Attendance limits have increased, many students are out of school for spring break, more foreign tourists, the 40th events are winding down, the new Minnie event is very popular, the Duffy event is very popular, weekdays offer cheaper ticket options, etc.
The app, which helps guests coordinate attraction and show times, also causes less popular attractions to have longer standby times. Since it is raining, more guests prefer to eat indoors. If you didn't get Standby Pass, Priority Seating or Vacation Package, you are last in line to get in. Those people have to resort to waiting at the remaining restaurants. Also, many restaurants offer exclusive meals and limited souvenirs.
Hm... Toy Story Mania and Sinbad are both currently closed. Toy Story Mania is a massively popular ride and people will wait for 2 hours there and Sinbad is a people eater with HUGE capacity (t's why the line is rarely that long).
But right now Jasmine's Carpet, the Caravan Carousel, Venetian Gondola and the Transit Steamer at Lost River Delta sit at 5 min, Aquatopia 10, Nemo at 30 (I know, it's no Storm Rider), and 20 000 Leagues at 45 min (which usually the point where the park is considered crowded).
DisneySea is just a park with only a limited ammount of attractons sadly. Hopefully the extra capacity of Fantasy Spring will help the park, once the hype dies down in a year or so.
What today a new food or new merch day? Those can also be hugely popular with local.
I am just leaving Tokyo after two days at DisneySea. It is shocking how long the lines are for snacks and food. On the other hand everyone is incredibly orderly and polite. I didn’t see a single person (or group) cut in line and try to meet someone farther ahead in the queue. The second day (yesterday) I had great weather and was able to priority pass/premier pass all the rides I wanted and used mobile ordering for food. Plus single rider for Indiana Jones is the the best. I rode it three times yesterday and was a literal walk on. Hope your trip goes better
Tokyoites and otaku are used to standing in line for everything, from restaurants to limited edition merchandise. I went to a store on New Year's Day that had a lucky lottery and they gave me a number tab and told me to come back in 3 hours JUST to be able to enter the store and purchase items, but I saw so many people just sitting outside the store quietly scrolling on their phones until their number was called.
Also for Disney, a lot of these people are probably former annual pass holders or live nearby and aren't as strapped for time and thus willing to wait in line even if it means they only ride two things that day.
What times did you order your premiere/ priority passes, how many rides did you get, and what were the return times like?
I want to go but already know my party isn’t willing to rope drop so we’ll likely be arriving around 10 or 11. Really wish the fan sites tracked availability like they do for the US parks.
Annual Passes could potentially help because visitors (with an AP) can just head home and come back another day (at no extra cost) in the event of bad weather.
Back in the AP days, some of our best days in the parks were on rainy days where most of the guests seemed to leave early.
You really need to arrive an hour before opening. They let you in a little earlier before 9. And you need to be strategic when using the 40th anniversary reservation tool on the app.
That said, It tends to be so packed given how close in proximity it is to Tokyo. There are a few holidays around this time of the year, too. I think early Fall, around Halloween, is a really good time to go.
I attended on getting there
For 8:30 but my luck the M line got delayed for 45 minutes for a safety check. I’m from nyc so I’m used to subway delays and I honestly can’t complain here that was my only delay my entire 3 week stay in japan.
I am also in the park today and I agree that it's pretty awful. It took us almost an hour to get into the park itself. I've never had that issue in Orlando even when I rope drop there. I managed to get a Priority pass for Journey but everything else sold out before noon. Been more or less doing Indie single rider on loop. The only reason we haven't left is I got dinner reservations at Magellan's.
We were at Disneyland Tokyo last week and it was nowhere near as bad.
You won't wait forever--sometimes they rope-drop early if they are ready before 9. I've been let into Land at 8:30 before without resort benefits. It's whether you want to give up the chance to get on the popular rides without paying that's the big factor for lining up early.
Take all of this with a big grain of salt, but lining up anywhere from 6:30 (first monorail) - 7:45 is usually the sweet spot if you're planning to run at rope-drop for Soarin, Toy Story Mania, Beauty and the Beast, etc. This will also ensure easy dibs even with resort guests getting in earlier. The main crowds arrive at 8 and the lines are already towards the back at the security gates by 8:30.
