Contrasty

Today was our first day at Tokyo Disneyland and the theme was contrast, with a sub theme of closed. The park stands in stark contrast to DisneySea, with far less in the way of details and opulence. Don’t get me wrong, the rides are fantastic, but overall the park leaves a bit to be desired. I think part of the problem might be that they designed it to house a ton of people, so the sidewalks and spaces between buildings are HUGE. This means a lot of open space without theming, which can be a bit disruptive to the experience. Where DisneySea was completely over the top, much of Disneyland seems restrained. We definitely enjoyed the heck out of it, though, just like this group of over the top, ridiculous, unfairly cute babies.

We lined up for early entry which is a perk of staying in the hotels, but then found out we actually get in at the same time as everyone else, we just didn’t have to wait in the incredibly long lines that formed 2 hours before opening. Once the gates opened it was quite a sight as floods of people literally ran into the park. Just like on the subway, though, it was all orderly and without pushing and shoving. Pretty amazing people.

We started off by heading towards Monsters Inc. Ride and Seek. I had read that this thing gets packed quick and stays that way all day, so we grabbed a Fast Pass, which was a good thing because they ran out within minutes. This is yet another incredible classic style dark ride. While Disney World is installing crappy 3D animated dark rides with no animatronics, they appear to be installing nothing BUT animatronics here and they are great. You ride through the factory from the movie and locate monsters with your handy flashlight. There was some amazing eye candy here, and it made us really wish they’d build one back home.

We circled back around through World Bazaar, the equivalent of Main Street, but covered in glass. This was one of the first signs of the lack of detail, with the buildings being much plainer than CA or FL. It is still pretty cool, though, being under a roof in a semi familiar place. That’s the weirdest part about going to other Disneylands, you get that sense of deja vu but it just isn’t quite right.

Other rides of note were the Haunted Mansion, which is very close to Florida’s but has a few nice details (the library features books that walk and crawl on the floor, and pages that flip themselves). I was sad to find no gift shop, although we did find one Mansion souvenir which is better than nothing. We hopped on the Grand Circuit Raceway, which is just like the Gran Prix except with a pretty incredible safety feature that turns your car off when you get too close to the one in front of you. Safety first, kids! The Western Railroad was interesting in that it is basically CA’s train ride minus the utility of getting around the park - you just head out and back to the same stop. You do, however, get to see the Primeval World diorama, which rules.

 
Can you spot the ghost in this photo? 

For lunch we walked into the Blue Bayou, which is housed in Pirates of the Caribbean just like in CA. Unlike CA, however, you don’t need reservations! The last time we ate at the one in CA we had to make reservations 3 months in advance, so it was pretty amazing walking right in, getting a great seat and having an excellent meal. Sommer had Tilapia and I had Gumbo (although it tasted more like sweet and sour).

Pooh’s Hunny Hunt was probably the biggest surprise and has taken the spot as my favorite ride here. I’ll try to get some video tomorrow, you’ve got to see it to really appreciate what makes it so unique. The ride system is without a track, and the cars travel in groups of 3. The amazing thing is that the “track” is more like a ballet, as you spin and dart in and out of the other 2 cars you are traveling with. This is another one with excellent animatronics, and you interact with many of them very close to the ride vehicle. One of the best parts is the Heffalumps and Woozles scene where you wind up with 9 cars in the same area, all circling around each other and interacting with a 10th car that is actually part of the ride, filled with tourist Heffalumps complete with cameras and mouse ear hats. 

So, the sub theme of “closed” means that a whole bunch of stuff we were looking forward to was closed for repairs. We mentioned that Journey to the Center of the Earth was closed at DisneySea, but at Disneyland it was worse: Enchanted Tiki Room, Mickey Mouse Revue, Pinnochio, Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin and Space Mountain were all closed. Fortunately we have most of these rides at home, so it isn’t a total loss, but sort of a bummer. On top of that the Electrical Parade, which I have been UBER EXCITED about seeing once again, was cancelled due to rain. The cool thing was that they sent just 1 float around instead, which featured Disney characters in rain gear on a float composed of umbrellas and rain drops. At least they have a sense of humor about it!

To top the night off we watched the fireworks, which were enlightening to say the least. The main announcements are in both Japanese and English, so we were able to understand the line “ashes may fall into the park.” We thought nothing of it until a still burning ember dropped at Sommer’s feet. Now that’s an exciting end to the day!

Check out the pictures from today.