DisneySea Tokyo

We stayed up far too late last night… past 10 again and up early at 530 for DisneySea. Billed as the best Disney in the world, we had planned for the long lines to get in… and decided to get there 2 hours before open. It was at least a pleasant morning and we had a smooth 35 minute Uber ride and the crowds had already started (first pic). We brought some playing cards for the wait and passed the time quicker than we thought. After finally getting through the gates 2 hours later, we made our first set of reservations. TokyoSea is very inexpensive to get in (and we later found out very cheap for snacks, drinks and ice cream - $2 for each of them) but if you don’t want to wait in a very long line, the skip the line passes add up quickly (and you can only book one at a time and then not another until it’s used up). Made for a lot of planning that didn’t completely work in reality since you never knew what ride you would be able to get a pass for. At any rate, we started with the beautiful 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride in ‘submarines’ with scary wildlife floating by. From there it was off to Journey to the Center of the Earth - very unique with a great roller coaster type ending. After walking a bit to see the park from land, we were admiring the sea view when Gideon trapped himself in a fence. Fortunately, there was plenty of time for pictures while he struggled to get free (only solved the problem with mom’s help). Then we all decided to brave the Tower of Terror. A first for E, we had all done it before and it did not disappoint. We had burger and Rueben lunches pre-ordered and waiting at the pick up counter before our next scheduled ride. We took a boat around the entire park, positioned right off of the sea - and got to see it all from the water. After that, it was off to Peter Pan - a newer ride than the older ones at DisneyLand and DisneyWorld but just as we got there, it was shut down. Fortunately, they allowed us to use our passes on the unbookable and busy Raging Spirits roller coaster - the first upside down for Hudson. It was short but very fun. Unfortunately, the Indiana Jones ride has been closed since last year and the crowds only continued to grow. It seems that the Japanese don’t mind standing in 3 to 4 (even 5!!) hour lines for these rides but an hour or so is about our limit and we decided to climb around the castle and boat and tour the newer Frozen area. We did one more ride at Aquatopia - a free drive water ride - before finding a short popcorn line and getting ice cream for the kids. There were half a dozen popcorn stands in the park each with a different flavor (curry, soy sauce and butter, caramel, white chocolate, black pepper and garlic prawn) and the lines were often 30-45 minutes long, some as much as an hour wrapping around the stands. Joce got the soy sauce in under 20 minutes before we went shopping for shirts for the kids and Baymax for E. Overall, it was an absolutely beautiful park and we enjoyed looking at all of it… but it didn’t compare to the US parks or even Paris in terms of rides. We couldn’t even get passes after 1300 and minimum 2 hour lines for everything (with 4 closed rides) made it hard to really enjoy. We decided to get home at a reasonable hour and took the trains back. About an hour later, we went to a local place called Pizza and Sake that didn’t have room for us last night. It was an absolutely delicious stop and everyone was hungry so it really hit the spot. Finally back home at a reasonable time for early bed for everyone. Another 15k steps but we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Cherry blossoms to start tomorrow.Read more