Originally Posted By tidybowl Our family took a trip to TDS on July 4th, so I thought I'd let everybody know how it went. First, some background... We (me, my wife, and our four kids) have lived in Japan for the last 3 years. My wife teaches at Yokota Middle School, at Yokota Air Force Base for DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependent Schools) - the students are primarily children of active duty service members who are stationed here at Yokota. Our kids are aged 16, 9, 7 & 5. This is, I think, the 4th time we've gone to TDS since we've been here. We usually go on Thanksgiving, but decided to go during the summer this year (though we'll probably go again on Thanksgiving!). Our base offers tours, which end up being cheaper than driving down yourself (or taking the train when there's six of you!). Parking alone at TDR is about $20. Tolls are around $13 each way - so you've spent almost $50 to get there and back - and you haven't even gotten into the park. Plus, while riding the tour bus - you can relax - and on the way home you (and more importantly - the kids!!!) can sleep! Anyways - we usually try to keep our TDR visits to weekdays - usually Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursdays - in an effort to avoid the crowds. So - we got on the bus, and got down to TDS about 8:30. The park doesn't open till 9:00 - and we got in line to get in about 8:50. Mickey was walking around the entrace plaza (the big globe "floating" on water) - but we decided to pass on trying to get a picture with him, since there was a pretty big crowd around him already. Sometimes we'll take pictures with the characters - we're pretty lucky because the three youngest kids are all very blond - and the youngest (a girl) has really really blong hair - which makes her stick out in Japan. You often see women get their friends attention and point her out when they see her. She's just turned five - but she's a pretty good sport about waving to the Japanese people when they're oohing and aahing about her. So - we got in the park - and we usually head over to Indiana Jones first - since that is one of our favorite rides - and we usually take the Disney Transit Steamer line from the Mediterranean Harbor to the Lost River Delta. The crowds looked pretty light so far - so we were able to get right onto the Transit Steamer. As you go around the last bend towards the Lost River Delta dock - there's the seaplane beached on the shore - my 7 year old remembered that they said "C3P0" on the wing - and we always have a chuckle about that. We got off the Transit Steamer and went over to the Indiana Jones ride. Now my 16 year old wasn't with us today - so it was going to be me, the 9 year old and the 7 year old (who is just barely tall enough). Our 5 year old didn't even want to get measured to go in - but I'm pretty sure she's not tall enough - so she waited outside with my wife. We planned on going on the ride again - so the next time I'd sit outside with the little one and my wife would go with the boys. The line was pretty much non-existant. We were able to walk all the way through the rope line until you get to the stairs. Even then, we waited less than 5 minutes to go down the stairs and to the cast member who asks "how many?" I put up three fingers, and she had us goto the right, and we were able to get right in a jeep. The boys like to sit in the front row and call dibs on who gets to be behind the steering wheel - but this time we were in the second row. We've gotten to the point where we like to make funny faces for the picture part. On one of our previous trips there - we did the three monkeys (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil), I've done a little "mask" (make a "V" with your fore finger and middle finger - do it with both hands, and then use them like a mask over your eyes). This time, however, we just screamed and yelled. My 6 year old had a look on his face like he was constipated... One thing that showed that there was no crowds this day - the FastPass for Indiana Jones wasn't even open. In fact, as we went around the park, I don't think they were fast passing anything. I think the longest we waited for anything was about 15 minutes for the Little Mermaid show. After we got off the ride, we met up with my wife and daughter, and walked towards the Arabian Coast - which again, is what we usually do. As we headed up to Raging Spirits, my 9 year old wanted to ride it. Now, he's pretty tall for his age, so he's able to ride it. I, on the other hand, am too tall for it, or close enough that I don't want to chance it. I'm 6'5" tall, and you have to be shorter than 6'5" to ride it. Personally, I don't want to chance it! So, my wife and son rode the ride while I waited out front with the two little ones. We then went to Sinbad in the Arabian Coast. Again, we were able to walk right onto the ride. One of the things that bugs me about the Sinbad ride is that they don't seem to have a real good grasp of