From Pennies To Yennies

While Dan and I had company in town, the 4 of us decided to spend Easter at Tokyo Disneyland!

Dan, Kelsey, Jim and I were up and out the door at a decent hour. As an early birthday present, Dan got me an adorable Dooney & Bourke wristlet commemorating Florida Disney World’s 40th anniversary!

It takes about 60-70 minutes to train from our apartment to the Disney parks (2 side by side parks, Disneyland and Disney Sea). Here’s Kelsey and Jim on the train, with the Tokyo Disneyland hotel behind them 🙂

The park was adorably decorated for Easter. Scattered all throughout the park were character Easter eggs!
Mike Wazowski from Monsters Inc

Aliens from Toy Story

Dan and I

We took a quick meal break. Pizza slices for lunch! Our choices were sausage pizza or shrimp pizza. Here’s Jim’s shrimp pizza:

Disneyland makes Kelsey and I jump for joy!

We spent the day riding rides and eating snacks. The park was so empty! Tourism is a bit droopy these days, despite about 80% of the park’s attendance being Tokyo locals (as opposed to say, Disney World, where people travel all over from the US and other countries). We did everything we wanted to and then repeated some of our favorites.

Jim, Kelsey, me and Dan

While watching people plummet down Splash Mountain, Dan made a quacky little friend 🙂

The park had a spring roll stand, offering veggie spring rolls, chicken spring rolls and pizza spring rolls. Dan said his pizza spring roll tasted like a giant Pizza Roll!

As the sun set and all the lights came on throughout the park, it seemed as though even more people left. We almost had Toon Town to ourselves!

Once it was completely dark, we headed over to Main Street to enjoy the Electric Parade.
Nemo from Finding Nemo

Mike and Sully from Monsters Inc

As the park was nearing closing time, the boys decided they wanted to ride Splash Mountain one more time. Kelsey and I didn’t like the idea of potentially getting soaked so late at night without the sun to dry us, so we decided to take a spin in the teacups at Alice’s Mad Tea Party. We had the entire ride to ourselves!

We looked at some little shops on Main Street, then headed home. I think the questions I get asked most is how different the park is from the American Disney parks. The biggest difference is that the 2 Tokyo Disney parks actually aren’t owned by the Walt Disney Company! Other differences include:

*Shorter queue lines- Tokyo Disney wants you walking around and spending money in shops/ on food rather than waiting in line.

*Fancier parades- the parades are a HUGE deal here, and many people begin staking out spots along the parade route 3-4 hours before the parades begin. The floats are much more elaborate than US Disney park floats.

*Less impressive Confections- In CA and FL, the confection and bakery shops have cookies, brownies, cakes, candies, anything you can imagine! In Japan, everything is portioned incredibly small, and individually wrapped. Also all baked goods at Tokyo Disney are prepackaged, whereas in the US they bake onsite.

*Less souvenir selection- In the US you can get ANYTHING from the gift shops- mugs, pajamas, slippers, coasters, bedsheets, coin banks, anything! Typically at the Tokyo Disney gift shops, you see a small selection of shirts, cell phone charms, small toys, stationery goods, tote bags, and not too much else.

*Pricier Annual Passes- An annual pass to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea= $800. An Annual pass to Disneyland California and Disney California Adventure= $450. An annual pass to both California theme parks and all Florida parks= $700.

Having been to Disneyland in Anaheim, DIsney World in Orlando, and now DIsneyland in Tokyo, I’d have to say my favorite park is still Anaheim’s. As the first Disney park, it has so much history and I have so many wonderful family memories there. I do still have a few more Disney parks in France and and China to experience though, so I suppose my ultimate favorite is still to be determined!