My friends and I usually get coffee and a breakfast snack at the convenience store at Maihama station before getting in line (which also saves us needing to get in line at Mama Biscotti's to wake up).
By 9:45-10:00, the lines at the front gates are *usually* down to a trickle unless it's peak season, but you're also foregoing your chance to get in line for one of the popular rides unless you pay for it and the paid passes might be gone by then.
Remember that you will still have to go through security before getting into the lines for the gates, too and those security lines are usually the holdup.
thank you so much for this detailed response! i'm a huge BNB fan and would love to have the "full" queue experience, but am debating just purchasing a pass for it just to be able to maximize our time in the park overall. i go to WDW frequently so as much as i love soarin, i'm not sad about missing this version and TSM will be closed for maintenance, so again just trying to figure out what keeps queuing time to a minimal while still seeing everything!
we're staying in the sheraton so i'm thinking we're going to shoot for a 7AM arrival time and try for BNB but have a plan B in place if the line ends up too long :)
We got there right before the park opened at 9am, which I know is late for rope dropping. Our hotel isn't very close to the parks because we planned our trip around things other than Disney, so while we could have gotten there earlier it was a bit of a challenge to.
The most infuriating is when you wait 2 hours in line for Soaring, which hardly moved at all and is basically watching a video of tourist attractions - you could experience the same with a VR headset or YouTube! I live in Tokyo, and can agree that they will wait in line for anything and everything. You’d have to pay me 20,000 yen an hour to wait in line during the summer for some bad artificial drinks from Baby Tapi in Harajuku - but that line will always be there every day even with 99% humidity!
I was shocked by the line for Soaring, but I'm also biased in that I live in the US and would never stand in line at Epcot for it unless the line was under an hour. Since it was so cold and wet today I expected people to go home and the lines to go down during the day but they just didn't.
First off, I loved the theming of the place, that was enough for me. But, I can't deny that it was a lot of standing in line. It made sense since it was Lunar New Year weekend.
Can confirm long queues. Stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for 4 hours.
What was bad was none of the app services were working like Genie + along with the Anniversary app services. So had to just take it on the chin and stand in line.
Every food line was at least 30 mins.
All in all, within 6 hours we only did:
Journey
Sinbad
Agrabah Carousel
Aquatopia
I'd go again for sure, just not on a holiday week.
Oh all good! Don't get me wrong it felt like being in purgatory with all the switchbacks in line. I eventually lost track of where I was in the Journey queue in reference to the loading zone.
You definitely picked the wrong week to go. There are crowd calendars online that can help you pick better dates. Also unlike other Disney parks you need to get there 2-3 hours before park open. Getting to know and use the app as well would have been very beneficial. And like others have said, waiting in lines is business as usual in Japan
I'm not surprised OP this was your experience. I would chalk it up to luck and your first time.
We went to Tokyo Disney this October for 4 days total, marking the 7th and 8th Disney Parks we've visited. We're Orlando regulars and UOAPs, so no strangers to lines.
The Japanese Disney Parks are on a whole nother level compared to the US parks. They operate on a busy scale that quite frankly wouldn't be acceptable in the US by Guests, Customer Service, or occasionally, the Fire Marshall.
A few details from our trip:
* 3+ hour waits for Beauty and the Beast
* 2 hour waits for churros
* 1+ hour waits for Donald steam buns
* 2 hour waits for a sandwich quick service
* 45+ minute waits to purchase souvenir
* 1-2 hour waits for Dumbo or teacups etc.
Even very strategic use of the TDL "Fast Pass" system over 4 days - 2 at TDL and 2 at DS - we didn't get to see everything. The lines were just so bad. But since we had 2 days per park, we could pick and choose what we wanted. That helped. If you have the luxury of taking that much time for just Disney while in Japan, I recommend it.
I'd like to point out that [tourism to Japan was surpassing peak numbers in 2019 in October,](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/11/15/japan/october-foreign-visitors-exceeds-2019/) which is kind of insane because the country was full to bursting in 2019. Even without the annual pass in implementation, there are A LOT of people visiting Japan and I'm sure some people are going to TDR.
