The big TD.
Tokyo Disneyland.
Oh my God.
Woke up bright and early. Trained it to Tokyo. Trained from Tokyo to Haitama station.
Walked from Haitama station to...
TOKYO DISNEYLAND!!
Walked through the first gate.
Jogged a little to have our photos taken at the next.
Then slowed back down to a walk to avoid bowling someone over to actually get inside the premises. I reached the conclusion that Tokyo Disneyland has way too much prelude. Just one gate would do, minus the super long walkway beforehand.
But still, they're Disneyland, they can do pretty much whatever they want.
So yeah-- you might have realised by now that we went to Tokyo Disneyland.
Once we gained entry to the realm of Mickey and Co. we kind of wandered around in a daze for a while. Not sure what to do first, where to go first, the decision was made for us when we came upon the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
The line was pretty long, snaking back and forth, but the sign at the entrance claimed that the waiting time was only twenty minutes. SOLD! So we waited for around fifteen minutes before we got onto one of the boats, five minutes earlier than expected.
The ride turned out to be scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie(s), with you floating through them in your little boat. Captain Jack Sparrow made several appearances, always hiding or skulking behind other robot pirates in the attraction. It was very well done-- it's crazy how life-like they can make some of these rides seem.
Near the PotC ride was one called Jungle Cruise. In thr short distance between the two rides, Ben managed to step on the back of a child's leg, who had lagged behind his parents due to being absorbed in some Disney paraphernalia toy. Not hurt, the kid looked a bit scared and ran faster to catch up with his parents.
We spent an hour waiting in line to hop on some little boat with a crazy Japanese girl at the helm, who would squawk and point at things as we drifted down the river, taking photos of robotic animals.
Besides the lady, the ride itself was calm and peaceful, and definitely not worth lining up for more than an hour for.
After finishing the cruise we kind of wandered around for a bit, eventually finding our way to the Disney castle situated in the center of the place.
As we walked in front of the castle, Ben managed to trip up a little boy, who fell flat on his face onto the concrete and started crying. His mum rushed over, checked his nose, saw no blood, I apologised profusely on Ben's behalf and we moved on.
Next stop: Space Mountain. Every ride has an estimated waiting time at the start of each queue.
Space Mountain had a particularly lengthy time of two hours. Still, how many times are we gonna go to Tokyo Disneyland in our lives? Once. That's how many.
For a one off thing, you don't mind spending that long waiting in line, especially when there's so much to see around you. I was so glad they had the lines undercover, as the sun was being vile today.
Approximately two hours later: Space Mountain!
Humans are funny creatures. I can't think of any other creature who would wait in uncomfortable conditions for two hours, just to experience three minutes of "turbulent, high-speed roller-coaster attraction".
So we rode Space Mountain. Wow. That is all. Go to Disneyland, do it. Fun.
Nothing further.
We tried a lemon and sugar churro (Spanish donut) on our way from Space Mountain to Toon
Town. Toon Town mainly has rides for younger kids, but also has a fair few souvenir shops, so we browsed their wares then moved on to to Small World attraction.
I think Ben and I were the oldest people not escorting children on the ride. But who the hell cares when you're at Disneyland, right? Right? ...
Obviously aimed at children, the ride has It's a Small World playing over and over and over, and by the end of the ride you swear you became a little more racist from seeing all the kids in their stereotypical lives. I'm sure not all Hawaiian kids hula, nor do all French kids walk on tight-ropes. And I'm pretty certain the Bulgarian kids don't all have mono-brows...
Okay, okay, maybe the mono-brow part was a lie, but the rest of it wasn't. I know the whole thing is meant to display how different each culture is, and it's meant for kids, but come on-- the Japanese will believe anything provided a big company tells them so.
Uh, straying from the point. Cue bright, flashy photographs as a distraction!
Afterescaping exiting the Small World attraction(?), we saw another huge line we could stand in. Yay! This one was for the Haunted House. Because of the lack of light, and the no flash 
photography permitted, we could only get photographs of the entrance to the ride, which has some awesome looking griffin statues glare down at you from their perch on either side of the gate.
After another long wait in the queue, being eyed-off by some creepy looking Indian guys, we gained access to the Haunted House. WooooOOOOOOooooooo...
At first I thought it was going to be really lame, as we were lead into a room where some voice-over spoke Japanese in a wannabe-creepy voice, but then the roof rose up, seemingly by magic, continuing up and up, and the walls grew with it, and so did the paintings.
Then we moved to another room, and hopped into these little pods that carried two people per pod. There was a continuous line of pods, with an escalator traveling along next to them in the "loading" area at the same speed they moved at, so it was easy to just hop into your pod.
The pods swivelled and glided through the house, where we saw graveyards and ghouls and ghosts and holograms (fancy stuff!) and giant spiders in giant webs and skeletons. It was all really well done, and in the end I enjoyed it.
All of these fun and games makes for two hungry 21year-olds, so off to get some lunch: Disney buffet style!
