If you can’t do a full day at Tokyo Disney I strongly suggest taking advantage of the Night passport tickets. I was in Tokyo for three weeks after the first aborted visit to Tokyo Disney at the beginning of my trip, but because of my ill-health, and the weather, I kept pushing off my visits till the very end of my stay. By that time, my sleep patterns had gotten serious screwed up, so that my body clock was almost back on US/East coast time a full week before I was set to return. As in, I was going to sleep at around 6am and waking up at around 3pm. Buying full day tickets was therefore an utter waste of money. Luckily, while a full day ticket costs close to $74, they offer a 6pm entrance on week nights ticket that only costs around $42; and they also have for Saturdays and Sundays for entering at 3pm or after ticket that costs $54.
Note to self: I need to remember to check when Japanese school holidays happen before I go next time, because my timing this year sort of sucked. When I finally got back (on April 3rd — a Tuesday) the seller warned me, as I was buying my ticket to enter the park, that I could expect three-hours or longer waits for rides (with an, “are you SURE you want to go tonight?” sort of look). When I asked her why it was SO busy on a weeknight, she said it was because it of it being ‘Spring vacation’ time for the schools.
To be honest, that first night this didn’t bother me too much as my main goal was to people-watch, experience the place, and do some shopping. Tokyo Disney used to Sell these incredibly cute, high-quality, tiny and light, umbrellas every time it rained. I have one that I have been carrying around with me for over 10 years now, which has suffered being turned inside out by 50 mph wind gusts, and STILL works. So, the MAIN thing I was hopping to buy while here was more of those. It makes me very sad to announce that they seem to have discontinued them. It really was the single thing I was hoping to load up on while I was in Tokyo. Now, instead, they’re only selling those plastic ponchos, like in the USA… and the only umbrellas are big heavy ones. So sad….
So, among the first things I did (after looking at some shops) was to go and get something to eat. In the US parks you can walk up to a restaurant without a reservation, and its often possible to make one for later in the day (although usually in a not popular time slot) … and then they’ll send you a text to your phone about 15 min before your table is ready, to tell you to come back — with the caveat of if you arrive later than a certain time you’ll lose the table. This allows you to maximize your time in the park … In Tokyo Disney no such service is offered, instead they actually make you just stand inline and wait for your turn … even if the estimated wait is over two hours. (Crazy right?) I HAD wanted to get the Sea food Gratin dish sold in the Mainstreet area, but the wait was bonkers, so instead I moseyed over to…..
…The Star Wars section of the park and got a ginger drink w/tapioca in a star wars cup. Firstly, I LOVE Ginger drinks — I had just spent the last two months in Australia buying every brand of ginger beer I could find and taste-testing them; and, on top of that, I’m very into all things Star Wars, although not a full card-carrying geek about it… and I have more than a few friends who are, who I thought might love the cup.
The drink was really good, it had actual bits of ginger floating around in it along with those great big tapioca balls which alway freak me out a little because of the risk of choking to death on them when you suck them in via a straw should they get stuck in your airway … the Heimlich maneuver won’t work to get those suckers out
With the drink I got the oh so adorable looking Stormtrooper Mochi (a kind of pounded rice desert dumpling) which I assumed would be filled with red bean paste…
— but I was wrong, the first was a lemon tasting custard, the second was a sort strawberry one, and the third was what I thought might be a coffee cream … (when I googled it the official flavors are Custard Cream, Berry Cream, Milk & Caramel Cream, so close but no cigar) Apparently if I had upgraded to nine dumplings instead of three it would included some black Darth Vader ones full of chocolate cream.
I was then tempted to buy, but did not purchase, this Soy Sauce and butter flavored popcorn which was being sold in either this Darth Vader head (which very few people seemed to be buying), OR… 
… one of these way too adorable R2D2 cases (the really big one held by the girl below), but if I bought it I would want to take it home and there was simply NO room left in my suitcases for anything that big. (It being one week before my flight I had packed and weighed all my suitcases and knew exactly how much weight and space I had left.)
So I wandered around the park, checking out all the stores. (The crush of people was WORSE than it had been on the weekend day I had come two weeks earlier.) The category of items that called to me most were the headgear. In the US parks most of the headgear are wire headbands with either Minnie Mouse Ears, i.e., ears of various colors with a bows in various colors attached to them (about 98% of the time) or Mickey Mouse ears (black ears sans the bow, about 2%), and then various hats with things attached, and that’s about it. In Tokyo the variety of options is a lot greater, in large part because Japanese boys and men are far more likely to buy something like this and wear it around the parks than their US Western counterparts.
What particularly caught my eye were the soft material headbands, which I thought I could easily shove into my suitcase, as well as into my car’s back pockets. I purchased the White Rabbit ears and thought I could buy the Winnie-the-poo ears next time I came… but they were COMPLETELY sold out by then, and I checked everywhere.
