Letting Loose at Tokyo Disneyland

After a wonderful day at DisneySea, we finished off our Disney portion of the weekend with a day at Tokyo Disneyland! On the morning of November 12, we left our hotel around 6:45 am and caught a city bus to the park! We packed in tight as we waited to enter the park!

As soon as we scanned our tickets in, we immediately ran into the park and headed back to try and ride the "Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast" that we missed during our first visit to Disneyland. Once we found the back of the line, we learned that the wait time was already over three and a half hours. And the park had just opened.

Since our first visit, Tokyo Disney has implemented "Disney Premier Access," where you can pay ¥2,000 per person and receive a fast pass for one ride a day. At Tokyo Disneyland, the one ride option for the Disney Premier Access Pass is the Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast.

Knowing this is most likely our last visit to Tokyo Disney, and wanting to make the most out of our time, we willingly paid the $28 for the two of us to get a fast pass for this ride. With our assigned return time of 9:30-10:00 am, we got out of the dreadfully long line and headed back to ride Star Tours, Monsters Inc. Ride & Seek, and the classic Buzz Lightyear Ride! To us, the ¥4,000 fee was worth knocking out three other popular rides, while everyone else waited in line for Beauty and the Beast.

Oh, and I slaughtered Bryan on the Buzz Lightyear ride. Yep, the man who talked a big talk yesterday when he beat me at Toy Story Mania was much quieter as we got off the ride today with scores of 24,600 vs. his meager 9,600 points!!!! Who's the winner? I'M THE WINNER! (And I'm not gonna let him forget it!)

By this point, it was time to return to the Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast for our assigned ride time. As we walked up to Tokyo Disneyland's second castle in the park, we tried not to gawk at all of the mere peasants who were still waiting in 4-hour lines for the ride.

After scanning our QR code for premier entry, we entered the Beast's castle and joined the short queue. Then the doors opened up to the ballroom, where there was a short reenactment of the start of the movie, set with an amazing stained glass window show and Beast & Belle animatronics that were so real, they could easily be confused with real actors!

As we exited the ballroom, we entered the kitchen, where we waited to board into our teacups. Along the side of the lines were small rooms with scenes like this playing:

Click Here To Watch The Queue Clip on Youtube

Then we boarded our teacups! This trackless ride fits ten people in each cup, and they rotate 7 cups at a time through the ride. Knowing that 70 people can ride at once, just goes to show you how many people were waiting in line for 4 hours...whew!

As we got off, I made a point to say this is the best trackless ride from any Disney park. It was stunning.

Bryan still argues that Rise of the Resistance is better (because of all the action) but he agrees this ride was well worth the premiere access pass and should not be missed!

Around 10:45, we were getting hungry for brunch, so we stopped by Gaston's Tavern for some grilled cheese sandwiches, fries, and cinnamon apple churros. Of course, Gaston's isn't complete without LaFou's Brew, so we enjoyed the berry-flavored drink as well!

With full bellies, we did some shopping. No, Bryan didn't let me buy the footstool-dog stuffed animal for Reynolds. Worst dad EVER. (Who cares that it was $40? Our girl NEEDED it.)

No trip to Disney is complete without a ride on It's a Small World, so we were sure to do this in Gram's honor! Bryan and I counted 18 different Disney movies represented in the ride. Everything from Frozen, Brave, Hercules, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, The Little Mermaid, Tangled, The Jungle Book, the Lion King...the list goes on!

New to us, we learned that the Haunted Mansion transforms into the Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare in November! When we entered the park this morning, I was quick to check for standby passes. The only one available was for the Haunted Mansion Holiday Nightmare, which I thought was odd at the time, but booked it anyway!

As we waited in line, Google taught me that California's Disneyland and Tokyo's Disneyland are the only two parks in the world that transform their Haunted Mansion into The Nightmare Before Christmas theme for the holidays! This transformation was supposed to premiere in the two parks in 2021, but COVID forced Tokyo to push back the premiere to this year!! No wonder we needed the standby pass- this was a first for the park!!

