JAPAN: Lots of food, creds and lols
- Thread starter peep
- Start date
Tomatron
Giga Poster
Finally some more people to goon over about how AWFUL Eejanaika is! Fujiyama is pretty fun though, I don't even mind the crazy twisty-hill final run back into the brakes.
Fuji-Q could not be a more apt name for the park. I was incredibly lucky to get all the creds in 1 day - it took a lot of being anti-social and running between rides, and I didn't enjoy myself in the slightest, with the exceptions of Dodonpa and the Hamtaro coaster, which was the best ride in the park when I was there.
Interested to hear what you thought of Dodonpa (and the rest of the park), because I really liked that launch, even though it's like being hit by a 40 tonne lorry.
Fuji-Q could not be a more apt name for the park. I was incredibly lucky to get all the creds in 1 day - it took a lot of being anti-social and running between rides, and I didn't enjoy myself in the slightest, with the exceptions of Dodonpa and the Hamtaro coaster, which was the best ride in the park when I was there.
Interested to hear what you thought of Dodonpa (and the rest of the park), because I really liked that launch, even though it's like being hit by a 40 tonne lorry.
Nic
Strata Poster
I'd like to start by echoing Peep's thanks for all your comments. They really do make all the hours spent writing this **** seem worthwhile 
Day 4 - Tuesday 10th September
Fuji Q round 2.
As we didn't manage to get everything done on the first day, we decided to use our contingency day and go back to Fuji Q. Luckily, we’d planned ahead and reserved bus seats for both days (it’s free to reserve them - you only pay when you collect your tickets). We went back to the bus stop at stupid O'Clock, and off we went once again. I think we were on the Gaspard et Lisa bus this time. Or maybe it was the Gundam one. Neither were decorated on the inside.
We'd grabbed some snacks to eat on the bus for breakfast. This turned out to be my introduction to 2 of my absolutely favourite Japanese edible masterpieces. The first is Sweet Potato Mushi Cake. It's basically a steamed sponge which is incredibly light. It really did taste of Sweet Potato. It was YUMMY!
The second was Peach and Raspberry Happiness! which is a type of fruit flavoured iced tea
When we arrived, I took some photos of the Gaspard et Lisa area that I'd neglected to take the day before
Unlike the day before, we actually got as far as the ticket booths and exchanged our ticket properly. To get your ride pass, you had to go to a machine near the turnstyle which took your photo and spat out one of these
As the last big coaster that we were yet to ride, we headed straight for Dodonpa.
After a 2+ hour queue we were eventually boarded and ready to go. The train rolls out of the station, round the corner into the launch tunnel. After a bit of a wait, and a countdown, off it goes. The launch is ridiculously fast and absolutely brilliant. The ride then minces down a long straight to a huge turnaround. This gives you time to appreciate the speed and take it all in before you hit the top hat. The ejector at either side of it is insane. It then heads back towards the station, before taking the ORP and hitting the break run. Its such a shame that there's no more of these left as it's absolutely brilliant. Insane, but brilliant. Mind you, I can see how the operating costs would be ridiculous.
We walked round towards the back of the park, and got distracted by Evangelion World. Not knowing what it was, we decided to pop in and have a look. It's basically a museum/walkthrough with scenes and photo opportunities to make you feel like you're in the series.
On to the last cred that the park had to offer: Great Fluffy Sky Adventure. This is very similar to a batflier, but you sit on a log-flume style bench seat rather than the weird motorbike saddle thing of the originals. It was alright for a family cred. Pretty long, and very high. Bonus points for having such a silly name. +1.
We wanted to head back to the front of the park, so decided to walk through Thomas Land. On seeing the dark ride, we decided to check it out. It was actually pretty good. Fans of the series would wet themselves with excitement. It even has a turntable where the train you're riding spins round to switch tracks. We then got distracted by a 15th anniversary stamp collecting trail thing on the promise of a free sparkly sticker. Yay!
Back to sensible rides, and we were both desperate to re-ride Takabisha. The queue was a couple of hours long, but totally worth it for what was, again, an excellent and fun ride.
That left us with time to re-ride one of the big coasters, so we opted for Fujiyama. By the time we got on it, the sun had gone down and the lights had come on. It really is hard to describe how bonkers this ride is, which is just made all the more evident at night. Lessthanthree.
That left us with just enough time to jump on the Giant Frisbee. The station has a dual loading thing going on which is a great idea... or at least would be if they actually used it properly. Eugh. I got bored in the queue and started playing with the daft settings on my camera
Anyway, I've never been a massive fan of these, finding them forceless and boring. This one definitely wasn't. The airtime at the top was great, and the +ve Gs as it swung through the station were ridiculous.
We grabbed some dinner at Mos Burger (think McDonalds, but cooked to order and with an awesome Bolognaise sauce on the burgers. Nom!) then it was time to catch the bus home.
The whole thing of getting there and getting in did cost us a hell of a lot of money, especially for the 2 days. Whilst the park isn't particularly brilliant, and the queues are horrendous, some of the creds definitely make it worthwhile.
Day 4 - Tuesday 10th September
Fuji Q round 2.
As we didn't manage to get everything done on the first day, we decided to use our contingency day and go back to Fuji Q. Luckily, we’d planned ahead and reserved bus seats for both days (it’s free to reserve them - you only pay when you collect your tickets). We went back to the bus stop at stupid O'Clock, and off we went once again. I think we were on the Gaspard et Lisa bus this time. Or maybe it was the Gundam one. Neither were decorated on the inside.
We'd grabbed some snacks to eat on the bus for breakfast. This turned out to be my introduction to 2 of my absolutely favourite Japanese edible masterpieces. The first is Sweet Potato Mushi Cake. It's basically a steamed sponge which is incredibly light. It really did taste of Sweet Potato. It was YUMMY!
The second was Peach and Raspberry Happiness! which is a type of fruit flavoured iced tea
When we arrived, I took some photos of the Gaspard et Lisa area that I'd neglected to take the day before
Unlike the day before, we actually got as far as the ticket booths and exchanged our ticket properly. To get your ride pass, you had to go to a machine near the turnstyle which took your photo and spat out one of these
As the last big coaster that we were yet to ride, we headed straight for Dodonpa.
After a 2+ hour queue we were eventually boarded and ready to go. The train rolls out of the station, round the corner into the launch tunnel. After a bit of a wait, and a countdown, off it goes. The launch is ridiculously fast and absolutely brilliant. The ride then minces down a long straight to a huge turnaround. This gives you time to appreciate the speed and take it all in before you hit the top hat. The ejector at either side of it is insane. It then heads back towards the station, before taking the ORP and hitting the break run. Its such a shame that there's no more of these left as it's absolutely brilliant. Insane, but brilliant. Mind you, I can see how the operating costs would be ridiculous.
We walked round towards the back of the park, and got distracted by Evangelion World. Not knowing what it was, we decided to pop in and have a look. It's basically a museum/walkthrough with scenes and photo opportunities to make you feel like you're in the series.
On to the last cred that the park had to offer: Great Fluffy Sky Adventure. This is very similar to a batflier, but you sit on a log-flume style bench seat rather than the weird motorbike saddle thing of the originals. It was alright for a family cred. Pretty long, and very high. Bonus points for having such a silly name. +1.
We wanted to head back to the front of the park, so decided to walk through Thomas Land. On seeing the dark ride, we decided to check it out. It was actually pretty good. Fans of the series would wet themselves with excitement. It even has a turntable where the train you're riding spins round to switch tracks. We then got distracted by a 15th anniversary stamp collecting trail thing on the promise of a free sparkly sticker. Yay!
Back to sensible rides, and we were both desperate to re-ride Takabisha. The queue was a couple of hours long, but totally worth it for what was, again, an excellent and fun ride.
That left us with time to re-ride one of the big coasters, so we opted for Fujiyama. By the time we got on it, the sun had gone down and the lights had come on. It really is hard to describe how bonkers this ride is, which is just made all the more evident at night. Lessthanthree.
That left us with just enough time to jump on the Giant Frisbee. The station has a dual loading thing going on which is a great idea... or at least would be if they actually used it properly. Eugh. I got bored in the queue and started playing with the daft settings on my camera
Anyway, I've never been a massive fan of these, finding them forceless and boring. This one definitely wasn't. The airtime at the top was great, and the +ve Gs as it swung through the station were ridiculous.
We grabbed some dinner at Mos Burger (think McDonalds, but cooked to order and with an awesome Bolognaise sauce on the burgers. Nom!) then it was time to catch the bus home.
The whole thing of getting there and getting in did cost us a hell of a lot of money, especially for the 2 days. Whilst the park isn't particularly brilliant, and the queues are horrendous, some of the creds definitely make it worthwhile.
Day 4 – 10th September
Yet another early start and more snacks for breakfast. We headed over to Shinjuku and got the same time bus as the day before. This bus was themed to the Gaspard and Lisa area on the exterior (no exciting interior for this bus). A couple of hours later and we found ourselves joining a long queue for tickets again. I picked up a banana crepe from the Gaspard and Lisa area which was tasty even if I accidentally ordered the wrong one (a lot of food stalls you need to order your food by putting money into a little ticket machine, choosing what you want to order, it prints out a little ticket which you then hand to the staff member who then makes your food. Sounds simple but being half asleep still I managed to mess it up).
Anyway, this time there was no man with tickets making life easier, instead we went up to the main booth, got given a different type of ticket, we then had to head over to these ticket machine booths where it takes your photo and prints out a sort of pass for the day that they know only you can use. It’s still a ridiculous idea and to try and keep it in good condition for the whole day is very hard. Oh well, we were back in the park and we were ready for day 2 of Fuji-Q Highland.
Missing out on Dodopna the first day was a sad state of affairs so we corrected this by going straight to that, like a lot of people did. We ended up queuing around 2 and a half hours. Was it worth such a ridiculous wait time for such a short ride? YES! It’s all about the ludicrous launch, you just can’t control any of the muscles in your face because you’re just catapulted at an insane speed. Intamin launchers have nothing on this crazy machine. After the launch you then go round the epically long banked turn and then up that famous top hat with its dodgy angles which in some odd way provides you with several pops of crazy airtime like a bucking bronco, I think this S&M contraption is actually trying to kill you, at least it’s amazing fun while it’s trying to off you.
These were awesome
So what do we do after riding that insane machine, we chill out by finding out what the Evangelion World is. Turns out it’s just a massive walkthrough thing based on an anime with lots of photo points. It also has a giant model of this transformer-like thing (sorry, being really ignorant here as to what it’s all about as I haven’t a clue) which is kinda cool.
