Japan 2016 Day 4: Tokyo Disneysea
One of my big regrets from the last Japan trip was not going to either of the Disneyland parks, I was really shy about going by myself and it was one of the many things I screwed up. But! going by myself wasn't that great of an idea anyway, so lucky for me Tutu really wanted to go to Tokyo Disneysea, so I came along too!
Japan 2016 ~Spring~
Day 0 & 1: THURSDAY
Day 2: Ueno Park, Skytree and Super Robot Spirits 2016
Japan 2016 Day 3, Yokohama: Chinatown, Waterfront & Cosmo World
Day 4: Tokyo Disneysea
Day 5: Nebukawa and the Hakone Disaster
Day 6: Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum & Pacifico Yokohama
Day 7: Odaiba & Tokyo Tower
Day 8: Osaka
Day 9 & 10: Universal Studios Japan & Hometime
All photos can be viewed at full size by clicking!
As this was (still) Golden Week we expected the park to be really, really busy so we tried to pick the best day we could and arrive when the park opened so we could beat the holiday crowds. We got to Maihama station at around 8am to meet up with twissie who is an annual passport holder and knows the park really well, so she was going to show us around and take care of us (because she's awesome like that) plus any excuse to go back to Disneysea is a good one :D We walked along from the station and could start to see A VOLCANO in the distance, which was Mt. Prometheus where the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride was.
Click to view
The first thing you see when you come in is a huge globe with water running down it! it's huge! Another thing that I noticed a lot is seeing (usually girls in pairs) people dressed up identically, it's really cute and some are really creative :DD
There's a hidden Mickey in this last picture, can you see it? :O
Disneysea is celebrating it's 15th year since opening this year, so there's lots of various stuff happening, including the huge boat with the characters on it, and a special parade show on the lake!
You can tell someone really thought about this entranceway when you come into the Mediterranean Harbour area, could anything else look this perfect in real life? Maybe not, but who cares, this is awesome XD
As it was during golden week and it was going to be busy no matter what we did, twissie suggested we pick rides that we really wanted to go on, and we would attempt to get Fastpass times for those, rather than wait for hours for them (very clever 8D). My pick was Indiana Jones and tutu's was Tower of Terror, so off we went to scan our tickets at the Indiana Jones ride on the other side of the park. We walked through the American Waterfront which has A REAL BOAT IN IT (twissie said it's not a real boat ;___;) and walked into Port Discovery, where Elastigirl was! (with her face on this time)
I didn't get a picture taken with her because I was shy and uptight as usual, but I probably should have because getting pics with characters later proved hard with the crowds XD You can see Stormrider in the picture here, it was set to close a couple of weeks after we were there so there was nearly always a long, long line for it so we decided not to go, plus twissie said it wasn't all that great anyway. Soon a Finding Nemo/Dory ride will open in the same building!
We got our fastpass time for Indiana Jones by scanning our tickets in the machines, where they had a TEMPLE OF DOOM lol and some waterfalls on fire for Raging Spirits. We had a bit of time to kill until we could ride, so we headed straight for the Arabian Coast area and went on our first ride since it was only a 5 minute wait at this point.
We lined up for Jasmine's Flying Carpets!! XD so this is my first ever Disney ride, we had a nice short wait with a few cool tiles on the walls like the one above. It's nice how it's Jasmine's ride rather than Aladdin's one, we sat with tututwiss in the front seats and me in the back one. We got little controls for the ride in each seat, I got to control the tilt and tututwiss controlled the up down, it was really short, but also pretty fun! When tututwiss moved up and down I tried to tilt it so it looked like we were flying up, or falling down, it was pretty fun!!! :D
Next we went on Sinbad's Storybook Voyage I bolded that because this ride was my absolute favourite thing about Disneysea! (and maybe the entire trip? ..maybe XD) Ever since I was a kid and knew about Disney, THIS was the kind of ride I had in mind when I wanted to go! I was actually really moved and so in awe but all the amazing & realistic animatronics! There were so many and they all moved by themselves and even looked right at you in some cases!!! It was so incredible, and all the music and effects and everything was so amazing!!! I even heard that this one ride has more animatronics than some entire theme parks, and I can believe it! I nearly cried a little bit too XD this is what Disney magic really is!!! I loved it so much XD
We stayed in Arabian Coast and headed for the Caravan Carousel, since it had a short line and we were still waiting. We got into the line and we went up to the top floor since it's a double deck(!) carousel ride. I got a little horsey and Twissie rode the Genie & Tutu got a cool elephant XD It took a long time to start and was over kind of fast but it was fun!! I probably haven't been on a Carousel ride in 25 years or something, and the view from the top deck was pretty nice :DD
Twiss was checking her phone (she has a lot of super amazing Disneyland apps XD) and it said Indiana Jones had broke down and was closed temporarily, so we went over to see if our fastpasses would still work when it was working again (if it even did!! D:)
This guy and his creepy hands were wandering around on the way out XD
We got there and apparently we could come back later, so we went off to try and find something else to do XD I think this is when we started to come close to our time to get another fastpass ticket, so we crossed the Lost River to go in the general direction of Tower of Terror. But!! Chip & Dale were there! so were Jose Cariocha (he even has a restaurant, lol) and Panchito Pistoles from "The Three Amigos" which I have never seen XD Anyway, Tutu really likes Chip & Dale (mostly Dale I think) so she tried to get a picture with them! .... this was really hard, haha. It seemed like they were going somewhere because cast members were trying to move them along, plus kids were surrounding them too. Even when we gave up and tried Chip, that didn't work either, haha. Maybe we should have tried Jose or Panchito.
