Trip Report: Tokyo Disney Resort

HOTEL & IKSPIARI

Tokyo Disney Resort has always been on our bucket list, since it is considered to be the best Disney resort among Disney fans. So far we visited Disneyland Paris, Disneyland California, Walt Disney World and did a Disney cruise.

In the last couple of years we always traveled to the US and now we wanted to see something new and different. That's why we decided to give Japan a try. Besides Disney we visited Tokyo, Osaka, Universal Studios Japan, Hiroshima and Kyoto.

All I can say is, that Japan is such an interesting and beautiful country that made the top spot on my travel list. I can't wait to return, but now on to Tokyo Disney Resort.

We visited TDR for four days. On the first day we did TDL and on the other three days TDS. At first we wanted to stay at a Disney Hotel, but Miracosta and Disneyland Hotel were way too expensive and Disney's Ambassador was also a bit pricey. There's a new Disney Hotel called Celebration Hotel, but we decided against that, because it was too far away from the resort. So we decided to give the Mystays Maihama a try, since it was just ten minutes by foot to TDS and about 20 minutes to TDL. The hotel was nothing special, but we felt comfortable and enjoyed our stay there.

Tokyo Disney Resort consists of two themeparks and a shopping centre called Ikspiari. We arrived at TDR on Sunday afternoon and since our tickets weren't valid yet, we wanted to spend the evening at Ikspiari. Honestly I didn't read a lot about TDR and so I expected Ikspiari to be like Disney Village, Disney Springs or Downtown Disney. We just wanted to get some drinks at a bar, but Ikspiari was definitely not the place for that. It was basically a shopping centre on three floors. The only thing that reminded us to be at Disney was the huge Disney Store.

Since Ikspiari was such a disappointment, we decided to take a ride on the monorail around the resort. Unlike at DLA or WDW you have to pay to use the monorail. If I'm not mistaken, it has something to do with a law regarding trains, but we knew that beforehand. The ride around the resort was nice, but we didn't get to see much of the parks. Back at Ikspiari we headed over to the Disneyland Hotel to get a drink at the hotel bar. The hotel looks nice, but it is just big and it lacks the warmth of the Disneyland Hotel in Paris, which is by any means more beautiful than its cousin in Tokyo. Unfortunately we didn't get a table and the Cast Members didn't allow us to sit directly at the empty bar and so we left again. I don't know why, but apparently sitting at the bar is not that common at TDR, because on our way back to our hotel we stopped at the Ambassador hotel to get a drink there, but we weren't allowed to sit at the bar there as well. Luckily there were plenty of empty tables.


More to come!

 

Do you think the sitting at the bar issue is an attempt to keep it open and uncrowded?

 

Interesting, anxious to hear more. And hopefully see some pictures.

 

There will be pictures, but I haven't started yet to sort them. As soon as I'm finished, I will post them here, but I'm afraid that it will take a couple of weeks.

 

I really don't know why we weren't allowed to sit at the bar. At the Disneyland Hotel there were some groups waiting for a table and maybe the CMs didn't want us to let in before the waiting people. The same happened at the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge as well. There was plenty of room at the bar, but we still had to wait until the guests in front of us were seated. But at least there we were allowed to sit at the bar. Nonetheless, at Disney's Ambassador Hotel no one was waiting in front of us, but we just weren't allowed to sit at the bar.

 

MERCHANDISE

Before visiting TDR I listened to some podcasts with Imagineers Tony Baxter and Tim Delaney and both stated that TDR sells so much merchandise. That's why I expected the merchandise to be spectacular, but it turned out to be a huge disappointment. I knew beforehand that pin trading isn't really a thing in Japan and so I didn't expect many pins to be sold, but at least more than the few we saw. Luckily I found some resort pins. TDR sells even more cheap stuff nobody needs than DLP or the US resorts, but they sell cookies, boy do they sell cookies. Cookies are everywhere to buy. I know Japanese guests bring them home to their relatives, since gift giving is a huge part of Japanese culture, but I didn't realize that it's just about cookies.