To really get our adrenalin going again we went on the Great Fluffy Sky Adventure. Otherwise known as ‘that suspended cred thing’. I think we both regretted sitting in the same car thing but the throughput was bad enough without us causing havoc. So it was a tight squeeze and the seatbelt wasn’t helping the situation lol. The ride was actually quite long which I thought was impressive for this type of ride but the brakes made my life unpleasant so the quicker we got off and the +1 the better.
We were feeling a bit hungry now having obtained all 7 creds at Fuji-Q Highland. After a little bit of faff we decided to go to the food place we thought was scary the day before. We grabbed some tasty food which was filling and then continued on to some more rides.
My chicken dish
Nic's prawn dish
I love the huge golden cats
Oh
The famous forever scary walkthrough
THREE HOUR WAIT!!!
We found ourselves in Thomas Land again and we checked out what was inside the mountainous looking thing. Turned out to be a heavily themed dark ride. To say we were both pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. It was actually fun and the little fans of the show would absolutely love it (I was a huge fan of how they placed the ORP <3 ). So yeah, Drayton Manor need to hurry up and get something as good as this.
Derpy ride vehicle
You exit out into a little shop which is where we saw a woman with a book of stamps collecting something at the till. We wanted in on this action so we picked up a stamp booklet and began running around the whole Thomas Land collecting all 8 stamps. We did it and for all our hard work we got a Thomas Land birthday sticker (they were celebrating 15 years of Thomas Land).
We still had plenty of time left so we decided to ride Takabisha again. Still a very long queue but it was worth it.
After that awesomeness we went and queued up for Fujiyama again which was still epic.
I wanted to ride the Giant Frisbee so we went and queued for that. Operations were faffy but we finally got on. A really great ride, it had a decent ride cycle so you got plenty of spinny times and air time but not too much that you felt ill (looking at you ‘Mingerland).
Hungry again we decided to give Mos Burger a go. It’s a fast food chain in Japan that we had heard lots of good things about. After quite a wait (they cook your burger to order so it’s not as fast as McDonalds etc) our burgers arrived. Wow, we soon realised why they were hyped. It’s a good piece of meat with a bolognaise sauce over it, was extremely yummy. Nom nom nom.
Coloured guidelines on the floor to help you get to the main attractions quicker
BYE FUJI-Q HIGHLAND!
It was then time to head over to the bus and get some sleep before another very early start. I was so tired yet so excited for the next day I wasn’t sure if I would get any sleep. Just what could I be so excited about?
I grew an obsession with this building
Yet another early start and more snacks for breakfast. We headed over to Shinjuku and got the same time bus as the day before. This bus was themed to the Gaspard and Lisa area on the exterior (no exciting interior for this bus). A couple of hours later and we found ourselves joining a long queue for tickets again. I picked up a banana crepe from the Gaspard and Lisa area which was tasty even if I accidentally ordered the wrong one (a lot of food stalls you need to order your food by putting money into a little ticket machine, choosing what you want to order, it prints out a little ticket which you then hand to the staff member who then makes your food. Sounds simple but being half asleep still I managed to mess it up).
Anyway, this time there was no man with tickets making life easier, instead we went up to the main booth, got given a different type of ticket, we then had to head over to these ticket machine booths where it takes your photo and prints out a sort of pass for the day that they know only you can use. It’s still a ridiculous idea and to try and keep it in good condition for the whole day is very hard. Oh well, we were back in the park and we were ready for day 2 of Fuji-Q Highland.
Missing out on Dodopna the first day was a sad state of affairs so we corrected this by going straight to that, like a lot of people did. We ended up queuing around 2 and a half hours. Was it worth such a ridiculous wait time for such a short ride? YES! It’s all about the ludicrous launch, you just can’t control any of the muscles in your face because you’re just catapulted at an insane speed. Intamin launchers have nothing on this crazy machine. After the launch you then go round the epically long banked turn and then up that famous top hat with its dodgy angles which in some odd way provides you with several pops of crazy airtime like a bucking bronco, I think this S&M contraption is actually trying to kill you, at least it’s amazing fun while it’s trying to off you.
These were awesome
So what do we do after riding that insane machine, we chill out by finding out what the Evangelion World is. Turns out it’s just a massive walkthrough thing based on an anime with lots of photo points. It also has a giant model of this transformer-like thing (sorry, being really ignorant here as to what it’s all about as I haven’t a clue) which is kinda cool.
To really get our adrenalin going again we went on the Great Fluffy Sky Adventure. Otherwise known as ‘that suspended cred thing’. I think we both regretted sitting in the same car thing but the throughput was bad enough without us causing havoc. So it was a tight squeeze and the seatbelt wasn’t helping the situation lol. The ride was actually quite long which I thought was impressive for this type of ride but the brakes made my life unpleasant so the quicker we got off and the +1 the better.
We were feeling a bit hungry now having obtained all 7 creds at Fuji-Q Highland. After a little bit of faff we decided to go to the food place we thought was scary the day before. We grabbed some tasty food which was filling and then continued on to some more rides.
My chicken dish
Nic's prawn dish
I love the huge golden cats
Oh
The famous forever scary walkthrough
THREE HOUR WAIT!!!
We found ourselves in Thomas Land again and we checked out what was inside the mountainous looking thing. Turned out to be a heavily themed dark ride. To say we were both pleasantly surprised would be an understatement. It was actually fun and the little fans of the show would absolutely love it (I was a huge fan of how they placed the ORP <3 ). So yeah, Drayton Manor need to hurry up and get something as good as this.
Derpy ride vehicle
You exit out into a little shop which is where we saw a woman with a book of stamps collecting something at the till. We wanted in on this action so we picked up a stamp booklet and began running around the whole Thomas Land collecting all 8 stamps. We did it and for all our hard work we got a Thomas Land birthday sticker (they were celebrating 15 years of Thomas Land).
We still had plenty of time left so we decided to ride Takabisha again. Still a very long queue but it was worth it.
After that awesomeness we went and queued up for Fujiyama again which was still epic.
I wanted to ride the Giant Frisbee so we went and queued for that. Operations were faffy but we finally got on. A really great ride, it had a decent ride cycle so you got plenty of spinny times and air time but not too much that you felt ill (looking at you ‘Mingerland).
Hungry again we decided to give Mos Burger a go. It’s a fast food chain in Japan that we had heard lots of good things about. After quite a wait (they cook your burger to order so it’s not as fast as McDonalds etc) our burgers arrived. Wow, we soon realised why they were hyped. It’s a good piece of meat with a bolognaise sauce over it, was extremely yummy. Nom nom nom.
Coloured guidelines on the floor to help you get to the main attractions quicker
BYE FUJI-Q HIGHLAND!
It was then time to head over to the bus and get some sleep before another very early start. I was so tired yet so excited for the next day I wasn’t sure if I would get any sleep. Just what could I be so excited about?
I grew an obsession with this building
caffeine_demon
Strata Poster
The world needs more fluffy roller coasters!
Nic said:
The Happy Valley chain in China have been installing what I guess is a more up-to-date version of the ride type. There are two built so far with another under construction. They don't reach the same speed as Dodonpa, but are air-launched, feature drops of 200+ feet and have a more involved layout. I haven't tried one yet though - hopefully this weekend...
Great to see some love for Fujiyama. I've always raved about it, but it seems to be horribly underrated by a lot of other people.
Has the giant Gundam statue been removed from Odaiba? That thing was awesome.
Nic
Strata Poster
Day 5 - Wednesday 11th September
It was inevitable, but here it is... we've reached Disney! First up, Tokyo Disneyland.
Being a massive Disney Goon, John had done a lot of reading up about the park and how best to tackle it. Every bit of advice said to get there early and join the inevitably huge queue just to get through the gates. We bought our tickets online as e-tickets meaning that we could just print them out and use them straight away - no need to queue to exchange them.
After a ridiculously early start, and a huge trek through Tokyo station, we arrived at the resort. To get to Disneyland, it's a short walk from the train station, so we followed the crowd and were soon stood in the promised massive queues to enter.
The next piece of advice was that the two biggest queues in the park are for Monsters Inc and Pooh's Hunny Hunt. As we were excited about seeing the much hyped trackless ride system, we decided to head straight for Pooh, and deal with Monsters later on. As the gates opened, and the masses surged through the gates, we were greeted by a huge number of staff all welcoming people, and telling everyone not to run. We rushed our way to the back of the park for Pooh, and were rewarded with a 5 minute queue.
Pooh's Hunny Hunt is every bit as good as the hype would have you believe. The ride system is amazing, the animatronics are brilliant and the effects around the ride are fantastic. It's an awesome ride and left us both with massive grins on our faces. As we left, we realised that there was no queue to get fast passes, so we took the opportunity to grab some to ensure we'd get a chance to re-ride.
As the Halloween event was in full swing, we wanted to check out Haunted Mansion to see its seasonal makeover. The whole thing had been re-done with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. John nearly wet himself.
We headed round into Toon Town to grab our first cred of the day. On the way round, we got distracted by Goofy's Paint and Play, a new attraction for this year. It's a small room, with a big screen, and about 8 guns with various different trigger mechanisms. The idea is for the whole group to work together to shoot various bits of the scene infront of you to help Goofy redecorate his room. It's short and pointless.
Finally we made it round to the coaster - it's a Gadget themed rollerskater. +1.
Not having been to California, and being a fan of the film, John was excited about the Roger Rabbit ride. Having been to California, and not being a fan of the film, I wasn't. We rode it, he enjoyed it.
One of the things that Tokyo Disney Resort is famous for is the popcorn. They have stands everywhere selling an array of flavours. Everywhere you look, you see people with refillable popcorn buckets - much in the same way as we have drinks capsules in the UK. Because it smelt amazing, I went for a small portion of the caramel flavour one, and was not disappointed. Tasty!
We were round near Small World, and there was barely any queue, so we decided to jump on. The station is all indoors, and is pretty spectacular. The rest of the ride is the same as anywhere else.
We walked towards the castle, and saw the Cinderella themed walkthrough attraction. This was completely walk-on, which was just as well because there was an hour queue when we walked past later in the day! The castle itself is gorgeous. I think I still prefer the one at Paris, but Tokyo's is a close second. You enter the attraction, then go up a lift into the castle, then walk through a hall with a load of different models/paintings by different artists depicting scenes from the story. This was quite cool as each one was totally different to the last and in a completely different style. The final room features a number of props and photo opportunities to make you feel like Cinders herself. It was OK, but not worth queuing for.
