Hello! I plan to take my family of four to TDR on 1/7 and 1/8 2019. We’ve been a few times before, but never in January. I understand crowds should be “light” after the first five days of January (i.e., after the New Years celebrations). But how light? In the past we’ve always spent three days in the park and stayed at Hilton Tokyo Bay. This time we’re thinking of just taking the train in from my wife’s parent’s place in Kawaguchi since I think/hope it won’t be too busy. Just planning on two days this time as there’s more to Japan than Disney! Thoughts?
Super light. That is a great time to come. The weather can be weird in January but it's usually not freezing. Check for ride closures & make sure none of your favorites are down, though. January is the big refurb time. https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tdl/monthly/stop.html https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/en/tds/monthly/stop.html
We went in mid-Jan this year and crowds were very light during the week! Park hours will be shorter, so keep that in mind. I think it was 10a-7p when we visited during the week (Mon-Thurs). No ticket lotteries for any of the shows.
We've never won a lottery either! On our next trip, we're just going to go the "first" shows of the day for which you don't need a lottery ticket. It's about time that we saw the shows again. I don't think we've seen them since our first trip in 2009, which was during the GFC and WELL before international tourists started flocking to Japan, so I don't even think they had the lottery system.
