Tokyo Disneyland?

[Pezalicious]

Hi everyone,

I'm not sure where to post this, but I was wondering if anyone's been to Tokyo Disneyland?

I'm planning very far in advance (April '09), but for our honeymoon, my future-hubby and I will be going to Japan and I want to squeeze in a mini-Disneymoon there. Since it's so costly just getting to Japan, I really want to maximize each day there, which means spending only 1 or 2 days at Disney. There are 2 parks, 1 very similar to Disneyland (but prettier and with a few different attractions), and then there's DisneySea. Does anyone know if DisneySea takes up an entire day? If not, I might try doing DisneySea and then running over to Disneyland to take a look around and try one of the different attractions.

Also, does anyone have any tips for maximizing time at those parks? I haven't found much information, so I feel lost when it comes to Disney for the very first time. At least they have fast pass and I'm pretty good with that system. I just hope it works the same there!

 

[bumbershoot]

There is someone on the Disneyland Picture of the Day thread who has been posting awesome pictures from Tokyo Disneyland.

There is a wonderful trip report...not in this forum, but I think over in the specific Trip Reports forum.

Honestly, from seeing pictures of DisneySea, I'd spend days and days there... It's beyond a one-day park, as far as I can tell, it's incredible.

I've also seen discussion of it on another message board, micechat.

Hubby and I almost went to Korea for our honeymoon, and we were going to jump over to Tokyo for a few days...nowadays when we talk about visiting his relatives in Seoul we talk about a HUGE trip, with that, then Disney in Tokyo and Hong Kong as well. We figure...hey, we're already over there, right?

 

[bumbershoot]

Someone mentioned their photo site for disneysea on one of the threads about the park: http://homepage.mac.com/imagetechphoto/disney/tokyodisneysea/

 

[bumbershoot]

And here is the trip report. It includes both Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea.

I love how open she is about things that were difficult, like the food being sooooo different than what your usual American is used to. Though I read it to my husband and he's drooling over black pepper popcorn, and curry popcorn. And of course the portions are much smaller as well...large drinks being the size of "our" smalls, and such.

I like an honest report that like that.

Hope that helps.

 

[mla1977]

Hi Pez! Nope I'm not stalking you. Me and DBF will be going to DLR in February, so I just started looking at these pages recently. Have you ever heard of the Meandering Mouse Podcast. He took a trip to DL Tokyo and DisneySea last year and he has some really good podcasts about the trip. I would suggest checking it out for more info. I think I would also do 3 days at the parks. You could probably see a lot more that way.

PS. My B-day was last Friday and there was no ring for me.

 

[Pezalicious]

Oh wow! Thank you so so much! I can't wait to read that trip report and go through all those photos (there are so many!). Now I'm even more excited about this trip. With all the time I have to plan, it'll be as close to perfection and I can achieve. I hope you're able to make that big Korea/Japan trip work out!!



mla - great to see you here! I think I agree about 3 days. I don't want to be rushed and I'm such a huge Disney fan, I think I would regret coming home and not getting to see everything because I cut my time short. I'm sorry to hear you didn't get a ring on your birthday. I remember the 'warning' your mom gave you before about 3 months.. it's not quite up yet, right? Maybe your surprise is still on the way! Plus Valentine's Day is coming up, so that's another opportunity. He's probably waiting for the perfect moment.

 

[mla1977]

Yup. My mom's "warning" was simply "2008" - not very specific though! I went with BFF and found a dress at the beginning of December and then I brought mom when she came to visit 2 weeks ago. I told her I wasn't expecting anything, hadn't talked about anything, etc, etc. She bought it for me though! She would have told me the surprise then and there if I wanted her to. Maybe he is waiting for Valentines or even in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle.... I'll keep you updated!

 

[CriminyCrafft]

YES, I've been to Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea. They're both AMAZING, well worth the trip to Tokyo alone. I'm probably going back there this summer. I absolutely loved it. Check out my Tokyo Disney trip report in my sig below!!!

I hope you get to go!!!

 

[CriminyCrafft]

Does anyone know if DisneySea takes up an entire day? If not, I might try doing DisneySea and then running over to Disneyland to take a look around and try one of the different attractions.

Also, does anyone have any tips for maximizing time at those parks? I haven't found much information, so I feel lost when it comes to Disney for the very first time. At least they have fast pass and I'm pretty good with that system. I just hope it works the same there!