We wandered around and stumbled across the kid's show, Super Duper Jumpin' Time. There's basically a bunch of characters running around and they get all the kids up with them, then some failed kids TV presenters get them doing dances and stuff. If you were a small child, it would be absolutely epic.
One thing that surprised us about Japanese parks in general, but was first really evident here, is how much they go in for Halloween. I didn't realise it would even be a "thing" over there, let alone be as popular as it turned out to be. I mean, you can expect it at American parks like Disney and Universal maybe, but as you'll see from later reports, it was much more widespread than that. So yeah, not to disappoint, Disney had gone all out with their decorations.
By now, it was just about time for the first parade of the day - Happy Halloween Harvest. It quickly became apparent that the organisation for parades over here is a little different to elsewhere. The first chunk of space closest to the parade route is seating only, then standing is only allowed from a designated point backwards. They also have all the roped off pathways etc to ensure that people can still get around. Everyone turns up with these folding plastic groundsheet things, lays them out, then sits down, and stays there. If they haven't got a groundsheet, they unfold their park map and sit on that instead.
Nobody tries to stand up or get in anyone else's way, and if they did, they'd be quickly told to stop by a nearby cast member. The whole thing is just ridiculously well organised, and works very well due to how polite and compliant the Japanese are. If you're near the back of the seated area, it can be a bit tricky to get a good view. Therefore, if you get there late, it may be better to try and get nearer the front of the standing section.
The parade itself was very good. It had a ridiculously long show stop, and a sickeningly catchy song. Hurah. By then, it was time to use our fast pass for Pooh. Such a fab ride.
We headed into Tomorrowland for cred #2 of the day: Space Mountain. It had a fairly hefty queue of just under an hour, but it moved quickly enough so didn't feel too bad. The ride itself is much like Cali's, but without the epic soundtrack. That made me sad.
It was then just about time for the next parade of the day - Happiness is Here. This is a new parade to celebrate the park's 30th Anniversary. We were amused by a girl near us who knew all the words and actions to the parade song. After about 5 minutes, I did too. Its one of my favourite Disney parade songs so far. The parade was great, and some of the floats were HUGE.
Something that amused us was how rife sponsorship was at Disney. The parades were definitely not immune
Earlier in the day we'd grabbed a fastpass for the park's other "new" attraction, Star Tours 2. It's only just been re-opened with the new facelift, and is every bit as good as the other new versions. Considering it's being sold as a new attraction, the queue never really got too long.
When in Cali, I'd stupidly missed out on the Tiki Room, so have been desperate to do one since finding out how awesome it is. Tokyo's however is a bit different - its Stitch themed. Keen to have some clue as to what was going on, we asked a cast member and got some translation screens. These display subtitles for the show on a small hand-held screen in English. They're actually a bit distracting, so it would almost be better to not know what's going on, but be able to watch the animatronics properly. Anyway, it was alright. They barely play any of the original tiki room song which was disappointing. I really need to get on a 'proper' one soon.
As he'd never done one and was intrigued to see it, John took us to the Country Bear Jamboree show. It was ok for a kiddie animatronic thing, but I did come scarily close to falling asleep.
As there was still one cred left to get, we headed round to Western Land and joined the queue for Big Thunder Mountain. It looked ridiculously long, but due to Disney efficiency was over in about an hour. This was a really fun version of the ride. It maybe lacks some of the effects and animatronic surprises of the others, but the layout feels well paced.
Next, we jumped on Jungle Cruise as it barely had any queue at all. Yeah, these aren't so fun when you don't understand what's going on!
Pirates of the Caribbean also barely had any queue. We couldn't remember if this one had been updated or not. It has. I was looking forward to Johnny Depp speaking Japanese. He doesn't. Boo.
As I'd never done it, we popped in to see Philharmagic next. It was alright. I liked the fact that it was pretty much all the early-90s films that I loved as a kid, so that was nice.
So, yeah, as you may have noticed from the photos so far, we managed to visit on one of the relatively rare days where adults are allowed to cosplay as Disney characters, all in the name of Halloween. Cue some surreptitiously taken, and therefore dreadful photos (yeah, even worse than usual!)
Why, yes, yes that is Dad genie, Mum Jasmine and child Jafar <3 and Mum Aladdin pushing Abu around in a buggy <3 SO fab <3
This made the day all the more ridiculous and, ultimately, Japanese. There's few things more surreal than seeing Asian Snow White stood infront of Cinderella's castle with Asian Tinkerbell, talking on her mobile phone. Equally, there is NOTHING cuter than a tiny Japanese child dressed in a full on Maleficient costume! I nearly died. Japan <3
It was then time for the last parade of the day - Dreamlights. This had been given a makeover fairly recently, so we were really looking forward to it. We were a little disappointed then when it started out like any other light parade ever. Suddenly, halfway through, all the obviously new floats appear and it is indeed awesome. Its just a shame they couldn't spread out the awesome a bit more.
We managed to catch Happiness on High (the firework show) whilst heading for Monsters Inc. As promised it had a ridiculous queue, but as we didn't have any other priority rides left to do, we sucked it up and joined it. The queue took forever. Actually forever. The animated instructional videos in the outside queue are really cool, but quickly get annoying. The indoor section of the queue is impressive when you first enter, but if you're in there too long, you start to find fault with it. After all that, the ride itself isn't massively impressive either. The shooting system seemed a bit unresponsive. Whilst the effects were pretty good, it just felt a bit lacklustre, especially after such a long wait.
With just a few minutes until closing, as it barely had a queue, we jumped on Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast for a quick last ride of the day. If you've done one of these, you've done them all.
We hit the tat shops before waving a fond farewell to the park and making our way back across the city to the hotel. I bought some tat. These are my fave <3
Let's end with an obligatory peace sign selfie, y'know, just because.
It was inevitable, but here it is... we've reached Disney! First up, Tokyo Disneyland.
Being a massive Disney Goon, John had done a lot of reading up about the park and how best to tackle it. Every bit of advice said to get there early and join the inevitably huge queue just to get through the gates. We bought our tickets online as e-tickets meaning that we could just print them out and use them straight away - no need to queue to exchange them.
After a ridiculously early start, and a huge trek through Tokyo station, we arrived at the resort. To get to Disneyland, it's a short walk from the train station, so we followed the crowd and were soon stood in the promised massive queues to enter.
The next piece of advice was that the two biggest queues in the park are for Monsters Inc and Pooh's Hunny Hunt. As we were excited about seeing the much hyped trackless ride system, we decided to head straight for Pooh, and deal with Monsters later on. As the gates opened, and the masses surged through the gates, we were greeted by a huge number of staff all welcoming people, and telling everyone not to run. We rushed our way to the back of the park for Pooh, and were rewarded with a 5 minute queue.
Pooh's Hunny Hunt is every bit as good as the hype would have you believe. The ride system is amazing, the animatronics are brilliant and the effects around the ride are fantastic. It's an awesome ride and left us both with massive grins on our faces. As we left, we realised that there was no queue to get fast passes, so we took the opportunity to grab some to ensure we'd get a chance to re-ride.
As the Halloween event was in full swing, we wanted to check out Haunted Mansion to see its seasonal makeover. The whole thing had been re-done with a Nightmare Before Christmas theme. John nearly wet himself.
We headed round into Toon Town to grab our first cred of the day. On the way round, we got distracted by Goofy's Paint and Play, a new attraction for this year. It's a small room, with a big screen, and about 8 guns with various different trigger mechanisms. The idea is for the whole group to work together to shoot various bits of the scene infront of you to help Goofy redecorate his room. It's short and pointless.
Finally we made it round to the coaster - it's a Gadget themed rollerskater. +1.
Not having been to California, and being a fan of the film, John was excited about the Roger Rabbit ride. Having been to California, and not being a fan of the film, I wasn't. We rode it, he enjoyed it.
One of the things that Tokyo Disney Resort is famous for is the popcorn. They have stands everywhere selling an array of flavours. Everywhere you look, you see people with refillable popcorn buckets - much in the same way as we have drinks capsules in the UK. Because it smelt amazing, I went for a small portion of the caramel flavour one, and was not disappointed. Tasty!
We were round near Small World, and there was barely any queue, so we decided to jump on. The station is all indoors, and is pretty spectacular. The rest of the ride is the same as anywhere else.
We walked towards the castle, and saw the Cinderella themed walkthrough attraction. This was completely walk-on, which was just as well because there was an hour queue when we walked past later in the day! The castle itself is gorgeous. I think I still prefer the one at Paris, but Tokyo's is a close second. You enter the attraction, then go up a lift into the castle, then walk through a hall with a load of different models/paintings by different artists depicting scenes from the story. This was quite cool as each one was totally different to the last and in a completely different style. The final room features a number of props and photo opportunities to make you feel like Cinders herself. It was OK, but not worth queuing for.
We wandered around and stumbled across the kid's show, Super Duper Jumpin' Time. There's basically a bunch of characters running around and they get all the kids up with them, then some failed kids TV presenters get them doing dances and stuff. If you were a small child, it would be absolutely epic.
One thing that surprised us about Japanese parks in general, but was first really evident here, is how much they go in for Halloween. I didn't realise it would even be a "thing" over there, let alone be as popular as it turned out to be. I mean, you can expect it at American parks like Disney and Universal maybe, but as you'll see from later reports, it was much more widespread than that. So yeah, not to disappoint, Disney had gone all out with their decorations.
By now, it was just about time for the first parade of the day - Happy Halloween Harvest. It quickly became apparent that the organisation for parades over here is a little different to elsewhere. The first chunk of space closest to the parade route is seating only, then standing is only allowed from a designated point backwards. They also have all the roped off pathways etc to ensure that people can still get around. Everyone turns up with these folding plastic groundsheet things, lays them out, then sits down, and stays there. If they haven't got a groundsheet, they unfold their park map and sit on that instead.
Nobody tries to stand up or get in anyone else's way, and if they did, they'd be quickly told to stop by a nearby cast member. The whole thing is just ridiculously well organised, and works very well due to how polite and compliant the Japanese are. If you're near the back of the seated area, it can be a bit tricky to get a good view. Therefore, if you get there late, it may be better to try and get nearer the front of the standing section.
The parade itself was very good. It had a ridiculously long show stop, and a sickeningly catchy song. Hurah. By then, it was time to use our fast pass for Pooh. Such a fab ride.
We headed into Tomorrowland for cred #2 of the day: Space Mountain. It had a fairly hefty queue of just under an hour, but it moved quickly enough so didn't feel too bad. The ride itself is much like Cali's, but without the epic soundtrack. That made me sad.
