Tokyo Disney

This weekend I went to Toyko Disneyland with two other ALTs. Now, I grew up in Florida and went to Disney World about once a year for a while. And this is Japan, where they have achieved insane levels of technological wizardry and even more insane levels of adoration for all things Disney. So I had pretty high nostalgia and pretty high expectations going in. How would the two parks (one on each day) measure up?

Saturday: Disneyland, apparently intended to be a copy of the one in California

Stuff that was not excellent:

The crowds… were absolutely insane. Did you know that Tokyo Disney is the second-most-visited amusement park in the world? It’s second to Disney World in Florida, which has six parks to Tokyo’s two. There were lines of up to four hours for some of the most popular rides (which we didn’t go on). Also, Japanese people have a much more reduced sense of personal space than Westerners. At more than one point, I was wishing I could say in Japanese: “Pressing your breasts into the small of my back will not make this line move any faster!”

The lack of vegetarian food… and I mean utter lack, as in I was picking pieces of octopus tentacles off pizza. I was pleasantly surprised by veggie-friendliness of the last place popular with Westerners (Nikko), but apparently the memo hasn’t reached Tokyo Disney yet.

Stuff that was excellent mostly because it took me back to being five years old:

Peter Pan… has always been cheesy and campy and silly, but is now cheesy and campy and silly and really fast. I think they’ve sped it up to try to get more people through more quickly. It was a 75-minute wait for a 75-second ride. Tragedy.

The Carousel… used to have bigger horses when I was smaller. Either that or the horses made for American kids really are bigger than the ones made for Japanese kids. It was delightful, but not as majestic as I remembered.

The Swiss Family Robinson treehouse… was less intricate than I remembered. It did, however, have this, which made me laugh hard enough to make up for all deficiencies:

Stuff that was just plain excellent:

Excellent lobbies and entranceways… keep you from being too bored while waiting in line. Prime photo-taking opportunities, especially since you’re not doing anything else anyway.

Pooh’s Hunny Hunt… does not exist in Florida, and I have no idea why. It was a delight from the very beginning, when the line wound around giant-sized book pages, with text directly from the books and pictures from the original movie. It got exponentially better when we were sitting in our own private honey/hunny pot being whirled around on the floor through the Very Windy Day and the Heffalump Nightmare. Most excellent times to be had by all.

The Jungle Cruise… was almost as funny in Japanese as in English. I have new respect for the talents of Disney actors.

The extremely realistic animatronic Johnny Depp… that graced the new version of “Pirates of the Caribbean.” I liked that they nodded to the movie enough to satisfy its fans, but mostly kept the madcap watch-the-pirates-wreak-havoc-while-singing senselessness.

A parade featuring Christmas lights and carols… for which we actually had seats, but abandoned them once it became clear that a.) we couldn’t really see that well anyway, and b.) the huge crowds at the parade had drastically reduced the wait time for “Pooh’s Hunny Hunt.” As our luck would have it, our view of the parade was absolutely incredible from the line -- so much so that there were cast members employed in making sure that people didn’t hold up the line watching the parade.

It’s a Small World… was worth the entire trip. I started grinning like a little kid the second we set foot inside and didn’t stop until well after we’d left. I’ve always loved it, but with it all dressed up for Christmas (including Christmas carols in many languages) I was over the moon.

Sunday: DisneySea, a park that exists only in Tokyo.

Stuff that was not excellent:

Continued lack of vegetarian food… led to picking salmon off pizza (seeing a pattern? -- I came home feeling pretty vegetable-starved). At one point, I told a waitress that I had an allergy (the easiest way to explain it), which produced the restaurant manager, bearing a very thick binder of ingredient lists and the unfortunate information that even the pesto sauce had pork in it. Seriously? Pesto?!

Rain… poured all morning, amidst temperatures in the low 40s. It was very cold. Eighty-minute lines did not seem so bad, when that meant eighty minutes inside a heated room. However, the weather greatly reduced the crowds… it was positively peaceful by comparison.

Stuff that was excellent because it took me back to being five years old:

Triton’s Palace, aka the Mermaid Lagoon… is mostly set up with kiddie rides, but we stayed long enough to take a few pictures. God, I used to love this movie.

Exotic carousel choices… on Aladdin’s carousel, which was a time-waster before our fast-pass tickets for “20,000 Leagues” were operational, but turned out to be a great success. Not only did we get to ride camels and elephants on the second floor, but Jafar, the Genie, and Abu turned up to ride the cycle before ours.

Sindbad’s Storybook Adventure… is based on a story from “The Thousand and One Nights,” not a Disney movie at all. But it had all the proper elements: a really cute animal companion, a song with a heartwarming chorus, and lots of animatronics. A lovely, slow-paced break from the crowds.

Aquatopia… involves little rubber-ringed floats that are dragged around a small lagoon featuring waterfalls, fountains, and shooting jets of water, all of which you are sure are going to soak you but manage to just barely miss.

Stuff that was just plain excellent:

The Jules Verne-themed rides… of which there are two, “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” and “20,000 Leagues under the Sea.” The former is a relatively slow trip through caves of glowing crystal and friendly-looking Star Wars-esque giant insects, until you round a corner and meet up with a cave monster reminiscent of the Balrog, at which point the ride suddenly becomes a roller coaster -- a fact which my friends neglected to tell me, which led to one of the more fun adrenaline rushes I’ve had in a while.
The latter puts you in a round submarine and sends you on a trip through similarly-colorful underwater scenes, which you can illuminate with your self-controlled searchlight. Very classic, peaceful, no roller coaster moments.

Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull… was a roller coaster that I was expecting to be so. I was pretty impressed at how much they could jerk our Jeep around without launching it off the tracks entirely.
Also, the wait (the aforementioned 80-minute wait in a warm place) yielded some pretty excellent pictures.

The Tower of Terror… was far worse in anticipation than in reality. They really psych you up with the cursed idol thing (especially if you can’t understand what he’s saying before he starts cackling), but the drop is not all that bad. And the views of the park out the ninth-story windows are pretty cool. And then you can buy your very own miniature cursed idol in the attached gift shop… so that you can risk elevator-death on a daily basis…? Oh, Japan.

Photo ops… abounded. DisneySea has fewer rides (and fewer crowds, so shorter wait times), so more of our time was spent admiring the scenery and the Christmas decorations.

Overall, it was happy and campy and cheerful and nostalgia-inducing. I don’t know whether I will feel the need to go again, but I had an awfully good time.