Bryan found us a spot to watch the upcoming parade, while I found curry popcorn and sodas to enjoy during the performance! By splitting up, we got great seats and amazing snacks!!!

Following the parade, we jumped in line for Big Thunder Mountain, where we ran into Meeko!! Then we knocked out Jungle Cruise before finding a coffee shop for an afternoon pick-me-up. I was brave and tried their specialty coffee. The brown stuff floating in the drink is coffee jelly- not ice like we were hoping. It was a strange texture for an iced coffee, but the Mickey on top made it worth it. All for the 'gram, right?

Our final ride of the night was Pooh's Hunny Hunt! We learned that this was the first ever fully trackless ride for any Disney park! Pooh's Hunny Hunt debuted in 2000, and due to its popularity, inspired Disney Imagineers to branch out and develop the iconic Rise of the Resistance Ride for Orlando's Walt Disney World and California's Disneyland!

Then it was time for the final parade of the day: The Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade!

Just like our first visit, this parade takes the cake as the best parade at Disneyland! With over a million lights used, these floats are decked out with lights, LED screens, and bright costumes from our beloved Disney characters!

Our favorite floats are definitely the Peter Pan ship and the Genie's floats! Overall, this is a must-see parade when visiting Tokyo Disneyland!

For dinner, we swung by a quick eats restaurant that had a beautiful view of the castle! Before digging into our burgers and fries, I had to take a picture of the Baymax Burger! Look at that bun!!!! It's just too cute!

As we left the park, Bryan and I couldn't stop talking about how perfect this Disney Trip has been! Tomorrow we are heading into the city for a day of exploring Tokyo!

Sunday, November 13

Sunday morning, we checked out of our hotel, and headed to the Harry Potter Cafe! As we exited the train station, we felt like we were transported to Hogwarts! Look at this setup exiting the train station!!!

During my trip planning, I found the Harry Potter cafe, but all reservations were booked for our trip. What I didn't know was that the play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, had recently come to Tokyo and had shows happening NOW! This production has an all-Japanese cast and premiered in June.

While I stood in line at the cafe, Bryan went to see about getting last-minute tickets for the play...only to find out that this week's performances had been canceled. Mental note: we will try again when we come back up to Tokyo in December before we head to Vietnam!!!

After getting our Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw scones from the Harry Potter Cafe, we headed to the theater to sit and stare at the play signage. We will be back to try again! Knowing the show will be totally in Japanese, Bryan and I agree to reread the play before our next trip so we can at least roughly follow along! Say a prayer now that we can get tickets at the door in December because the show is sold out until February.

With a few hours to kill before our flight, Bryan and I grabbed lunch at Shake Shack and then headed to Mikkeller Brewing for a drink! As we sipped our beers, we reminisced on our Singapore trip, where we stumbled upon the Singapore Mikkeller location! Bryan did some googling, and there are Mikkeller locations in Seoul, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, and two in Tokyo, Japan! This wasn't a bucket list checkbox for us earlier, but why not try and visit as many locations as possible!?

Another "To-Do" during our December visit: hit the other Mikkeller Brewing in Tokyo!

Since Mikkeller was located in Shibuya, we wandered over to Shibuya Crossing for a Starbucks drink and another chance to cross the busiest crosswalk in the world.

When we visited Tokyo last December, we thought Skibuya was packed. Little did we know!!! This time around, there was barely room to walk around! With coffees in hand, we snapped a few pictures of us in the middle of the chaos before heading for the train station!

Yep, we definitely boarded our train at Shibuya Station, and you can tell from the crowded train car how busy this neighborhood is! We were pressed up to the door without room to breathe for the majority of our express train to Haneda Airport. This sure explains the busiest crosswalk in the world!

After a quick check-in at the airport, we boarded our flight and made it back to Nagasaki Airport around 8:30 pm. We had two happy puppies waiting for us at home!!

With another successful Tokyo Trip in the books, we can honestly say we are exhausted and ready for a relaxing weekend at home! This trip taught us that, while we may be kids at heart, our knees and sore feet reminded us that our bodies are, in fact, 28.

'til next time,

Katie