It was then just about time for the next parade of the day - Happiness is Here. This is a new parade to celebrate the park's 30th Anniversary. We were amused by a girl near us who knew all the words and actions to the parade song. After about 5 minutes, I did too. Its one of my favourite Disney parade songs so far. The parade was great, and some of the floats were HUGE.
Something that amused us was how rife sponsorship was at Disney. The parades were definitely not immune
Earlier in the day we'd grabbed a fastpass for the park's other "new" attraction, Star Tours 2. It's only just been re-opened with the new facelift, and is every bit as good as the other new versions. Considering it's being sold as a new attraction, the queue never really got too long.
When in Cali, I'd stupidly missed out on the Tiki Room, so have been desperate to do one since finding out how awesome it is. Tokyo's however is a bit different - its Stitch themed. Keen to have some clue as to what was going on, we asked a cast member and got some translation screens. These display subtitles for the show on a small hand-held screen in English. They're actually a bit distracting, so it would almost be better to not know what's going on, but be able to watch the animatronics properly. Anyway, it was alright. They barely play any of the original tiki room song which was disappointing. I really need to get on a 'proper' one soon.
As he'd never done one and was intrigued to see it, John took us to the Country Bear Jamboree show. It was ok for a kiddie animatronic thing, but I did come scarily close to falling asleep.
As there was still one cred left to get, we headed round to Western Land and joined the queue for Big Thunder Mountain. It looked ridiculously long, but due to Disney efficiency was over in about an hour. This was a really fun version of the ride. It maybe lacks some of the effects and animatronic surprises of the others, but the layout feels well paced.
Next, we jumped on Jungle Cruise as it barely had any queue at all. Yeah, these aren't so fun when you don't understand what's going on!
Pirates of the Caribbean also barely had any queue. We couldn't remember if this one had been updated or not. It has. I was looking forward to Johnny Depp speaking Japanese. He doesn't. Boo.
As I'd never done it, we popped in to see Philharmagic next. It was alright. I liked the fact that it was pretty much all the early-90s films that I loved as a kid, so that was nice.
So, yeah, as you may have noticed from the photos so far, we managed to visit on one of the relatively rare days where adults are allowed to cosplay as Disney characters, all in the name of Halloween. Cue some surreptitiously taken, and therefore dreadful photos (yeah, even worse than usual!)
Why, yes, yes that is Dad genie, Mum Jasmine and child Jafar <3 and Mum Aladdin pushing Abu around in a buggy <3 SO fab <3
This made the day all the more ridiculous and, ultimately, Japanese. There's few things more surreal than seeing Asian Snow White stood infront of Cinderella's castle with Asian Tinkerbell, talking on her mobile phone. Equally, there is NOTHING cuter than a tiny Japanese child dressed in a full on Maleficient costume! I nearly died. Japan <3
It was then time for the last parade of the day - Dreamlights. This had been given a makeover fairly recently, so we were really looking forward to it. We were a little disappointed then when it started out like any other light parade ever. Suddenly, halfway through, all the obviously new floats appear and it is indeed awesome. Its just a shame they couldn't spread out the awesome a bit more.
We managed to catch Happiness on High (the firework show) whilst heading for Monsters Inc. As promised it had a ridiculous queue, but as we didn't have any other priority rides left to do, we sucked it up and joined it. The queue took forever. Actually forever. The animated instructional videos in the outside queue are really cool, but quickly get annoying. The indoor section of the queue is impressive when you first enter, but if you're in there too long, you start to find fault with it. After all that, the ride itself isn't massively impressive either. The shooting system seemed a bit unresponsive. Whilst the effects were pretty good, it just felt a bit lacklustre, especially after such a long wait.
With just a few minutes until closing, as it barely had a queue, we jumped on Buzz Lightyear's Laser Blast for a quick last ride of the day. If you've done one of these, you've done them all.
We hit the tat shops before waving a fond farewell to the park and making our way back across the city to the hotel. I bought some tat. These are my fave <3
Let's end with an obligatory peace sign selfie, y'know, just because.
Day 5 – 11th September
We got up at silly o’clock to get over to TOKYO DISNEYLAND for opening. Due to all the nightmare stories we had heard about crowds we were prepared and joined the masses waiting at the gates way before opening. I think we arrived about 20-30 minutes before opening and there were already huge queues. There were also loads of people in costumes as the resort’s Halloween season had begun and during selected dates it’s ok for adults to turn up in fancy dress. Being Japan this pretty much turned the entire park into a giant Disney cosplay event – we thought this was awesome and always added that extra amusement to our time at the park.
You can't see them very well but there are three girls dressed as the three caballeros (a very popular bunch of characters in Japan)
The weather wasn’t fantastic, it was overcast and a little wet but we were at a very magical park during its Happiness year (the theme of their 30th anniversary). We also didn’t have to faff with tickets as we had purchased ours online and printed our e-tickets. These were fantastic as they also allowed you to use them for getting fastpasses etc. As soon as the gates opened everyone became very excited and the shuffling towards the gates began.
Tired. Damp. Still more excited than a small child on Christmas day
Glad we arrived when we did. Also, the monorail windows <3
Once we were through the gates there was just a sea of people heading into the covered Main Street area. Their Main Street (actually called X) is really nice and feels massive, I like the two avenues down into other areas about half way up the street. Amongst the masses of guests there was an army of happy staff members trying to keep everyone calm and not run. Speed walking it was then
The masses enter
Sorry for the blurryness of these pics, I wasn't going to waste time to get a steady shot
Staff member telling peeps to keep calm
All of the advice we had read told us we should run to Monsters Inc and attempt to get a fastpass with the rest of the park. So unlike all the advice we had read about we went straight to Pooh's Hunny hunt. We walked straight on and we both just fell in love with the ride, it really lives up to its reputation. The ride vehicles just seem to glide through the attraction seamlessly, really impressive. The room where you ‘dance’ around with all the other vehicles is definitely my favourite, it’s just really fun and there’s so much going on. We both left the ride with huge grins on our faces so we then went and grabbed some fast passes for the ride.
SO EXCITED I MIGHT WEE
It was then over to the other side of Fantasyland for Haunted Mansion with its Nightmare before Christmas makeover for the holiday season. I’ve wanted to experience the Holiday layover ever since I found out they did it. After about a 5-10 minute wait we were on. The pre-show lift was AWESOME, probably my favourite thing about the layover. Obviously everything was in Japanese which slightly tainted the epicness of the attraction but it was still incredible. The Jack Skellington animatronics were just perfect <3 The sheer amount of effort they put in for the Holiday version is just ridiculous and I love it.
With loads of time to spare before our next go on Pooh's Hunny Hunt we checked out Toon Town. Just as it was there and we didn’t know much about it we went in the Goofy’s Paint and Play house. We had to wait about 5-10 minutes again. It’s a cool little attraction and a bit different. Basically Goofy has invented a bunch of gizmos to decorate a house. You get to use these gizmos to decorate his living room. It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to queue any longer than we did for it.
We found a couple of random characters from the Silly Symphonies
We then walked straight on to Gadget’s Go Coaster. I find it fits in quite nicely into the very bright and colourful Toon Town. The coaster is just a standard family rollerskater really, nothing too exciting.
I was really excited that they had a Roger Rabbit dark ride so I made sure we did that next. The queue was probably around 15-20 minutes (people were clearly making their way to the back of the park by this point). The amount of detail in the indoor queue is insane, it’s like a proper walkthrough with tonnes of references to the film. Really helped build my excitement for the ride. The cars for the ride are also very cool but I felt like the ride was a bit disappointing, doesn’t appear to do much.
Toon Town was full of random effects, a dalmatian puppy jumps up to this open window if you hit a button
We decided to check out the queue for the classic It’s a Small World attraction. It was 5/10 minutes so we decided to go in. I have to admit I was shocked by the dual loading station, didn’t know that existed. I found the attraction like a weird mix between the Florida and Paris versions but that’s probably because it was built in-between those two.
Nic with her caramel popcorn
After wandering the Fantasyland area a bit more we found ourselves in the castle. Totally wasn’t aware there was a walkthrough inside the castle. There was no queue for it as we passed by so we ventured in. You start by taking a lift up to the main walkthrough area. The décor throughout is absolutely fantastic. I liked how different parts of Cinderella’s story were told via different style models. The finale is a huge room where you can pose in the throne or try to squeeze your foot into the glass slipper. As you can imagine, this room was very popular.
I love this castle
Disney <3
GAME TIME!
Can you spot in the below picture the real character greeting guests?
The whole corridor has these mosaics
As we came out of the amazing castle we noticed a show was starting over to the right. Super Duper jumping time is an odd little show aimed at the kids. They bring out some characters, sing some catchy tunes and all the characters jump around with the kids. It was a little Butlin-esque but it worked as the kids looked like they were loving it.
It was nearly time for the Halloween parade and as it ended in the Toon Town/Fantasyland area we decided to sit and watch that before using our fast passes for Pooh. So, what I never knew about before going was that along the whole parade route the staff basically create two areas, at the front is for sitting on the floor and then quite further back you can stand and watch the parade. This is fantastic and allows so many more people a chance to watch it and get a decent view. We opted to sit on the floor as we were able to get a fairly decent spot. Something I found out as the parade started though was that most of my photos would gain the top of other people’s heads, oh well. Most people sitting down were also well prepared and had Disney mats (which were sold in most of the shops) and all sorts of things to keep themselves entertained.
Before the parade started a sort of dance routine was taught to the guests. We didn’t really know what was going on but we loved that it was happening. The Halloween parade then began which was just awesome from start to finish. The music was catchy and fun and the whole thing was just really entertaining. Oh and that dance everyone was learning? Yeah that was for a certain section of the parade music (think it’s during the parade stop) so everyone just randomly starts doing this little dance, I love it, creates just the sort of perfect atmosphere that every parade should create.
It was then time for our Pooh's Hunny Hunt fastpasses. The normal queue wait time had risen to around the 90 minute mark so we were quite smug walking past with our 5 minute wait. The ride was obviously still awesome and it’s just so beautifully designed, you can’t see any of the lighting rigs and there’s barely any blank areas, just loads going on all the time.
We then decided to finally venture into Tomorrowland. It feels huge for some reason and I can’t put my finger on it. However the area merging between the areas is really blunt, a bit like in Florida, not the biggest fan of this design feature. Oh well.
We grabbed some fastpasses for StarTours II before joining the hour long queue for Space Mountan. The outdoor queue was a bit boring but it moved quickly. The indoor queue was cool and the main station area was awesome. We both loved how quick the loading and offloading was – Disney efficiency! The ride was good fun but it lacked audio and I think that made a huge World of difference for me.