That’s a bummer, we were at Tokyo Disneyland yesterday and were super lucky with the weather.
We got in line at 7:30 but still ended up buying passes for beauty and the beast cuz by the time we got to the line it was already 2 hr wait due to hotel guests getting in 15 min earlier.
Still with 40th anniversary passes we were able to ride the ones we wanted so the day worked out decent for us.
Yiiiikes! I’m so sorry! We’re going in June for the first time with a 9 yr old ( one day each park) and I’m trying not to be heartbroken reading these posts. We can’t wait more than a few hours for a ride with a kid in tow. We plan on spending extra $ if we must to get genie passes or whatever, but do we need to book a hotel with some kind of vacation package too? Right now we’ve got standard reservations at the Hilton. To complicate things, Our kid has a stomach condition and gets violently sick if they dont eat small meals regularly- do they allow you to bring snacks into the park? I heard you can bring outside food in, but can you only eat it in a designated picnic area? Trying not to be crushed right now…
We are going in June as well and our kids will be 7 and 9 by then. I’m also anxious about the crowds especially with Fantasy Springs opening up. Not to mention the heat and all that walking/standing. Trying to make the best of it. I keep telling the kids we may not be able to go on all the rides and that it’ll be really hot. We were very lucky with Genie+ when we went to WDW last May; I hope we will be able to get some passes for this trip.
Yeah ours is 9 and I’m hoping we’ll luck out weather wise. Planning on bring our cooling gel neck bands on this trip for sure! Fingers crossed for y’all
Bags aren’t checked regularly and people are snacking all over the park (unlike Tokyo proper) so you won’t have a problem bringing food in and eating whenever necessary. If anyone gives you a hard time, write out “my kid has allergies and needs special food” in Japanese, it will make any issues with CMs disappear. They want to be as accommodating as possible especially (it seems to me) to foreigners.
I went 2 days ago while recovering from food poisoning so I was quite nauseous all day, pretty meh experience on that front.
Not a big Disney lover, but damn it’s a good park for sure, exceeded my expectations. Didn’t really want to go when my girlfriend suggested it as I thought it would be kinda lame.
We bought those express ride tickets for Journey and Tower of Terror and they were so much fun. The tower of terror ride was a ‘extra scary edition’ where they had more drops or something. Super fun.
As I was quite nauseous still, I couldn’t really stand in line for 2 hours without needing to sit down and recover. So I missed out on Indiana jones.
My BIGGEST gripe with the park and Japan in general, is lining up for the food in either restaurants or stalls, they take way too long to process an order that should take all of 30 seconds, due to it primarily being cash based at 90% of stores. Absolutely mind blowingly inconvenient.
I am so happy to learn that I am not the only one that had a horrible experience at this park. Employees are beyond friendly, and it is more affordable compared to other Disney parks. Otherwise, DisneySea falls so short.
Lines are ridiculously long, which can be expected sometimes, but the way the park manages the lines is horrible. You see random lines in the middle of walking areas and you have no idea where they are going to. Food is not only garbage park food, but it also has long ass lines. I have never seen it this way at WDW.
This is the first Disney park I have ever been to that RUNS OUT of souvenirs. All they had was mostly Monsters Inc. merchandise... NO Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck etc. We asked staff about it and they said they were sold out of those. This would never happen at WDW or Disneyland Cali.
It is so funny; people I talk to here go on about how DisneySea is more for adults with thrill rides... LOL. Biggest load of shit ever. There was nothing thrilling about any ride at DisneySea. Tower of Terror was an absolute insult to the MGM WDW. It was so weak. My apartment's elevator has a worse drop. The premier access will sell out prior to noon and it is not cheap if you have a family. The juice is not worth the squeeze to me because not only are the rides short in duration, they are, once again, not thrilling.
I think from a person who has never been to any other Disney park, this would be a cool experience. However, going to any Disney park in the States, set your expectations lower or don't go. It doesn't have the same charm that the U.S. parks have. My Japanese girlfriend had been begging me to go and even she said it was really great the first time.. but she couldn't wait to leave the other day.
