Tokyo Disney Resort - Day #2 - DisneySea
Arrival Strategy
We arrived at the gates of DisneySea around 7:00 on Monday morning! I had rushed out the door without stopping to grab breakfast from the lounge, but I figured it would be worth it after our very crowd-heavy experience on Sunday. Imagine our surprise, then, when the line was relatively short and we were maybe in the first 50 people in line. By the time the gates opened at 8:00, the lines had grown but not nearly to the levels of the day before, at Disneyland. As we pushed through the gates, the crowd took off in a frenzy towards the American Waterfront. We expected this, based on what we’d read about Toy Story Midway Mania being the most popular ride by far at DisneySea. We did NOT expect the craze in which the crowds would head that direction! Thankfully, we eventually broke off from the throng as our plan was to grab a Tower of Terror FastPass (intended for my use only, as my husband refuses to ride it) and then head to Journey of the Center of the Earth. The wait for ToT was only 5 minutes and in hindsight, it might have been wiser for me to ride then, but I was nervous about lines growing for Journey to the Center of the Earth so we moved along. My ToT FastPass return time was at 8:45.
Mysterious Island
We trekked through the American Waterfront and up through the edge of the Mediterranean Harbor before arriving at Mysterious Island. The wait for Journey to the Center of the Earth was only 5 minutes and we excitedly joined the line. It was around 8:20 at this time and I’ve got to say, we were WARM. We’d been moving around the park at a fairly quick clip for the last 15-20 minutes, and we’d bundled up significantly after freezing the day before. As we entered the queue, which is in a tunnel and heated, we began stripping off jackets, hats, and gloves. The line was beautiful and incredible intricate – I found myself slowing down to take it in and almost longing for there to be at least a *little* line, just so I could spend longer looking into the display cases, etc. However, we walked straight into one of the loading elevators that took us “down” into the depths of the volcano in order to board our vehicle. Moments later we were boarding our very own ride vehicle and entering the mysterious labyrinths that would take us to the earth’s core. The ride starts out as a dark ride and later turns into a thrill ride – a bit like Big Thunder Mountain, but more dark ride than thrill, if that makes sense. I hate to spoil anything, but I will say that my husband had a bit of a shock with one aspect of the ride and anyone who is sensitive to thrill rides might want to look at a video of this one before riding, though thrill lovers will probably find the thrill level to be mild. In any case, it stole my heart and is definitely in my top three favorite rides at the Tokyo Disney Resort, if not the very top.
As we exited, we crossed to the other side of the Mysterious Island and rode 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The ride was a walk-on and I couldn’t believe our luck with lines this morning. The ride itself was WAY better than I expected, honestly, and had interactive elements that made it all the more enthralling. As we resurfaced and left the ride we found ourselves looking at each other with an electric excitement – here we were, 45 minutes into our day, and already we’d gone on two of the best Disney rides we’d even been on and I still had a FastPass for one of my favorite rides that had just opened… it was going to be a GREAT day. We looked around Mysterious Island and loved all the details and signage, etc. Even though my FastPass for ToT had opened, we wanted to take advantage of the short wait times of the morning, so we grabbed FastPasses for Journey to the Center of the Earth for a later ride, and headed towards the Arabian Coast.
Arabian Coast
The path from Mysterious Island to the Arabian Coast took us past Mermaid Lagoon, which looked very colorful but fairly small from the outside. We continued past and as we entered the main the Arabian Coast area, we were impressed with the detail in the architecture and the layout of the port. There was a main “courtyard” which really did feel like we were within an Arabian palace, but as we wandered, we found ourselves within corridors and alleys that felt like an actual marketplace or normal town. Eventually, we found the way to Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage. I had read that if you asked for “story cards”, you could get English guides that were beautiful and helped tell the story of the attraction. Well, we asked but were told that, unfortunately these were not available. (As a side note, we asked for these at every attraction we could, and even at guest relations, but were never able to get our hands on one. Still, give it a shot if you make there – it’s worth a try!) The ride was gorgeous, the animatronics impressive, and the songs beautiful and catchy. We really loved this and it really made me feel like we were going on adventures with Sinband and Chandu (his pet tiger).
35th Anniversary Show, Tower of Terror, Mid-Morning Break, Christmas Show
At this point it was ~9:20am and we decided to head back towards Mysterious Island. My husband planned to wait by Magellan’s, which is part of the Mediterranean Harbor but very near to Mysterious Island, in order to snag a dinner reservation, while I would head back to the American Waterfront and ride ToT before rejoining him. However, once we made it to Magellan’s, we saw that the 9:30 “Happiest Celebration on the Seas!” was starting on the harbor and se we found a decent spot along the bridge between the American Waterfront and Mediterranean Harbor to watch. This was a cute show that featured Mickey and his friends as they welcomed you to DisneySea and to their 35th Happiest Celebration. I had to duck out around 9:40 to make sure I could use my ToT Fastpass.