We still had ages to wait for our Star Tours passes to work and the parade was still a bit of a wait so we went in search of food. This took us a lot longer than planned but we finally ended up at the pizza place in Tomorrowland. Inside there is this cool animatronic alien who occasionally sings songs etc, quite cool, basically a very similar character to the one in Florida. I had a calzone pizza, it was very yummy.
On our travels we also got to see the [strike]Main Street[/strike] World Bazaar band perform a few tracks. These bands are one of my favourite things about the Disney parks, they really help bring the area to life. It was then time to find a spot for the main daytime parade. We had left it a bit too long and we didn’t feel like sitting on the floor where there was some space due to all the heads. Instead we chose a spot that sort of overlooks the whole of the central plaza area which feels massive and very different to the other ones.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Can you spot the three aliens?
So the ‘Happiness on Parade’ parade happened and it was good. Some of the floats were absolutely huge. The Aladdin float made me very happy. The song for the parade is also really fun and catchy and if you don’t have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day then something is wrong lol.
<3
This float was just huge
After the parade it was time for Star Tours II. We had both experienced the American versions so knew what to expect. Most of the queueline was the same as the Florida version except for the first room which is huge and has a massive electric ad board to become a storm trooper among other things. The ride is exactly the same, just in Japanese. I still love it, the 3D effects just make the ride complete.
As Nic pointed out, we couldn't tell if some signs were in Kanji or some sort of Star Wars language
Later
We decided it was finally time to go explore Adventureland. We headed straight for the Tiki room. We were given some little box things which came up with subtitles for the show. This version was different to the one I had experienced in Florida as it features Stitch. I don’t think it worked as well tbh which is a shame.
The screen for the subtitle box was very reflective
All the other attractions in the area had quite a long wait so we headed into Westernland. Never having experienced a Big Bear Jamboree before we went to check that out. The building is really deceiving as it hides quite a large venue. Despite mainly being in Japanese it was easy to follow and it was quite fun, the animatronics were really good.
These 'cleaners' actually create images on the floor of Disney characters with a brush and a bit of water. They're really impressive and put on quite an entertaining little performance.
We then went round to Big Thunder Mountain. The queue was outside the actual queueline and there was a man with a little sign on a stick to inform people where to join. Despite looking ridiculous it only took around an hour. It felt like the queue was more like a conveyor belt because we very rarely stopped moving. This BTM feels quite small but the actual ride experience I thought was possibly the most fun out of the three I’ve ridden.
Eww
We went to check out Splash Mountain next but the queue was quite long so we went back on ourselves and headed to Adventureland again. We ended up joining the queue for Jungle Cruise. It felt a bit longer than the Florida version but that might just be down to not understanding the jokes the skipper was telling us. Language barrier <//3 It will be interesting to see what the new changes will be like though (closing the ride down for most of next year to drastically change the ride including adding a soundtrack).
We then made our way into the New Orleans area for Pirates of the Caribbean. I've not witnessed a Disney Orleans area yet so found it all very exciting and different. The ride entrance blends in with the rest of the area almost too well and those not paying attention could easily not see it lol. So the actual ride is different to the two I've ridden so far and I don't like it. Maybe it's because it wasn't the first one I rode, maybe I just generally don't like the way the ride progresses or maybe it's because randomly skipping from New Orleans into the Caribbean with no real explanation is just weird? I mean the general theme is still there with lots of familiar scenes (with the updated film touches like in Florida) but something just felt wrong but the whole attraction. Maybe it's just me?
It was getting dark now so we headed over to Fantasyland to check out Philarmagic. I'd seen the one in Florida and I wasn't a fan of it. The animation just looks really cheap and nasty and it grates on me. So I didn't have high expectations but Nic needed to see it for herself.
I loved these little kiosks in the area in front of the castle
The pretty awesome Halloween photo point which had a massive queue if you wanted a photo in front of it
The castle just looks awesome
Aristocats <3
This little piece of tat is just for the 30th anniversary. Throughout the two parks are random points which you can place this on and it sets up lots of random lights and sounds. It was quite random but cool. It was also very expensive (somewhere between £20-30).
These two really loved Duffy
We faffed around a bit before deciding that food needed to happen. We weren't very good at making a decision quickly but we finally ended up getting food in the Tomorrowland Plaza restaurant. I got a Chinese bun with a chicken fillet inside. It was really nice.
It was then nearly time for Dreamlights. An updated version of the Main Street Electrical Parade. I was expecting a completely new nightshow but it was just the normal parade with some really advanced floats from about half way through. The new floats were absolutely stunning but they do just make the rest of it look outdated. My favourite float was the Genie one, he kept transforming into different Disney characters, I loved it. I'm not sure why but I don't have any pictures from the parade. (might have been down to damp weather)
After the parade we headed over to Monsters Inc and joined the massive queue. While in the queue we were able to watch the fireworks show. They play the music throughout both parks which is kinda cool.
Back to Monsters Inc. The queue was long, boring and really tedious. All this queue better lead up to something great right? Nope. I don't think I've ever felt so let-down by a Disney attraction. It's a nice idea that just doesn't work or really make much sense. Despite the amazing exterior and effort gone into trying to make it look like the factory from the film they would have been better off building nothing in that space in my opinion, such a waste. In other words, it's a poor shooty ride without a scoring system. Come on Disney, you're better than this!
Nic drew Mike in the raindrops on top of a bin. We actually saw another guest take a picture of it too!
Sorry for the massive photo dump there, but as you can see the shop at the exit is full of awesome. To try and cram in one last ride we went over to Buzz to find a very short queue! Not much to talk about here as it's the same as all the others. Good fun.
It was then time for us to leave the park - obviously visiting all the tat shops on the way. The park looks beautiful at night (as you would expect with a Disney park) and with the added Halloween theming everywhere it adds an extra layer of awesome.
Nic loves Tokyo Disneyland!
The stream of people heading to the train station
We then managed to squeeze on to a train and an hour or so we were back at the hotel for some sleep. I absolutely love this Disney park, the staff were happy and friendly, the parades were incredible and the rides are some of the better versions out of what I've ridden (despite the odd flaw). The castle is also fantastic and is definitely a very close second to the Paris castle.
We got up at silly o’clock to get over to TOKYO DISNEYLAND for opening. Due to all the nightmare stories we had heard about crowds we were prepared and joined the masses waiting at the gates way before opening. I think we arrived about 20-30 minutes before opening and there were already huge queues. There were also loads of people in costumes as the resort’s Halloween season had begun and during selected dates it’s ok for adults to turn up in fancy dress. Being Japan this pretty much turned the entire park into a giant Disney cosplay event – we thought this was awesome and always added that extra amusement to our time at the park.
You can't see them very well but there are three girls dressed as the three caballeros (a very popular bunch of characters in Japan)
The weather wasn’t fantastic, it was overcast and a little wet but we were at a very magical park during its Happiness year (the theme of their 30th anniversary). We also didn’t have to faff with tickets as we had purchased ours online and printed our e-tickets. These were fantastic as they also allowed you to use them for getting fastpasses etc. As soon as the gates opened everyone became very excited and the shuffling towards the gates began.
Tired. Damp. Still more excited than a small child on Christmas day
Glad we arrived when we did. Also, the monorail windows <3
Once we were through the gates there was just a sea of people heading into the covered Main Street area. Their Main Street (actually called X) is really nice and feels massive, I like the two avenues down into other areas about half way up the street. Amongst the masses of guests there was an army of happy staff members trying to keep everyone calm and not run. Speed walking it was then
The masses enter
Sorry for the blurryness of these pics, I wasn't going to waste time to get a steady shot
Staff member telling peeps to keep calm
All of the advice we had read told us we should run to Monsters Inc and attempt to get a fastpass with the rest of the park. So unlike all the advice we had read about we went straight to Pooh's Hunny hunt. We walked straight on and we both just fell in love with the ride, it really lives up to its reputation. The ride vehicles just seem to glide through the attraction seamlessly, really impressive. The room where you ‘dance’ around with all the other vehicles is definitely my favourite, it’s just really fun and there’s so much going on. We both left the ride with huge grins on our faces so we then went and grabbed some fast passes for the ride.
SO EXCITED I MIGHT WEE
It was then over to the other side of Fantasyland for Haunted Mansion with its Nightmare before Christmas makeover for the holiday season. I’ve wanted to experience the Holiday layover ever since I found out they did it. After about a 5-10 minute wait we were on. The pre-show lift was AWESOME, probably my favourite thing about the layover. Obviously everything was in Japanese which slightly tainted the epicness of the attraction but it was still incredible. The Jack Skellington animatronics were just perfect <3 The sheer amount of effort they put in for the Holiday version is just ridiculous and I love it.
With loads of time to spare before our next go on Pooh's Hunny Hunt we checked out Toon Town. Just as it was there and we didn’t know much about it we went in the Goofy’s Paint and Play house. We had to wait about 5-10 minutes again. It’s a cool little attraction and a bit different. Basically Goofy has invented a bunch of gizmos to decorate a house. You get to use these gizmos to decorate his living room. It’s fun but I wouldn’t want to queue any longer than we did for it.
We found a couple of random characters from the Silly Symphonies
We then walked straight on to Gadget’s Go Coaster. I find it fits in quite nicely into the very bright and colourful Toon Town. The coaster is just a standard family rollerskater really, nothing too exciting.
I was really excited that they had a Roger Rabbit dark ride so I made sure we did that next. The queue was probably around 15-20 minutes (people were clearly making their way to the back of the park by this point). The amount of detail in the indoor queue is insane, it’s like a proper walkthrough with tonnes of references to the film. Really helped build my excitement for the ride. The cars for the ride are also very cool but I felt like the ride was a bit disappointing, doesn’t appear to do much.
Toon Town was full of random effects, a dalmatian puppy jumps up to this open window if you hit a button
We decided to check out the queue for the classic It’s a Small World attraction. It was 5/10 minutes so we decided to go in. I have to admit I was shocked by the dual loading station, didn’t know that existed. I found the attraction like a weird mix between the Florida and Paris versions but that’s probably because it was built in-between those two.
Nic with her caramel popcorn
After wandering the Fantasyland area a bit more we found ourselves in the castle. Totally wasn’t aware there was a walkthrough inside the castle. There was no queue for it as we passed by so we ventured in. You start by taking a lift up to the main walkthrough area. The décor throughout is absolutely fantastic. I liked how different parts of Cinderella’s story were told via different style models. The finale is a huge room where you can pose in the throne or try to squeeze your foot into the glass slipper. As you can imagine, this room was very popular.
I love this castle
Disney <3
GAME TIME!
Can you spot in the below picture the real character greeting guests?
