TOKYO DISNEY!! 東京ディズニーリゾート

Yes, I am shouting the title because it was so much fun!! (and the correct pronunciation, by the way, is Tōkyō Dizunī.
Lyana and I have been planning this trip for many weeks now, however we kept it a secret from the kids until the day before we were to go.  To break the news to them, I made a little scavenger hunt where they had to collect three items and then figure out how they were all connected:  a toy train, Tokyo tower souvenir and Mickey ears.  They figured out what the answer was pretty quick, but it took a few seconds to realize we were actually going to go. 
So we went and we loved it.  There is way too much to tell about the trip  (though I will try my best) because we played hard all three days we were there, including the last day in the pouring rain.
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Here is Tokyo Disney Resort.  Two parks: Disneyland (set up almost identical to Magic Kingdom in the Orlando) and DisneySea, a conglomeration of bits and pieces from Hollywood Studios and Epcot, as well as some new and fresh attractions not at other Disney theme parks.  I had so much fun (oh, and so did the kids).

We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel (1) on the Disney campus just for the proximity to it all.  The Monorail station (2) was just across the street, making it really convenient to get to and from the parks.  (There was even a shuttle bus every 5 minutes between the two—a 30 second drive)

Our favorite rides?  In the family-inclusive thrill ride category, definitely Splash Mountain (4).  In the rode-it-so-many-times-I-don’t-ever-want-to-see-another-kiddie-roller-coaster category, then that honor goes to Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster (5).

Oh yeah, the monorail.  How could I forget.  It was one of Mark’s favorite rides.  Of course it just traveled around the park, but that didn’t keep Mark from saying, “I want to go on the monorail,” a hundred times a day.  It was cute the first few times as he was first trying to pronounce the word, but eventually, with a LOT of practice, he got it.

And here’s the real monorail with a real family in front of it.  My favorite part was the Mickey shaped windows.

Because the parks were decorated for Halloween, we “encouraged” the kids to dress up the first day.  The park only allowed Disney costumes, and there was even a notice that adults wearing full costumes would not be permitted in the parks (I wonder if that was a problem in the past).  For those who are Disney illiterate, the kids are dressed as Woody, Buzz Lightyear and Belle.

The first thing we noticed with the kids in costumes was the constant attention they got from the start.  Mark especially captured plenty of onlookers with his adorable facial expressions.

Mark didn’t stay in his costume very long, but no matter, he still gave and received plenty of smiles.

Family photos are always a exciting time for us.  After a lot of trial and error (mostly error) we figured out that Mark will hold still and say cheese about 3 seconds after you press the button so now we say, “1, 2, 3, say cheese!” then pause for a few seconds, and then click the shutter.  Works almost every time.  Of course it’s difficult to explain that to someone who doesn’t understand English.  And as for Alex, well, we just hope his eyes happen to glance at the camera at the exactly the right moment.

I don’t like rides that just go in circles for the simple reason that they make me (to be frank) nauseous.  But I’m a good dad so I put away my inhibitions and went on the teacups with them.  If you’ve ridden the teacups before, you may recall that you can spin them in a circle as the platform also rotates (in a circle), which is part of a larger platform that rotates as well (another circle).  Three circles = barely alive dad.  Didn’t seem to phase the others though (they went on it again later . . . without me).

   

While hangin’ out in Toon Town, the clock chimes rang and out of the gate popped . . . a couple of cows?  At least, that’s what I thought.  Turns out one was Clarabelle Cow (not pictured), while this crazy lookin’ guy was Horace Horsecollar!!  According to Wikipedia, he’s one of Mickey’s best anthropomorphic friends.

Strange-looking characters seemed to pop up everywhere after our run-in with that horse.  The Spooktacular parade was especially full of crazy character creations.  Just look at these, um, ghosts?  On rollerblades?

After this ride, I’m even more nervous for when I’ll have to teach my kids how to drive.  I learned when I was twelve (farm boy, you know) and Katya’s eight right now . . .

Japanese are definitely known for utilizing technology.  If you get within a certain distance behind the car ahead of you, your own car shuts down until the distance widens again.  I made sure to test that the system was working properly (several times) by heading straight toward the car in front of me at full speed while it was stopped.  It worked.