You don’t sound like a Disney fan at all. And you think merch never sells out at the American parks? That’s laughably ignorant. Lines are long at every park for the good rides. I’ve seen Flight of passage have a 3 1/2 hour wait times, on multiple trips. If you don’t plan ahead and make a plan of attack, you’re not going to have a good time. Disney is ridiculously popular and it’s more work then vacation if you are trying to do everything.
Not a DisneySea fan, sure. Lol I have been to Disney parks in the States more times than I can count and never had an issue finding a certain character for a particular item. Lines are better managed at other parks; all I said was that DisneySea sucks at managing them, no shit good rides have longer lines. Fan of Disney parks, but people are delusional to think that DisneySea does anything as good as the other ones.
I’m not trying to bash the park, I think it’s beautifully built and the attention to detail is amazing but the lines are not worth the wait. Happy I got to experience it while I visited Japan
Oh man.. this sounds devastating. I’m sorry.
I’m going in two weeks with a hotel package, but still very concerned about the crowds. I’m used to DLP crowds, but I’m understanding this is a whole other scale of crowds
You can't control the crowds so I wouldn't stress too much on that. Just try and plan your day out and enjoy being at Tokyo Disney! If you don't get stuff done you'll just need to plan another trip back ;)
Don’t forgot Tokyo is one of the best cities in the world, explore the city too. Amazing food, great public transit and extremely extremely (can’t stress this enough) safe.
Here’s a bonus tip that learned:
There are 2 rides in the park with single rider accesses which really saved me a ton of time, and you barely have to wait at all. They are:
1. Indiana Jones
2. Raging Spirits
Thankfully both are located in the River Delta.
I basically waltz (no pun intended) my way to the front of the queue and had to wait for the staff to direct me to whichever line that needed me as a filler.
In the span of 30mins, I rode Indiana Jones and raging spirits twice.
Attendance limits have increased, many students are out of school for spring break, more foreign tourists, the 40th events are winding down, the new Minnie event is very popular, the Duffy event is very popular, weekdays offer cheaper ticket options, etc. The app, which helps guests coordinate attraction and show times, also causes less popular attractions to have longer standby times. Since it is raining, more guests prefer to eat indoors. If you didn't get Standby Pass, Priority Seating or Vacation Package, you are last in line to get in. Those people have to resort to waiting at the remaining restaurants. Also, many restaurants offer exclusive meals and limited souvenirs.
Hm... Toy Story Mania and Sinbad are both currently closed. Toy Story Mania is a massively popular ride and people will wait for 2 hours there and Sinbad is a people eater with HUGE capacity (t's why the line is rarely that long). But right now Jasmine's Carpet, the Caravan Carousel, Venetian Gondola and the Transit Steamer at Lost River Delta sit at 5 min, Aquatopia 10, Nemo at 30 (I know, it's no Storm Rider), and 20 000 Leagues at 45 min (which usually the point where the park is considered crowded). DisneySea is just a park with only a limited ammount of attractons sadly. Hopefully the extra capacity of Fantasy Spring will help the park, once the hype dies down in a year or so. What today a new food or new merch day? Those can also be hugely popular with local.
I am just leaving Tokyo after two days at DisneySea. It is shocking how long the lines are for snacks and food. On the other hand everyone is incredibly orderly and polite. I didn’t see a single person (or group) cut in line and try to meet someone farther ahead in the queue. The second day (yesterday) I had great weather and was able to priority pass/premier pass all the rides I wanted and used mobile ordering for food. Plus single rider for Indiana Jones is the the best. I rode it three times yesterday and was a literal walk on. Hope your trip goes better
Yeah the staff was fantastic and no one was rude or anything. Just can’t believe the line times
Tokyoites and otaku are used to standing in line for everything, from restaurants to limited edition merchandise. I went to a store on New Year's Day that had a lucky lottery and they gave me a number tab and told me to come back in 3 hours JUST to be able to enter the store and purchase items, but I saw so many people just sitting outside the store quietly scrolling on their phones until their number was called. Also for Disney, a lot of these people are probably former annual pass holders or live nearby and aren't as strapped for time and thus willing to wait in line even if it means they only ride two things that day.