how long to wait between sending boats. On this ride, we were touching the boat in front of us for almost the whole ride. And I think that everytime I have ridden the ride, there has been a sort of "log jam" towards the end of the ride where you bump the boat in front of you, then the boat behind you bumps you, etc. It sounds like Sinbad will be closed for rennovations - so hopefully they can fix that. After Sinbad, we took the path around the Marketplace and went to the bridge that crosses over to the Mermaid Lagoon. One of the things we usually do, when we come in November, is use Triton's Kingdom (the indoor part of Mermaid Lagoon) to "warm up" and give the kids a break. Oddly enough, one of the favorite places for our children (including the oldest!) is Ariel's Playground. They like to get in there and play tag, and run around have let off some energy. We decided to see the "Under the Sea" show in the Mermaid Lagoon Theater. The last time we came, my daughter and I watched it - but my wife and boys hadn't seen it. A lot of it is in Japanese, but the singing is in English. I don't know how many people have seen it - but it's all pretty cool. they make use of a lot of costume/props similar (in fashion) to the way the Lion King Broadway show was done. Ariel is attached to what essentially seems to be a trapeze, that's connected to some sort of harness attached to her hips - this is all connected to to cables that go up to a motorized unit up in the ceiling which can rotate, move around, have her go up and down, etc. There are also four other tracks that things can come out on (well, technically eight - there are four tracks on each side) - and Flounder, Ursualla's tentacles, some some seahorses use those tracks. You'll also see Sebastian the crab (he walks around on the floor) and Ursula's two electric eels, Flotsam and Jetsam, and a starfish also walk on the floor. From what I could tell, none of the people were obviously miked, they could have been body miked, but I'm assuming that they just have a soundtrack that plays - and they mouth it. Ariel was obviously caucasian - everybody else appeared to be Japanese. We tend to sit at the back (when you get into the lines outside the doors - they are the closest ones to the entrance) - which allows you to take it all in without getting a crick in your neck - or having to turn around. However, as somebody else mentioned in a different thread - if when you enter the waiting area, you go all the way to the back, you will actually be sat right at the front - right in front of the pedestal where Ariel comes out - and where most of the action takes place. Basically, the room is shaped like a big "C" and you enter (I think) at the top portion of the "C" and then circle around. You don't have to go all the way around when you enter - but I suppose it's considered polite. Truly though, there really are no "bad" seats. After leaving the Mermaid Lagoon Theater, we headed towards the Mysterious Island. The last time we were there, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea was closed - so we wanted to ride it this time. But first, we were ready for some lunch. Because my kids aren't the most adventerous of eaters, we usually bring something like lunchables for them to eat lunch - and my wife and I get something at one of the resturants. This time we decided to try out one of the resturants - Vulcania - which is a Chinese resturant in Mysterious Island. I had the Shrimp in Chili Sauce, which was pretty good, considering I'm a wimp when it comes to spicy stuff. One of the CM who was working behind the counter told me it was "a little bit spicy" and that the tofu dish next to it was "really spicy" - well, I don't like spicy, and I really have no interest in trying tofu (maybe someday). My wife had the beef and green pepper. I also got some fried rice. The kids ended up getting white rice, and had little bits off of our plates. Plus we all had desert. The chocolate "roll" cake was pretty good. My daughter had what I think was a strawberry creme puff - but I didn't try it. Personally, I find most japanese confections to be really bland - so I don't eat a lot of them. So, we got done eating, and headed for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I do have to say, that of all the areas of the park, the look and feel of Mysterious Island is my favorite, followed by Port Discovery. I just like the way the places look, I think they did a fantastic job in their design. I was looking at the walkways in Mysterious Island, and they put "rivets" at the corners of the conrete slabs to make them look like there were metal. I thought it was a nice touch. Again, the wait time was really short - less than 5 minutes. I have to say - one of my greatest pleasures in any Disney property is walking quickly through the "rope maze" that is meant for lots and lots of people. A close second, is walking in the FastPass line past all of the people in the Standby line (though - to be honest, I