Just a funny picture—proof the kids were having fun.

This was our first run on Splash Mountain with the entire family and we liked the photo so much, we broke down and bought it (this is just a snapshot of the screen at the booth—and no, there wasn’t a sign saying photos of the screen were not allowed, at least not in English), because to us it was the perfect Disney souvenir: 1) whole family, 2) kids in costume, 3) crazy expressions, 4) funny Japanese ladies in the back.

Trust me, Katya was very excited, but true to an eight-year-old’s “don’t-let-anyone-know-how-you-really-feel” psyche, she maintained her poker face during most of her stroll with Princess Belle (I did notice a smile creep in here and there).

Mama: “Alex, who would you like to meet at Disneyland?”

Alex: “Mary Poppins!!”

Me (in thought): “That’s my boy.  Goin’ for the ladies with class.”

Did you know that Carousels go in circles?

Here’s my princess.

And my rootin’ tootin’ cowboy son.

Sweetie, the sign at the beginning of the ride says specifically (in English) “no flash photography.”  Oh, and for you readers, “It’s a Small World” is only slightly more tolerable in Japanese as in English.  Both times.

Best parade ever – the lights parade.  Not sure why I videotaped the whole thing, though.  I guess I figured someone might want to watch it again.

At the end of day one, all is well.  Happy are we.

<INTERMISSION TIME>

Take a break and get some popcorn before returning to read the rest of this post.

All rested?  Good, let’s continue.  The second day we went to DisneySea, where who do you think we met?  Ariel, of course!

For the first couple hours Lyana took the older kids on some bigger rides while I hung out with Mark.  We found a few smaller rides just right for him.  Actually the first ride we went on was a pint-size roller coaster.  The attendant pointed to Mark and said, “How old?”  And I said, “Almost three.”  I guess they don’t know the word almost because next they measured him to make sure that he was at least 90 cm tall and then gave him a blue wristband so no one would ask us again.  Then we proceeded to go on the roller coaster three times in a row.  There was no line so we took full advantage of it (though they still made us get out and walk all the way around each time).

Eventually we found our way to King Triton’s Kingdom, an indoor park with several more kiddie rides—Jellyfish Jumper (goes up and down at a speed of a sleeping pill), Balloon Race (up and around in a circle!  Thankfully only lasts about 20 seconds), and the Whirlpool (like the teacups but worse.  And I swear the switch must have broke while we were on it because we were spinning at gut-wrenching speeds for at least 2 minutes.).  Mark loved them all.

For some reason, the guy to meet that day was Prince Eric and sure enough, we found him just wandering around.  I don’t know who Disney hires to be inside the full costumes, but the characters with real faces were all non-Japanese and spoke English.  They seemed to really enjoy the chance to have kids who could actually understand them.

One of my favorite areas at DisneySea was Mysterious Mountain.  This time it was just Alex, Katya and me hanging out together, so we ventured to “Journey to the Center of the Earth” ride.  There was a 60 minute wait time and the FastPass return time was too late in the day, so we decided together (mostly Alex said, “lets do it.”) to tough it out.  I was hopeful that the line would go a bit faster; maybe the estimate was 10 minutes off, I thought.  Nope, almost exactly 60 minutes till we got on the ride.  Mostly it was just another animatronic adventure, in the dark, with lots of fog and crazy looking creatures.  Just when I was wondering if this ride was worth the wait, everything went dark and suddenly the car went down a long steep drop, then up again and finally shot us out like a bullet.  I was satisfied after that.

The three of us had a wonderful time running around together (and I’m sure Mama and Mark were having a good time too, whatever they were doing).  We went to the Indiana Jones ride, did a couple trips on the loop-de-loop roller coaster, and many other crazy looking rides.  And no one complained . . . well, not much.

Together again, we found a designated “picture spot, which we took full advantage of.  You never know what kind of photographer you are selecting when you ask a random stranger to take your photo.  Sometimes they have no camera sense at all, while other times they’re undercover professionals.  “1, 2, 3, Cheezo!”  is the usually cue.

What!  Another family portrait?  There were so many cameras around we knew someone would do it, so we shoved our way in (yes, shoved, because that’s the way it works here), assembled ourselves in a not too shabby order around good ol’ Thumper, and voila!  There you have it.

