View of the Disneyland hotel from the park side.
The time difference between Japan and New Zealand meant that we got a pretty decent sleep and still were happily awake by 6.30 local time. This is good because our special early entry meant we wanted to be at the park by 7.30.
We got dressed in our Disneybound outfits (Peter Pan for me, Tinkerbell for Anna) and headed over to the special entrance just for hotel guests, we got in a half hour before everyone else!
It’s a busy park and a very hot day. However with our early start, and careful use of fast passes, we got on a bunch of rides. Started the day with Space Mountain and then got fast passes for Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. Pooh’s Hunny Hunt is a unique ride to Tokyo Disneyland, a trackless ride where you spin about in honey pots and follow animatronics of Pooh and his friends through a storm, a nightmare and searching for honey. It’s very cute, and sort of scary in the Heffalumps and Woozles sequence. The scale of this ride is kind of hard to explain, but I was in awe staring up at a huge Heffalump at one point.
We had breakfast at Camp Woodchuck lodge, which sells waffle sandwiches, delicious fried chicken sandwiched between two waffles with coleslaw and maple syrup. It was really good!
We stopped to watch the Spooky Boo! Halloween parade, which was very cute and we loved the dark Halloween style costumes.
Speaking of costumes, through the month of October, anyone visiting Tokyo Disney is allowed to dress in costume as long as it’s appropriate and a Disney character. Today we saw countless gorgeous Anna, Elsa, Snow White, Cinderella and Belle costumes. As well as a few Giselles from Enchanted, Judy and Nicks from Zootopia and fairies, Pooh Bears and Rapunzels. It’s wonderful spotting all the outfits and how much work everyone’s put into them. It made our Disneybound outfits feel a little underdone, but there you have it. The festive atmosphere is really fun.
We also rode Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (one of my all time favourite rides), the special Halloween Nightmare Before Christmas version of the Haunted Mansion, Roger Rabbit’s toon spin, It’s a Small World (Anna’s first time!) and Pirates of the Carribbean (my first time!)
I’ve been to two Disneyland parks before over three separate days and all those times Pirates has been closed. So today I finally got to ride it and it was great fun! The animatronics of Jack Sparrow are eerily realistic. I know the California ride has been updated to be a bit less… gross, but the Tokyo one has not been updated, so it still shows a scene of women being auctioned off to pirates and then being chased by pirates. It’s quite uncomfortable, but I’m pleased the California Disney updated anyway.
For lunch we considered a couple of restaurants but they were very busy, so we went to a place near the castle which had spare tables outside under umbrellas. It was right over a stream from the parade route so we sat at the edge, enjoyed our lunch and got a good view of the 35th Anniversary ‘Dreaming up!’ parade. This parade has next level floats with huge moving parts and finishes with Mary Poppins flying over London and Peter and Wendy going from standing to various arial stunts based on the wires moving them up and down. It’s breath taking.
It was a very hot day. Humid and up to 27 degrees celsius. This made everything a little bit harder, because there’s not a whole lot of places at Disney which are shady or air conditioned. It’s a lot of walking too, the park is big, and fast passes require you to go to the ride, and then return back in an hour or more, so there’s lots of doubling back.
We did a lot of shopping too. There’s lots of cute Halloween themed things and anniversary merchandise, but I particularly had my heart set on a rainbow theme t shirt I’d seen online. I saw a lot of people wearing them in the park and they’re so cute (and so freaking gay) and I really, really wanted one. Finally found them in the back room of the big clothing store in the first set of shops in the park. I got the Donald one and Anna got the Daisy one to match. Pictures when we wear them on Friday 🙂
For the record, I’ve done a lot of research about Tokyo Disney and I have to credit TDR Explorer, who I read avidly.
I’m writing this from our Tinkerbell themed room, where we came to crash out for a while at 3.30 pm. The Tinkerbell room is very thoroughly themed, and super cute.
Soon we’re heading back for the night parade and night show and to track down a bag Anna wanted and a Tigger bomber jacket I want :3 maybe we’ll squeeze in another ride or two as well.
Jamie's Travels 