Part Six:
Today was to be our last full day in Japan. Initially we had grand plans of taking the train to Kyoto for the day, but after our ridiculously long trip to Hakone, we decided it would wait for another time. Circling back to something I had read and was told about, we decided Disneyland Tokyo Sea would be our trip. Tokyo has a “regular” Disneyland, which is a carbon copy of the ones in Florida and California. This Disneyland Sea was to be something completely different than anything else. To get there from the hotel was a surprisingly easy two-train journey with a bit of a walk to connect between the trains. Total travel time from door to stepping into the Disney area was around 50 minutes.
From the moment you step off the train, you can already hear that classic Disney theme park music. The kind of music that is meant to lull you into spending a fortune in the gift shops and leave home with nothing. We made our way over to information for directions and to get a park map. To get to the park there is one real option they try to give you, which is taking the Disney tram to get to the park entrances. The “hack” way is to just walk for 10-15 minutes (the guides said it would be 25-30 minutes, so go figure). We walked our way trough lots of shops, cafes and hotel entrances before we reached the main road leading us right to the park entrance. Around five minutes later we were waiting in line (a very short one) to purchase our tickets. The standard adult price was 6,400 yen and student was 5,800 yen. This is around half price of what it would cost to see one of the parks in the States. We heard from one of the hotel staff before leaving that the prior day was the inaugural day for the Frozen characters at the regular Disneyland. This meant that Disneyland Sea would be a lot less crowded, which worked out nicely for us.
The main entrance had a giant globe spinning on water, which was most likely a rip off of the Universal Studios globe idea. From there we proceeded into “Venice” on our way to “NYC”. Every area within the park like all Disney parks had the park attendants in area themed garb. Our first stop was to see the show Big Band Beat about jazz music from the 20’s to the 40’s. I do not recall how long the show ran for, I do confess to taking a nap in middle and I do remember that half the cast were non-Japanese and actually appeared to be American. The show was sung in English, which was very nice for us, but must have been confusing for the rest of audience. As we were leaving the show, we saw rows of people camped out for the next show which was starting around two hours later. It looked like the day before a new Apple product came out with the rows of people waiting for the show. There must have been real thought into this as some people had mini travel chairs and umbrellas to make it more comfortable. I don’t get it.
We proceeded to walk from there to the next location, which was Toy Story themed. The wait time for the ride in that area was 80 minutes too long and we were not going to subject our child to that wait time (I wouldn’t have waited if it was myself and had no kid either). We followed the path around past some version of the Hotel of Horror with what seemed like a tall drop and a long wait time. We then arrived at the S.S. Colombia, which was a Finding Nemo themed area and a “ride” about some device that could make speaking with fish accessible. There was a little pre-ride video and instruction session (I think, as from here on out, it was all Japanese to me) where the guide was leading the crowd and prompting them to shout at some point. Again we had no idea, just saw the whole audience scream and raise their hands at random intervals (I can never can imagine this going over in the States). We then went into the show, which had Crush the turtle interact with people in the audience. It must have been fun as everyone was laughing the whole time, though they all could have been laughing at us and we had no idea. Luckily it wasn’t a long showing and we were out and on down the path pretty quickly.
As we were with a child, we were severely limited in what rides we could actually go on, but we did pass some cool looking rides and areas. You can probably Google the park information it to see more details if you are so inclined. The rides we did go on were a magic carpet ride, carousel and a Sinbad version of “It’s a Small World”. My kid enjoyed every ride, just wish he was a bit older to enjoy some of the others. We then went to see another show (in Japanese) about earth, fire and water which had acrobatics and some very odd dancing (?) in it as well. Was nice to sit down after all the walking and rest a bit.
[Side comment: When in a foreign country, there is some kind of mostly unspoken code amongst Westerners. For example, when I was in the subway and passed a very clearly looking Westerner, we briefly made eye contact as he walked by and we gave each other a little head nod. Quickly acknowledging that, “Hey, we are on the other side of the world and completely outnumbered here. Nice to actually see one of my kind.”]
Anyways, as we were leaving the show, we saw another set of Westerners who had been sitting right behind us. Turns out we live less than 20 minutes away from one another (It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world…).
We passed through some areas that had long lines of people waiting to take pictures. It seemed like someone saw a nice picture opportunity and it caught on. Being the nicest and most courteous people ever, they just formed a line so they can all take turns. There were other long lines for photo opportunities with characters and most of the people waiting were adults. These people love them some Disney characters. Just about every singe person had on at least one piece of Disney paraphernalia and most were covered head to toe in it.
The Mermaid Lagoon was perhaps the most visually interesting place in the park and had lots of kid friendly rides inside it (found out too late and my kid was sleeping so missed out on it). We did stroll though it taking pictures and sat for a family “portrait” done by some guy cutting it out of paper (very cool and never seen it before). At this point we were done for the day and headed back to the hotel.
We went up to the Executive Lounge were we had a few drinks and hung out with Ari from the hotel. He happily played with my son for twenty minutes straight, indulging my kids every childish wish. Turns out Ari is from Malaysia and was an FA in J/F for SQ. Ari was one of highlights of this trip as he along with all the staff were truly here to make our stay the best possible. (My wife left her phone charging in the lobby before we left for the day. We found this out as we were taking the escalator to the train and an employee was running after us with her phone (Mind you the lobby is on the 28th floor).
As we are packing up and getting ready for Hong Kong tomorrow, I figured I would leave today’s post with some random comments on things I have noticed while here in Japan.
• Like in all of Asia we have seen so far, they love babies/children.
• When walking in the subway station, stay to the left.
• When boarding the subway, they let the passengers off before boarding.
• They have lots of stores we have in the US.
• They love cartoon/anime.
• People still wear traditional robes.
• TV advertising needs to up it’s game.
There are many more which escape my mind currently, but I will try and add them later on. Another early start tomorrow, hopefully I will finally get the missing car seat at the airport and excited to experience CX F for the first time.
