When we got to the loading area, we must've accidentally asked for our own ride car while trying to ask to sit in frontprobably since there kinda isn't a "front" in these ride carscuz they put us in one all by ourselves. Whoops! The cars are arranged with three benches that seat 2 people each: one in front of the car's center window, and two at opposite angles in the windows on the sides. You see different areas of the sets depending on which window you sit in, so try to ride in a different place each time.
When I was planning the trip, I kept getting 20,000 Leagues and Journey to the Center of the Earth confused because they were both elaborately themed Jules Verne adventures we don't have in the States. Once you've ridden them, you'll never confuse them. While JTTCOE becomes a thrilling high-speed adventure, 20KL (I think just invented that abbreviation) is a classic elaborately themed dark ride. I'm sure the thrill-seekers think it's boring, and we hardly ever needed FASTPASSes for it, but we adored it. The theming is fantastic, the music is lush and evocative, and [SPOILER?] the dry-for-wet effect is so good, Patrick didn't even know we hadn't actually gone underwater until I mentioned it after our second ride.
Our next step was to make reservations for lunch at Magellan's, the super-fancy Mediterranean restaurant in Fortress Explorations, which hangs off the side of Mount Prometheus.
From there we ambled over to American Waterfront to pick up FASTPASSes for Tower of Terror.
We briefly poked into the Tower of Terror gift shop, which is designed to look like it's been set up in the mansion's indoor pool. Plenty more pictures of that later!
Our next destination was Lost River Delta to do the single-rider line at Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple of the Crystal Skull. Along the way, we were bewitched by the luscious scent of strawberry popcorn emanating from this cart.
*I* almost bought some, and I don't even like strawberry!
I have never been more thankful to be tall
On to Lost River Delta!
Tokyo DisneySea only offers single rider on three ridesIndy, 20KL and the coaster Raging Spiritsand it isn't always open. In this case, being at TDS in Top Season worked in our favor, cuz on that day, it was open!
The standby line snakes around outside before snaking around even more inside!
The inside of the temple is stunning. I know I'm repeating myself, but the scale, the interactive bits in the queue, the attention to detail
our minds were being BLOWN!
There's a big hole in the ceiling!
And here are the remains of all those who fell through the big hole in the ceiling!
I'll have lots more pictures later in the report, but suffice it to say
sure, I guess you could say Tokyo DisneySea's Indy ride is just like the one in Disneylandif everything in the one at Disneyland actually WORKED! Did you know that a laser is supposed to shoot out of the giant skull's eye in the main room and blow something up right by your car? I didn't until we rode Indy at TDS. And there's none of this "just paint some stuff and hit it with black light cuz we ran outta moolah" businesseverything is carved and sculpted and 3D and, well, finished. There's also a neat alternative effect before the ball scene that just knocked our socks off.
Back outside, we continued along the path toward Arabian Coast, past two elaborately themed counter-service restaurants, right next to each other! This was another difference we noticed in Tokyo: Not only are there at least twice as many restaurants in the parks, but they are all OPEN! Maybe it's because it was Top Season. But I can't help but think that management at the US parks would never put two counter-service restaurants both serving BBQ fare right next to each other and across the river from a ginormous Mexican restaurant, and then theme them all to the hilt. They'd put in one BBQ/TexMex joint and then only open it after noon, on weekends, in the summer
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Our next stop was Raging Spirits, and off-the-shelf coaster with fabulous curb appeal and not much going on behind the façade, story-wise. People had tried to warn us it was lame, but we had to see it was lame for ourselves. I'm warning you: It's LAME!!!
The most exciting thing about Raging Spirits is the part where they make FIRE burn in WATER!!!
I think I can handle tsunami like rain if it means seeing all the cool stuff you are posting!
