We left Toontown and headed for Pooh's Hunny Hunt in Fantasyland. On the way we passed another mini-parade that we had seen part of earlier in the day. I think it was Minnie's Tiara of Dreams. It had floats with all the princesses on them and I think at the end all the floats came together to form a tiara.
Anyway, onto Pooh's Hunny Hunt!
This was, without a doubt, my favorite ride at Tokyo
Disneyland. First off, the exterior and queue for the ride are amazing.
This is the exterior facing Fantasyland.
Here's the first part of the queue that has Christopher Robin's "workshop" or something.
Here's the second part of the queue:
Here are the ride cars, little hunny pots:
We all loved this ride. It's VERY different than The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, much more high tech. I won't post any spoilers here, and I didn't take any pictures inside the ride. BUT there is a full video of the ride on
Youtube and wikipedia gives a good description. The pots move around very fast at times and they don't run on tracks - they just slide around kind of like hovercraft, except touching the ground. According to wikipedia the pots use a "local positioning system" that is very very expensive, and Disney has planned a Beauty and the Beast ride for the US using this technology, but it's unclear whether construction will go forward. I LOVED Pooh's Hunny Hunt and I also loved hearing Pooh and Tigger speak Japanese!
We were exhilirated by Pooh and explored the dump shop. Asami bought a pair of Pooh ears. See, the ride is *that* inspiring!
It was getting close to 5:15 pm by this point, so we decided to go over to the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall to beat the dinner crowds. I was so excited about this place. The theming lived up to my expectations, but the food did not. Here's some photos from inside:
The place was like a K&W cafeteria - you slid your tray down a line and picked out stuff you wanted.
Again, everyone's food was bad, and I didn't take pictures of it. It was also expensive, and the drink was very very small with no refills. A bit of cultural superiority started to slink in and kept thinking "IN FLORIDA I WOULDN'T STILL BE THIRSTY, and the food would be good!" Oh well I didn't come to Tokyo Disney for the food. The ambience of Queen of Hearts was worth it. Even DH kept saying, "This place is so well-done."
Here's the view from our table. Apparently all the kids were out clogging the ride lines:
We sat around the restaurant, killing time till our BTMRR fastpass return time and staying warm (it was getting flat-out cold by this point). Finally it was about 6 pm, and time to venture over to BTM.
This is what we saw when we walked out of Queen of Hearts.
By this point I had made myself look like a complete moron in an effort to keep warm.
We made it over to BTM. Here's a not so good picture of it at night. Sorry for the poor quality of the nighttime pictures!
BTM was great as always. It was the same as WDW from what I could tell. We then headed over to Adventureland to kill time until the Winter Magic in the Sky Fireworks at 8:30. We decided to do the Tiki Room, and that was pretty fun. Again, very cute to hear the birds singing in Japanese. After that we went into Cafe Orleans and each had a crepe. I had banana, and stupidly I didn't get a photo. I was too cold. You would think a crepe would be warm, but this one wasn't. It was a whole banana in a crepe-like taco with some chocolate sauce drizzled on it.
After the crepe, we decided to walk over to World Bazaar and do some shopping. On the way there we passed Pirates of the Caribbean and ...WHAT? IT WAS OPEN!!! AND ONLY HAD A FIVE MINUTE WAIT!! WHOOHOO! We ran inside. Here's the boats at the entrance:
We got in our boat and passed by the area here the Blue Bayou Restaurant overlooks Pirates. Curiously, nobody was in the restaurant.
If I recall correctly the ride was like the Old Disneyland one. No Captain Jack updates here. Sniff. But this ride is definitely longer than Pirates at WDW, and it was fun. I was so happy to have apparently caught it when it just opened back up.
After that it was time till kill about an hour until Winter Magic in the Sky. I was already disappointed that "Electrical Parade Dreamlights" wasn't happening tonight (not sure why but it said "cancelled" on the event schedule flyer), so I thought Winter Magic had better be good!
We walked towards the castle and the lights that were part of "Cinderellabration: Lights of Romance" were on. They were so pretty. You can't tell from the picture, but they slowly changed patterns and colors.
We walked around the lights and there was a little show going on where a guy dressed up in medieval gear (NOT the prince) runs around with a glass slipper trying to put it on girls' feet. Pretty cute even though I couldn't understand what they were saying.
We were FREEZING by this point so we basically loitered in the Penny Arcade right inside World Bazaar waiting for Winter Magic in the Sky. Finally, I saw some fireworks go off! YAY! But wait a minute, there's no music, and these fireworks aren't even behind the castle.
Then...that was it. What the fetch??? They did make an announcement but we couldn't hear it. I can only guess the fireworks were cancelled due to wind...a very depressing turn of events that unfortunately would happen again the next night!!!!
Well, it was time to hang it up. Asami took the train back home and DH and I decided to take the bus back to Shinjuku station. This was a big mistake. The lines for the bus were very long and it was freezing cold. And the bus dropped us off in a place where we had no idea how to get back to our hotel (Shinjuku station is enormous). So then we had to walk around in the miserable windy cold for half an hour. But soon we were home and ready to get some good sleep in preparation for our day at DisneySea the next morning!
In sum, I really liked Tokyo Disneyland and very much want to go back, especially so I can see the Dreamlights Parade and the fireworks! As you can see we hardly even got to Tomorrowland - didn't attempt to do StarTours or MicroAdventure (aka Honey I Shrunk the Audience). Pooh's Hunny Hunt was amazing. I want to go back at Halloween because from what I've seen online they really deck the park out. I also want to ride Space Mountain there. It's closed till October so I'm wondering if they're turning it into Space Mountain: Mission 2 like at Disneyland Paris!
UP NEXT - Tokyo DisneySea! The next installment might take a day or so as I have to upload photos.
Very different people - very nice, but let's just say we had alot of personal experiences like your Stitch story. If we think about their History, we can understand.
Thank god for McDonalds!!! Shame on me huh???
That is so cool that you spent three years in Okinawa. I'd love to go there, it looks beautiful. 
) I can't wait to show him the photos. Oh and those costumes in the parade are fantastic! Can't wait for disneysea. The colors are all so vibrant.
As far as comparisons to other Disney parks, I'll elaborate in my upcoming installments. 
