Tokyo Day 4 – Tokyo Disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland originally was not part of our plan but we made some adjustments since we cancelled our day trip to Yokohama. We replaced it with Tokyo Disneyland. There are two main parks at Tokyo Disney Resort: Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.

With Golden Week holidays going on right now, the Disneyland was filled with local tourists ranging from families, couples and junior/senior high schools.

We purchased the tickets at 7-eleven with the help of one of their employee since it’s all in Japanese. He asked if we wanted to ‘Land’ or ‘Sea’ and we told him that we wanted ‘Land’. The ticket cost us ¥7,400 per adult and it’s free for kids under 4 years old. Both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea have the same price. You can check out detail price at the official site.

Since we stayed at Keio Plaza Hotel, there’s a free bus from the hotel to Tokyo Disneyland and all we had to do was to reserve it at the receptionist. This was pretty much one of the major advantages staying at a hotel; it’s convenient which came at a price of course. Keio Plaza hotel is part of Tokyo Disney Resort Good Neighbor Hotels and you can check out the full list of hotels at the official site. It will come in handy for planning your trip to Japan and if you were to visit Tokyo Disneyland.

We left our hotel around 9am and the bus ride was about one hour. We arrived at Tokyo Disneyland around 10am. The bus will also take you to Tokyo DisneySea but it will stop at Tokyo Disneyland first. I believe there’s also a train that will take you around between Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea.

On our way to the main entrance, every single decoration and small landmark are Disney related. It’s truly a great place to visit and made you feel in a Disney World (no pun intended).

Prior to entering Disneyland, the staffs will check your bags for dangerous objects and take a quick peek what’s inside. They were very nice and courteous and the lady even asked if she can touch my bag pack as it looked heavy which I happily obliged. As we entered Tokyo Disneyland, there’s a statue of Walt and his first creation, Mickey Mouse. People were lining up to take some pictures in front of it. The idea of lining up to take some pictures just baffled me as it was such a brilliant idea. The line up moved very quickly and we waited for about five minutes. There were some staffs ready to help you to take some pictures or you can buy a photo package from them as well.

Behind the statue of Walt and Mickey, you could see a big castle that looked like exactly Walt Disney Pictures logo you see in any Disney movies.

We also saw a ride for Dumbo, one of the classic characters of Disney. I asked my son if he wanted a ride but he said no; it’s too scary 🙂 . We pretty much let our son decide on where to go and followed him around.

We went for a ride at Seven Dwarfs mine which showed all characters from Snow white. The place might be scary for little kids because it’s dark and loud noise from the witch. My son really enjoyed and got so excited.

After our son took us to “It’s a small world” ride showing dolls dressed in national clothing from different countries. It’s a great ride for families with small kids which I saw many of them lining up.

Speaking lineups, it’s “Golden Week” holidays in Japan and it was really crowded, however, lineups moved really fast and we didn’t spend more than 15-20 minutes which was really great. We expected it to be much worse and it would be about 45minutes to 1 hour for each ride. With that said, there were some rides that had 50 minutes long line up and one of them that we saw was a ‘Star Wars’ related ride.

We saw this merchandise store only selling Winnie the Pooh related items and the line saying “Bears love honey and I’m a Pooh Bear” made me  chuckle.

My son bought an ice cream with Mickey Mouse decoration on it. They really went all out on making every single item we interact with is Disney related.

After we wondered around few hours, it’s time for lunch. We bought ourselves Mickey shape pizza, pancake with chicken and vegetables in it which looks like a taco and a breakfast muffin with shaped like Donald’s feet. They all actually tasted pretty good.

After lunch, we walked around a little bit more and treated ourselves to some ice cream. I got myself an easter bunny theme ice cream. It had some interesting layers. The top was ice cream, followed by some sort of rice Krispies and yoghurt at the bottom I believe. The ice cream was delicious but not sure it complemented with the rest of the items.

It’s closed to 3:30pm after we finished our ice cream and it’s time to head back + say goodbye to Disney World. Our bus arrived at 4:30pm and we were on our way back to the hotel.

That ends our Day 4 adventure and look forward to our Day 5 for Asakusa, Skytree and Akihabara. If you haven’t checked previous days, you can do so by checking these links, Day 1, Day 2 – Daiba,  Day 3 – Ghibli Museum, Day 5 – Asakusa, Tokyo SkyTree and Akihabar, Day 6 – Shibuya, Day 7 – Ginza and Ikebukuro and Day 8 – Final Day.