don't like it when I'M in the Standby line!). My daughter (she's five) was kind of freaked out by the ride, she ended up sitting on my lap the whole time - and hid her face in my shoulder about half of the time. I do have to say though - I think that they did a much better job with this ride than they did with the original. Obviously, a lot of that has to do with what they can do now - versus what they could do - however, the illusion is pretty cool. I'd lone to walk through the ride and see how it works. I'm assuming that there isn't really any water in the ride (or at least, not a significant amount). It looked to me like the windows in the vehicle were "double paned" with a gap in between where they had the water and bubble go - so it looks like you're going under water. After we got off the ride, we headed over towards Journey to the Center of the Earth. Apparently they had some sort of computer glitch or something because the ride was going to be down for another hour or so - so we planned on coming back later. We decided to head over to the Mediterranean Harbor, and the Fortress Explorations. They have a little "cool down" area that shoots out water that the kids like to play in. After Ariel's Playground, this is probably their second favorite place in TDS (go figure!). We were able to get a CM to take our picture on the upper deck of the sailing ship (what our kids call the "pirate ship"). We don't always spend a lot of time in Fortress Explorations - but a friend of ours told us that when the last time they came, their two teenage sons and they're friend spent the whole day running around Fortress Explorations and had a blast. So we explored a little bit, and saw some of the other cool stuff that was there. The kids really liked the constillation room with the planets that you could spin around the Sun. It reminded me of that thing in the first Tomb Raider movie. My wife said it reminded her of Treasure Planet. We also saw the giant pendulum that knocks over the little blocks (they kind of looked like dominos - but we only saw it from the top - we didn't look at it from the bottom. We also checked out the daVinci "airplane" - my kids had some fun with that as well. By this time, it had been long enough to go on Journey to the Center of the Earth - so I went on it with the boys while my wife and daughter waited. Again, almost no line. My nine year old and I were trying to figure out which way the elevator really went. I know they want you to think that it's going down - but I really think it's going up. My son is convinced that it's going down. One benefit to being the last people on the elevator is that you're the first people off. Because the ride has three rows of two seats, my nine year old sat in front, and then I sat with the seven year old behind them. That way - if needs be - I could grab the nine year old. Because of my size, I always have a hard time fitting into this ride. I basically have to turn sideways and wedge myself into the seat and pull the safety bar back. I don't ride Space Mountain because I have the same problem and it's really uncomfortable to ride it. On JttCotE, I can manage. I suppose I could stick my foot out and put it on the running board - it's not like it'd get chopped off or something. My favorite part of the ride is when you start circling and then go up and pop out of the Mountain! I'm suprised that they haven't worked out some sort of picture thing, a good place to put it would be when you crest that hill and start going down. But perhaps all the smoke/fog makes that hard to do. After we got off the ride, the boys wanted to go again - so this time my wife went with them, and I waited with my daughter. After they got off of Journey to the Center of the Earth, we headed towards Port Discovery and the Aquatopia ride. We decided to go on the "wet" version of the ride - which they don't offer in November. One of the nice touches was a CM who was offering plastic bags for your belongings before you got on the ride. It was primarily for people on the "wet" ride - but she was positioned in between the two queues so people in either line could get a bag. Because we were right behind my wife and the two little ones - we ended up going on a different track than they did. I didn't see where they got wet - but we came up to the waterfall - and I thought "Oh, we won't get wet" and then the water jets sprayed from over the top of the waterfall, getting us (primarily my legs) wet. After we got off, we decided to go again - but to stay on the dry side this time. After Aquatopia - we were planning on going on StormRiders - but it appears to be closed for rennovations. I was going to have my wife go on it anyways - because I get motion sickness pretty bad - especially on this ride (or StarTours) and end up having to look at the floor a lot. We decided to head back over to Mermaid Lagoon and ride some of the little rides. We walked through the Lost River Delta - and stopped in the gift shop