Happy Valentine's Day!
Doing it Tokyo Style ...
Yesterday Mike and I went to Tokyo DisneySea, which is right next door to Tokyo Disneyland (funnily enough). What an experience! It was my first time at any Disneyland/world/whatever although Mike visited the one in LA when he was a kid. DisneySea is more aimed at Big Kids with scarier rides and a major Valentine's Week programme. The rides were the main reason we chose DisneySea over the "original" as Space Mountain is closed till March - how crap is that?!
Mike came home at midday and we took the train out to the Disney Resort. Even the JR Station gets you in the mood with the door-closing-music sounding like a tinny Japanese version of Zippidy-doo-da. Freaky. We took the monorail round to the gate which seemed silly but turned out to be a good way to get a glimpse of what we were missing out on at Disneyland.
The first thing we did after going through the gates was check out the rides and which ones we could get Fastpass tickets for. The Tower of Terror was already out, but we went and got a ticket for Journey to the Centre of the Earth before trying out our first ride, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea. Six people to a "submarine" and we were off. It really did seem like we were under water, although Mike worked out the "trick" which was a double layer of perspex with bubbly water running through it for windows. Very clever, if not very thrilling.
Next event: staking out a spot to watch the daily show, the Legend of Mythica. The show, which took place on the water in the "Mediterranean Harbour" was absolutely amazing. Jetskis, huge life-like creatures on boats, dancers, drums, kites, fireworks and of course, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Chip & Dale and Minnie at the top of an enormous tower on top of a float in the middle of the harbour!
After the show we headed over to Port Discovery and tried out the Stormrider. Very cool simulator-type ride where you fly into the eye of a storm. The one problem we had on nearly all the rides was the fact that all the "commentary" (fairly important with Disney rides as they all have a theme) was in Japanese so we didn't always know what was going on. Still, it wasn't too hard to figure out what was going on in this one!
Throughout the afternoon the biggest attraction was checking out all the other punters. Disneyland and DisneySea are pretty popular date destinations here and with Valentine's Day being today, it was packed with couples .. and groups of school girls. Mike got a fair few "Hi!"s and plenty of stares. We saw only two other groups of "white" foreigners all day, so I guess we did stand out a bit. I thought perhaps everyone else was intrigued by our LACK of character ears or mickey mouse gloves?!
People just really get into here - every couple had Mickey and Minnie (matching theme) ears either on headbands or hairclips or full headgear. Plus the lanyard with cardholder to look after your fastpass tickets and Disney Passport and possibly a matching handbag. Nearly all girls had souvenir buckets of popcorn ..different bucket depending on which stall you bought your popcorn from. And not just any old popcorn .. there was chocolate, strawberry, cappucino and even black pepper flavour!!! I don't know what else people were buying at McDuck's Department Store but almost everyone left with at least one shopping bag stuffed to the brim. Mike got into the fun and presented me with some Minnie ears of my own. Awww...
Yesterday Mike and I went to Tokyo DisneySea, which is right next door to Tokyo Disneyland (funnily enough). What an experience! It was my first time at any Disneyland/world/whatever although Mike visited the one in LA when he was a kid. DisneySea is more aimed at Big Kids with scarier rides and a major Valentine's Week programme. The rides were the main reason we chose DisneySea over the "original" as Space Mountain is closed till March - how crap is that?!Mike came home at midday and we took the train out to the Disney Resort. Even the JR Station gets you in the mood with the door-closing-music sounding like a tinny Japanese version of Zippidy-doo-da. Freaky. We took the monorail round to the gate which seemed silly but turned out to be a good way to get a glimpse of what we were missing out on at Disneyland.
The first thing we did after going through the gates was check out the rides and which ones we could get Fastpass tickets for. The Tower of Terror was already out, but we went and got a ticket for Journey to the Centre of the Earth before trying out our first ride, 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea. Six people to a "submarine" and we were off. It really did seem like we were under water, although Mike worked out the "trick" which was a double layer of perspex with bubbly water running through it for windows. Very clever, if not very thrilling.Next event: staking out a spot to watch the daily show, the Legend of Mythica. The show, which took place on the water in the "Mediterranean Harbour" was absolutely amazing. Jetskis, huge life-like creatures on boats, dancers, drums, kites, fireworks and of course, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Chip & Dale and Minnie at the top of an enormous tower on top of a float in the middle of the harbour!
After the show we headed over to Port Discovery and tried out the Stormrider. Very cool simulator-type ride where you fly into the eye of a storm. The one problem we had on nearly all the rides was the fact that all the "commentary" (fairly important with Disney rides as they all have a theme) was in Japanese so we didn't always know what was going on. Still, it wasn't too hard to figure out what was going on in this one!
Throughout the afternoon the biggest attraction was checking out all the other punters. Disneyland and DisneySea are pretty popular date destinations here and with Valentine's Day being today, it was packed with couples .. and groups of school girls. Mike got a fair few "Hi!"s and plenty of stares. We saw only two other groups of "white" foreigners all day, so I guess we did stand out a bit. I thought perhaps everyone else was intrigued by our LACK of character ears or mickey mouse gloves?!People just really get into here - every couple had Mickey and Minnie (matching theme) ears either on headbands or hairclips or full headgear. Plus the lanyard with cardholder to look after your fastpass tickets and Disney Passport and possibly a matching handbag. Nearly all girls had souvenir buckets of popcorn ..different bucket depending on which stall you bought your popcorn from. And not just any old popcorn .. there was chocolate, strawberry, cappucino and even black pepper flavour!!! I don't know what else people were buying at McDuck's Department Store but almost everyone left with at least one shopping bag stuffed to the brim. Mike got into the fun and presented me with some Minnie ears of my own. Awww...
posted by Sarah and Mike at 3:31 pm
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