And then there's the stupid Disney Bear called Duffy. I really don't get the porpuse of that character, but he is a huge success in Japan and TDR sells plenty of Duffy stuff. I didn't know that he has friends, who are also extremly popular among Japanese Disney fans. I guess that's why Disney brought him over to France as well, but he never became really popular. Is he a thing in the US?

T-Shirts were also hard to find and the few available we didn't really like, but we found logo shirts for both parks which we bought.

The coolest stuff I found were TDR branded Fujifilm Instax Instant Films. I had to buy a couple of boxes and I hope, since Fujifilm is a sponsor of DLP as well, that these Disney branded instant films will come to Paris as well.

To sum it up, the merchandise was a disappointment and I never thought I would say that, but apparently DLP and the US resorts have really a good variety when it comes to merchandise.


FOOD

My wife and I are vegan, so visiting Disneyland Paris is really challenging,while the US resorts are fantastic in catering vegan guests. Apparently it can get worse than Paris. Besides French Fries, ice cream bars and a Japanese dessert, there's literally nothing vegan we could get at Disneyland Park. Tokyo DisneySea had one vegan option, a Japanese curry, at Casbah Food Court. Of course we got the curry every day and it was really delicious. Luckily there was a little store near our hotel that sold onigiri, so we were fine.

I'm a big fan of the Carl Barks and Don Rosa comics revolving around Donald, his nephews and Scrooge and so eating at Cam Junio Woodchuck was high on my list. Great restaurant although we only got fries.

Unfortunately there wasn't a Starbucks in none of the parks and the one at Ikspiari wasn't on our route.

Like in the US Disneyland Park doesn't sell alcohol, but DisneySea does. That park as two fantastic bars/lounges. One is the aforementioned Teddy Roosevelt bar and the other one was the most beautiful Disney bar I've ever been called Magellan's. There are also food carts where we could get a glass of beer. Apparently Japanese like to drink beer in the parks, because it was no problem to get the beers to go. We saw many guests walking around with a glass of beer. Of course we had to do that as well. Many counter service locations also sell beer.


More to come!

 

I never heard of Duffy, but then, I don't get around much. So, I read that he started in Orlando's WDW in 2002 before being marketed at other parks around the globe. I'll have to look for him next time I go to Anaheim and see if he's still a thing.

 

They have tried to make him a *thing* especially in DCA. He did meet and greets at the store that sold the bear and outfits for him on Paradise Peer. I have worked very hard to avoid Duffy. A number of years back, I threw a fit when the Teddy Bear on the first float of A Christmas Fantasy Parade was replaced with Duffy. (Especially since little kids were oohing and awing, "It's Duffy!!"

 

Glad to hear you had a good trip, both to TDR and Japan in general. It's a wonderful place to visit, with such unique culture and history, and very tourist-friendly

As for merchandise, I agree that the selection of products is often underwhelming by western standards (lots of pens, pencils, notepads, and cookie tins), but what makes it interesting is how much event-specific stuff they do. Unlike the US parks where they occasionally have a couple generic products with the year on them, TDR often makes entire suites of merchandise for events that only last a few weeks. Additionally, they're great at restocking at the end of an event, so things don't bleed over from one season to the next. I was there a couple years ago at the end of the week-long Star Festival and the beginning of the months-long summer promotion, and all of the branded merchandise was replaced overnight. Although very little of it appealed to me, it was impressive to see how much change there was from one event to the next

 

TOKYO DISNEYLAND

From all the castle parks I have visited so far, I liked TDL and the MK the least. Both lacked the beauty of Disneyland Paris and the intimacy of Disneyland California. However, I think TDL makes the last spot on the list for several reasons. However, the main reason why I don't like TDL as much as the other parks is the artificial look. For me the park didn't look "real".

Let's start with the entrance. Usually you go through the turnstiles and you stand in front of the train station. Then you know you are at a Disneyland Park. In Tokyo you stand in front of a huge building that doesn't look appealing to me. I know weather can be rough in Tokyo and that's why they chose to build World Bazar instead of a Main Street USA. Once you have entered World Bazar, you realize that it's just a short version of Main Street USA with a huge roof on top. I didn't like it at all, it just looked awful. The buildings and the floor looked like plastic and it got really loud under the canopy. And then there's the name which I really don't get. Since World Bazar is clearly modeled after Main Street USA, the word "World" makes no sense at all and Bazar doesn't either.