At $25 a head we figured the food was going to be alright, but really, it was quite poor. A lot of the food was cold, or dry, and some of it just tastes plain bad. *glares as spring rolls*
But, the dessert bar came to the rescue, with an abundance of cakes and sweets to enjoy. The coconut mousse was like consuming fluffy tropical goodness, and there was some butter thing with burnt sugar on top which was superb. The only real let down dessert-wise was the Mexican chocolate cake. Not sure why the chefs here think a Mexican chocolate cake would be appetising. Like, at all.
As we devoured assorted foodstuffs, a parade went by outside. Giant floats of Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Aladdin, Cinderella and crew all trundled by to the cheering and applause of the crowd. We were still halfway through our lunch, so could only watch from the window, but we were told there would be another parade later in the evening, so all good.
Bellies full, it was time to find the next attraction. We crossed the boundary into Critter Country
to line up for Splash Mountain. Is it just me, or does Disneyland have a lot of mountains? Anyway, much lining up and being stared at my Japanese kids. Living around Tokyo you'd think they'd have seen their fair share of foreigners, but apparently not!
An hour and a half later: ride time! Splash Mountain is a flume ride, and as the name suggests, involves some form of splashing. Previous to the big splash, your flume-boat drifts around a series of caves, with animals dressed as people talking to you as you pass them. Bright scenes, banjo playing in the background, get lifted up, up, up, pause for a second or two and then... you... go...
Jogged a little to have our photos taken at the next.
Then slowed back down to a walk to avoid bowling someone over to actually get inside the premises. I reached the conclusion that Tokyo Disneyland has way too much prelude. Just one gate would do, minus the super long walkway beforehand.
But still, they're Disneyland, they can do pretty much whatever they want.
So yeah-- you might have realised by now that we went to Tokyo Disneyland.
Once we gained entry to the realm of Mickey and Co. we kind of wandered around in a daze for a while. Not sure what to do first, where to go first, the decision was made for us when we came upon the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
The line was pretty long, snaking back and forth, but the sign at the entrance claimed that the waiting time was only twenty minutes. SOLD! So we waited for around fifteen minutes before we got onto one of the boats, five minutes earlier than expected.The ride turned out to be scenes from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie(s), with you floating through them in your little boat. Captain Jack Sparrow made several appearances, always hiding or skulking behind other robot pirates in the attraction. It was very well done-- it's crazy how life-like they can make some of these rides seem.
Near the PotC ride was one called Jungle Cruise. In thr short distance between the two rides, Ben managed to step on the back of a child's leg, who had lagged behind his parents due to being absorbed in some Disney paraphernalia toy. Not hurt, the kid looked a bit scared and ran faster to catch up with his parents.We spent an hour waiting in line to hop on some little boat with a crazy Japanese girl at the helm, who would squawk and point at things as we drifted down the river, taking photos of robotic animals.
Besides the lady, the ride itself was calm and peaceful, and definitely not worth lining up for more than an hour for.
After finishing the cruise we kind of wandered around for a bit, eventually finding our way to the Disney castle situated in the center of the place.
As we walked in front of the castle, Ben managed to trip up a little boy, who fell flat on his face onto the concrete and started crying. His mum rushed over, checked his nose, saw no blood, I apologised profusely on Ben's behalf and we moved on.
Next stop: Space Mountain. Every ride has an estimated waiting time at the start of each queue.
Space Mountain had a particularly lengthy time of two hours. Still, how many times are we gonna go to Tokyo Disneyland in our lives? Once. That's how many.For a one off thing, you don't mind spending that long waiting in line, especially when there's so much to see around you. I was so glad they had the lines undercover, as the sun was being vile today.
Approximately two hours later: Space Mountain!
Humans are funny creatures. I can't think of any other creature who would wait in uncomfortable conditions for two hours, just to experience three minutes of "turbulent, high-speed roller-coaster attraction".
So we rode Space Mountain. Wow. That is all. Go to Disneyland, do it. Fun.
Nothing further.
We tried a lemon and sugar churro (Spanish donut) on our way from Space Mountain to Toon
Town. Toon Town mainly has rides for younger kids, but also has a fair few souvenir shops, so we browsed their wares then moved on to to Small World attraction.I think Ben and I were the oldest people not escorting children on the ride. But who the hell cares when you're at Disneyland, right? Right? ...
Obviously aimed at children, the ride has It's a Small World playing over and over and over, and by the end of the ride you swear you became a little more racist from seeing all the kids in their stereotypical lives. I'm sure not all Hawaiian kids hula, nor do all French kids walk on tight-ropes. And I'm pretty certain the Bulgarian kids don't all have mono-brows...
Okay, okay, maybe the mono-brow part was a lie, but the rest of it wasn't. I know the whole thing is meant to display how different each culture is, and it's meant for kids, but come on-- the Japanese will believe anything provided a big company tells them so.
Uh, straying from the point. Cue bright, flashy photographs as a distraction!
After
photography permitted, we could only get photographs of the entrance to the ride, which has some awesome looking griffin statues glare down at you from their perch on either side of the gate.After another long wait in the queue, being eyed-off by some creepy looking Indian guys, we gained access to the Haunted House. WooooOOOOOOooooooo...
