After numerous visits to California’s Disneyland over the decades, I could probably navigate that park with my eyes closed. Not so Tokyo Disneyland, which is just like Walt’s original in many ways but just different enough to throw a native Los Angeleno for a loop. Upon passing through the gates, you’re greeted not by the Marceline, Missouri-styled storefronts of Main Street, U.S.A. but by World Bazaar, a quaint shopping boulevard sheltered from the elements under a glass conservatory roof. Before you’ve even finished reserving your “Disney Premier Access” ride passes, you’re greeted by walkaround characters. In the U.S. parks, those are usually parked in one spot to greet lines of children. Here, they interact freely with everyone, often choosing especially eager guests for interactions and selfies before anyone else. We thought we were immune to such childish diversions, but then they unleashed Joy and Sadness from Inside Out — and listen, it’s not like we’re made of stone, OK? Give us a break.
As in Anaheim, the castle is the central “wienie” (Disney’s term for a tall, attention-grabbing landmark to help guests self-orient); and yes, turning left from the central plaza does take you to Adventureland — but this Adventureland incorporates elements of New Orleans Square, which doesn’t exist in this park as its own “land.” Turning right takes you to Tomorrowland, but past that is Toontown. Frontierland is now Westernland. There is no Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure is still Splash Mountain. Snow White’s Scary Adventures is the original version which traumatized my little brother for years; it ends with guests ostensibly crushed to death beneath a boulder. The pathways are wider to accommodate peak attendance days of over 70,000 guests. That’s the entire population of Bloomington, Indiana in a single park. Again: Bite the bullet and shell out for any shortcut through the queues Disney’s willing to offer; it’s worth it and then some.
Of course we prioritized attractions we couldn’t ride here in the U.S., including what’s currently Tokyo Disneyland’s preeminent attraction: Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast. We rode this twice, both times in a “B mode” that masks malfunctioning Belle and Beast animatronics in the preshow behind curtains. Even so, this is a marvel of ride engineering and storytelling. It carries guests in a teacup-shaped, trackless vehicle with its own motion base, which allows it to swoop and spin like you’re waltzing alongside our star-crossed protagonists — which, at one pivotal moment, you are. In the first scene, Belle sits at an empty table as Lumiere regales her with his familiar invitation to “Be Our Guest” — except here all the lyrics and dialogue are in Japanese, so the anthropomorphic candle croons, “Youkoso, douzo, daiji na okyakusama,” or “Welcome, if you please, dear, esteemed customer,” in a French-Japanese accent. As your vehicle dances around the table, it’s miraculously laden with a feast of cuisine eager to be ingested. In the grand finale, a pinnacle of Disney magic, the Beast spins in midair and transforms into the handsome prince before our very eyes. It’s a coup de theatre that defies explanation, leaving many guests in tears.
This park is also home to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, Disney’s first-ever trackless dark ride, which leans heavily into a fever dream populated by Woozles and Heffalumps. The Japanese are super into kawaii, meaning cuteness culture, and this park is stuffed with it. Duffy and friends are on full display here as well, often in the forms of fuzzy onesies for adorable little Japanese children. The little girls all look like Boo from Monsters, Inc., which is enough to melt even the grinchiest heart. At one point a preschool girl was smiling up at me, so I chirped, “Konnichi-wa!” She gasped, consulted with her parents for a few private moments, then carefully replied, “Hello!” I told her she was totemo kawaii, of course, which sent her in the most charming little giggle fit I’ve ever witnessed.
The same goes for The Happy Ride With Baymax, the inflated medical therapy android from Big Hero 6. As you may recall, that movie is set in the fictional metropolis San Fransokyo, so it’s an understandable favorite with the locals. American Disney adults will recognize the ride system as Alien Swirling Saucers or Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree, but the twist here is the soundtrack, which is chock full of absolute kids’ bops. “HAP-py RI-ide! Hap, HAP-py RI-ide!” That jingle’s been stuck in my head for three weeks. Guests imitate and expand upon ride operators’ dance moves, so as you’re whirled around the hap-hap-happy dance floor, you’ll see beaming locals jamming along. It makes for giddy if slightly nauseating fun.
Fantasyland has roughly the same list of attractions here as in California, but — and I must say, it galls me to admit this — I think it might be better. It’s cleaner, spiffier, better maintained, better run, and feels a lot less cramped. As with Tokyo DisneySea, the snack options are awesome. We were especially fond of the globs of Green Alien Mochi (they look like the three-eyed Claw worshippers from Toy Story‘s “Pizza Planet”), chocolate-flavored popcorn (the smells of those popcorn wagons are intoxicating) and Mike Wazowski melon pan with its melon-cream filling. America simply does not have any melon-flavored snacks that can compete with such fare. I’ll also say the strawberries and strawberry-flavored goodies we scarfed down all over Japan were the best I’ve ever eaten.
My favorite ride was Tokyo Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion, as it was themed for autumn with a The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay. Anaheim’s Disneyland does the same thing for Halloween, but our timing’s never worked out so we could experience that. I’m a huge fan of the stop-motion movie, and this overlay goes Burtonesque balls to the wall with animatronic Jack Skellington, Sally and Zero figures among many others and enough Halloween Town iconography to spin its Janus-faced mayor’s head around. I couldn’t get enough of it. The Haunted Mansion is an all-time classic to begin with, the epitome of a car-on-a-track dark ride, but this intricate overlay takes it to its zenith.
For much of our time in this park we were fooled by app notifications that told us several rides were closed for unscheduled refurbishment. I was especially disappointed by the apparent closure of Star Tours, a galaxy-far-far-away simulator I’ve loved since it debuted in Anaheim in 1987, even more since it added a host of randomly selected side-quest adventures in 2011. Can you blame me for wanting to hear the characters from my all-time favorite movie series in Japanese? So yeah, I was admittedly a tiny bit crushed. Come to find out, it had actually been open the whole time; we just didn’t know that because Tokyo Tomorrowland is currently shrouded behind a phalanx of construction walls while Space Mountain is replaced with an all-new incarnation. It took us quite some time to even locate the attraction, “just to check”; but yep, sure enough, there were See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo, bickering in Japanese before launching us into high-g hyperspace. We emerged in time to watch the fireworks finale and limp to the monorail on murdered feet.
Side note: We stayed the first two nights at the Disney Ambassador Hotel, which is conveniently close to DisneySea and Ikspiari (Tokyo’s version of the Downtown Disney shopping-and-dining neighborhood, here a mazelike shopping mall) and offers “Happy 15” early entry to the former on select days. A quarter-hour head start on other guests may not seem like much, but it makes a huge difference vis-a-vis booking line passes and show tickets before other guests get the opportunity. The Ambassador was mildly expensive by Tokyo Disney standards, so we recommend checking out the Hilton Tokyo Bay in which we stayed the rest of this theme park leg. It’s considerably cheaper, close to the monorail and offers almost every perk Western guests are used to from Disney-run hotels.
Tokyo Disneyland rocks. Again, it pains me to say this, but it might just be the best Disney castle park in the world, if not the finest theme park ever.
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