The whole corridor has these mosaics
As we came out of the amazing castle we noticed a show was starting over to the right. Super Duper jumping time is an odd little show aimed at the kids. They bring out some characters, sing some catchy tunes and all the characters jump around with the kids. It was a little Butlin-esque but it worked as the kids looked like they were loving it.
It was nearly time for the Halloween parade and as it ended in the Toon Town/Fantasyland area we decided to sit and watch that before using our fast passes for Pooh. So, what I never knew about before going was that along the whole parade route the staff basically create two areas, at the front is for sitting on the floor and then quite further back you can stand and watch the parade. This is fantastic and allows so many more people a chance to watch it and get a decent view. We opted to sit on the floor as we were able to get a fairly decent spot. Something I found out as the parade started though was that most of my photos would gain the top of other people’s heads, oh well. Most people sitting down were also well prepared and had Disney mats (which were sold in most of the shops) and all sorts of things to keep themselves entertained.
Before the parade started a sort of dance routine was taught to the guests. We didn’t really know what was going on but we loved that it was happening. The Halloween parade then began which was just awesome from start to finish. The music was catchy and fun and the whole thing was just really entertaining. Oh and that dance everyone was learning? Yeah that was for a certain section of the parade music (think it’s during the parade stop) so everyone just randomly starts doing this little dance, I love it, creates just the sort of perfect atmosphere that every parade should create.
It was then time for our Pooh's Hunny Hunt fastpasses. The normal queue wait time had risen to around the 90 minute mark so we were quite smug walking past with our 5 minute wait. The ride was obviously still awesome and it’s just so beautifully designed, you can’t see any of the lighting rigs and there’s barely any blank areas, just loads going on all the time.
We then decided to finally venture into Tomorrowland. It feels huge for some reason and I can’t put my finger on it. However the area merging between the areas is really blunt, a bit like in Florida, not the biggest fan of this design feature. Oh well.
We grabbed some fastpasses for StarTours II before joining the hour long queue for Space Mountan. The outdoor queue was a bit boring but it moved quickly. The indoor queue was cool and the main station area was awesome. We both loved how quick the loading and offloading was – Disney efficiency! The ride was good fun but it lacked audio and I think that made a huge World of difference for me.
We still had ages to wait for our Star Tours passes to work and the parade was still a bit of a wait so we went in search of food. This took us a lot longer than planned but we finally ended up at the pizza place in Tomorrowland. Inside there is this cool animatronic alien who occasionally sings songs etc, quite cool, basically a very similar character to the one in Florida. I had a calzone pizza, it was very yummy.
On our travels we also got to see the [strike]Main Street[/strike] World Bazaar band perform a few tracks. These bands are one of my favourite things about the Disney parks, they really help bring the area to life. It was then time to find a spot for the main daytime parade. We had left it a bit too long and we didn’t feel like sitting on the floor where there was some space due to all the heads. Instead we chose a spot that sort of overlooks the whole of the central plaza area which feels massive and very different to the other ones.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Can you spot the three aliens?
So the ‘Happiness on Parade’ parade happened and it was good. Some of the floats were absolutely huge. The Aladdin float made me very happy. The song for the parade is also really fun and catchy and if you don’t have it stuck in your head for the rest of the day then something is wrong lol.
<3
This float was just huge
After the parade it was time for Star Tours II. We had both experienced the American versions so knew what to expect. Most of the queueline was the same as the Florida version except for the first room which is huge and has a massive electric ad board to become a storm trooper among other things. The ride is exactly the same, just in Japanese. I still love it, the 3D effects just make the ride complete.
As Nic pointed out, we couldn't tell if some signs were in Kanji or some sort of Star Wars language
Later
We decided it was finally time to go explore Adventureland. We headed straight for the Tiki room. We were given some little box things which came up with subtitles for the show. This version was different to the one I had experienced in Florida as it features Stitch. I don’t think it worked as well tbh which is a shame.
The screen for the subtitle box was very reflective
All the other attractions in the area had quite a long wait so we headed into Westernland. Never having experienced a Big Bear Jamboree before we went to check that out. The building is really deceiving as it hides quite a large venue. Despite mainly being in Japanese it was easy to follow and it was quite fun, the animatronics were really good.
These 'cleaners' actually create images on the floor of Disney characters with a brush and a bit of water. They're really impressive and put on quite an entertaining little performance.
We then went round to Big Thunder Mountain. The queue was outside the actual queueline and there was a man with a little sign on a stick to inform people where to join. Despite looking ridiculous it only took around an hour. It felt like the queue was more like a conveyor belt because we very rarely stopped moving. This BTM feels quite small but the actual ride experience I thought was possibly the most fun out of the three I’ve ridden.
Eww
We went to check out Splash Mountain next but the queue was quite long so we went back on ourselves and headed to Adventureland again. We ended up joining the queue for Jungle Cruise. It felt a bit longer than the Florida version but that might just be down to not understanding the jokes the skipper was telling us. Language barrier <//3 It will be interesting to see what the new changes will be like though (closing the ride down for most of next year to drastically change the ride including adding a soundtrack).
We then made our way into the New Orleans area for Pirates of the Caribbean. I've not witnessed a Disney Orleans area yet so found it all very exciting and different. The ride entrance blends in with the rest of the area almost too well and those not paying attention could easily not see it lol. So the actual ride is different to the two I've ridden so far and I don't like it. Maybe it's because it wasn't the first one I rode, maybe I just generally don't like the way the ride progresses or maybe it's because randomly skipping from New Orleans into the Caribbean with no real explanation is just weird? I mean the general theme is still there with lots of familiar scenes (with the updated film touches like in Florida) but something just felt wrong but the whole attraction. Maybe it's just me?
It was getting dark now so we headed over to Fantasyland to check out Philarmagic. I'd seen the one in Florida and I wasn't a fan of it. The animation just looks really cheap and nasty and it grates on me. So I didn't have high expectations but Nic needed to see it for herself.
I loved these little kiosks in the area in front of the castle
The pretty awesome Halloween photo point which had a massive queue if you wanted a photo in front of it
The castle just looks awesome
Aristocats <3
This little piece of tat is just for the 30th anniversary. Throughout the two parks are random points which you can place this on and it sets up lots of random lights and sounds. It was quite random but cool. It was also very expensive (somewhere between £20-30).
These two really loved Duffy
We faffed around a bit before deciding that food needed to happen. We weren't very good at making a decision quickly but we finally ended up getting food in the Tomorrowland Plaza restaurant. I got a Chinese bun with a chicken fillet inside. It was really nice.
It was then nearly time for Dreamlights. An updated version of the Main Street Electrical Parade. I was expecting a completely new nightshow but it was just the normal parade with some really advanced floats from about half way through. The new floats were absolutely stunning but they do just make the rest of it look outdated. My favourite float was the Genie one, he kept transforming into different Disney characters, I loved it. I'm not sure why but I don't have any pictures from the parade. (might have been down to damp weather)
After the parade we headed over to Monsters Inc and joined the massive queue. While in the queue we were able to watch the fireworks show. They play the music throughout both parks which is kinda cool.
Back to Monsters Inc. The queue was long, boring and really tedious. All this queue better lead up to something great right? Nope. I don't think I've ever felt so let-down by a Disney attraction. It's a nice idea that just doesn't work or really make much sense. Despite the amazing exterior and effort gone into trying to make it look like the factory from the film they would have been better off building nothing in that space in my opinion, such a waste. In other words, it's a poor shooty ride without a scoring system. Come on Disney, you're better than this!
Nic drew Mike in the raindrops on top of a bin. We actually saw another guest take a picture of it too!
Sorry for the massive photo dump there, but as you can see the shop at the exit is full of awesome. To try and cram in one last ride we went over to Buzz to find a very short queue! Not much to talk about here as it's the same as all the others. Good fun.
It was then time for us to leave the park
- obviously visiting all the tat shops on the way. The park looks beautiful at night (as you would expect with a Disney park) and with the added Halloween theming everywhere it adds an extra layer of awesome.
Nic loves Tokyo Disneyland!
The stream of people heading to the train station
We then managed to squeeze on to a train and an hour or so we were back at the hotel for some sleep. I absolutely love this Disney park, the staff were happy and friendly, the parades were incredible and the rides are some of the better versions out of what I've ridden (despite the odd flaw). The castle is also fantastic and is definitely a very close second to the Paris castle.
ATTACKHAMMER
Strata Poster
Such a good report, everything looks awesome!
insanecoastervids
Hyper Poster
Can't wait for more.
Once again, thanks all for the comments!
Day 6 - 12th September
The day had finally arrived, we were at DisneySEA!!! As expected the excitement and hype was extremely high, as was the temperature. In a stark contrast to the previous day the weather was extremely hot and sunny with lovely blue skies (fantastic for taking photos). We arrived early at the resort and grabbed some breakfast at the Disney train station (can't remember the name of the restaurant), we had a really nice meal that was reasonably priced. It was then over to the monorail to get over to DisneySea. If you're not already aware, you have to pay to use the monorail due to a law in Japan about transportation (it's the same law that meant that the Disneyland park's railway only has one station). So a quick beep with our suica card and we were on the next one. All the windows on the train were Mickey head-shaped which was a nice touch. Before we knew it we were getting off the DisneySea station and walking down to the ticket booth area.
Inside the monorail station is a bunch of lockers which I reckon are very handy if you're staying in one of the hotels.
Once again there were already long queues to get into the park and waiting in the heat of the sun was a little unpleasant. However once the gates opened we were soon inside the park where to our right a band were playing some music and Mickey and Minnie were out greeting guests.
Most beautiful hotel in the World?
You enter underneath the ridiculously incredible MiraCosta hotel (it's my dream to stay in one of the rooms that overlook the park). It then opens up to that amazing lake with the giant volcano sitting behind it. Photos will never do this park justice, it's just perfect and awesome.
People were already getting rides on the gondolas
I want to live in this beautiful place
Most people were heading straight to Toy Story Mania. This ride was literally at the bottom of our 'to do' list as we'd both done one of the American versions and there was so much more to this park to see and do. Our aim was to head to the back of the park and get straight on Indiana Jones (I'd never been on one and I'm a HUGE fan of the trilogy and TV series). On the way we got distracted by Aquatopia and it's 0 minute wait.
*drools*
We bumped into the Incredibles which was a little random
So, Aquatopia. They were running their 'wet version' of the ride (I wasn't even aware there were two, let alone a wet version lol). I was already boiling in the heat so we gave that a go. Best decision ever. The ride itself is just odd and you spin and dart all over the place which is great fun. The wet version means that every now and then you'll stop and a massive hose just starts spraying you with water, it's a huge shock to the system and you get drenched, I loved it.