What I really liked was the huge Central Plaza in front of the castle. Cinderella castle seems to be an exact copy of the one in Florida, but with the different colour scheme it looks much more beautiful than its counterpart in Florida.

Since the crowds are crazy in Tokyo we rushed to Fantasyland to get a Fastpass for Winnie Pooh, which was high on our list, since it gets so much praise among Disney fans. Don't get me wrong, it is a fantastic ride, especially the bounce effect, but besides the ride system, it didn't live up to the hype. Still I would love to see that version in Paris.

Next was Haunted Mansion which had the Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. At first I thought that this version might be a little bit weird, but it was really cool, although we didn't understand a word. If I'm not mistaken, the Haunted Mansion/Phantom Manor is located in a different land at each Disneyland Park, but I think it fits well into Fantasyland as well. The other attraction we did in Fantasyland were Mickey's Philharmagic, the Tea Cups and Pinocchio. In general Fantasyland wasn't very appealing to us, because it just doesn't look beautiful or magical at all. That's something it shares with the old Fantasyland in Florida. Maybe the recently announced additions will help to turn it into a lovely land. And please OLC remove the ugly Dumbo ride.

Since I'm on my mobilephone, I will stop here and post more in the upcoming days.

 

@dagobert have you seen DLR's Haunted Mansion overlay before? I was wondering how it compares if you had seen both.

 

Unfortunately not. I only know the original version in Anaheim.

 

Halloween season has already started and there were some halloween items on sale, but I would have expected more. There were mostly Halloween themed cookie tins.

 

Still TOKYO DISNEYLAND

In Tokyo they renamed Frontierland to Westernland. There we only rode Big Thunder Mountain and if I'm not mistaken it was the same version like in Florida, at least judging from the rock work. Great ride, but BTMRR is great everywhere. In Westernland we had lunch at Junior Woodchucks Kitchen, which we really liked, but I've already covered that restaurant in a previous post.

What suprised me the most in Westernland was a shop that didn't sell Disney stuff. Instead that store sold Jeans, and other clothing related stuff from several brands. Granted it could be associated with cowboy gear, so there's a connection to the wild west, but it was still strange.

We also wanted to ride Splash Mountain in Critter Country, but waiting for nearly two hours wasn't our thing. The other ride we had on our list was Monsters Inc, but again, we just didn't want to queue for 140 minutes. A huge part of Tomorrowland is currently a huge construction site for the Fantasyland expansion. The rest of the land looked okay, although it suffers from the same problem like Discoveryland in Paris, the Pixar ride just doesn't fit the theme.

The only other ride we did was Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland. Adventureland has some really nice areas and for me it was the only land that didn't feel artificial, at least in the main area around the Tiki Room and Jungle Cruise. The area around POTC felt a bit disconnected, since it was basically neighbouring World Bazar.

We didn't watch any parades, since we are not really into that. And it looked like guests were already taking their places in the morning to get a good view and waiting just for the parades in 35°C. No way!!!

On the one hand Tokyo Disneyland clearly is a Disney park, but on the other hand it just didn't feel "right". I can't explain that feeling, but the park just felt like OLC had a huge parcel of land, picked the most important attractions from the US parks and placed them around some wide walkways. In my opinion the park just lacks better overall theming to connect everything. Still we had a great time, but I'm glad we only spent one day there.


Next will be Tokyo DisneySea!

 

TOKYO DISNEYSEA

Among Disney fans Tokyo Disney Sea is considered to be the most beautiful themepark in the world. So our expectations were really high and that's why we spent three out of four days at Tokyo's second park.

The moment you enter the park you realize it is indeed the most beautiful themepark in the world. The theming in incredible and there are little things to discover everywhere. However, most beautiful doesn't equal best park. I'm definitely not one of the Disney fans who bash all other Disney parks just to make it clear how great Tokyo DisneySea is, because in my opinion it is a great park but not THAT great, especially when it comes to attractions. Let's take Tower of Terror as an example. It definitely is the most beautifully themed tower with the best background story (I haven't experienced GOTG yet), but the ride experience is disappointing and so much better at all other resorts. In Tokyo there was hardly any free fall time, because it got tamed down and the three point belt is also limiting the experience.