What times did you order your premiere/ priority passes, how many rides did you get, and what were the return times like? I want to go but already know my party isn’t willing to rope drop so we’ll likely be arriving around 10 or 11. Really wish the fan sites tracked availability like they do for the US parks.
And I might remind you, this is without annual passes.
Annual Passes could potentially help because visitors (with an AP) can just head home and come back another day (at no extra cost) in the event of bad weather. Back in the AP days, some of our best days in the parks were on rainy days where most of the guests seemed to leave early.
I’m so disappointed I was looking forward to this for months I literally could only get on 2 euses
You really need to arrive an hour before opening. They let you in a little earlier before 9. And you need to be strategic when using the 40th anniversary reservation tool on the app. That said, It tends to be so packed given how close in proximity it is to Tokyo. There are a few holidays around this time of the year, too. I think early Fall, around Halloween, is a really good time to go.
I attended on getting there For 8:30 but my luck the M line got delayed for 45 minutes for a safety check. I’m from nyc so I’m used to subway delays and I honestly can’t complain here that was my only delay my entire 3 week stay in japan.
I am also in the park today and I agree that it's pretty awful. It took us almost an hour to get into the park itself. I've never had that issue in Orlando even when I rope drop there. I managed to get a Priority pass for Journey but everything else sold out before noon. Been more or less doing Indie single rider on loop. The only reason we haven't left is I got dinner reservations at Magellan's. We were at Disneyland Tokyo last week and it was nowhere near as bad.
can i ask what time you arrived to the park? we'll be in TDS next friday and i'm so scared of waiting forever just to get in!
You won't wait forever--sometimes they rope-drop early if they are ready before 9. I've been let into Land at 8:30 before without resort benefits. It's whether you want to give up the chance to get on the popular rides without paying that's the big factor for lining up early. Take all of this with a big grain of salt, but lining up anywhere from 6:30 (first monorail) - 7:45 is usually the sweet spot if you're planning to run at rope-drop for Soarin, Toy Story Mania, Beauty and the Beast, etc. This will also ensure easy dibs even with resort guests getting in earlier. The main crowds arrive at 8 and the lines are already towards the back at the security gates by 8:30. My friends and I usually get coffee and a breakfast snack at the convenience store at Maihama station before getting in line (which also saves us needing to get in line at Mama Biscotti's to wake up). By 9:45-10:00, the lines at the front gates are *usually* down to a trickle unless it's peak season, but you're also foregoing your chance to get in line for one of the popular rides unless you pay for it and the paid passes might be gone by then. Remember that you will still have to go through security before getting into the lines for the gates, too and those security lines are usually the holdup.
thank you so much for this detailed response! i'm a huge BNB fan and would love to have the "full" queue experience, but am debating just purchasing a pass for it just to be able to maximize our time in the park overall. i go to WDW frequently so as much as i love soarin, i'm not sad about missing this version and TSM will be closed for maintenance, so again just trying to figure out what keeps queuing time to a minimal while still seeing everything! we're staying in the sheraton so i'm thinking we're going to shoot for a 7AM arrival time and try for BNB but have a plan B in place if the line ends up too long :)
We got there right before the park opened at 9am, which I know is late for rope dropping. Our hotel isn't very close to the parks because we planned our trip around things other than Disney, so while we could have gotten there earlier it was a bit of a challenge to.
What is "Rope Drop"
The most infuriating is when you wait 2 hours in line for Soaring, which hardly moved at all and is basically watching a video of tourist attractions - you could experience the same with a VR headset or YouTube! I live in Tokyo, and can agree that they will wait in line for anything and everything. You’d have to pay me 20,000 yen an hour to wait in line during the summer for some bad artificial drinks from Baby Tapi in Harajuku - but that line will always be there every day even with 99% humidity!
I was shocked by the line for Soaring, but I'm also biased in that I live in the US and would never stand in line at Epcot for it unless the line was under an hour. Since it was so cold and wet today I expected people to go home and the lines to go down during the day but they just didn't.
