Tokyo DisneySea Trip Report

In 2014, I published a blog post admitting to any and all who might read it that I am a fan of theme parks. In that post, one of the parks I listed as a park I hoped to visit someday was Tokyo DisneySea. On our birthday vacation, that dream was fulfilled. This trip report will include photos from our day at DisneySea, comments on our favorite rides and experiences at the park, bit of advice, and funny encounters from the day.

The theme of this park is completely unique among Disney parks, and distinctly perfect for me, as I have a a long-standing love for boats, oceans, seas, rivers, bridges, pirates, and other things related to bodies of water. I'm not a very good swimmer, but a park that centers around the "sea" seemed like a brilliant idea to me!

Getting There:

We were staying in an apartment very close to Maihama Station, but from there, you still have to take the Disney monorail to get to DisneySea. The cute windows and handles helped make the journey to the park a little extra exciting!

We followed the advice of Tokyo Disney experts and arrived at the park gates well before opening--about an hour before the gates opened, I believe. This put us in a great position in line to get into the park nice and early, and we did join in the mad dash for Toy Story Mania fastpasses as soon as the park opened, though for most of the day, lines generally stayed pretty short and the park, while busy, did not seem overly crowded with people.

Favorite Rides:

The Tower of Terror was Angel's all-time favorite attraction at the park, and we rode it twice throughout the day. He is the type who favors 'falling' rides. I don't particularly enjoying the sensation of falling, but I was willing to go for round 2. I probably appreciate the detail in the lobby of the Hightower Hotel and the special effects telling the story much more than the scary falling aspect. :)

My top favorite ride was Journey to the Center of the Earth. I had no idea what to expect from our journey, but I loved the contrast between the slow, wondrous, look-at-all-the-cool-stuff-around-you parts of the ride combined with the faster, scarier part when you shoot out the side of the volcano. This was another ride that we did twice.

I am of the Toy Story generation. Toy Story 2 was one of the first movies I ever saw in a movie theater, and to this day, the Toy Story movies are about the only animated movies I still think are awesome and good for countless re-watches. My t-shirt for the day was in honor of the Toy Story Mania ride, which was really fun. Sadly, however, I was unable to beat Angel's score

Not a ride, but a major attraction, is the show Big Band Beat. This was Angel's favorite part of the day, and we were lucky enough to score seats via the ticket lottery in the 2nd row from the stage. This show centered on big band music from the 20s to the 40s, which I think was a big part of why we liked the show so much. Our swing dancing hobby means that a lot of the songs in the show are very well-loved by us.

I had to ride Aquatopia by myself, as they were running the "Get Wet!" version of the ride due to the summer heat, and Angel didn't want his precious Asics Gel Kayanos to get wet. (Write this down in history, folks--the boy stayed off the water ride for fashion reasons, while the girl happily got on, makeup, tiara, curls, and all. I'm not saying this was a smart move as far as my hairstyle goes, but it was a very fun ride!)

We have an astonishingly small number of ride-related photos, probably because one tends to not be taking photos while riding thrill rides. The Indiana Jones ride, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Sindbad's Storybook Voyage, and the Venetian Gondolas were other major highlights for me, though we did end up experiencing just about every ride in the park, other than those meant only for kids. 

Food:

We had no intention of spending a long time in restaurants on this park day, so mostly we tried out snacks throughout the day. These were some cute Mickey churros that were quite satisfying.

Our one meal of the day was eaten at the Casbah Food Court. That's right, the gorgeous decor of the photos above is located in a "food court." We had rice, curry, and naan. Considering that we're spoiled with a diet in which curry and naan play a prominent role, the food was nothing thrilling. The curry actually reminded me more of canned curries I've tasted in the USA than anything I eat over here, but it was quite edible, and was a relatively inexpensive, filling meal.

We did give in to the allure of the LGM dumplings. I knew that each cup of three came with three different fillings, but I didn't know what the fillings were. Being jaded by Malaysian desserts, I would have guessed the fillings would be durian, yam, and red bean. Because Angel eats anything, we bought them in spite of the unknown filling factor. Imagine our utter shock when we discovered that the fillings were: vanilla custard, strawberry, and chocolate?!!

Ice cream played a pretty important role in the day, too, as the afternoon hours got pretty warm! We loved the Minnie Raspberry and Peach ice cream so much that we definitely didn't get only one. The Mickey ice cream sandwich was pretty satisfying, too!

 Characters:

 

We didn't purposely make meeting characters a priority at all, but I will say it was pretty awesome when Aladdin skipped right past us in the square, calling out to everyone around, asking if they'd seen Abu. Apparently he'd misplaced him. Fun!

I did stop for a quick picture with Jiminy Cricket when we were walking by. Pinocchio seemed much more popular, and I'm partial to consciences, so it just seemed right.

We saw plenty of characters on stage during the show "A Table is Waiting", which featured dances that seemed to be hailing the virtues of 5 different foods: tacos, hamburgers, curries, bento boxes, and crepes. Angel wasn't too sure how he felt about the taco hats as representative of Mexican food--which leads me to a tale of a funny overheard encounter of the day: While wandering one of the souvenir shops, we walked past a couple. The guy was trying on a pair of Mr. Potato Head glasses and the girl burst out (in English), "You look SOOOO Mexican right now!" Angel turned around instantly and gave me a look and I could barely keep myself from bursting into laughter until we'd reached a safe distance away. For the rest of the trip, I made sure to remind Angel that he, too, could look SOOOOO Mexican if he invested in a pair of Mr. Potato Head glasses.

Also, I actually have no idea what is the connection between Mr. Potato Head and looking Mexican.

Nighttime at the Park:

The park didn't close until 10 p.m. while we were there, which gave us time to watch Fantasmic and then line up for an evening ride on the Venetian Gondolas once it was over. The views from the Gondolas were hauntingly beautiful, expecially considering that were were merely in a themepark at night.

See what I mean?

After the gondola ride, we left the park and headed straight to bed--after all, we had a long day at Tokyo Disneyland planned for the next day!

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Have you been to Tokyo DisneySea or any of the Disney parks around the world? What are your feelings about theme parks in general? Is Mr. Potato Head from Mexico, and if so, why isn't his name Señor Cara de Papa?