SORRY, I accidentally hit post before I was done answering your questions. DisneySea definitely takes a whole day. First off, Japanese people LOVE Disney and I think no matter when you go you will find the parks very crowded. I went in March and it was PACKED.

DisneySea is really the most amazing Disney park I've been to. It's incredibly breathtaking and beautiful. I found Tokyo Disneyland to be very different than Disneyland California, more in terms of the general feel of it. The parade is different, the shows are different, the snacks/food are different, a lot of other things are different. AND it has Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the coolest and best Disney dark ride ever! There is so much to see and do at DisneySea - I could have spent hours just wandering around. I was only at each park one day and I felt totally cheated. Hence, the need for a second, extended trip this summer.

To maximize time, get there a full hour before the parks open and haul some serious tail over to the big name attractions - Tower of Terror in DisneySea and Pooh's Hunny Hunt in DL - and get fastpasses. Then go on to Journey to the Center of the Earth in DisneySea and BTMRR or Splash Mountain in DL (this seemed to be the most crowded rides there). Try to go during the week so that hopefully crowds will be less. Fastpass does work the same there, to my knowledge.

ALSO - take note that TDR does NOT do park hopper passes. The best you can do is to get a three day passport that allows you to visit one park the first day, a second park the second day, and then park hop on the third day.

If you want to do Tokyo Disney right, I would do four days in the parks and stay onsite or at an "official" hotel. It's really a nightmare to get to Disney from central Tokyo - the subway or bus ride will be at least an hour and you'll be fighting crowds the whole way. I really hope you get the full experience there - it's such an amazing, magical place. The CMs are very very friendly too.

I also read the whole thread and saw that someone posted a link to my TR. Glad to know folks still remember it! Hope you like it.

If you have any other questions, please PM me. I'm so excited you get to go to TDR!!!! I promise you will love it!!!

 

[bumbershoot]

I also read the whole thread and saw that someone posted a link to my TR. Glad to know folks still remember it! Hope you like it.

That's me! Because of your report, in Disneyland this trip I noticed that they are making ear headbands (might have been before but I never noticed them).

 

[CriminyCrafft]

That's me! Because of your report, in Disneyland this trip I noticed that they are making ear headbands (might have been before but I never noticed them).

Sorry to hijack - but whoohoo! I'm going to Disneyland March 12-17 - I better pack my Stitch ears!

 

[1Robins]

Pezalicious,

We did a 2 week tour of Japan during my kids Spring Break (2007) and I planned our trip to end with Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea.

If you only have 2 days at the resort, I would definitely plan on spending most of your time at Disney Sea. It's such a great park! My son (15 yrs) really liked to park. It has a nautical theme and the different areas are refered to as Ports (as oppose to lands). Disneyland was fine, it's a small park compared to Anaheim. Honestly, I didn't find anything really different from DLR or the Magic Kingdomin WDW. However, keep in mind that we only had 1/2 day to whip thru that park, and I was really cold and wanted to just go back to our hotel.

We had a fabulous time in Japan and wanted to end it on a good note, so we stayed at the Mira Costa Hotel. What a beautiful hotel! It has an Italian Villa theme to it, but more importantly, it's located right next to Disney Sea and has it's own seperate entrace to the park. I knew when we were planning this trip that we would spend most of our time at Disney Sea.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I do encourge you to go to Mousesavers.com and go to other vacations and read the extremely detail report on Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea. This is what I used to plan out my vacation to the parks.

A quick note on some differences (food and souvenirs) between the Tokyo Disney resorts and the American Disney resorts.

First, I think someone else mentioned the different flavor popcorn that they sell at both parks. It really is amazing how long the lines are to buy the different flavor popcorns: curry, blackpepper,strawberry etc... The one thing my teenage daughter loved was the cute buckets the popcorn came in: buzz lightyear rocket, princess theme with a crown, tigger bucket etc... I have to admit the buckets were pretty cute. We did buy some popcorn (strawberry and carmel) only because my daughter wanted to use the buckets as a lunch box (keep in mind she was already a Senior in High School at the time of the trip).