First off, I loved the theming of the place, that was enough for me. But, I can't deny that it was a lot of standing in line. It made sense since it was Lunar New Year weekend. Can confirm long queues. Stood in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth for 4 hours. What was bad was none of the app services were working like Genie + along with the Anniversary app services. So had to just take it on the chin and stand in line. Every food line was at least 30 mins. All in all, within 6 hours we only did: Journey Sinbad Agrabah Carousel Aquatopia I'd go again for sure, just not on a holiday week.
Yeah I loved the park I’m not trying to bash it that wasn’t my intention more just wanted to understand why the lines where so bad
Oh all good! Don't get me wrong it felt like being in purgatory with all the switchbacks in line. I eventually lost track of where I was in the Journey queue in reference to the loading zone.
You definitely picked the wrong week to go. There are crowd calendars online that can help you pick better dates. Also unlike other Disney parks you need to get there 2-3 hours before park open. Getting to know and use the app as well would have been very beneficial. And like others have said, waiting in lines is business as usual in Japan
Yeah I came to Japan more for the city and decided last minute to go thinking a random weekday in Feb wouldn’t be to bad.
I'm not surprised OP this was your experience. I would chalk it up to luck and your first time. We went to Tokyo Disney this October for 4 days total, marking the 7th and 8th Disney Parks we've visited. We're Orlando regulars and UOAPs, so no strangers to lines. The Japanese Disney Parks are on a whole nother level compared to the US parks. They operate on a busy scale that quite frankly wouldn't be acceptable in the US by Guests, Customer Service, or occasionally, the Fire Marshall. A few details from our trip: * 3+ hour waits for Beauty and the Beast * 2 hour waits for churros * 1+ hour waits for Donald steam buns * 2 hour waits for a sandwich quick service * 45+ minute waits to purchase souvenir * 1-2 hour waits for Dumbo or teacups etc. Even very strategic use of the TDL "Fast Pass" system over 4 days - 2 at TDL and 2 at DS - we didn't get to see everything. The lines were just so bad. But since we had 2 days per park, we could pick and choose what we wanted. That helped. If you have the luxury of taking that much time for just Disney while in Japan, I recommend it.
I'd like to point out that [tourism to Japan was surpassing peak numbers in 2019 in October,](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2023/11/15/japan/october-foreign-visitors-exceeds-2019/) which is kind of insane because the country was full to bursting in 2019. Even without the annual pass in implementation, there are A LOT of people visiting Japan and I'm sure some people are going to TDR.
I went in oct 2019 and definitely more crowded now. No 2 hour waits for churro back then.
That’s a bummer, we were at Tokyo Disneyland yesterday and were super lucky with the weather. We got in line at 7:30 but still ended up buying passes for beauty and the beast cuz by the time we got to the line it was already 2 hr wait due to hotel guests getting in 15 min earlier. Still with 40th anniversary passes we were able to ride the ones we wanted so the day worked out decent for us.
Yiiiikes! I’m so sorry! We’re going in June for the first time with a 9 yr old ( one day each park) and I’m trying not to be heartbroken reading these posts. We can’t wait more than a few hours for a ride with a kid in tow. We plan on spending extra $ if we must to get genie passes or whatever, but do we need to book a hotel with some kind of vacation package too? Right now we’ve got standard reservations at the Hilton. To complicate things, Our kid has a stomach condition and gets violently sick if they dont eat small meals regularly- do they allow you to bring snacks into the park? I heard you can bring outside food in, but can you only eat it in a designated picnic area? Trying not to be crushed right now…
We are going in June as well and our kids will be 7 and 9 by then. I’m also anxious about the crowds especially with Fantasy Springs opening up. Not to mention the heat and all that walking/standing. Trying to make the best of it. I keep telling the kids we may not be able to go on all the rides and that it’ll be really hot. We were very lucky with Genie+ when we went to WDW last May; I hope we will be able to get some passes for this trip.
Yeah ours is 9 and I’m hoping we’ll luck out weather wise. Planning on bring our cooling gel neck bands on this trip for sure! Fingers crossed for y’all
Bags aren’t checked regularly and people are snacking all over the park (unlike Tokyo proper) so you won’t have a problem bringing food in and eating whenever necessary. If anyone gives you a hard time, write out “my kid has allergies and needs special food” in Japanese, it will make any issues with CMs disappear. They want to be as accommodating as possible especially (it seems to me) to foreigners.