We continued onwards to the back of the park. I instantly fell in love with the area as it felt like a giant version of Adventureland in Paris. The queue for Indiana Jones wasn't too long so we went and grabbed a fastpass for Raging Spirits before joining the queue for Indy. Raging Spirit's theming was just incredible, smoke, fire and water and just, yeah, looks fantastic.
Annoyingly most of the my photos of the incredibly detailed queueline have come out blurry </3
I've never felt so immersed within the theming. The thought of "we're just inside a warehouse" never happens, everywhere you look there is theming. Just an incredible level of attention to detail. I was already a massive fan of the attraction and I hadn't even stepped inside the ride vehicle.
I knew the ride system was the same as Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom (which I love) so I expected a lot from this ride. The ride was just as amazing as everyone had made it out to be, there are just so many effects and they've really used the ride vehicle to it's full potential. It's also much more of a thrill ride than I was expecting but I'm not really sure why that shocked me as much as it did.
We still had time to kill before our fastpasses were valid for Raging Spirits so we checked out the Arabian Coast area. It's yet another beautiful area of the park and the fairly new Jasmine's flying carpet ride looks amazing.
We then popped into Sinbad's Storybook Voyage which had no queue. I feel really sorry for this ride as it feels rather neglected as in no one rides it. It's now one of my favourite family attractions. The soundtrack is just brilliant and it feels like a ride version of a massive broadway musical, the sets are huge and detailed and the animatronics, well, I still can't get over how amazing they are. Not only are there so many of them but their movements are so fluid and realistic. Also the little Tiger cub character that belongs to Sinbad is adorable (I totally have a tiny plush of him now <3 ). Yeah this is a ride that you can't miss if you ever visit the park.
After experiencing that amazing voyage with Sinbad we went back over to Raging Spirits. The ride itself is exactly the same as Indiana Jones and the temple of peril in Paris. However the theming is even better and the smoke effect that set off before you go through a small tunnel just make it so much more. Oh yeah and the helix around a firepit and the vertical loop is submerged in the ground a bit where there is a massive pit of bellowing smoke. Tokyo really know how to take things to the next level of amazing.
The bit that says 360 degree loop actually spins around
Sorry, decent pics are hard to take due to the structure but there's the mass of smoke that rises from a pit in the ground
Oh yeah and a building with water cascading down it
This mass of smoke that sets off before you enter it is really hot
Crystal Skull temple
The Lost River Delta area had some really awesome seasonal theming everywhere. At first we thought it was for Halloween but we later realised that it was a different style. Turns out this was for the park's 12th anniversary. It was a sort of Mexican day of the dead theme which was quite cool.
This area was really busy
It was really hot so we grabbed a Mickey Mouse head ice lolly and headed in to catch the Mystic Rhythms show. Neither of us knew what to expect as we'd never heard of it before. It was like a mix between the Tarzan show in Paris and Cirque du Soleil. I'm not a fan of the latter. It was all a bit too arty and pretentious for me. I did like the theatre though which is themed to an old airplane hanger.
We then went back to Indiana Jones which we had fastpasses for (I think we grabbed them just after Raging Spirits). It's still a brilliant ride. I got an orp (which I still haven't scanned and uploaded so it'll appear here at some point in the future).
It was then back to the sort of bridge like area in the delta area where a parade was about to begin. There were so many people on the path that we did wonder if the parade was ever going to happen and if they were going to get through the masses ok. Turned out that several minutes before it began staff members just appeared and managed to make sure everyone stuck to the sides. The actual parade (Chip 'n Dale's Skeleton Fiesta) was actually really fun and reminded me of the one in Animal Kingdom minus the awkward trucks of strangers.
We then decided to head over to Tower of Terror but got distracted as they were letting in the last group for the show in the New York area, Big Band Beat. The theatre is ridiculously huge and the decor is amazing. The show? I loved it, I have a soft spot for this type of music and the cast were fantastic. The moving pieces of stage and sections with random characters were just the icing on the cake, it was a show that just kept my smile glowing.
I loved the tram, added to the atmosphere of the area
I still can't quite get over the size of this ship
After the show we wandered around the American Waterfront area for a bit in search of food. We ended up eating in the deli which was really nice. The American Waterfront area is also fantastic and feels more real than the Studio sets in the Hollywood Studios park. The area was also celebrating Halloween in it's own way which was headed up by some skeleton characters. We found them walking through the area, on their way to a restaurant where they entertain the guests.
Looks great but the queue time was horrible
Just epic
Who needs to visit Venice when you can just go to DisneySEA?
We then found a spot for Legend of Mythica. Expectations were high for this show on the main lake. The floats for the show are pretty amazing and are huge and the cast must be massive. However I felt really lost in translation which tainted it a little for me (which is odd because that hasn't affected other shows/rides for me).
Loads of the cast get off the floats to these designated show areas, so if you're unaware of this (like we were) and don't stand near one of these areas it can be a little odd because you miss out on a lot.
The kites were cool
After the show we tried to beat the crowds from the show to Journey to the Center of the Earth. We still ended up having to queue for a very long time, which was a little annoying. By the time we made it into the station we reckon it must have kept breaking down as we witnessed it break down at one point. So by the time we were on the actual ride we were a little annoyed. However we were a little confused by the awesome looking vehicles. I knew that the ride was meant to be amazing but I think we had both assumed it was a standard dark ride. Ha, how little we knew.
It's actually a test track style ride system which is very well hidden. The ride starts off by going through these fascinating caves where all these strange plants and creatures have been discovered. It feels really busy like there's too much to see. You then come across a monster of sorts and there's a blast of fire and before you know it you're shooting off really quickly and out of the volcano and down the side of it. It comes as a real shock to the system and it's brilliant. We both fell in love with this ridiculously over the top attraction.
After sort of getting lost within the Mysterious Island area (so many exits, which one do we take?) we finally made it out to Mermaid Lagoon. Most of the area is indoors but we started off by riding Flounders coaster which is a fairly standard family coaster with a really pointless water effect at one point. Why pointless? It's underneath the track and sets off as you go over it. So you can't see it when you're on the ride and there's not much of the queue in which you can see it too, very odd.
Is this the correct exit?
You remember the mickey interactive thing I found in the shop? Well this is one of the things it'll activate. In the SEA park all the objects were just normal park objects hoisted in the air. Other ones to be found included a park bench and a lamp post
<3
It was then into Triton's Kingdom to see what was inside.
A derpy pufferfish ride
It's a really nicely themed area full of rides for that the little ones can enjoy. There's also the theatre that houses the Little Mermaid show. We went and checked it out. I was expecting the same as what you can find in the Hollywood Studios park in Florida, I was wrong. It's a really good show and the Ursula puppet was amazing and must terrify little kids. Yeah, don't miss this show.
It was then back over to the Arabian Coast area to check out what was inside the Magic Lamp theater. Neither of us were sure what to expect and the pre-show gave nothing away (well, to us anyway because there was no English translation for this show </3). Annoyingly we ended up in the front row (I loathe sitting near the front). Well, what followed was definitely nothing we could have expected. It's a fantastic show which incorporates live actors and a 3D screen. It's really funny due to the amazing actors and the effects are effective.
It was getting dark now and it was nearly time for Fantasmic. Before that it was time to use our fastpasses for Tower of Terror (I think we must have obtained them at some point during our faff in that area earlier in the day). I was really looking forward to experiencing this version of the Tower. The main reception hall is incredible but more on that later. The pre-show room is far superior to the other versions in my opinion. Why? Because there is an effect and we can't work out how the hell they've done it and it's actually incredible. You then enter a massive room to get to the lifts but instead of it being a grim boiler room its a like a museum storage area, it's fantastic, so many awesome things to look at. As we later found out, all the lift waiting areas are themed to different storage rooms, so some contain masses of paintings and some are various masks etc, I love that. The ride itself isn't very different to the other versions, so basically it's awesome.
We then went to try and find a spot for Fantasmic. I think we did pretty well considering how late we left it. It takes place on the big lake again like the Mythica show so there's plenty of places to watch it from. We ended up at the back of a seated area in the bottom left of the lake. The show was meant to start at 8pm which then came and went with no announcements. Some of the floats had already disappeared. Then, about 8:10-15 they announced that the show was cancelled due to a technical issue. We've never heard anything like the sound that happened as the announcement began. Literally the entire place went 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' but obviously in Japanese, the sound of bitter disappointment could really be heard echoing throughout the park.
Obviously everyone then starts to move in the panic of 'sh*t, what do we do now?'. We were hungry so tried to shift through the crowds to the restaurant overlooking the Venice canal. It was called Ristorante di Canaletto. They serve a mix of traditional Italian dishes. We had to wait quite a while but we were finally seated in the outside area (as Nic's request) overlooking the canal. It was pretty but I felt the tables were massive and that I was sitting miles away from Nic lol. The food was alright but nothing to really rave about considering that this was one of the more upmarket restaurants.
We decided to head back over to Tower of Terror for our last ride of the day. The queue was fairly long but once inside there's lots to look at.
Most of the walls has a painting like this
Actual magic happens in this room
Our second ride on the Tower was just as brilliant, the views of the park are absolutely stunning and the airtime is insane. I don't think I'll ever figure out how the trick in the pre-show works though. Attractions Magazine posted a video of it earlier in the year...
Day 6 - 12th September
The day had finally arrived, we were at DisneySEA!!! As expected the excitement and hype was extremely high, as was the temperature. In a stark contrast to the previous day the weather was extremely hot and sunny with lovely blue skies (fantastic for taking photos). We arrived early at the resort and grabbed some breakfast at the Disney train station (can't remember the name of the restaurant), we had a really nice meal that was reasonably priced. It was then over to the monorail to get over to DisneySea. If you're not already aware, you have to pay to use the monorail due to a law in Japan about transportation (it's the same law that meant that the Disneyland park's railway only has one station). So a quick beep with our suica card and we were on the next one. All the windows on the train were Mickey head-shaped which was a nice touch. Before we knew it we were getting off the DisneySea station and walking down to the ticket booth area.
Inside the monorail station is a bunch of lockers which I reckon are very handy if you're staying in one of the hotels.
Once again there were already long queues to get into the park and waiting in the heat of the sun was a little unpleasant. However once the gates opened we were soon inside the park where to our right a band were playing some music and Mickey and Minnie were out greeting guests.
Most beautiful hotel in the World?
