One Day in a Dream Land: Tokyo Disneysea

I knew about Tokyo Disneyland before coming to Japan. At that time I was stalking on one of my friends facebook page and found h** photos in Disneyland during h** exchange in Japan. Then I set a dream to visit Tokyo Disneyland someday. Later, I realized there are two Disney parks in Tokyo: Disneyland and Disneysea. I knew that from my friend’s blog here. People said that Disneysea is more suitable and romantic place for teenager and adults to visit. Once I arrived in Tokyo and lived here, I put in my mind that Disneysea should be the ultimate amusement park I have to visit. So I refrain my self to go there until I get a special moment or go with a special person 😀

Actually I was planning to go there in summer this year during my family visit. However, plan changed, added precisely, and I paid a visit with my friend last week. To be noted: he is not ” a special person” I was defined earlier :p

Tokyo Disney Resort is always crowded in the weekend, that’s what people said. So I tried to secure my visiting time by buying the tickets two days before at Disney Store near my dormitory in Odaiba. There are several Disney Stores in Tokyo which also has a Disney Ticket Counter, and the nearby store in my area is in Aqua City Odaiba. I bought two tickets in advance which cost 6,200 yen each. Actually there is a discount for Tokyo residents until next month, but we have to go there on weekdays. And unfortunately I couldn’t able to leave my undergoing thesis experiment during weekdays.

We left for Disneysea in the early morning of Saturday. We went by subway Rinkai Line, bound for Shin Kiba (the last station) and transfer to JR Line heading for Maihama Station, the nearest station in the front of Disney Resort. Then from there we took Disney Resort monorel train which stop in the four stations inside the resort: Tokyo Disneyland Station, Bayside Station, Tokyo Disneysea Station and Resort Gateway Station. The resort open from 8.00 a.m. until 22.00 p.m. We were planning to arrive there as early as possible, but…whoaa…it seemed people had the same mind with us.

Visitor of Disneyland. Very crowded during weekends. Similar situation with Disneysea.

Disneysea has two side entrance/exit gates and each gate has several gates. All of them were crowded. Although we got advance tickets on our hand, we still have to line up up to 15′ until we finally reached Disneysea Plaza (kind of welcoming area).

Disneysea Plaza

Mediterranean style building

“Spring Voyage” – seasonal theme during my visit

Main landmark of Disneysea: Volcanic mountain – Mt. Prometheus, it has the same height with Cinderella castle in Tokyo Disneyland

Disneysea, obviously, is a very large theme park. Total area of the park is 71.22 ha, almost 48 standard football fields combined together. It is recommended that you do small research before visiting this place, especially if you come with a family or big group. For example, asking your friend who have been there for recommended attraction or planning the route you will stroll through in the park. It will help you to explore the park effectively. Below is the map of Disneysea taken from its official website.

Disneysea Map

Disneysea is divided into six area which has its own unique attractions, shops, performance and landscape that refer to particular theme. There are American Waterfront, Mediterranean Harbor, Mysterious Island, Port Discovery, Mermaid Lagoon, Arabian Coast and Lost River Delta. Each area, I guess, is inspired from one of Disney’s story. Can you guess from which story are they?

American Waterfront

Classic American town

Electric railway. Connecting this area to Port Discovery.

American Waterfront in sight. Building in the left is “Tower of Terror”, the most thrilling frightening ride in this park!

Explorer statue. Columbus I guess.

Our first attraction to visit: Turtle talk, placed inside the full scale replica of S.S. Columbia

Babies are here!

“Kujira” (whale in Japanese) painting inside the ship

Columbia

 

Duffy: Disney’s teddy bear. They sold Duffy doll and provide several spots to put them on and let visitor take a photo of their duffy.

Behind a ship yard

It recalled me to a scene in Titanic where Jack got a Titanic ticket as gambling prize

Let’s sail! Mickey sailor statue

Old American Townhall

Port Discovery

Aquatopia

Storm Rider – one of cool attraction. I recommend it!

Behind this wall is the real sea (Tokyo Bay). They decorate it nicely, that pretend the wall is going to breached

Lost River Delta

Wrecked airplane

Welcome to the dreamland! Uwoow

Mickey and friends meet and greet schedule. The board shows how long we have to queue until it reach our turn.

Taking photo with whom he called himself “Indiana Jones” :))

In front of Temple of Crystal Skull, from Indiana Jones movie.

Another attraction: Raging Spirit – themed roller coaster

Being Indi for a while

You know what I did :p

 Mediterranean Harbor

Renaissance ship

Dream kingdom

Very detailed fortress!

Fortress gateway

Venetian sphere

Mysterious Island

Inside Mt. Prometheus

Mysterious Island

Awesome artificial landscape, isn’t it? Trully “dream comes true” isn’t it?

 

Capt. Nemo’s (undersesa explorer) desk

Submarine

Ariel meet and greet. Unfortunately we were not interested to meet her!

Ariel’s grotto at noon

Ariel’s grotto at night!

 Arabian Coast

In front of palace gate

Beautiful arabian river.

I thought they were waiting for praying call.

Gennie!

Agrabah market. Aladdin’s playground.

Knocking Arabian dweller’s home

Jasmine!

I wish that was a mosque…

Turk’s ship?

Arabian night

Tips
The main attraction of Disneysea is not the attraction itself (attraction = riding amusement). It is combined from both theatrical performance and live entertainment, sculpture, landscape, shops and riding attractions. So it is not necessary to get rush queuing from one attraction to another. Just relax and enjoy the open air “dreamland” with your fellow. There are many spots to take photo with awesome background, interact with Disney character and even trying merchandise without buying it like I did there :p

Toy Story’s alien hat

Donald Duck hat

Chipmunk hat

Amazing “Fantasmic!” show

Romantic Venetian atmosphere.

There are also special facility for queuing called “Fastpass.” It is available only in certain popular attractions. We can get special ticket from fastpass machine which allow us to enter the attraction through special line and can be used only within the period printed on the ticket. For some attractions sometimes fastpass ticket already finished in the noon. But you don’t need to fastpass for every popular attraction, you can compare whether it is worth or not to line up directly or use your fastpass ticket.

Information about waiting time needed for particular attraction. Very convenient and full automation!

Another automatic information board. The left board shows time needed if we want to line up directly and the right board shows fastpass allowable entrance time if we check-in for fastpass ticket.

Manual information about waiting period for each attraction and schedule for each performance and service.

Visiting Tokyo Disneysea really brought my childhood time back, where the fantasy world in my mind comes true. It also reminded me to Walt Disney, a figure that gave me an inspiration to like sketching, drawing and painting and daring to dream.

“Visiting Tokyo Disneysea really brought my childhood time back…” :p

You’ve got the friend in me!

Couldn’t wait to visit this place again in summer!