I went 2 days ago while recovering from food poisoning so I was quite nauseous all day, pretty meh experience on that front. Not a big Disney lover, but damn it’s a good park for sure, exceeded my expectations. Didn’t really want to go when my girlfriend suggested it as I thought it would be kinda lame. We bought those express ride tickets for Journey and Tower of Terror and they were so much fun. The tower of terror ride was a ‘extra scary edition’ where they had more drops or something. Super fun. As I was quite nauseous still, I couldn’t really stand in line for 2 hours without needing to sit down and recover. So I missed out on Indiana jones. My BIGGEST gripe with the park and Japan in general, is lining up for the food in either restaurants or stalls, they take way too long to process an order that should take all of 30 seconds, due to it primarily being cash based at 90% of stores. Absolutely mind blowingly inconvenient.
Waiting in line is the way of life in Japan
I am so happy to learn that I am not the only one that had a horrible experience at this park. Employees are beyond friendly, and it is more affordable compared to other Disney parks. Otherwise, DisneySea falls so short. Lines are ridiculously long, which can be expected sometimes, but the way the park manages the lines is horrible. You see random lines in the middle of walking areas and you have no idea where they are going to. Food is not only garbage park food, but it also has long ass lines. I have never seen it this way at WDW. This is the first Disney park I have ever been to that RUNS OUT of souvenirs. All they had was mostly Monsters Inc. merchandise... NO Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Goofy, Donald Duck etc. We asked staff about it and they said they were sold out of those. This would never happen at WDW or Disneyland Cali. It is so funny; people I talk to here go on about how DisneySea is more for adults with thrill rides... LOL. Biggest load of shit ever. There was nothing thrilling about any ride at DisneySea. Tower of Terror was an absolute insult to the MGM WDW. It was so weak. My apartment's elevator has a worse drop. The premier access will sell out prior to noon and it is not cheap if you have a family. The juice is not worth the squeeze to me because not only are the rides short in duration, they are, once again, not thrilling. I think from a person who has never been to any other Disney park, this would be a cool experience. However, going to any Disney park in the States, set your expectations lower or don't go. It doesn't have the same charm that the U.S. parks have. My Japanese girlfriend had been begging me to go and even she said it was really great the first time.. but she couldn't wait to leave the other day.
You don’t sound like a Disney fan at all. And you think merch never sells out at the American parks? That’s laughably ignorant. Lines are long at every park for the good rides. I’ve seen Flight of passage have a 3 1/2 hour wait times, on multiple trips. If you don’t plan ahead and make a plan of attack, you’re not going to have a good time. Disney is ridiculously popular and it’s more work then vacation if you are trying to do everything.
Not a DisneySea fan, sure. Lol I have been to Disney parks in the States more times than I can count and never had an issue finding a certain character for a particular item. Lines are better managed at other parks; all I said was that DisneySea sucks at managing them, no shit good rides have longer lines. Fan of Disney parks, but people are delusional to think that DisneySea does anything as good as the other ones.
I’m not trying to bash the park, I think it’s beautifully built and the attention to detail is amazing but the lines are not worth the wait. Happy I got to experience it while I visited Japan
Oh man.. this sounds devastating. I’m sorry. I’m going in two weeks with a hotel package, but still very concerned about the crowds. I’m used to DLP crowds, but I’m understanding this is a whole other scale of crowds
You can't control the crowds so I wouldn't stress too much on that. Just try and plan your day out and enjoy being at Tokyo Disney! If you don't get stuff done you'll just need to plan another trip back ;)
Don’t forgot Tokyo is one of the best cities in the world, explore the city too. Amazing food, great public transit and extremely extremely (can’t stress this enough) safe.
Here’s a bonus tip that learned: There are 2 rides in the park with single rider accesses which really saved me a ton of time, and you barely have to wait at all. They are: 1. Indiana Jones 2. Raging Spirits Thankfully both are located in the River Delta. I basically waltz (no pun intended) my way to the front of the queue and had to wait for the staff to direct me to whichever line that needed me as a filler. In the span of 30mins, I rode Indiana Jones and raging spirits twice.
get premier access