there. My kids like going in there because the boys like to get swords or daggers to play with. This year they had some rubber daggers that we got for them. We also checked out the menu for the resturant there and thought we might go back and try it later. We walked over to Mermaid Lagoon, and the kids and my wife went on Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster. I know I won't fit on this ride - so I don't even bother to try - my wife takes the kids, and they had a fun time. Again, they seemed to get right on the ride. I almost didn't have my camera out in time to get a picture. As I was walking towards the exit to meet them I saw what I thought was a funny sight. A bunch of young (20-something) people dressed in business attire, listening to a lady (also dressed in business attire). While that wasn't funny. She was pointing out the water fountain, and talking about it. I almost took a picture, but wasn't sure if that would be considered rude or not. After a couple of minutes - they walked off. After the fish coaster, we went back into Triton's Kingdom, and rode the Jumpin' Jellyfish and the Blowfish Balloon Race. The kids wanted to ride the teacups (the "Whirlpool") but I know all the spinning would make me sick (I had a hard enough time on the Blowfish Balloon Race), and my wife can't handle all that spinning either. Usually our oldest son will go with them (he really likes the ride). I was hoping that the kids could ride with our nine year old, but a CM told me he had to be over 13 to take the younger two with him. I started to take the two younger ones with me out of line - and then the CM told me that they could have another CM ride the ride with the kids. Side note - one of the things that I've noticed at TDR is that for every ride, there are, what I would consider, an abundance of CM working the ride. I don't know if this is a Disney thing or maybe just a Japanese thing. I hadn't noticed at other Disney locations - but to be honest, I wasn't looking either. In this case, there were at least 4 people working the "Whirlpool" (teacups) ride. One person at the entrance to the queue, one person at the controls. One loading person and another person who stood by the exit who helped with loading and unloading. I believe this last person was the one who sat on the ride with my kids - sparing me from spinning around and around and around, and probably getting sick! After that, we walked out of Triton's Kingdom, out of the Mermaid Lagoon, through the Mysterious Island, and over to the Mediterranean Harbor. We were getting ready to have dinner, and needed to go out to the tour bus to grab the lunchables for the kids - and it was starting to cloud over a bit - so we got the raincoats and put them in my backpack. After coming back into the park - we went to the Transit Steamer Line again - and headed back to the Lost River Delta to have dinner at Miguel's El Dorado Cantina. As we were coming up to the dock, we noticed they had seating in an outdoor area that was at the same level of the dock - so we decided to sit there after we got our food. Since the kids had lunchables, my wife got the fajita platter which came with a couple strips of beef, some shrimp, and a couple of strips of chicken, some guacamole and salsa. I got the meat tacos which had meat and cheese, and came with some lettuce on the side, in addition to guacamole and salsa. We also got two orders of nachos (one for us, one for the kids), and some drinks. My wife also decided to get two desert chimichangas, which had bananas and chocolate on the inside. Like I mentioned before, we usually do the same things when we go to TDS, so we had only ever ridden the Transit Steamer Line from the Mediterranean Harbor to the Lost River Delta. We decided to try something new - so we rode the Transit Steamer Line from the Lost River Delta over to Mysterious Island (living on the edge now aren't we???!). Getting off the Transit Steamer Line we walked back up to the Mysterious Island (yeah - I know, we spent a lot of time walking back and forth through the areas) and went back to Journey to the Center of the Earth. I went with my boys again, and my nine year old and I had the same disagreement about whether the elevators go up or down. I thought I was being sneaky by looking out of the "vents" on the elevator - and I was watching the light right outside of the vent - but I couldn't see it move at all (I mean, it was moving, like rotating, coming on and off and stuff, but it stayed in the same place - if you know what I mean). So, I was thinking, "wow - they make you feel like you're going down - and like it's taking a long time, but really you're just sitting here." I was figuring that any second the elevator would actually start moving - but then the doors opened - and I freaked - "we didn't move at all - how are we at a different place???!". So, I'm assuming that the lights I was looking at were affixed to the outside of the elevator cabin, and I should