 20% of the time. I've had most success winning the first show for a morning show and the last show for a night show. My win rate for Big Band Beat is significantly higher than for other shows and I have never won One Man's Dream.
 
http://www15.plala.or.jp/gcap/disney/

This crowd calender predicted 50 TDL and 32 for TDS on 1/6........31 TDL and 27 TDS for 1.7. They must have missed the mark for the 1/6 TDL but people probably start preparing to go back to work/school on that Sunday and didn't go to Disney. 1/4 was predictably crowded.
 
I think the prediction was a bit off because looking at the breakdown, they added 1,500 crowd to the Disneyland side due to the early closure at DisneySea. A year ago, this may have been the case because people who buy one or two day tickets would favor Disneyland for the longer hours. However, after the annual passport price decrease last year, there's more annual passport holders who would just go home or not even visit the resort on a day one side closes early.
 


I think more people enter the lottery now because there's an app to do it & therefore you no longer have to spend time going out of your way to participate.

Big Band Beat is easier to hit. My parents visited over the winter holidays & we booked them a package that included tickets to a couple of shows, including Big Band Beat & One Man's Dream. It was quite exciting getting to see both shows on consecutive days. :laughing: That definitely isn't normally happening. You'd need something beyond luck. Witchcraft, maybe.
 
I think more people enter the lottery now because there's an app to do it & therefore you no longer have to spend time going out of your way to participate.

Big Band Beat is easier to hit. My parents visited over the winter holidays & we booked them a package that included tickets to a couple of shows, including Big Band Beat & One Man's Dream. It was quite exciting getting to see both shows on consecutive days. :laughing: That definitely isn't normally happening. You'd need something beyond luck. Witchcraft, maybe.
There's an app for the lotteries?
 
There's an app for the lotteries?

You can do it through the Tokyo Disney Resort app. There was actually a show lottery app before that that has been obsoleted by the new app.
The app seems to only be available through the Japanese app stores so you'll need to download an APK or change your store location if you aren't in Japan.

I learned the hard way back in December that the app only lets you do the lottery up to an hour before the show starts rather than 30 minutes before like the physical stations. No idea if I would have won but I lost a chance by not doing it earlier. Reason I waited is because there is some evidence that for small groups, drawing the lottery within an hour of the show starting leads to greater success.
 


You can do it through the Tokyo Disney Resort app. There was actually a show lottery app before that that has been obsoleted by the new app.
The app seems to only be available through the Japanese app stores so you'll need to download an APK or change your store location if you aren't in Japan.

I learned the hard way back in December that the app only lets you do the lottery up to an hour before the show starts rather than 30 minutes before like the physical stations. No idea if I would have won but I lost a chance by not doing it earlier. Reason I waited is because there is some evidence that for small groups, drawing the lottery within an hour of the show starting leads to greater success.
I think we’ll just do the normal lottery stations. That seems like a lot of work just for me to get the app lol. Plus part of the fun to me is going and trying the lottery on the machine since we’ve never done it before
 

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