Wednesday, April 12
We were up early to take advantage of one of the perks for hotel guests - getting in to the parks before non-hotel guests. Those of you who stay at WDW resorts are likely accustomed to the "extra magic hour" in the morning. Well here, it is fifteen minutes. Yes, you read that correctly. FIFTEEN MINUTES. I surely cannot be the only one who finds that a little strange! Nonetheless, we took the monorail over to Tokyo DisneySea at about 8:30 am to get in line for our 8:45 am entrance time. While fifteen minutes did not seem like much of an advantage, we made a beeline straight for Toy Story Mania and ended up waiting less than twenty minutes instead of the two-plus-hours that the line had grown to by mid-morning.
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| View from our hotel room at about 6:00 am! |
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| A beautiful morning heading to the monorail! |
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| I love the architecture of the monorail station! |
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| View from the platform while waiting for the monorail! |
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| "Happy 15 Entry!" |
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| It's hard to tell from the photo, but there's water running all over the globe! |
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| Tokyo DisneySea |
After TSM, we got fast passes for Tower of Terror and then went to find the Little Green Alien Mochi Dumplings that were on our "must try" list. Each order comes with three dumplings, filled with chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla custard. Hard to describe, but very delicious!
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| What an entrance for an attraction! |
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| Slinky - for obvious reasons! |
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| I'm always all about the accuracy! |
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| Of course! |
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| Love him! |
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| Little Green Alien Mochi Dumplings! |
By the time we finished eating and did some wandering around the park, it was time to return to Tower of Terror. What's interesting about the attractions here is that while they are somewhat familiar, the stories tend to have unique spins on them, and since we do not speak Japanese, it's been fun, and admittedly confusing at times, to not really know what's going on! The story for Tower of Terror is quite different from the WDW version, so we didn't know what to expect; it resulted in a eerily spooky experience. This is not at all a bad thing; it's great to have something completely new to us! The effects were extremely impressive and despite not speaking Japanese, we were able to follow along for the most part!
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| Tower of Terror! |
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| Tower of Terror! |
I decided I needed popcorn to settle my nerves afterwards (I can come up with just about any reason to get popcorn!), so we tried the herb tomato popcorn with very tempered expectations. Turns out there was no need for trepidation because this popcorn was so good! I don't know where they came up with this flavor, but we loved it!
We'd read about a spot in the park that we really wanted to check out, and we ended up spending a few hours relaxing there. It's called the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge, and I wish I had more photos to share, but the lighting was dim and the wood and decor was very dark, so my phone's camera didn't handle those conditions very well! It was a really cool place that we definitely would have overlooked if we hadn't read about it prior to our trip!
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| The entrance to the S.S. Columbia! |
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| The Teddy Roosevelt Lounge! |
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| Afternoon cocktails! |
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| Dessert! |
Since this was really our first day at Tokyo DisneySea (I refuse to count yesterday's less-than-an-hour-due-to-terrible-weather as a real visit), we did a lot of wandering just to familiarize ourselves with the park. As with Tokyo Disneyland, all decorations were themed for spring/easter, including the daytime parade on the water, entitled "Fashionable Easter."
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| A colorful entrance to the park! |
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| Mickey! |
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| Minnie! |
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| The floral arrangements were impressive! |
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| Flowers everywhere! |
I'd read many glowing reviews of this park - one Disney blogger I follow, whose opinions are almost always in line with mine, expressed views that Tokyo DisneySea was the best Disney theme park in the world. I had very high hopes for this park!
After only one visit, I don't really feel qualified to offer an informed opinion. My initial reaction to the park was that I was a little underwhelmed. It seemed to lack that intangible Disney "magic." It is exceptionally well-themed, and very beautiful, as one would expect.
Admittedly, I did not really appreciate Animal Kingdom when it first opened, and I have grown to love what the park has to offer. I suspect the same will be true of Tokyo DisneySea. The more time I spend exploring the park, the more I am sure it will grow on me. I mostly chalk it up to unrealistic expectations on my part.
I am big on Disney history and extremely sentimental. Cry at the drop of a hat when I hear the snippet of a particular song or see a brief clip from a movie. The emotions I have tied up in Disney storytelling are infinite. I don't go to the parks for the rides; I go for the way I feel when I am there. The details and design and theming - the overall immersive experience - that's what keeps me coming back. I read and watch just about anything I can related to Disney history. My childhood memories are flooded with the movies and music. My mom sang me every possible Disney song and filled my life with such happiness - something she still does to this day. Visiting WDW for the first time in 1981 is one of the highlights of my life. I wrote my fifth grade speech about Figment and EPCOT Center. I am unabashedly in love with Disney.
I absolutely adore WDW. Clearly. C and I got married there and then renewed our vows there 20 years later! We've been there so often we have lost count (45-50ish?) - and I think that's saying something, since the closest we've ever lived to WDW is a 14-hour-drive away - and we consider it our "home" park.
But the feeling I get when I stand on Main Street, USA at Disneyland is unparalleled. Knowing that I am standing where Walt Disney himself once stood renders me speechless. So while Tokyo DisneySea did not initially wow me, I'm sure I will grow to love what makes it unique with our subsequent visits. We're also going back tomorrow to see the areas of the park we missed today, so it's more than possible that my opinion will change!
We took a break and napped in the afternoon, and then headed over to Tokyo Disneyland in hopes of seeing the nighttime parade, "Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade Dreamlights." We found a spot along the parade route and waited for more than 30 minutes before the dreaded cancellation-due-to-weather announcement was made. Two nights in a row! Cancelled due to weather!
They did run a very brief, four-float parade called "Nightfall Glow," which was cute, but certainly not worth the hour-plus wait in the wind and the cold! And we were able to see the castle projection show, "Once Upon a Time," which was fantastic, despite the rain that had begun!
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| I can't get enough of this monorail station! |
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| Afternoon view from our room! |
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| The Three Good Fairies (Flora is hard to see in this photo!) |
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| Mickey & Minnie |
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| Mickey & Minnie |
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| Daisy & Donald |
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| Cinderella, Jasmine, & Belle |
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| Chip & Dale |
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| Pluto |
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| Rapunzel - "Once Upon a Time" Castle Projection Show |
After the parade, we made our way over to the Jungle Cruise, which is always fun to do at night. This was made even more entertaining by the fact that the skipper spoke Japanese and we were unable to understand any of the corny jokes (we entertained ourselves by making some of the jokes to each other - back side of water!). It was very well done, with awesome special effects - more sophisticated than either of the American versions - and on top of that, our boat was called Sadie!
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| A classic attraction! |
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| Sadie <3 |
We spent the rest of the night snacking and people watching before heading back to the hotel at park closing.
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| Waffle magic in the making! |
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| This place has delicious snacks! |
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| Mike Wazowski Melon Bread - tastes just like honeydew! |
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| Donald & Daisy Easter Eggs! |
One random observation I've had is that the characters roam around pretty freely here. I know they have certain meet-and-greets, but we've seen many characters just walking around interacting with guests. Reminds us of how things used to be at WDW! (These photos are not the best - just snapped them as I was walking by!)
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| Shellie May |
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| Bernard & Bianca |
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| Jiminy Cricket, Gepetto, & Pinocchio |
Finally, I cannot say enough good things about the cast members here. They have been so pleasant and friendly, and very patient when we ask questions or try to count out change! At the parks, on the monorail, at the hotels...everywhere we go, the cast members have been phenomenal!
Read about the other days of our trip:
Happy Tails to you!
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