Learned something important, like the Americans in the Magic Kingdom, pretty much all the Japanese guests with kids abandon the park at around 8 PM — after the fireworks, and from that point till the 10pm closing you can actually do rides, EVEN though it was a school vacation day. At around 9:15 I rode the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, TWICE!!! There was only a five-minute wait, i.e., the amount of time it takes to walk from the entrance to the boats.
And then I learned something that I found a little odd; namely, they close all of the main street stores at closing time, except the ones selling freshly baked treats that go stale. In Disneyworld in Florida, they keep ALL of the mainstreet stores open for a good hour after everything else closes, because ‘you should never lose an opportunity to separate the customer from his or her money.’ So if you’re used to the US pattern, be prepared. When they say the park closes at 10pm they mean pretty much the WHOLE park.
My next visit to Tokyo DisneyLand was a few days later on Friday April 6; I was taking the gamble that MAYBE since the weather that night was supposed to seriously suck (there was a gale scheduled to hit town around 7pm), AND it was the last vacation day before the weekend before kids were supposed to return to school (and I was guessing most of them had not even started their homework yet) that the parks would be a lot less full than they had been on Tuesday… And I was RIGHT!
As I had arrived about a half hour before the late tickets went into effect, I decided to check out the hotel next to the Disneyland park.
It is a nice looking hotel, and it has a Princess salon that is MUCH larger than anything I’ve seen at the magic Kingdom, with very different selection of outfits. (In fact if you have an age appropriate daughter I’d suggest it, as these outfits are NOT available in the US from what I’ve seen… and these ones look nicer and higher quality.)
Also while wandering around the hotel I found this convenience store, selling the same sort of items you’d normally find, only all of them were Disney branded… so for instance there was even a box of lens wipes for glasses with a mickey on the box, and Cinderella lip gloss, etc. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, convenience stores in Japan are WAY better than what we’re used to in the states, and this one had the same impressive selection of prepared foods you could take back to your hotel room. (In fact I’m pretty sure some of the dishes were cold versions of what’s sold in the park’s restaurants.)
After the rides I did more shopping. When I was in Tokyo Disney in 2014 one of my major bitches was that there was very little I felt I needed to buy (I even found a TripAdvisor review I wrote about it). Let’s face it “Disney” stuff is available world-wide. When you’re at the parks, if you’re a hard-core collector you want stuff that is simply unavailable elsewhere (which with Ebay and such is becoming less and less true) or you want stuff that shows your friends you were there … something that actually SAYS Tokyo Disney on it… and at that time items like that simply did not exist.
This time around that is no longer the case. Pretty much EVERY category of items had Tokyo Disney written on it… Hats, shirts, etc…. I even found Disney resort band aids…
I’m buying them mostly for the clear silicon cases they come with, I am going to store my microfiber things that I bought in Australia (with Aboriginal designs on them) for cleaning glasses in them…
In case you didn’t know, the Japanese NEVER wear outdoor shoes into a house or apartment (it would track in dirt). Instead you switch from your outdoor shoes into provided slippers. On top of that, Japanese have special slippers for wearing inside toilets (which is a level of hygienic westerners don’t even think about).
One of the things I love about the dark house rides in Japan is they are WAY WAY WAY darker and scarier than the US version… (watch the YouTube below, make sure to keep the volume for the sound up to really appreciate it)
Now compare it to the Disneyland version of the same ride
Firstly the Japan ride feels longer to me, and more importantly, apparently little Japanese kids are either not scared as easily as American ones … Or (more likely) Japanese parents see nothing wrong with their kid getting a mild scare.
After that I got a small container of the chocolate popcorn, cause CHOCOLATE… that said it tasted a bit like coco puffs but nowhere near as sweet. Not really my idea of chocolate.
And then popcorn in hand I walked over to the Splash Mountain ride to see if I could get on that (normally like a two-hour wait) … and while I was standing in the 30 minute line (longer than I’d like, but doable) a staff member who was passing by me in the fast pace lane realized my popcorn box was now empty and offered to throw it out for me… welcome to Japan. THAT level of service I’ve NEVER seen in the USA.
After that, I still had time for another ride before the park was due to close; I rode on the Pinocchio ride… and since it was close to closing time, no lines, NONE — for one of the most popular rides for little kids.
That said… take a look at the picture below of parents taking small children on the Pinocchio ride and tell me if anything seems off to you…..
THIS is something you’d never see in the US… that the kids on this ride (see image above) are WAY too small to be riding safety… The kid in the front seat is maybe five or six years old, and the kid in the back seat is a toddler. But, here’s the difference… in Japan no parent would sue Disney for their choice to be stupid if their kid (who they CHOSE to put on the ride) got hurt … Disney won’t let the kids on a ride like this alone, but if the parent is there, SURE…
Seriously, that kid in the back seat isn’t even two years old, the kid in the front seat didn’t look tall enough for any of the, “you must be this height” signs at Orlando
After I got off the ride, this was the length of the line to get back on. The Park wasn’t closed yet and the staff were waving to me that I could get back on if I wanted to.
