Disney Tokyo Sea

Russell and I had no intention of ever going to anything Disney during our stay in Japan. As I have been working here, though, my mind began to change. This is mostly because whenever one of my students said they had spent the weekend/ vacation in Tokyo and I asked them what they had done, they unanimously responded "go to Disneyland." We were also constantly getting Disney treats as omiyage (gifts you bring back when you go on vacation). When I asked students what I should do in Tokyo, they always said, "go to Disneyland!" I started to feel like there must be some magic left in Disney Tokyo. Clearly it still enchanted my 19 and 20 year old students (boys and girls) in a way I wouldn't expect to see in the U.S. I decided I was officially curious and informed Russell that he should be too. To make things a little bit easier on both of us (we hoped) we picked the Disneyland sister resort, Disney Tokyo Sea.

The two resorts are right next to each other and share hotels. One is a very close model of the classic Anaheim Disneyland and the other is a secondary resort with new attractions - some are at least loosely connected to water. For example, there is a Little Mermaid, under the sea area, they moved the 20,000 leagues under the sea ride to this side of the park and they have a lovely little recreation of Cape Cod (that one I wasn't expecting). They also have an Aladdin corner, an Indiana Jones corner, a tomorrow land-esque corner (with different rides) and the Tower of Terror.

To start this story out, you have to understand that both Russell and I are, at our core cheapskates. We are willing to splurge on some things some times (like tickets to a theme park we are suspicious of), but we quickly draw the line when expenses seem ridiculous.

When we got off the Tokyo train station that lead to Disneyland, there was a clearly marked path that led right to the Disney Monorail. Russell had fond memories of the monorail in Disney World, Florida, so we were happy to follow the crowd. It turned out, however, that you had to pay $5 each for round trip ticket on the monorail. We knew the front gate was walking distance, but there were conveniently no signs to show us the way.

We were up to the challenge.

We broke out our iphone maps and tried to figure out what the fastest way to Disney Tokyo Sea was. The maps didn't show exactly where the entrance was, but we were pretty sure we could skirt the parks to the East and get there eventually. It had to be better than shelling out $10. So we started walking. Note the picture of Russell NOT taking the monorail. This needn't have been such a long hike because there was an (unmarked) path that went right down the middle of the parks to the front gate. Instead we walked all around the circumference of Disneyland and the Cirque du Soleil venue next to it before finding the center walk that eventually took us to the front gate. We were a little footsore, but very proud that Disneyland hadn't gotten our money. Until they got it in the form of ticket fare - but, you know, we were expecting that expense.

My hackles were already up over the monorail, so I may have started the whole adventure biased, but about 20 minutes into the park I was kind of ready to go. I didn't say anything to Russell because I had dragged him to the park against his will in the first place. While I knew that Disney was a well-oiled money-sucking machine, it really hits its stride in Japan. The builders of Tokyo Japan clearly had a different business plan than Walt in 1955. Where the Anaheim resort is still trying to catch up (and battling space restrictions, Tokyo Disney Sea (and I would guess Tokyo Disneyland as well) could really capitalize. There were gift shops at every corner. Kiosks, restaurants, specialty items you could only get in one store - which meant many people spent most of their time in Disneyland shopping through all the stores to see what was special in this next one. It was amazing. One of the most irritating parts (and one I think is shared by Disneyland in Anaheim) were the $15 popcorn buckets. If you wanted popcorn or caramel corn, you had to buy a cartoon character bucket for $15. After you had the bucket, though, you could refill it for only $7 dollars! What a deal! Of course, after smelling popcorn at every turn for 5+ hours you really start to crave it. We did hold out, though it was a bitter victory.

Russell did succumb to the sausage baguettes being sold from another vendor, though. After waiting in line 30-45 minutes to get one, he decided it would be wise to get two. He couldn't eat them both , though, so he insisted on stashing one in my purse for later. Great. While it isn't the greatest picture, this one shows the crowds, the fleece mouse ears and the line for sausage. See if you can spot Russell.

One thing I had heard from my students and was interested in checking for myself on this trip was that people love buying ears at Disneyland. At Disneyland in California, you can get the Mickey and Minnie ears, the Goofy hats, etc, but I had heard that it was really quite common to buy a different set of ears every time you visit Tokyo Disneyland. One of my students, when preparing a cultural survey to give Americans in Oregon about Disneyland asked: "How many ears do you have?" Which, as you can imagine, met with some puzzled looks.



So I was curious - just how many ear options are there in Disney Tokyo and do people really buy them in droves? The answer? There seem to be seasonal ears (somehow I shouldn't have been surprised) and some standards (like the Mickey and Minnie ear headbands. The big hit this season were the fleece hood/ mouse ears (in black, white and pink leopard spot). Note picture. While only about a quarter of the people in the park were wearing ears (which is still pretty impressive) there was no age or gender group that seemed more likely to be wearing them. We saw teenage girls and boys wearing ears, young children, 50-something year old couples. There seemed to be a widespread appeal. That I was also not expecting. My favorite was the teenage boy in goth make-up who had tied a daffy-duck stuffed animal to his head with a bow.

So what did we actually DO? We were in the park from about 10am to 5 pm and we went on 4 "rides." These included a boat tour of the park (we could walk right on in the morning, so we went for it), an acrobatic jungle production (no plot, but pretty), the spinning shells (like teacups that you can't actually spin for yourself, and the big one - Journey to the Center of the Earth. The last one was the only roller coaster we saw. Once we had spotted it, we tried to get Fast Track tickets but they were already sold out for the day. 3 hour wait in line? Meh. Might as well. At least it was free!

After standing on concrete for 3 hours we were definitely ready to go home. There was only one more thing I had to do before I could leave the park. I had to figure out where people were all getting this Disney Bear-thing. All day long I had seen this non-descript stuffed bear in the arms of nearly ever female that passed us. The only sign that it had anything to do with Disney was the Disney silhouette paw print on the bottom feet. But EVERYONE had one (albeit in different costumes). Even more people than had ears. While were were standing in line we looked it up on the Internet. It turns out, the bear's name is "Duffy" and he was a gift from Minnie to Mickey so he wouldn't be lonely while the two of them were apart. The bear was completely created as something to turn around and sell and while it failed to capture the American consumers' hearts, it had found a home in Japan. Now that I know what it is, I have spotted them outside of the park as well.

So where were they getting them? Why, Cape Cod of course!! There was one store in the park that sold Duffy bears and it had a line out the door and around the corner of people waiting to get in. I took a picture, but it was dark and you can't see anything.

While the lines (all over the park) seemed daunting to us, they weren't that much worse that in California and Tokyo Disney Sea clearly has a much larger capacity than Disneyland in Anaheim. There were huge numbers of people in the park, but they seemed well distributed. The regular large shows also seemed to help draw crowds around the park throughout the day to help keep ride lines down - plus, there was all that shopping to do.

Russell and I walked back to the train.