Day 2 - Tokyo DisneySea
We woke up earlier the next morning (around 5:30) and hurried to get out the door in hopes of beating the crowds at DisneySea. We took the same trains to Maihama station, and this time it was much easier since we knew where to go and there were no accidents on the tracks! There were definitely less people on the train to Disney this early, but there were still enough to make me worry. You could tell exactly who was headed to Disney on the train - groups of giggling teenagers, mostly girls.
We got off at Maihama station and waited a few minutes for Asami to show up. When she arrived we hurried to find the monorail station. Tokyo
Disneyland is a short walk from the station, but you have to take the monorail (or, as they call it, the "Resort Line") to get to DisneySea. We took a left instead of a right immediately after exiting the station and easily found the monorail. It's right near a shopping complex called Ikspiari. We just got to peek inside Ikspiari but it looked very upscale.
***Side Note: There's a big
Disney store called Bon Voyage located outside Tokyo Disneyland and they will ship your purchases home for you. I'm asking my DH to call them and see if they'll ship stuff here for my upcoming birthday - we'll see how that goes!
I digress! We got to the monorail station and realized we had to buy tickets! They were 200 yen (less than $2) one-way. A pittance, but still! We got our tickets from the machine and headed up the escalator to wait for the monorail. After a minute or so, it showed up.
I just noticed the cute costume on the CM with "Resort Line" printed on his hat. Awwww. The inside of the monorail was also super-cute.
After about a minute on the monorail we saw this:
See Mt. Fuji on the right, almost hidden behind the Disneyland building??? Pretty cool, eh? DH went nuts snapping pictures. He loves Mt. Fuji.
Soon we saw the Tower of Terror. I was sooo excited.
Yes, those are throngs of teenagers waiting to buy tickets near the bottom of the picture!
DisneySea backs right up to Tokyo Bay, and the monorail ride is very scenic.
We hopped off the monorail, which almost puts you right at the entrance of DisneySea. It was about 7:45 by this point, so we were only 15 minutes early for opening. There was already a pretty small cluster of people at the gates, compared to the swarms we ran into at Tokyo Disneyland the day before. I'd estimate there were about 250 people there before us in line.
So, 8 am came and went, and the gates didn't open. What the heck. I soon realized I'D GOT THE OPENING TIME WRONG. DISNEYSEA OPENED AT NINE! It's a good thing I did get it wrong because otherwise half the country would have been in front of us. By 8:30 am the line of people behind us stretched back farther than I could see (way past the ticket booth). We waited for what seemed like forever in the cold, fidgeting to stay warm, when...I saw Minnie, Mickey, and Goofy dancing around inside the park on the other side of the gates! YAY! They came over to the gates and were basically taunting us from inside the park!
Minnie and Mickey had on sailor suits, and Goofy had on what looked like an 80s outfit - shorts, colorful short-sleeve button down, and a cap with those 80s cloth panels hanging down the back! I kept yelling at DH to get a picture of them but they danced away from our side of the line. Soon an announcement in Japanese came over the loudspeaker, and Asami said the person was repeatedly saying "DO NOT RUN when the park opens." Finally they started letting people in the park - and NOBODY listened to the announcement! Teenagers were running IN THRONGS to the left in the direction of Tower of Terror! We also realized there was ANOTHER ENTRANCE opposite ours, and teenagers were pouring out of both entrances! Oh noooooo - so much for my fantasies of being first in line! We finally got inside the park.
That big globe is called the Aquasphere, apparently.
***Aside: A little orientation is in order. DisneySea is divided into several "ports," clockwise from the entrance:
American Waterfront
Port Discovery
Lost River Delta
Arabian Coast
Mermaid Lagoon
Mysterious Island
Mediterranean Harbor (right at the entrance)
You can see a map of DisneySea here:
http://www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp/tds/english/attraction_search/index.html
We took a left through the entrance of Mediterranean Harbor and headed towards American Waterfront, where Tower of Terror is located. The area is designed to look like early 1900s New York, and it's just beautiful.
Note Stitch and Pooh in this picture, and throughout the rest of the photos.
There are theaters here for shows (which we didn't get to see) and McDuck's Department Store (which we didn't get to go to). The theming is just spectacular throughout the whole park. I encourage you to look at the detail in the park in all these pictures. I wish I'd had more time to look around and get pictures of every little bit of magic.
Finally we saw it - Tower of Terror!!
I kept saying that I think this is the most beautiful building I've seen in my entire life. Besides Japan, I've only been to Singapore, France, England, and Canada, so I know I haven't seen a lot, but...Tower of Terror is just breathtaking. We ran to the entrance and saw that the wait was already 40 minutes! Oh well, in we go! Unfortunately DH was manning the camera and he didn't get enough pictures of the queue area.
Here's part of the queue:
The storyline of this ride is totally different than the other TOTs - no Twilight Zone business. Here's the blurb copied from the website:
New York, 1912. Since the owner's mysterious disappearance 13 years earlier, Hotel Hightower been called the "Tower of Terror". Now, the New York City Preservation Society has finished restoring the landmark hotel and has started giving tours to the public. But what mysteries might still lie in wait within?
***SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ POTENTIAL SPOILERS ****
The storyline is - a rich dude named Harrison Hightower built the Hotel Hightower and traveled the world collecting rare relics. He swiped a little statue that had special powers from a tribe in Africa. One day the statue basically zapped him away (similar to the way the people in the WDW TOT are zapped away).
The ride is set up as if a New York historical society is giving tours of the hotel. It's very, very cool. There are newspaper articles about Hightower's disappearance posted in the queue. There are some gardens with statutes as well. Here are some photos of the interior:
Soon you are led into a room where you see a little intro, and it's the coolest intro I've ever seen. I still can't figure out how they did part of it!! Here's a picture of the intro room right after the intro.
After that you go through what looks like a storage room with some boxed-up relics, and then you head into the loading room. A CM dressed in a tour guide outfit (no bellhops here) gave a little speech but I couldn't understand any of it since it was in Japanese. I did hear her say "Harrison Hightower" a few times. Then it was on to the elevator! The ride was shorter than the one in WDW but it was tons of fun. I think we had four drops. Overall, I liked the story on this TOT MUCH better - it just makes more sense. The Twilight Zone theme seems almost silly after experiencing DisneySea's TOT. And without a doubt the theming was better than WDW TOT - it was just gorgeous. We were all just staring around in awe, and Disney-curmudgeon DH kept saying "Wow, this place is amazing." (In fact, he kept saying that the whole day.) There are also special effects on the TOT involving green lightning. : ) I watched a ride-through on
Youtube about two months ago, so check that out if you want to see more. I'm very disappointed that we didn't get more, better pictures of the TOT. It was DH's fault - he was handling the camera!! Oh well, next time.
UP NEXT - More American Waterfront, Cape Cod, Port Discovery, and Lost River Delta.
Good luck, and thanks for reading!