Oh, and to be fair the Pinocchio rides in the Tokyo and LA Disneylands are almost identical, neither is particularly scary — if you don’t believe me google videos of each
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The next day was Saturday the 7th (remember the never go to Disney on a weekend rule?), but the gale that had been heading into to Tokyo the day before had arrived with a will, and the weather was EVEN more horrible… Not much rain but Oh my lord the wind!!!! So what did I do? I went to go see the DisneySea Park!! Overall not a horrible idea, but I did it wrong.
My first mistake was a strategic error… SINCE I had been able to walk from the train station to DisneyLand with no trouble, and because it wasn’t raining, I tried walking to DisneySea… against 40 to 50 mile per hour wind gusts… instead of paying to take the train. TO get there you walk from the subway station to the Disney specific train station, then THROUGH the shopping mall, past the movie theaters, and then ask for help. It took multiple tries before I found a shop person (most of them spoke some English) who could direct me to the correct exit from the mall… to sidewalks… and then it’s a good 20 minute walk past parking lots most of which were empty, just like this one (photo from 2013)
and such till you get there. Had the weather been pleasant it wouldn’t have been bad, but I was walking against high-speed winds and it SUCKED. Finally, already tired out, irritated, and sniffly (from the cold and damp) I arrived at the park.
Once I got there, it was SO dark that it was pointless to try to take many pictures. I do have some from when I was there in October of 2013
So, that said, the Japanese seem to have developed a serious Duffy Bear obsession since I was last there. He is a character that was originally sold in Orlando but didn’t take off (it’s not like there were any cartoons connected with him) but then executives decided to heavily market him as the mascot of Tokyo DisneySea. The Tokyo customers loved him and I remembered Disney brought him back to Epcot, where and he even was given a prominent character signing area right near the entrance to the international area (but the lines to have your photo with him were always short), Americans not only didn’t really see the point of him, but I know for myself I actually resented him. I think it’s a general rule that Americans HATE obvious attempts at separating us from our money. (this blog post from the Disney Tourist Blog has a pretty good discussion of the Duffy phenomena) and in 2015, he got removed from Epcot, although you can still find his toys if you look.
Last time I was in Tokyo he was way more popular than in the US, but NOTHING like now. His popularity with the Asian Disney customers has gone beyond all bounds and I just don’t get it. Any store in DisneySea that was selling Duffy merchandise has a 20 minute to 30 minute line just to get into the store, and the are LIMITS on how much of anything you can buy. I shit you not! The mania is such that they’ve even created a friend for him because … more things to sell, and the Japanese are lapping it up. I kept seeing these massive lines in front of various stores and when I asked what was going on I was told, “We’re in line to buy Duffy things.” They were allowing people in a handful at a time and the stores that had the stuff were stuffed with people. And some folks were coming out of the store and elatedly showing off their purchases like athletes holding up the first prize trophy after a contest of endurance.
And then, I kept seeing people taking photos of themselves with their Duffy dolls. For instance, I caught these folks setting up their Duffy dolls and doing an almost professional photo shot of them in the park (the woman is holding a reflector while the guy was using a fairly professional looking camera).
Walking around looking for things to eat, I found more cute mochi dumpling — These were chocolate, vanilla and strawberry flavored. I had purchased some other foods to eat, stuff where you could sit down… but the indoor tables were take and then after I found an outdoor table a gust of wind blew away my dinner… seriously
On the topic of popcorn in every flavor…. this one was so bizarre that I HAD to try it
I am sorry to say that it was SO disgusting that after the first few mouthfuls, I threw the rest away… just NASTY. The garlic part was nice but the shrimp tasted like fish that had gone off.
DisneySea has an Arabian Coast section, which includes a Pirates of the Caribbean type ride dedicated to Sinbad…. with NO LINE
By the end of the day I was so exhausted that I even left the park a bit early and headed for the train station. I was completely and utterly exhausted after having almost every step being against 30 to 40 mph gusts, not to mention spitting rain … I had dressed for cold, but it never came. It’s currently midnight and 68 F … I had my long sleeve hemp t-shirt, my thick black turtle neck sweater and my leather jacket (which I ended up carrying the whole time) my ankles and legs are exhausted from fighting to walk against a few hours of non stop wind.
The red arrow points to the Maihama Station, which is where Disney is… IF your intent is to both visit Tokyo AND engoy the park, then I STRONGLY suggest that you try to find lodgings near Tokyo Station, which puts you an easy walk from the Ginaz, the royal palace, etc., and an easy ride to the park.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 