You enter underneath the ridiculously incredible MiraCosta hotel (it's my dream to stay in one of the rooms that overlook the park). It then opens up to that amazing lake with the giant volcano sitting behind it. Photos will never do this park justice, it's just perfect and awesome.
People were already getting rides on the gondolas
I want to live in this beautiful place
Most people were heading straight to Toy Story Mania. This ride was literally at the bottom of our 'to do' list as we'd both done one of the American versions and there was so much more to this park to see and do. Our aim was to head to the back of the park and get straight on Indiana Jones (I'd never been on one and I'm a HUGE fan of the trilogy and TV series). On the way we got distracted by Aquatopia and it's 0 minute wait.
*drools*
We bumped into the Incredibles which was a little random
So, Aquatopia. They were running their 'wet version' of the ride (I wasn't even aware there were two, let alone a wet version lol). I was already boiling in the heat so we gave that a go. Best decision ever. The ride itself is just odd and you spin and dart all over the place which is great fun. The wet version means that every now and then you'll stop and a massive hose just starts spraying you with water, it's a huge shock to the system and you get drenched, I loved it.
We continued onwards to the back of the park. I instantly fell in love with the area as it felt like a giant version of Adventureland in Paris. The queue for Indiana Jones wasn't too long so we went and grabbed a fastpass for Raging Spirits before joining the queue for Indy. Raging Spirit's theming was just incredible, smoke, fire and water and just, yeah, looks fantastic.
Annoyingly most of the my photos of the incredibly detailed queueline have come out blurry </3
I've never felt so immersed within the theming. The thought of "we're just inside a warehouse" never happens, everywhere you look there is theming. Just an incredible level of attention to detail. I was already a massive fan of the attraction and I hadn't even stepped inside the ride vehicle.
I knew the ride system was the same as Dinosaur at Animal Kingdom (which I love) so I expected a lot from this ride. The ride was just as amazing as everyone had made it out to be, there are just so many effects and they've really used the ride vehicle to it's full potential. It's also much more of a thrill ride than I was expecting but I'm not really sure why that shocked me as much as it did.
We still had time to kill before our fastpasses were valid for Raging Spirits so we checked out the Arabian Coast area. It's yet another beautiful area of the park and the fairly new Jasmine's flying carpet ride looks amazing.
We then popped into Sinbad's Storybook Voyage which had no queue. I feel really sorry for this ride as it feels rather neglected as in no one rides it. It's now one of my favourite family attractions. The soundtrack is just brilliant and it feels like a ride version of a massive broadway musical, the sets are huge and detailed and the animatronics, well, I still can't get over how amazing they are. Not only are there so many of them but their movements are so fluid and realistic. Also the little Tiger cub character that belongs to Sinbad is adorable (I totally have a tiny plush of him now <3 ). Yeah this is a ride that you can't miss if you ever visit the park.
After experiencing that amazing voyage with Sinbad we went back over to Raging Spirits. The ride itself is exactly the same as Indiana Jones and the temple of peril in Paris. However the theming is even better and the smoke effect that set off before you go through a small tunnel just make it so much more. Oh yeah and the helix around a firepit and the vertical loop is submerged in the ground a bit where there is a massive pit of bellowing smoke. Tokyo really know how to take things to the next level of amazing.
The bit that says 360 degree loop actually spins around
Sorry, decent pics are hard to take due to the structure but there's the mass of smoke that rises from a pit in the ground
Oh yeah and a building with water cascading down it
This mass of smoke that sets off before you enter it is really hot
Crystal Skull temple
The Lost River Delta area had some really awesome seasonal theming everywhere. At first we thought it was for Halloween but we later realised that it was a different style. Turns out this was for the park's 12th anniversary. It was a sort of Mexican day of the dead theme which was quite cool.
This area was really busy
It was really hot so we grabbed a Mickey Mouse head ice lolly and headed in to catch the Mystic Rhythms show. Neither of us knew what to expect as we'd never heard of it before. It was like a mix between the Tarzan show in Paris and Cirque du Soleil. I'm not a fan of the latter. It was all a bit too arty and pretentious for me. I did like the theatre though which is themed to an old airplane hanger.
We then went back to Indiana Jones which we had fastpasses for (I think we grabbed them just after Raging Spirits). It's still a brilliant ride. I got an orp (which I still haven't scanned and uploaded so it'll appear here at some point in the future).
It was then back to the sort of bridge like area in the delta area where a parade was about to begin. There were so many people on the path that we did wonder if the parade was ever going to happen and if they were going to get through the masses ok. Turned out that several minutes before it began staff members just appeared and managed to make sure everyone stuck to the sides. The actual parade (Chip 'n Dale's Skeleton Fiesta) was actually really fun and reminded me of the one in Animal Kingdom minus the awkward trucks of strangers.
We then decided to head over to Tower of Terror but got distracted as they were letting in the last group for the show in the New York area, Big Band Beat. The theatre is ridiculously huge and the decor is amazing. The show? I loved it, I have a soft spot for this type of music and the cast were fantastic. The moving pieces of stage and sections with random characters were just the icing on the cake, it was a show that just kept my smile glowing.
I loved the tram, added to the atmosphere of the area
I still can't quite get over the size of this ship
After the show we wandered around the American Waterfront area for a bit in search of food. We ended up eating in the deli which was really nice. The American Waterfront area is also fantastic and feels more real than the Studio sets in the Hollywood Studios park. The area was also celebrating Halloween in it's own way which was headed up by some skeleton characters. We found them walking through the area, on their way to a restaurant where they entertain the guests.
Looks great but the queue time was horrible
Just epic
Who needs to visit Venice when you can just go to DisneySEA?
We then found a spot for Legend of Mythica. Expectations were high for this show on the main lake. The floats for the show are pretty amazing and are huge and the cast must be massive. However I felt really lost in translation which tainted it a little for me (which is odd because that hasn't affected other shows/rides for me).
Loads of the cast get off the floats to these designated show areas, so if you're unaware of this (like we were) and don't stand near one of these areas it can be a little odd because you miss out on a lot.
The kites were cool
After the show we tried to beat the crowds from the show to Journey to the Center of the Earth. We still ended up having to queue for a very long time, which was a little annoying. By the time we made it into the station we reckon it must have kept breaking down as we witnessed it break down at one point. So by the time we were on the actual ride we were a little annoyed. However we were a little confused by the awesome looking vehicles. I knew that the ride was meant to be amazing but I think we had both assumed it was a standard dark ride. Ha, how little we knew.
It's actually a test track style ride system which is very well hidden. The ride starts off by going through these fascinating caves where all these strange plants and creatures have been discovered. It feels really busy like there's too much to see. You then come across a monster of sorts and there's a blast of fire and before you know it you're shooting off really quickly and out of the volcano and down the side of it. It comes as a real shock to the system and it's brilliant. We both fell in love with this ridiculously over the top attraction.
After sort of getting lost within the Mysterious Island area (so many exits, which one do we take?) we finally made it out to Mermaid Lagoon. Most of the area is indoors but we started off by riding Flounders coaster which is a fairly standard family coaster with a really pointless water effect at one point. Why pointless? It's underneath the track and sets off as you go over it. So you can't see it when you're on the ride and there's not much of the queue in which you can see it too, very odd.
Is this the correct exit?
You remember the mickey interactive thing I found in the shop? Well this is one of the things it'll activate. In the SEA park all the objects were just normal park objects hoisted in the air. Other ones to be found included a park bench and a lamp post
<3
It was then into Triton's Kingdom to see what was inside.
A derpy pufferfish ride
It's a really nicely themed area full of rides for that the little ones can enjoy. There's also the theatre that houses the Little Mermaid show. We went and checked it out. I was expecting the same as what you can find in the Hollywood Studios park in Florida, I was wrong. It's a really good show and the Ursula puppet was amazing and must terrify little kids. Yeah, don't miss this show.
It was then back over to the Arabian Coast area to check out what was inside the Magic Lamp theater. Neither of us were sure what to expect and the pre-show gave nothing away (well, to us anyway because there was no English translation for this show </3). Annoyingly we ended up in the front row (I loathe sitting near the front). Well, what followed was definitely nothing we could have expected. It's a fantastic show which incorporates live actors and a 3D screen. It's really funny due to the amazing actors and the effects are effective.
It was getting dark now and it was nearly time for Fantasmic. Before that it was time to use our fastpasses for Tower of Terror (I think we must have obtained them at some point during our faff in that area earlier in the day). I was really looking forward to experiencing this version of the Tower. The main reception hall is incredible but more on that later. The pre-show room is far superior to the other versions in my opinion. Why? Because there is an effect and we can't work out how the hell they've done it and it's actually incredible. You then enter a massive room to get to the lifts but instead of it being a grim boiler room its a like a museum storage area, it's fantastic, so many awesome things to look at. As we later found out, all the lift waiting areas are themed to different storage rooms, so some contain masses of paintings and some are various masks etc, I love that. The ride itself isn't very different to the other versions, so basically it's awesome.
We then went to try and find a spot for Fantasmic. I think we did pretty well considering how late we left it. It takes place on the big lake again like the Mythica show so there's plenty of places to watch it from. We ended up at the back of a seated area in the bottom left of the lake. The show was meant to start at 8pm which then came and went with no announcements. Some of the floats had already disappeared. Then, about 8:10-15 they announced that the show was cancelled due to a technical issue. We've never heard anything like the sound that happened as the announcement began. Literally the entire place went 'Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo' but obviously in Japanese, the sound of bitter disappointment could really be heard echoing throughout the park.
Obviously everyone then starts to move in the panic of 'sh*t, what do we do now?'. We were hungry so tried to shift through the crowds to the restaurant overlooking the Venice canal. It was called Ristorante di Canaletto. They serve a mix of traditional Italian dishes. We had to wait quite a while but we were finally seated in the outside area (as Nic's request) overlooking the canal. It was pretty but I felt the tables were massive and that I was sitting miles away from Nic lol. The food was alright but nothing to really rave about considering that this was one of the more upmarket restaurants.
We decided to head back over to Tower of Terror for our last ride of the day. The queue was fairly long but once inside there's lots to look at.
Most of the walls has a painting like this
Actual magic happens in this room
Our second ride on the Tower was just as brilliant, the views of the park are absolutely stunning and the airtime is insane. I don't think I'll ever figure out how the trick in the pre-show works though. Attractions Magazine posted a video of it earlier in the year...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz8hwDhHcI0[/youtube]
We then browsed a couple of stores before having to leave the park. I love DisneySEA, it's just incredible, even more elaborate and exciting as I had imagined it would be. I was really looking forward to our third and final day at the Disney resort, crossing everything in the hope that we'd be able to get to see Fantasmic....