The second observation I had was about the souvenirs they sold at the parks. As I mentioned early in this thread, it was really cold toward the end of our trip. I planned on buying sweat shirt to layer underneath my coat. However, they don't sell a lot of clothing at the parks. What they do sell is a lot of phone charms (they sell them here in the US, but it's not that popular) and packaged food (cookies, crackers, etc..). The Japanese are very much into presentation, so the food is always packed into beautiful and/or cute boxes/containers. It's obvious, that people buy these as gifts.

Anyway, as I mentioned, go to Mousesavers.com and read the trip report for Tokyo Disney/Disney Sea. You'll get a ton of info from it.

Have fun planning your trip!!!

 

[1Robins]

Pezalicious,

We did a 2 week tour of Japan during my kids Spring Break (2007) and I planned our trip to end with Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea.

If you only have 2 days at the resort, I would definitely plan on spending most of your time at Disney Sea. It's such a great park! My son (15 yrs) really liked to park. It has a nautical theme and the different areas are refered to as Ports (as oppose to lands). Disneyland was fine, it's a small park compared to Anaheim. Honestly, I didn't find anything really different from DLR or the Magic Kingdomin WDW. However, keep in mind that we only had 1/2 day to whip thru that park, and I was really cold and wanted to just go back to our hotel.

We had a fabulous time in Japan and wanted to end it on a good note, so we stayed at the Mira Costa Hotel. What a beautiful hotel! It has an Italian Villa theme to it, but more importantly, it's located right next to Disney Sea and has it's own seperate entrace to the park. I knew when we were planning this trip that we would spend most of our time at Disney Sea.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I do encourge you to go to Mousesavers.com and go to other vacations and read the extremely detail report on Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea. This is what I used to plan out my vacation to the parks.

A quick note on some differences (food and souvenirs) between the Tokyo Disney resorts and the American Disney resorts.

First, I think someone else mentioned the different flavor popcorn that they sell at both parks. It really is amazing how long the lines are to buy the different flavor popcorns: curry, blackpepper,strawberry etc... The one thing my teenage daughter loved was the cute buckets the popcorn came in: buzz lightyear rocket, princess theme with a crown, tigger bucket etc... I have to admit the buckets were pretty cute. We did buy some popcorn (strawberry and carmel) only because my daughter wanted to use the buckets as a lunch box (keep in mind she was already a Senior in High School at the time of the trip).

The second observation I had was about the souvenirs they sold at the parks. As I mentioned early in this thread, it was really cold toward the end of our trip. I planned on buying sweat shirt to layer underneath my coat. However, they don't sell a lot of clothing at the parks. What they do sell is a lot of phone charms (they sell them here in the US, but it's not that popular) and packaged food (cookies, crackers, etc..). The Japanese are very much into presentation, so the food is always packed into beautiful and/or cute boxes/containers. It's obvious, that people buy these as gifts.

Anyway, as I mentioned, go to Mousesavers.com and read the trip report for Tokyo Disney/Disney Sea. You'll get a ton of info from it.

Have fun planning your trip!!!

 

[1Robins]

Sorry, I accidently posted my thread twice.

 

[Pezalicious]

SORRY, I accidentally hit post before I was done answering your questions. DisneySea definitely takes a whole day. First off, Japanese people LOVE Disney and I think no matter when you go you will find the parks very crowded. I went in March and it was PACKED.

DisneySea is really the most amazing Disney park I've been to. It's incredibly breathtaking and beautiful. I found Tokyo Disneyland to be very different than Disneyland California, more in terms of the general feel of it. The parade is different, the shows are different, the snacks/food are different, a lot of other things are different. AND it has Pooh's Hunny Hunt, the coolest and best Disney dark ride ever! There is so much to see and do at DisneySea - I could have spent hours just wandering around. I was only at each park one day and I felt totally cheated. Hence, the need for a second, extended trip this summer.

To maximize time, get there a full hour before the parks open and haul some serious tail over to the big name attractions - Tower of Terror in DisneySea and Pooh's Hunny Hunt in DL - and get fastpasses. Then go on to Journey to the Center of the Earth in DisneySea and BTMRR or Splash Mountain in DL (this seemed to be the most crowded rides there). Try to go during the week so that hopefully crowds will be less. Fastpass does work the same there, to my knowledge.

ALSO - take note that TDR does NOT do park hopper passes. The best you can do is to get a three day passport that allows you to visit one park the first day, a second park the second day, and then park hop on the third day.