have tried looking at the wall, or something else to see if we were moving. After we got off the ride, the boys wanted to go again, so this time my wife went with them. They actually ended up going a third time - the boys enjoyed it so much. After riding Journey to the Center of the Earth, we left Mysterious Island (again), and walked over to the Mermaid Lagoon (again) - well, actually we walked through it, and went over the bridge to the Arabian Coast. In the Arabian Coast we went to the Caravan Carousel, and we went with the kids up to the top level. I think we had two or three other people with us on the carousel. After getting done, the kids wanted to go again - but my wife couldn't handle doing it again - so I went with the kids on the lower level of the carousel. There were only a couple of people on the bottom as well. Leaving the Arabian Coast, we walked along the path towards Ariel's Grotto to see if the line was short enough. We'd already stopped by several times, but each time the line was 20 minutes or more. As we walked by it this time, it was closed, so we headed towards Port Discovery (through Mysterious Island). In Port Discovery we rode the Aquatopia ride again, but this time stayed on the dry side. I could only handle one ride, but my wife and kids went again. By this time, it was probably around 7:30, or 7:45, so we decided to start walking back towards the Mediterranean Harbor, but we decided to go through Cape Cod, and across the bridge into the American Waterfront. Even though this is our fourth time going to TDS, we had never gone through the Cape Cod section. Of course, by this time, everything was closed, but it was still fun to walk through the area. We walked across the bridge to the American Waterfront, and to the Mediterranean Harbor, where they sell the Strawberry flavored popcorn. At that time, it was 8:00, and we were in the right position to watch "BraviSEAmo!" - over by the bridge that heads to Fortress Exploration. In our four trips to TDS, this is the first time that we'd stopped to watch one of these shows as well (well - one of the outdoor ones) - it was all pretty cool. The dragon looking thing was pretty cool. After that, we headed out to the enterance plaza, by that time, they had started doing to fireworks. From their positioning, I'm assuming that these are the same fireworks they're shooting off over TDL. We hit the bathroom, got on the bus, and it headed out at 9:00, and we got home by 10:15. All-in-all, it was just about a perfect day. I would have preferred a couple of degrees cooler, but by mid-day, it was really nice and pleasent. It rained for a little bit in the afternoon - but that's when we were in Triton's Kingdom, and by the time we came out - it had cleared up.
Originally Posted By SuperDry Wow - what a great trip report. I felt almost as if I was there with you! To settle the Journey To The Center Of The Earth elevator mystery, consider what you do to get from the exit platform to back out to the main level of Mysterious Island: you go down 2-3 flights of stairs. Consider that the load platform is probably at the same level and just around the corner from unload, and you realize that you actually go UP in those elevators. If you actually went down in the elevators, then the load platform would have to be at least 2-3 storeys below the main Mysterious Island level, meaning that the ride vehicles would have to descend some 4-6 storeys between unload and load - how likely is that?
Originally Posted By leemac <<Consider that the load platform is probably at the same level and just around the corner from unload>> It is. You can just about see it if you crane your neck around the corner!
Originally Posted By tidybowl Hey - I'm not disagreeing with you - it's just my nine-year old is convinced you go down on the elevator! I made the same arguments - but he's not buying it!!! I didn't realize that I posted so much - man, I'm wordy!
Originally Posted By SuperDry It's a totally convincing effect. The first time I rode it, I was absolutely convinced that we had descended into the volcano. Only after considering the elevation issues was I able to convince myself that we had actually gone up in those elevators. I think that JTTCOTE is one of the best examples of queue and pre-show done right to really enhance the experience of an attraction, and not just because of the elevator effect. They did a really good job with this one.
Originally Posted By tidybowl SuperDry, You're right, they have the lights for the elevator (the ones in the elevator shaft that you can "see" from inside the car) set up to make it look like you're going down, plus the effect of the air vents down by your feet (I think they're blowing air up), plus the fact that the elevator car is significantly warmer than the queueing area outside of it. On top of that, they have the "cavern" done pretty well, also. You're right though, they did a really good job of convincing you that you're deep down in the earth.