Their version of the Tower of Terror is not based on the Twilight Zone, as the Japanese are unfamiliar with the Twilight Zone and it would have made little sense to them. Instead, the tower is the Hotel Hightower, named after Harrison Hightower III. He is one of the fictional members of the Society of Explorers and Adventurers, or S.E.A. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a fictional society that is sometimes referenced in Disney parks. The members are, as you would suspect, explorers and adventurers who thrive on gaining knowledge while journeying throughout the world. I don’t want to get too far in to the history, but I encourage you all to look into it further. References to S.E.A can be found at WDW, Disney Springs, Hong Kong Disneyland, Aulani, on the
Disney Cruise Line, and most recently, at the Tropical Hideaway at Disneyland (Anaheim). This won’t be the last you hear about S.E.A within this trip report! In any case, I found their ToT backstory to be much more interesting and even the pre-show was better! This is one that I would recommend doing, even if you’re familiar with the US versions.
After the ride, I met my husband at Magellan’s and learned that he had secured us an 8:00pm reservation. He apologized for the late hour but said the hostess warned him away from the 6:00pm reservation, expressing that if he took that time, we would run the risk of missing a show. This was odd to me as I didn’t know of a show happening at 8:00pm but I shrugged and let it slide. We were hungry (I’d skipped breakfast when leaving our hotel at 6:45am that morning), so we went to Mamma Biscotti’s Bakery within the Mediterranean Harbor to grab a mid-morning snack. I’m ashamed to admit how many pastries we ordered but it was SO worth it. Each pastry was delicious and it was a wonderful treat. We sat for a while and people-watched, just admiring the beauty of the park. The wind started to pick up and it began to get quite cold. We hurried into a shop to buy some hand and body warmers that we had seen by the cash registers earlier. These were SO WORTH IT!! For no more than a few dollars, we were able to fill our pockets, socks, and gloves with warmers that stayed completely hot the entire rest of the day. They were a life-saver and made the rest of the trip much more comfortable. While warming up we watched the Christmas Show that was all the way around the harbor. It was incredibly cute and featured a pretty good variety of characters and songs and was actually fairly lengthy. It struck us again that Tokyo Disney shows feature a strange combination of Japanese and English songs. (Actually, this is a good side note here: all during our trip, throughout Japan, we heard Christmas songs solely in English. I asked our friends from Kyoto what that was about, and they explained that even though the vast majority of Japanese have no idea what the songs are saying, they prefer to hear them in English as that’s more “Christmas” to them! Very strange.) Something the really stood out and impressed us was the use of sign language for one of the songs at the end. Every character and performed around the whole harbor sang a Christmas song while signing it as well. It just goes to show how much TDR goes out of the way to be inclusive for all guests.
Big Band Beat, Leonardo’s Challenge, Lunch
Having lost the lottery for the Big Band Beat earlier in the day, we skipped away from the Christmas Show just a few minutes early in order to catch the 12:30 showing of the Big Band Beat that’d we’d heard nothing but good things about. It was a good thing too, as we just barely made it inside before the doors closed. The show was fine, featuring a lot of American “big band” songs, again partly in English and Japanese, but we were unimpressed and found it just okay. This must be just us though, as it was highlighted in our research as being a fantastic show.
Leaving Big Band Beat, we walked through the American Waterfront, intending to head towards the Arabian Coast for lunch. However, on our way we passed by Leonardo’s Challenge in the Mediterranean Harbor, near Magellan’s. This distracted me and after some puppy-dog glances at my husband, he agreed to delay lunch for this activity. This attraction is available solely in Japanese, but if you’re a S.E.A enthusiast and willing to work for it, it’s a lot of fun. The attraction takes place within the Mediterranean Harbor, and specifically within Fortress Explorations. Fortress Explorations is an extremely high-quality play area with tons to explore and experience. It’s comprised of castle look-outs, a docked ship, observatories, nooks, and more. You can play there anytime you please, but if you do the Leonardo’s Challenge, which is only open at certain times during the day, you’ll be given a map with a series of clues and steps to complete, with the end result of you being inducted as a member of S.E.A if you complete the whole challenge. This was not easy to figure out and caused us a bit of confusion, but with the help of Google Translate we were able to get through it and felt very accomplished for doing so.
With a smile on my face, we finally made it to Casbah Food Court for lunch. And boy was it a GOOD lunch! We each got a curry, of varying spice levels, and also tandoori chicken to split. This ended up being more than enough food and it was all delicious. The theming was great, though we found the cast member costumes questionable (seemed more Egyptian/northern African than Arabian).
