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Today I’m continuing my Tokyo Disney Resort trip report with my visit to Tokyo DisneySea. Please read my Tokyo Disneyland trip reports before continuing:
Tokyo Disneyland Trip Report – October 2014 – Part 1
Tokyo Disneyland Trip Report – October 2014 – Part 2
There’s no room for debate, Tokyo DisneySea is the most beautiful Disney theme park on the planet. I mentioned this in my Tokyo Disney Resort Observations post on TouringPlans and I will say it again here: It’s hard not to be hyperbolic when talking about Tokyo DisneySea. It’s amazing, incredible, and jaw dropping, any superlative you can think of applies to DisneySea. As you enter the park you are instantly hit with this fact. You walk through a plaza with a sculpture of the earth known as the Aquasphere. It’s a large model of the earth that represents all of mankind living together on our “water planet.” After entering through a breezeway you get you first glimpse of Mount Prometheus, it’s a fantastic entrance experience.
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| Four dumb Americans going to a theme park during a typhoon. |
We also at Casbah Food Court at the recommendation of Tom and Sarah. Who knew theme park curry could be this good?
We also tried the Black Goyza Dog which is a famous snack at Tokyo DisneySea. I’ve heard that the line for the gyoza dog can sometimes be an hour long. So ProTip, if you want to try it without waiting in line just go during a typhoon. It was bland but overall not bad.
The line for Indiana Jones Adventure can get very long so we took advantage while we could. See the picture above? That queue would normally be packed with people but we were the only ones. Besides the queue the ride is pretty much the same as its American counterpart. There’s a few changes here and there, like in Disneyland’s version where there’s a projection effect of rats falling off of a branch, in Tokyo there is a stone idol that blows a fireball in your face. I wouldn’t say DisneySea’s is better, I like some parts of Anaheim’s and some parts of Tokyo’s.
Even the Skeleton Friends get to ride! I talk more about these guys later.
Like I said in my last trip report post, rope drop is no joke. Thousands of people running to their first attraction, just like in Tokyo Disneyland, but in this case they are all running to Toy Story Mania. It’s only a couple of years old at DisneySea so it’s still very popular with guests. Luckily this means it’s easier to get to the other attractions for people like us who have no plans to ride Toy Story Mania.
One of my favorite details I saw on my entire trip was this in the Journey to the Center of the Earth queue. It’s a drinking fountain but one of the bowls has some dried lava in it. Zoom in on the picture and you can see there’s even a little water spout in stuck on the side of the lava. So creative! It’s a minor detail but it’s one of the thousands of little things that make DisneySea so great.
The Disney characters have land-specific costumes for each land in DisneySea. Here’s American Waterfront Donald Duck.
Speaking of American Waterfront, this ended up being one of my favorite lands in Tokyo DisneySea. It’s themed after a turn of the century waterfront town. One of my favorite aspects of it was that almost every building had a really nice interior to explore. Pictured above is McDuck’s Department Store.
McDuck’s Department Store’s decorations are lavish but then next door is McDuck’s Pawn Shop.
The pawn shop is run down and dingy. The upscale department store and the drab pawn shop go great together and are faithful to the Scrooge McDuck character.
And now on to the meat and potatoes of American Waterfront, IT’S FILLED TO THE BRIM WITH TRANSPORTATION RIDES!!! Above is the DisneySea Electric Railway. It’s a trolley that takes you from American Waterfront to Discovery Bay. The views are to die for.
American Waterfront also has a fleet of vehicles known as Big City Vehicles. Anyone who knows me knows that I love Main Street transportation vehicles at Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, so you better believe that I was freaking out when I saw them at DisneySea.
People seem to really enjoy them!
Transportation attractions are not only fun to ride, but they add a lot to the environment. Plus they’re nice to look at.
American Waterfront is also home to a store that stocks a ton of exclusive Oswald merchandise. I wanted this hoodie SO BAD. But unfortunately it was not in my size. I wear a Large in American and this was labeled “3L” which was their biggest. I assume that’s their version of XXXL but it still didn’t fit me.
At this point we needed to try our luck at the Big Band Beat ticket lottery. Tom and Sarah had been hyping this show up quite a bit so it was on my must see list. I’ll talk more about that later. Anyway the lottery is actually a pretty cool system. You make your way to a location and scan your ticket, then a slot machine-style animation comes on screen and it tells you if you “won” a seat or not. A stand by line is also available but Tokyo Disney guests line up hours before almost any show. Luckily we won and had our seats locked in for the 5th performance of the night.
With our Big Band Beat tickets locked in it was time to make our way back to American Waterfront and get some food. I’ll cover that and a whole lot more in the next chapter of this trip report!
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