If you want to do Tokyo Disney right, I would do four days in the parks and stay onsite or at an "official" hotel. It's really a nightmare to get to Disney from central Tokyo - the subway or bus ride will be at least an hour and you'll be fighting crowds the whole way. I really hope you get the full experience there - it's such an amazing, magical place. The CMs are very very friendly too.

I also read the whole thread and saw that someone posted a link to my TR. Glad to know folks still remember it! Hope you like it.

If you have any other questions, please PM me. I'm so excited you get to go to TDR!!!! I promise you will love it!!!

Thank you so much for the tips! I talked with my boyfriend and cleared 3 days for the two parks, so I'm really excited now! We'll definitely stay at a hotel on property, or at least really close. Getting around in Tokyo kind of panics me right now because it sounds like it's so easy to get lost. It doesn't help that my guide book gives directions like 'Take a left at the KFC, go 3 blocks and take a right at the white and teal awnings, the ryokan is the illegible kanji on the left.' Are they joking?!!!

I'm so glad you shared your trip with everyone on these boards. It sounded amazing and it's only added to my excitement about getting to go. I'm more excited about my honeymoon than my wedding day!!


I looked up the rate calendar for the hotels and it looks like when you went was considered Top - pretty much as busy as they get. The last week of March and the first week of April are both Top, but the 2nd week of April goes all the way down to value. We're hoping to do 3 days, all mid-week, unless we have to do one Friday for some fireworks.

 

[Pezalicious]

Something's wrong with my computer or DIS or both.. I keep double posting.

 

[Pezalicious]

Pezalicious,

We did a 2 week tour of Japan during my kids Spring Break (2007) and I planned our trip to end with Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea.

If you only have 2 days at the resort, I would definitely plan on spending most of your time at Disney Sea. It's such a great park! My son (15 yrs) really liked to park. It has a nautical theme and the different areas are refered to as Ports (as oppose to lands). Disneyland was fine, it's a small park compared to Anaheim. Honestly, I didn't find anything really different from DLR or the Magic Kingdomin WDW. However, keep in mind that we only had 1/2 day to whip thru that park, and I was really cold and wanted to just go back to our hotel.

We had a fabulous time in Japan and wanted to end it on a good note, so we stayed at the Mira Costa Hotel. What a beautiful hotel! It has an Italian Villa theme to it, but more importantly, it's located right next to Disney Sea and has it's own seperate entrace to the park. I knew when we were planning this trip that we would spend most of our time at Disney Sea.

I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but I do encourge you to go to Mousesavers.com and go to other vacations and read the extremely detail report on Tokyo Disney and Disney Sea. This is what I used to plan out my vacation to the parks.

A quick note on some differences (food and souvenirs) between the Tokyo Disney resorts and the American Disney resorts.

First, I think someone else mentioned the different flavor popcorn that they sell at both parks. It really is amazing how long the lines are to buy the different flavor popcorns: curry, blackpepper,strawberry etc... The one thing my teenage daughter loved was the cute buckets the popcorn came in: buzz lightyear rocket, princess theme with a crown, tigger bucket etc... I have to admit the buckets were pretty cute. We did buy some popcorn (strawberry and carmel) only because my daughter wanted to use the buckets as a lunch box (keep in mind she was already a Senior in High School at the time of the trip).

The second observation I had was about the souvenirs they sold at the parks. As I mentioned early in this thread, it was really cold toward the end of our trip. I planned on buying sweat shirt to layer underneath my coat. However, they don't sell a lot of clothing at the parks. What they do sell is a lot of phone charms (they sell them here in the US, but it's not that popular) and packaged food (cookies, crackers, etc..). The Japanese are very much into presentation, so the food is always packed into beautiful and/or cute boxes/containers. It's obvious, that people buy these as gifts.

Anyway, as I mentioned, go to Mousesavers.com and read the trip report for Tokyo Disney/Disney Sea. You'll get a ton of info from it.

Have fun planning your trip!!!

That's a really interesting note about the souvenirs. I'm actually kind of disappointed because my souvenirs tend to be stuff I can wear. Hopefully I'll find something (and hopefully they have clothes that will fit a normal, American girl! ).

I was drooling over pictures of MiraCosta. What a GORGEOUS hotel!! I doubt we'll be able to stay there, but I'm not giving up hope yet. We'll have to see how much money we have saved when the date gets closer. If not this time, then I'll just have an excuse to go back.

 

[Pezalicious]

Double post! Oopsies!