At first I thought it was going to be really lame, as we were lead into a room where some voice-over spoke Japanese in a wannabe-creepy voice, but then the roof rose up, seemingly by magic, continuing up and up, and the walls grew with it, and so did the paintings.
Then we moved to another room, and hopped into these little pods that carried two people per pod. There was a continuous line of pods, with an escalator traveling along next to them in the "loading" area at the same speed they moved at, so it was easy to just hop into your pod.
The pods swivelled and glided through the house, where we saw graveyards and ghouls and ghosts and holograms (fancy stuff!) and giant spiders in giant webs and skeletons. It was all really well done, and in the end I enjoyed it.
All of these fun and games makes for two hungry 21year-olds, so off to get some lunch: Disney buffet style!
At $25 a head we figured the food was going to be alright, but really, it was quite poor. A lot of the food was cold, or dry, and some of it just tastes plain bad. *glares as spring rolls*
But, the dessert bar came to the rescue, with an abundance of cakes and sweets to enjoy. The coconut mousse was like consuming fluffy tropical goodness, and there was some butter thing with burnt sugar on top which was superb. The only real let down dessert-wise was the Mexican chocolate cake. Not sure why the chefs here think a Mexican chocolate cake would be appetising. Like, at all.
As we devoured assorted foodstuffs, a parade went by outside. Giant floats of Minnie, Mickey, Donald, Aladdin, Cinderella and crew all trundled by to the cheering and applause of the crowd. We were still halfway through our lunch, so could only watch from the window, but we were told there would be another parade later in the evening, so all good.
Bellies full, it was time to find the next attraction. We crossed the boundary into Critter Country
to line up for Splash Mountain. Is it just me, or does Disneyland have a lot of mountains? Anyway, much lining up and being stared at my Japanese kids. Living around Tokyo you'd think they'd have seen their fair share of foreigners, but apparently not!An hour and a half later: ride time! Splash Mountain is a flume ride, and as the name suggests, involves some form of splashing. Previous to the big splash, your flume-boat drifts around a series of caves, with animals dressed as people talking to you as you pass them. Bright scenes, banjo playing in the background, get lifted up, up, up, pause for a second or two and then... you... go...
Dowwwwwwwwwwwwn.... *splash*
So cool. This is my favourite ride in all of Tokyo Disneyland, and if you don't put your hands in the air when you go down the big drop then there's no point in lining up for all that time. Makes it so much cooler.
Splash Mountain was our last real ride for the day. We lined up for Peter Pan's flight (not so fantastic), then fluffed around a bit until night fell and a really, really bad American voice-over sent out the announcement that the "Tokyo Disneyland Starlight Dreams stage show will be starting in fifteen minutes".
By the time we made it to Cinderella's castle, the closest we could get the the main stage was about 70m back. That's the problem with Asian theme parks-- so many people. Craziness. But, all good-- we could still see. Took some video (which is way to big to upload on here), face-palmed over some of the corny lyrics the Disney characters sang as they gallivanted around the arena, and amazed at the huge jets of fire and water that were used for dramatic effect throughout the presentation.
The entire Starlight Dreams thing went for about half an hour, and the next parade started at 9:05, so we had time to grab a quick snack and a drink, then back to the path circling Sleeping Beauty's castle to snag a good seat before the crowds settled. Turns out the crowds had already settled, but we still managed to get an awesome spot.
Because it was so late, this parade was different from the others... It was the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: Dreamlights parade. Not quite sure what they meant by that, until we saw the first floats.
Photos will explain better than I can.
After the super cheery light parade, we spent an hour perusing some more souvenir shops (Disneyland has a lot of souvenir shops), bought some crazy hats and a couple of small things, then public transported it home.
All-in-all a great day, even if we did spend most of it waiting in queues. Another experience crossed off the list and added to the memory bank.
Splash Mountain was our last real ride for the day. We lined up for Peter Pan's flight (not so fantastic), then fluffed around a bit until night fell and a really, really bad American voice-over sent out the announcement that the "Tokyo Disneyland Starlight Dreams stage show will be starting in fifteen minutes".
By the time we made it to Cinderella's castle, the closest we could get the the main stage was about 70m back. That's the problem with Asian theme parks-- so many people. Craziness. But, all good-- we could still see. Took some video (which is way to big to upload on here), face-palmed over some of the corny lyrics the Disney characters sang as they gallivanted around the arena, and amazed at the huge jets of fire and water that were used for dramatic effect throughout the presentation.The entire Starlight Dreams thing went for about half an hour, and the next parade started at 9:05, so we had time to grab a quick snack and a drink, then back to the path circling Sleeping Beauty's castle to snag a good seat before the crowds settled. Turns out the crowds had already settled, but we still managed to get an awesome spot.
Because it was so late, this parade was different from the others... It was the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade: Dreamlights parade. Not quite sure what they meant by that, until we saw the first floats.
Photos will explain better than I can.
All-in-all a great day, even if we did spend most of it waiting in queues. Another experience crossed off the list and added to the memory bank.
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