Tokyo Disneyland

We had been talking about going to Disneyland before Japanese school let out for a summer break on July 19th, but after a few VERY hot weeks and some huge crowds at the park we thought it probably wouldn't be worth it. I imagined pushing the double stroller through the park with 2 hot, sweaty sunburned girls with lines too long for any sane person to wait in.  So, I had sadly resigned myself to the fact that we would have to wait a few months before trying it out.  But then on Thursday morning while I was getting the girls ready to head to Tokyo American Club and Joe was getting ready for work, he looked at the forecast (highs only in the upper 80s!) and thought that crowd wise we might actually have a shot at getting on some rides.  Lines for attractions, character greetings and even popcorn have been known to be as long as 7 hours at Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea.  I knew it would be a disaster if we took the girls to the park and weren't even able to get on any rides so I was keeping my fingers crossed!  It worked out well that day because Joe's morning meeting was cancelled and he could go in a bit later than usual, so we quickly got packed up and loaded into our new Prius to ride with dad to work. Joe wasn't able to take the day off but planned on meeting us for lunch and picking us up on his way out that evening.  

Bottom left: A view of Tokyo as we left the city. Tokyo Disney Resort is about 10 miles from the downtown.

Traffic on the way wasn't too bad and Joe dropped us off in front of the Disneyland Hotel and rushed to make a meeting. We walked through the hotel and out the back where the entrance gate was located. We got there right around opening time and the line to get in the park looked pretty crazy, but it only took us about 10 minutes to get through the gate. Main Street was also packed and we quickly made our way to Fantasyland. I didn't get a chance to grab a map but from my initial assessment of what I could see while standing in front of the castle, it seemed to be laid out basically like Disneyland in California.  We quickly found Fantasyland and jumped in line for Dumbo with only a 5 minute wait! As it got closer to our turn, I panicked for a moment worried that I wouldn't be able to ride with both girls in one car and they are both too small to ride by themselves. Luckily we were all able to ride together and Dumbo was a hit. After Dumbo we ran Birmingham style over to Peter Pan which had a 20 minute wait prediction - I usually never do anything over 10 with the girls but decided to press my luck. It ended up only taking 12 minutes to get on the ride, and even though Annie was very excited she covered her eyes for a lot of it. Next we headed over to Snow White's Scary Adventures and walked right on, but again Annie covered her eyes for a majority of the ride. I found it to be way better and more updated than Snow White in California. Oh, and one major difference that for some reason I didn't expect: all the audio on the rides is in Japanese. Funny to hear the familiar voices of the Disney characters speaking and singing in Japanese. We hopped on the carousel after some confusion about whether or not the girls were allowed to ride on horses by themselves, and then Joe texted me to try to get on Pooh's Hunny Hunt ASAP. The line for Pooh was already 70 minutes when we got there (still not even 10:00 am at this point) so we got a Fast Pass to return at 1:00 pm. 

It was just about time for a snack and there was a Honey Popcorn cart right outside the Pooh ride so the girls chomped that down and took a little break in the shade.

Had a few people ask to take pictures with Annie and Lizzy. I promised them candy if they would cooperate but as you can see here it didn't seem to work. 

Having a great morning so far!

We then headed into Toontown, an area of Disney specifically designed for small children.  We went to Minnie's House (big hit!), climbed up into Chip n Dale's tree house and found a boat to explore.

The girls had a great time in Minnie's kitchen! 

We spent about an hour playing at Toontown and we were hot and ready for a break, so we went into a store to do some browsing. Every single time I turned around Lizzy had a pair of Minnie Mouse sunglasses on despite me telling her to put them back each and every time.

"Mom, can we get one of these?"

Disney chopsticks, a cheese selection and a t-shirt. 

After Annie and Lizzy had touched just about every single thing in the store I had to practically drag them out of there for a stop at the Baby Center.  We had a bathroom break and some cold water and then were on our way to meet dad for lunch. 

We met up with Joe, who must have been DYING in his work clothes while walking around the park. I actually felt sorry for him, which rarely happens. There are tons of food choices at Tokyo Disneyland, but it takes some searching to find something, er, Western. We stopped for pizza in Tomorrowland and it was pretty good. Out of the 3 choices of pizzas I picked "double sausage" which was the only one that didn't include seafood or an equally questionable topping, and ironically contained no sausage. The slice came with a side of mini cream puffs drizzled with chocolate syrup and a drink for around 800 yen.

After lunch Joe had to go back to work and it was time to use our Fast Pass at Pooh's Hunny Hunt.  The line by this point was over 100 minutes and even the Fast Pass line was winding out into the park. I'd say it took us around 15 minutes of waiting before it was our turn. Pooh's Hunny Hunt was definitely my favorite ride of the day, and one of the best ones I've been on in a while! It's a trackless ride system that has not been introduced in the US (too expensive) so each individual Hunny pot moves independently all over the floor, making for a different ride every time. Hard to say who enjoyed it more, me or the girls. Annie kept saying during the ride, "This is awesome!"

Sad the the Hunny Hunt is over!

Next up we had planned to take in a live character show but missed it by 1 minute so we tried out Mickey's Philharmagic instead. The girls didn't mind the wait, thank goodness it was indoors, as it was getting pretty hot by this point. They both really enjoyed the 3-D cartoon show which included some of their favorite Disney songs.

Sharing a seat because sepeartely they weren't heavy enough to keep the seat from folding up! Annie kept her arm around Lizzy for the entire show. So sweet.

It was well past 2:30 and the girls both fell asleep in the stroller.  I walked around and did some window shopping while they slept, and enjoyed a mango/vanilla swirl cone (no dole whip in Adventure Land, boo!) that I didn't have to share :).

Sleeping sweaty angels.

Time for a cool treat!

I took some pictures of menus as I walked around during naptime just to give you an idea of what they are serving.

What is Char Siu? Do I want to know? Guessing it probably doesn't belong on a pizza.

Fake food displays are BIG in Tokyo. Almost every restaurant has one of these displays outside.

Hungry Bear is one of my favorite restaurants at Disneyland in California. They don't serve curry. 

Really wanted to try this Green Tea shaved ice with Red Beans but I had just polished off an ice cream cone. Next time!

Menu from a table service restaurant on Main Street.

So many different flavors of popcorn!

The girls ended up sleeping for a LONG time, and a few minutes after Annie woke up we decided to wake up Lizzy to ride Pirates of the Caribbean. Even though it was her idea in the first place, Annie immediately started crying and saying she didn't want to go once we walked into the ride (there was no wait.) Mean mom made her go anyway since we had already woken up Lizzy for this ride.  Annie straddled me on my lap with her head buried in my chest for the entire ride. Lizzy was a little bit braver, but stayed pretty close to my side the whole time. A little bummed that we had to leave on that note, but Joe was done with work and our babysitter Vicky was coming over at 7 to watch the girls. 

All in all I'd say the trip was a big success and I am looking forward to many more days spent at Tokyo Disneyland!

Until next time!