What you don’t know is that Mark was adopted instantly by Thumper and his girl-bunny the instant their big rabbit eyes spotted him.  They hopped around together, spun around, danced, and all the while cameras all around them were capturing every moment.  See the girl with the camera on your right?  There were at least five more next to me as I snapped photos too.  I wonder how many Japanese Facebook pages Mark is on now.

On to Agrabah.  Yes, Agrabah, as in Aladdin’s home.  Found a double-decker carousel, which as you might guess, traveled in a double-decker circle.  But I survived.  In fact, I didn’t even think about it because I was with this little guy (Mark, not the horse).

 

And who else did we meet, why the Genie, of course!  By now Mark was a pro character greeting, so he just ran up there and made his presence known.  Can’t hesitate or you’ll get left behind.  You probably noticed that we don’t have any photos of us with Mickey.  Well, we had to make the difficult decision to not wait in line for an hour just to meet him, and instead we settled for the random (more energetic) characters roaming the park.   Part of the fun was that you never knew who you’d see until they were walking, skipping or waddling past.   

When we first walked past Jasmine’s flying carpets the line was 40 minutes—”Nope, too long.  Let’s go see Sinbad.  It’s only a 5 minutes wait and it’s just next door.”  Later in the day, only a 15-minute wait for the carpets.  “That’s doable.  Let’s go.”  Except for “Journey”, a 20 minute wait was our limit.  Any more than that, and the ride was skipped or Fastpasses were obtained.

“Pretend like you’re lost in Agrabah,”  I said.  Not sure what I got.

We found a camel . . . who grunted when you walked past!  There were lots of little surprises like that.  Hmmm, that’s deep—watch out for grunting camels.  Very philosophical, Doctor.  Why, thank you.

The double decker carousel is much more impressive when you see the building it’s in.  And can you spot the Mouse ears sticking up at the bottom of the photo?  Two seconds later I took another photo and Mark was past the fountain.  No chance getting him to stop.  He was a very speedy mouse.

Would you like some food to go with your water?  Total cups:  eleven (one’s off camera).  Drank it all, too.  We’d had a very, very long day.  Not soon after this we were on the monoowail back to the hotel.

Well, not that soon.  Disney is dressed to impress after dark (though it’s difficult to pick up on a camera, so just  imagine.)

One last chance (maybe two, actually) at the kid roller coaster (remember, the one Mark loved so much?). 

And of course we had to visit King Triton’s Kingdom one last time.  Blows my mind that these two kids (Katya and Alex) who love rides like “Tower of Terror”, “Raging Spirits”, and “Indiana Jones” can turn around and be just as ecstatic on rides like “Jumping Jellyfish” and “Balloon Race”.

I scanned the crowd for just the right person to take our final DisneySea photo for us.  An older guy walked past, but he looked kind of gruff so I didn’t pick him.  Oh, there’s a nice-looking lady.  “Kudosai.  Photo please?” as I show her my camera.  She nods in understanding, takes the camera then motions for the gruff guy to come back and take the photo (her husband, apparently).   Considering the lighting, I think he did just fine.

 

Sorry, on to day three with no intermission.  I’ll keep this brief (as if I know how to do that). 

Back to Disneyland one last time to repeat some of our favorite rides (mostly the three “mountains”).  Still no time for “Hunny Hunt,” lines too long even first thing in the morning.  Not so many people today, so lines much shorter.  Also helps that it started raining.  Started off slow and by the time we left (early afternoon) it was pouring. 

Except for soggy shoes, no one complained.  In fact, I had the most fun all week because of the rain.  Surprisingly, none of the rides shut down, though the lines were much shorter, in the rain.  If you’ve never been on a roller coaster in a downpour, you’re missing out.  Put it on your bucket list right now.  That, along with “Country Bear Jamboree” in Japanese.

Oh, yeah.  We didn’t take very many photos because we didn’t want to get the camera wet (or maybe we were just having too much fun jumping puddles).  Here’s one of drenched Alex eating a turkey leg (delicious and worth every yenny).

Tons of fun and I can’t wait to do it again, though maybe not till the kids are a bit older and can do more on their own.

Rob