There are many other attractions that aren't really worth the time, for example both rides at Port Discovery. The Finding Nemo ride is nothing to get excited about and Aquatopia is also boring. I know it uses the same ride technology like TDL'S Winnie Pooh or DLP's Ratatouille, but that doesn't make a good attraction.

As you may know, TDS doesn't consist of lands, but of ports instead. My favourits ports of call were Mysterious Island, Arabian Coast and American Waterfront. Of all port only Mermaid Lagoon looks out of place and a little bit tacky. Even at the best themed park in the world there are not so well themed attractions, like Flying Fish Coaster, which isn't themed at all. Except for Flounder's Flying Fish coaster we only did King Triton's Concert at Mermaid Lagoon. I din't like the show at all and in my opinion the "real" mermaids looked so out of place. Luckily due to technical problems the show had to be canceled half way, but we got a fastpass for one minor attraction, which we used for Flying Fish Coaster.

Our favourite ride was Indiana Jones Adventure, which is superior to Anaheim. Additionally it never broke down during our visit, while in California Indy was closed most of the time due to technical problems. I also enjoyed Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 20000 Leagues under the Sea a lot. Both rides would be a perfect addition to Space Mountain De La Terre a la Lune at DLP. Unfortunately none of those will ever happen again.

The ride that surprised me the most was Sindbad's Storybook Voyage. We really liked that attraction and the best thing was, there was hardly any queue throughout the day. Alan Menken's song is so catchy and for me the main reason why we liked the attraction so much. Arabian Coast is home to Jasmine's Flying Carpets, similar to the Flying Carpet rides found at other Disney resorts, but it looks cheap and so out of place compared to the rest of Arabian Coast. Arabian Coast was home to the only restaurant that served a vegan dish, so needless to say we went there everyday. There they offer a delicious vegan curry and although we got it everyday we were still not sick of it.

More to come!

 

Yuck! leaving my belt loose and flying out of my seat is most of the fun to me.

Wow, that sets the bar pretty high.

Thank you!

 

I agree that the attractions at TDS could be better; most of them seem like they got off to a great start, but have some relatively minor flaw that holds them back from being the absolute best. The style of attractions available throughout the park is also interesting, with a lot of big E-ticket headliners and a handful of small A & B-ticket diversions, but not a whole lot in between. While nearly any attraction is fine on its own, the overall menu planning is interesting in that park.

Did you have a chance to see any of the shows at TDS? While TDL also has great entertainment, I think TDS's is even better, though my 2 favorites (Mystic Rhythms and Legend of Mythica) have closed since my last visit. Mythica in particular was just an incredible production on a scale that I've never seen in any other park. Interestingly, on both of my visits to TDS many years apart, the Mermaid Lagoon theater was closed for refurbishment so I've never seen those shows

I also agree that the Sinbad ride is an often-overlooked gem. It's out-of-the-way location and non-inviting façade help keep crowds away and the high capacity means there's almost never any wait. It seems like it's WDI's final large-scale slow-moving darkride, in the tradition of Pirates, Mansion, and the Future World omnimovers. The small AAs are fantastic, the scenic design is a lot of fun, and that song is just so darn catchy! I rode the original version in its final months, and it was fine but the updates it got with the song and Chandu the tiger really made it great. I can only hope that we'll see a similar attraction again some day.

 

Hello LP,

sorry for the long absence and not updating the trip report, but the last six months were pretty stressful for us. My wife founded her own company and I got promoted. So our professional lives kept us busy and so Disney turned into the background.

Nonetheless here's our Japan trip report:
Japan Trip 2018

And here's our Tokyo Disney Resort report:
Tokyo Disney Resort

 

Nice to see you back! Loved the pics! I'm amazed at all of the colors...makes the other parks almost seem drab.

 

that was superfun to look at! Thanks for sharing!