Satellite
Show on map
  • Day 19

    Christmas in November at Disney Land

    November 7, 2017 in Japan ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    A slow, tired start this morning. As at 10am we had absolutely zero idea or plan to go to Disneyland. Our only remaining plans were a half day at Harujaku. Perfect for our last half day tomorrow before our evening flight home. What would be perfect then to fill out a whole day of gorgeous weather, with minimal time to think, plan or consider? Disneyland it was!

    Sadly our treasured JR passes had now expired so we had to pay our way from Shinjuku to Maihama station (via Tokyo), around 800¥ each. Getting a day ticket proved pretty tedious and painful to get from the station, but we finally got there. This was our first major expedition within Tokyo station, and I cant stress how collossal it really is... its an absolute underground labrynth.

    We finally got to Disneyland just before noon and set about exploring the rides one by one. It goes without same that 21c, blue skies and sunshine provided a much more cheery backdrop than our earlier typhoon experience at Disney Sea a few weeks back. Further to our surprise, as of today, the park had rolled out the Christmas decorations and theme on a grand scale. So Christmas started for us on November 7th this year.

    The Park overall was a little more tame and aimed at children than DisneySea but the quality of rides waa overall pretty impressive! A few more adult rides were closed too (Startours and Thunder Mountain), which left only a couple exciting ones. No complaints about 'Its a Small World being renovated, that ride always was a recipe for insanity.

    Interestingly, for both the more adventurous rides; Space Mountain and Splash Mountain, I was sized up and pulled aside at the start of the queue for each. Height concerns you see... Japanese rides are evidently designed for shorter Japanese people. On both occasions I had to follow a staff member behind the scenes and attempt to have a test run, to see if I could squeeze/dislocate/manoeuvre my legs into the carriages. With minimal ligament danage I managed to get through both rides (which were heaps of fun). Tragically both these rides had some sort of breakdown (the Space Mountain one seemed really severe and induced staff panic) which led me stuck mangled into my seat for longer than Id hoped. Actually 4+ rides broke during the day.

    As for a brief run down of the rest of the rides we went on - Pirates of the Carribbean; a tame water ride with good special effects, Jungle Cruise; a cute boat ride with some robot animals, Haunted Mansion; a Nightmare before Christmas themed carriage ride through a haunted house, Peter Pan; impressive effects on a short flying ship ride, Monsters Inc; a carriage ride where you could activate effects by shining your torch on a monster, Pinnochio a carriage ride with good effects and Toy Story, a laser gun, point scoring carriage ride.

    The two other rides which were the most surprising were the Pooh Bear ride and the Snow White Ride. Pooh Bear had a 40 minute queue, and whilst a carriage ride, we were impressed by the uniqueness of its style, car movement and effects. The other Snow White, was shockingly dark. It looked like a ride designed for young children but was ALL dark, creepy, sinister and foreboding with dozens of random scares and loud noises. It had me laughing hard at its tone and understanding why so many kids came out in tears.

    We eventually got out of the park well after dark around 8pm. Exhausted, we got back to mall near our hotel for a Japanese-Hawaiian dinner before returning to enjoy our view for our last night. We're half packed now and ready for sleep. Just a few things to do in Harujaku tomorrow before we fly home in the evening.
    Read more