One good thing that happened here was I finally found Oswald ears at a shop here!! He's currently my favourite Disney character so I was jealous of everyone else having them, then I saw them and got them! ....unfortunately I tend to lose my mind in places like this, and there are also these large plush character hats and this shop had an Oswald one.....
HI EVERYONE
After we got the fastpass tickets for Tower of Terror, we went to New York Deli for food! This may even have been breakfast for me and tutu as we had to leave so early to get here, but it was about 11am ish so it was nice to finally eat! I think mine was a Mile High something something, it was really nice!!! I think it had chicken in it and some other stuff. We chilled out and rested here for a little while, which was nice after all the walking we had done so far that day. I had switched to Oswald ears on top of my cap since I was getting a bit hot... a few times people waved at me from the street while I was sitting there XD
Speaking of, one of the 15th anniversary shows/parades were happening as we sat there, I took a few quick videos for instagram but didn't upload them at the time.
We walked up through the volcano and to the back of it was a lake with the Nautilus! It was the same copper design from the 1950's movie 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and there was a ride for it nearby so we decided to go since Indiana Jones was still down. This line was reaaaally long and took it's toll on my legs, tutu even left the line for a bit and I was worried she wouldn't make it back, but she did!
The volcano also erupted while we were in the line (maybe the second time? XD) but I lost the video, so here is it happening one of the other times :D
This also happened, it's the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride :D
We went into a cave area which was really hot, so I was glad there were water fountains around the line, plus I could play 3DS too :D
Eventually the ride started and it was really cool!! You had a little control lever and a light to look around and it really reminded me of the start of Bioshock, where you're going toward Rapture. I think shirenu would really enjoy this one!! It was definitely one of those rides you could ride multiple times because each little pod had 3 separate views, there was a cool effect at the end of the ride... but there was a little malfunction and we didn't see it well and the audio went out of sync. So, a good excuse to come back later when it was quiet.
Finally! we found out that Indiana Jones was fixed and we could use our fastpass tickets, so off we went! There is a Temple of Doom and stuff from the older movies in it but this was recently remodelled to match the Crystal Skull movie which isn't as bad as it sounds XDD The line area was SO COOL and felt so authentic to the movies, because of all the downtime the fastpass line was really long and we ended up waiting a while, but we got to see the cool decorations on the way!
When we got to the ride it was the same car that Shia LaBeouf had the sword fight on the Crystal Skull... no really, I swear, this was cool XD We had to buckle up, and the cast members checked our belts and off we went :OOOO THIS WAS REALLY GOOD!! it's a fast ride, but not super scary it's more of an exciting ride with tons of cool stuff from all the movies, even if Crystal Skull is the main theme. There's also the huge boulder from the first movie, which is also when the ride takes your picture (if you wanna pose!)
Some attractive ghosts on the ride! This was actually a good pic, even if I had no idea it was being taken. twissie was really cute and tutu looked so happy! Should have bought this one, thinking back XD
But man, what a ride! easily my fav exciting ride I rode in Japan!
When we got into the park twissie used one of her apps to enter our tickets into the lottery for tickets to the Big Band Beat! and we got in! Really close to the front row too, so we arrived for our time (the blur in the picture is the cast member rushing over to tell us to stop taking pics, so please use your imagination!) This was a really great show! also it was my first time seeing a lot of these characters, but weirdly enough the entire show was in english, including the disney characters, so it was just... odd hearing all the original voices I was used to, instead of japanese everything XD The music was great, the dancers were amazing, especially those in the costumes, Mickey was legitimately playing the drums in his costume before doing a huge dance routine, it was really great!!
They did ask for a request during the set, no-one shouted anything so I'm thinking this was on purpose?? I have no idea if it was even possible for them to do one with all the character voices playing XD
We then decided to sit on the ground and wait for the 15th anniversary show! Japan apparently is the only country to do this, everyone else just stands or crowds the barriers waiting for it to start
Here's some more Instagram videos I didn't upload, mostly because the wifi was super congested with all the people XD You can also see my extreme sadness when Pluto dissed me for a high 5, he missed out twissie as well, but got tutu! He also did it to us on the way back :(((((( BOOOOOOOOOO :|
I took tons of pictures of the parade, so here is a bunch.