Rides and more park exploration
After lunch we back-tracked a bit to use our Fastpass for Journey to the Center of the Earth, which on a second ride did not lose any excitement! We wandered back to the Arabian Coast to re-ride Sinbad, and then strolled into the Lost River Delta. I had really been looking forward to riding raging Spirits, but unfortunately it was down for refurbishment at the time of our trip. Instead we hopped into the Fastpass line, after telling the cast member that we wanted to ride as single riders. This was a tip we had read about in advance – there might not be posted single rider areas but you can ask at the fastpass line to be designated as single riders and go in that way. I was very impressed with the interior of the line for Indiana Jones as it had unique elements and I found a hidden mickey in the “ruins” of a wall. We walked around the Lost River Delta some more, and I honestly wish I’d spent a little more time just enjoying the land. There’s a river that separates parts of the land, with a marketplace, a stage for a show that we unfortunately didn’t have time to see. I found it beautiful and very well-themed. Instead, we wandered into Port Discovery. I had hoped to ride Nemo & Friends Searider and Aquatopia but the lines were pretty long (both over an hour), and we were getting pretty chilly. It was about 4pm at this point and we decided to take the DisneySea Electric Railway back to the American Waterfront and walk to the Venetian Gondolas to grab a sunset ride, as sunset was at 4:30. Unfortunately, when we arrived, we were told the Gondolas were shutting down in preparation for the 5:30pm showing of Fantasmic!. Suffering this minor disappointment but also relieved for a chance to get out of the cold and wind, we decided to go explore Mermaid Lagoon. We really had no clue what to expect, but it blew us away. You basically descend to an almost “hidden” underground lagoon that’s almost entirely hidden as you’re just walking by. The theming was incredible, and while the ENTIRE land is filled with small, screaming kids, it’s kind of a fun place to be. We tried to catch the “King Triton’s Concert” show, but the wait was 40 minutes and we wanted to make it back in time to catch Fantasmic!.
Fantasmic! and the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge
So we meandered about and took in the details, and headed to the Mediterranean Harbor around 5pm. To reiterate – it was FREEZING. Maybe not literally, but at 38 degrees it was pretty darn close. We huddled together until Fantasmic!, which showed at 5:30. To be honest, all Fantasmic! shows are different to me, but Tokyo’s might be my favorite! The show was beautifully done and we enjoyed the unique aspects of it. It seemed to take tech from World of Color, Illuminations, and even Rivers of Light, and put them to the Fantasmic! storyline.
As the show ended, we made our way back to the American Waterfront, to the S.S Columbia, where the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge can be found. It was way too cold for us to brave more park exploration, especially as it was dark, and we decided to warm up and get some cocktails before our 8pm reservation at Magellan’s. We LOVED this lounge! It’s quite possibly our favorite Disney bar. Tokyo somehow got an American-themed bar done better than most in the States! It had tons of intricate details, plenty to keep your eyes entertained, and the seating was plentiful and comfy. We did have to wait about 30 minutes to get in, but it was worth it. We got in around 6:30 and stayed until 7:45 when we walked over to Magellan’s.
Magellan’s
Upon arriving at Magellan’s, we told the hostess we’d arrived for our 8pm reservation. We gave her our name and after checking our tablet, looked up and timidly said, “You’re very late…”. Instantly confused, I turned to my husband who was also confused. We repeated the time and she looked back down… “18:00…” All at once it hit me. He’d mixed up 18:00 with 8:00pm. The hostess had a look of panic about her and I told her we were so sorry and that we would try again for a reservation the following day. Upon hearing this her eyes went wide and she indicated that we should stay there as she left. She returned with two other individuals all frantically looking at their tablets and eyeing us with distress. Meanwhile, I’m frantically typing into Google translate on my phone to try and reassure them that it’s all okay, it was our mistake, we’d try again tomorrow. One of the individuals read it and told us that he could not move our reservation to the next day, and wondered why we no longer wanted to eat that night… Apparently they thought our offer to just try again the next day was a demand to move our reservation to the next night. I quickly typed that it was quite the opposite - we did want to eat but did not want to burden them with squeezing us in as it was our mistake, and that, or course, we did not expect them to hold our reservation for the next evening. Finally the message seemed to click, because they all looked relieved and beamed as they ushered us into the restaurant. Exhausted from the exchange, we were happy to finally eat!
We were taken down to the bottom floor of the restaurant and then led to a corridor that appeared to lead to bathrooms on one end, and the kitchen on the other. In the middle, where we entered, was a bookshelf. The hostess asked us to push one of the books and as we did so, the bookcase opened up into a secret wine cellar!! This secret dining room had about 10 tables in total, with 2 other tables occupied. We had no idea this existed and were very excited to be dining there. Menus were solely in Japanese, and Google Translate wasn’t helping much, so we just ordered the Christmas prix fixe menu and figured we’d see what we got. The first course was a lot of fish, which neither of us care for, but we did our best to get it down so we wouldn’t be rude. The main course was steak, which was fine but not spectacular. Actually, all the courses were that way for us… fine, not great. The best part was actually the bread and butter, which was delicious and continuously refilled throughout the meal! The experience was cool, but the meal was pricey ($160 USD for the two of us), and to be honest I don’t think it was worth it… Unpopular opinion, maybe, but there it is.
By the time we left, it was 10 minutes to closing and we shut down the park with smiles on our face and a love in our hearts for this new, strange, and wonderful park. We still had much that we wanted to see and couldn’t wait to return the next day.
