Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea Park

So part 2 of our Japan trip is Disney!  We are taking advantage of seeing the Asian Disney lands while we are living here, plans to see the recently opened Shanghai Disneyland for next year before we move back to the USA to wrap it up!  We planned to spend 3-days in the Disney parks when we planned our trip but with how difficult it was, and how hot it was with the kids traveling around Tokyo wasn't so appealing and of course Disneyland offers a lot all in one place and keeps the kids busy.  First of all, the tickets are cheaper than at home, $75 per adult per day and kids under 4 are free, so we got lucky with that too!  The two parks are very close to each other, The Disney Sea is a Mediterranean style park with all the Disney touches, and then of course Disneyland is similar to that in California.  This park is larger than the Hong Kong park we visited in May and we had a lot more to see, so with two little ones that stop to change diapers, go potty, get snacks, and take naps it took us some time to see everything anyways.

We saw many locals wearing Kimonos while walking around the parks, I couldn't help notice how beautiful they all were.  Many of them even wore the wooden shoes to walk around Disneyland, men and women both were wearing them.  And the favorite souvenir seemed to be these half hooded towels that were made to look like different Disney characters.  I think most people used it to keep the sun off of themselves but they were everywhere!!!

Disneyland.....Tokyo Disneyland was really nice, just like any other Disney park it has a lot of special touches everywhere.  Things I liked were; you could buy a bucket (ours was Mr. Potato head from Toy Story) and refill it in the park at one of the many popcorn stations with flavors such as cappuccino, soy sauce and butter, and curry (The only one we couldn't try because the smell was so strong was curry), they had a decent amount of character greetings, there were a lot of shows (we paid to have lunch at the Toy Story Show and Dinner at the Mickie luau), you could easily mail postcards home, a few of our friends and family received these!  They also had different flavors of churros to try, cinnamon, potato, strawberry and cafe au lait.  The food at the restaurants in the park were a bit odd, a lot of sandwhiches with odd colored bread, seafood pizza, and not so much traditional Japanese food or western food.  We did have tortilla dogs which everyone enjoyed one day for lunch followed by churros!

    

A caramel creme filled chocolate wafer was a new treat, frozen mango, strawberry shaved ice, and churros and the selection of food in Mermaid Lagoon.

 Things that I didn't like as much; the souvenirs (I found one magnet in the entire two parks), not many fast passes, it was HOT, there wasn't enough places to buy beverages, there was one stand in each park to purchase fruit, and that is about it.

  

The rides were similar to those in California and Florida, a few have been updated like Pooh's Hunny Hunt which we had to get fast-passes for!  Space Mountain was closed for updates, the Buzz Lightyear and Monsters Ride and Go Seek were favorites for the kids.  Brian and Blake went on Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain while Grace and I hung out on the carousel or Its a Small World, a few of her favorites.  Brian and Blake also were able to stay a little later too while I took Grace to bed at the hotel and they said the lines were gone by 8:30pm.  We rode every ride in Disneyland at least once if not more :)  The Tiki room was converted to a Stich's Tiki Room type adventure and there was of course a railroad that we rode the train on!  

We took some time to enjoy the meal shows, you can buy tickets for a few different shows.  For lunch one day we saw the Toy Story western show, the kids loved seeing Woody and Jessie on stage!  For dinner another day we went to Mickie's luau which was also enjoyed by the kids!

 

There were some cool parades, i think 4 parades a day while we were there including the electric light parade at night, which the kids loved watching!  These are some of the floats.  They did a great job of including a lot of characters in the parades that you didn't see around for photos, Blake really enjoyed watching the parades and seeing his favorite characters!

A few photos from around the park and Tokyo!  Blake got a Toy Story train at Disneyland as his present and both kids got lights for night time, Blake Mike Wozowski and Grace a Tangled lantern after we lost the Frozen glowing wand on a train along with Blake's Toy Story Train....ooops. (Had to replace that too)

  

Here is the Mr. Potato Head popcorn bucket

Let It Go.....

This was one of the cool souvenirs you could purchase, origami paper dresses.

Grace was more interested in the Characters, Blake would look at them from afar but had a meltdown when we tried to get a family photo with Minnie after waiting 40 minutes.  Creepy fairy godmother, but she was very sweet with Grace, the 7 dwarfs but we only waited for 2.  There weren't any princesses around unless you saw them in the parades.

They have a thrown room which you can view in the castle, so while everyone was in line for Monsters, I went and got fast passes for some other rides and stopped inside.  You take an elevator up and then can sit in the thrown if you like, but it was magical to see inside the castle :)

Disney Sea, this park was a little disappointing just because it is not so Disney, there is attention to detail for sure but it wasn't as happy, magical and kid-friendly as Disneyland.  There were three rides here that Blake couldn't ride, Journey through the center of the earth, Indiana Jones and Raging Spirits so Brian got a fast pass just to check them out once while the kids napped.  The Toy Story Mania was usually at least an hour wait, 100 minutes at one point and we made the mistake of not getting fast passes immediately for this so it was the one ride we never made it on.  Blake went on the Tower of Terror....once.....and i think that was enough for him for a while.  For those that know my Tower of Terror story.....I didn't influence him in any way and let him go with his dad on the ride.

The Mermaid Lagoon would have been my dream come true when I was 7 and in LOVE with the Little Mermaid movie, as an adult it was nice to share with my kids but they have no idea who Ariel, Flounder and Sebastian are so they need some Disney education.  They had all rides for little kids here, and also in the Aladdin land which had a two-story carousel that made Grace very happy!  They also had magic carpets and a Sinbad's Story boat ride which was interesting even though we had never heard of this character.  They had the American waterfront which has a giant naval ship with Japanese Turtle Talk inside, and a Cape Cod restaurant with a lighthouse.  This is also where the Steamboat dropped off so we rode that a few times to get from one side of the park to another.  Blake really liked the individual submarines for 20,000 leagues under the Sea.  There was also autopia (which they had in Disneyland) turned boats auquatopia that had computers that had a mind of their own so you didn't control it at all and it took you around a pool.

This was in our hotel, I LOVE beauty and the beast.....we should have been married in this....

We all needed some rest after this vacation but it was a lot of fun and we are so glad we had the opportunity to go to Japan!

Until our next adventure....