Pluto! NOOO NOT HERE D:
The story was something like, using the crystal power from everyone visiting (you can buy wands at the entrance and charge up all these crystal points all around the park in 3 colours) so all the characters had different boats with these colours and they were all getting everyone to do a little dance routine to the Disney songs playing to charge these crystals up.. I mean... I tried but it would have been a disaster even if I wasn't holding a camera, the routine was pretty complicated, to be honest XDD
There was all sorts of cool stuff, like jetskiers with kites flying behind them in formation... characters everywhere, especially ones you don't normally see in the park, walking past really closely. I even saw Pinocccio and Gepeto XD
Eventually all the crystals went one colour, so we did it!! and more fireworks and explosions, hahaha. Worth the long wait.
After this I think it was time to go to Tower of Terror, so off we went!
Even though we were in the fastpass line, it did turn out to be a long wait anyway, but the line was really interesting, lots of artefacts and backstory to the owner of the mansion who stole all this stuff from indigenous tribes and cultures, and brought it all back to his house and got rich.... unfortunately for him he took a HAUNTED MASK THAT HATES ELEVATORS D: so we were walked around by a spooky castmember who told us this, then showed us a crashed elevator.... then we got to wait in another line for our elevator :D After a while we got paired up with this loud baseball team or something, and us three. We started going up slowly, then this weird kind of picture appeared... I had no idea this is when you're getting your picture taken, so I'm just sat there like this o___o while the whole baseball team is doing the salute from Attack on Titan XD Speaking of these guys, they were really loud and shouting stuff like YABAII or PAAPAAA when scary stuff happened, I just found this funny but apparently this just made it even scarier for twissie lol. Eventually you get to the top and HOLY SHIT THE WALL OPENS AND YOU CAN SEE OUTSIDE THEN YOU DROP! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH ...IT'S DARK TOO but then it shoots you back up again and you drop even more times SO SCARY, during this time I can hear some woman screaming, SCREAMING SO LOUD to my left.. I wondered who this was! ....turns out it was twissie XDDDD
It was dark now and we had gotten another fastpass for another ride on Indiana Jones, so we stopped at Miguel's El Dorado Cantina for dinner! I had quesadillas, soo goood .. I mean, not spicy at all, this is Disneyland, and it's also Japan XD but good!
We went to Mermaid Lagoon again, this time in the dark, which really changes the park a lot as you can see, I included a daytime pic of it as well XD we didn't really do a lot inside of it, the under the sea part was all kids rides, but tutu got some shopping done for some of her sisters babies and toddlers in the baby shop there (she has a lot of sisters!) Our fastpass time for Indiana Jones was quite late so we walked around this area, even finding some kind of hidden genie in a furnace in the Arabian area. We also rode Sinbad one more time because it was empty, SUPER good!! I enjoyed it a little less because the ride was going a little too fast and the audio was bleeding into each other a little, but tofu pointed out the secret in the ride, Aladdin and Jasmine :D We got onto Indiana Jones quite quickly as well and that was just as fun as the first time!! Now that I knew where the ride takes your photo, I tried for a pose this one (Arnold Schwarzenegger, lol) but the lady in front covered me up entirely with her arms, so you couldn't even see me XD On our way back to the volcano we also went on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea again, I was sat in the same position sadly, but this time the audio worked and we could finally see the cool effect in the final section, so it was worth it XDD
We got back to the Mediterranean area just in time for the end of the fireworks show, and at least we got to see a few Mickey shaped ones XD Twissie also showed us a hidden Mickey in the wall there, which I totally couldn't see for a long time XDDD The ladies did a little shopping in the shops there, but I was feeling so hot and tired I just waited outside. Plus for some reason in shops I can get so stressed out and twitchy that I get so hot.. I don't know XD After we were done shopping we went to the centre plaza (it was just about to close anyway) and saw the 15th anniversary boat again (top image) which looked so much cooler at night XDD
So yes, we had been there from 8am to 10pm, FOURTEEN HOURS XDDD totally worth it, it's also why I'm heading back in September, and seeing Tokyo Disneyland!!!
We went on the Disney Monorail for the short journey to Maihama, but we got on the Gelatoni (the cat that twissie carries) carriage, all of the inside was Gelatoni fur and cat ears were hanging for the hand rails XDD it was so cute and SOFT haha.
We said our goodbyes and tutu and I went back to Kannai for the long walk home, but that was amazing!!!! I'm so happy I finally went to a Disney park, I feel that it's really unlocked something inside me XDDD I want to go again, and I want to visit the american parks one day too! Especially the original Disneyland in California.
Well, in September this year I'll be going to Tokyo Disneyland for 2 days, then Disneysea for one day during my next Japan trip :D
Next entry is tutu & me having a crazy adventure where everything goes wrong in Hakone!!! XDD