Japan Trip 2017 – Day 7

If you haven’t read Day 1 & 2 of my Japan Trip 2017 blog series, please do so before reading this post for context and continuity’s sake. Day 3, Day 4 and Day 5 & 6 are also available to read.

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So time for a Disney park, eh? Correct, specifically Tokyo DisneySea. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it’s basically a massive theme park that’s themed to various coastal/sea-faring regions around the world at various historical points in time. It’s less Disney branded than Disneyland (which we’ll be visiting in the Day 8 post) but its still remarkably beautiful and interesting. If you’re still confused, don’t worry it’ll all make sense soon enough.

So how’d you get there? Our hotel was just a train station away, however the hotel also provided us with a courtesy bus which was even better than the train, because it basically pulled up right outside the front gates! And it meant we got to see all the horrendous driving of people trying to get to work in Tokyo! Seriously, I don’t know why anyone drives in Tokyo considering how amazing their train system is… but I digress!

Big Earth globe outside DisneySea, representative of how ~global~ this particular parks aesthetics are.

And just a couple of nerds posing in front of the globe.

Okay, so tell me about the day then? What did you do? We walked around, rode rides, etcetera. The thing about DisneySea is that it’s a lot of waiting in cues for rides, so the time spent outside is all the more special. Hence why pretty much all of the photos in this collection are either of food of some variety or scenic shots of the park’s theming. Nobody wants to see photos of spending 80 minutes in a queue for ‘Journey To The Centre of the Earth’ only to get to the front of the queue and then have an announcement (all in Japanese) that the ride has temporarily broken down! And we’re sent on our merry way with only a Ride Pass to show for it!

Boat!

‘Journey To The Centre Of The Earth’ is an awesome ride located in and around that volcano!

Wait. That really happened?! Yes, and it’s very disappointing, it’s happened to us every time we’ve visited a Disney part in Japan (so four times on four seperate occasions). Thankfully you’re given a ‘Ride Pass’ for your troubles which basically means you get to jump into the ‘Fast Pass’ queue for any ride. It still (usually) means a 10-20 minute wait for a ride but it beats sitting in another queue for an hour plus!

There’s an American district of the park that is ~probably~ my favourite part of the park, if only because it’s about as close to America as I want to ever get. Sorry Americans, your country terrifies me.

No single photo can capture the majesty that is ‘The Tower of Tower’!

So what about this food, huh? We’ve gone 6 photos and no food, that’s unheard of for one of these posts! Disney food… it’s… well in any other country it’d be fine–but considering how amazing ~normal~ Japanese food is, well, it doesn’t really compare. It tastes rushed and artificial, even worse than fast food, but it at least makes up for it in being gimmicky and “interesting”. What follows is all the food we ate at Tokyo DisneySea (minus snacks).

It’s that tiger from that movie I haven’t watched, and his tail is a steamed bun filled with meat. It was ok. Accompanied with fried dough balls and ice cream, also ok.

Some weird rolled chicken thing which was actually the tastiest thing at either park despite being a mess to eat. With a beer with a frozen head, that was literally the gimmick of that beer it had a ‘frozen’ head.

Sneaky early afternoon beer. It was pretty average, even with the ‘frozen head’.

Queen of Hearts steamed bun, filled with some sort of meat. Yes this photo is intentionally sexually suggestive, yes it was totally her idea.

Seems like a lot of Disney food is phallic? No? Oh, we’ve only scratched the surface my friend, just wait til the Day 8 Disneyland post!

Oh dear… so what happened the rest of the day? More rides, more queues. If you want a quick rundown on what rides are worth riding and how long you should wait for them here is my (incomplete) list:

Raging Spirits, great roller coaster, worth waiting up to an hour for.
Tower of Terror, drop ride, phenomenal atmosphere, one of my favourites, I’d wait 2 hours to ride it if need be.
Journey to the Centre of the Earth, unique, fast, thrilling and immaculately detailed in theming. 90 minute wait or less is worth it.
Indiana Jones Adventure, it’s fun but it’s not the most noteworthy experience in the park. 45 minutes is all I’d ever wait for this one.
Nemo and Friends SeaRider, it’s new so it’s crazy busy, but the hype isn’t worth the time spent queuing, don’t spend more than 30 minutes in the queue if you can.
Aquatopia is a really cool and fun family ride, I’d happily wait 15 minutes to ride but every time I visited it was a walk-on.
Toy Story Mania… I’ve visited Tokyo DisneySea twice now and both times I’ve missed out on this ride, either because the queue is 2+ hours long or it’s closed. One day I will experience it!

The venetian gondolas were also closed. For whatever reason.

Yes, this park has recreated Venice, too!

Anything else to add? DisneySea by night is an absolute must! The park just looks unbelievably gorgeous in every conceivable way by night. Yes, it was so cold me and Sharon (theirlwaifu) spent literally ~hours~ trying to find a hoodie to buy that was not only in my size but something I’d feel comfortable wearing in public. But, it’s worth it because, well, these photos might not capture it properly but the park is amazing looking after dark!

Classic, ‘trying to get the moon to photograph nicely in a photo’ pic.

The Tower of Terror is foreboding by night!

Also this thing.

The Arabian Coast was especially evocative by night.

And is that the end? That is indeed the end of our DisneySea escapades! But stay tuned because in our next part we’re going to the ‘Happiest Place On EarthTM’, Disneyland! And I promise not to be at all jaded about the place, lol!

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