Tokyo Disneyland

Lets see, my very 1st trip to Walt Disney World in Florida was in 1981 when they they were still building EPCOT. Back then, I was 1 almost 2 yrs old. So I don't remember that trip what-so-ever. The next time I would go back would be in my freshman year of college with my parents in 1998. From there on to this date, I have been to Disney every year, except for 2007 when I had my back surgery. Not only did I visit, but I also had the best opportunity in the world--I got to work there in Summer of '01 for a college internship and earned 3 of the easiest credits for college ever. Now on the otherhand, John and his family gew up in Disney. His dad worked there and retired after 23 years give or take. John and both of his brothers also worked there. So as you can see, Disney is in the Velazquez Blood! When we heard we were coming to Japan, we knew had to go to Tokyo Disney sometime soon after we got there!!

On our 3 month annivsary here in Japan, we finally made our journey there. We went with the ITT (information ticket and travel) group here on base, so we didn't have to drive. It took about 2hrs to get there. We left at 6:30am and arrived around 8:30. Needless to say, John and I had no problem falling asleep on the bus being that early in the morning, hahah!!

John woke me up just as we were we pulling into the park. I have to say, it was very exciting to see the big Tokyo Disneyland sign, kinda like when you drive into the Magic Kingdom park. When the bus parked, one of the 1st neat things we saw was the Monorail! It looked like a 1950s style monorail, hhahah!! The windows were a Mickey Mouse shaped head. For whatever reason it might be, we didn't ride it, but thats okay, maybe another time we will. We waited in line for 1/2 hour until 9am until they let everyone in. Like another spouse said to me at one time, "I've never seen so many Japanese until that day."...very true, haha!!

Tokyo Disney is very similiar to Magic Kingdom with a few differences.

--Intead of Main Street USA, TD has Plaza Pavilion--a covered dome with shops and resteraunts set in the Victorian time period. They also have the "Emporium Shop" but IMO (in my opinion) not as nice as WDW.

--The castle is also Cinderellas Castle, but you can tell its a different brick color then WDW. You know when you've been to WDW a billion times when you say something about brick color, hahah!!

--All the lands are pretty much the same and in the same spot. Only difference, they don't have Liberty Square, but they have Critter Country, where Splash Mtn is located.

Frontierland in WDW is called Westernland in TD where Big Thunder Mtn is located.

Adventureland has Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room (w/Lilo & Stitch), the Main RR like WDW, but this one only went around Ad.Land and Westland, not the whole park. Part of Adv. Land was also like a New Orleans style, which was kinda weird, yet it was pretty. This is where Pirates of the Caribbean was. Funny part, most of the storyline was in Japanese, but the main song was in English. The ride seemed like it jumped around a lot, not as nice as WDW imo once again.

Tomorrowland was pretty much the same as WDW. They do have a Monsters Inc ride there now, but I'm not sure if WDW has it. Thats the newest attraction there. Space Mtn was closed down for renevations, so unfortunately, we didn't get to ride it. The Carrosel of Progress, one of my favorites, is not there there.

Toontown--from what I remember in WDW, it was pretty much the same, maybe a bit smaller. It had Mickey and Minnies houses, but they also had a tree house for Chip and Dale which was neat. Didn't get a chance to go inside, but the outsite was nifty. They also had a ride having to do with Roger Rabbit--I don't think WDW has that. But then again, that movie is 20 yrs old now, hahah!!

FantastyLand is pretty much the same too. They have Peter Pans Flight, Snow Whites ride, Dumbo, the Castle Carrosel, the Tea Cups, Its a Small World and the Haunted mansion. Yes, thats where its located in TD and the ride was all in Japanese except for the main song. The one ride that they have that WDW doesn't have is Pinnochio's Daring Journey. Once again, that ride was closed down too, but it looked like the Snow White ride. Another neat thing here thats not at WDW was the Alice and Wonderland Resteraunt! Such a neat lookin place, but the food was terrible!!!!! If I could have complained in Japanese, I think I would have because the money we spent on that terrible food was ridiculous!!

Anywho, they had a parade in the morning to Welcome you to Tokyo Disney--actually, they had that one 2x in the day. It was cute! They also had their version of the 3:00pm parade. I wish I could've asked, "what time is the 3:00 parade?" in Japanese, heheheh!! They also had the shows on the stages, but we didn't see them.



Here comes my Con list of Tokyo Disney....



Lets start with the Shopping expereience Its not everyday someone gets to go to Tokyo Disney. We wanted to get some good souviners while we were there. Anywho, before we got there, I knew I wanted to get Mayla a regular sized Minnie Mouse with a Kimono dress on. You' think you'd be able to find something like that here in TD. Nope. All we saw was a little Mickey and Minnie in their Japanese wear hugging each other--when I say little, its like the kind of little toy you would give your dog. I couldn't get over that they really didn't have any stuffed animals there. I know in WDW, they have 1 store with all the stuffed animals you can think of. Or as another friend of mine said, "no matter where you go in Walt Disney World, you see Mickey and Minnie!" Very poor selection here. Another thing I didn't really see was a Priness Store. My gosh, half the time in WDW, thats all you see is the princess stuff. Unless it was in the castle, which we didn't go through, i didn't see anything. Even clothes--poor selection. I got myself the regular long sleeved Mickey mouse Shirt that said Tokyo Disney on the bottom. I actually wanted to get a sweatshirt---none there! The kids got little toy guns from the Buzz Lightyear store after the ride and thats it, but that what they liked the best. I guess our other souviner are all our pictures. Speaking of pictures, my next con...



You know in WDW right when you start walking down MainStreet USA and throughout Disney, there a billion Cast Members waiting to take your pictures so you have memories to last a lifetime since you do spend a billion dollars there, right? Well, they don't do that here. There was 1 person next to the castle taking pictues and you can only imagine the lines. We did stand in a line because we saw that it was short at one time, but as I looked at Mayla in the stroller, we saw that she was sleeping, so we said forget it. No biggy, I'm sure we'll come back again one day to get a picture. But I do have to say, I LOVE how WDW has Castmembers pretty much wherever you walk in Disney to capture the moment!!! They need to do that here too!!

Lets go onto Character Greetings.....OH MY GOSH, VERY UNORGANIZED!!! Now I have a few friends on Facebook who are characters in Disney, so I'd love to hear there opinions. Maybe I'm over reacting on this one. When we entered the park, we saw a huge line for Mickey and Minnie. When I say HUGE I mean Billy Fucillo HUGE!!!!! So we went by that line, because we saw Gephetto, Pinnochio, and a few others and thought it would be fun to get pics with them. Now from what I remember at WDW, there are LINES that form next to the character and the character has a Cast member person working with them, kinda like how we saw with Mickey and Minnie as mentioned above. OH NO....NO LINES!!! People just come right in front of you, jump in next to the caracter...basically, you feel like they are pushing you out of the way. At one time, we waited to take a pic Smee--Smee, I thought, took way too long with the guest before us. There was no Character Cast Member person next to him or Capt. Hook. Total chaos!!!! If you wanted a character pic, you had to jump in front of someone...literally!! I didn't enjoy that what so ever!!!!

As far as the food...ehhh, it was okay. I think the only neat thing as far as the food went was the popcorn buckets. You'll see it in one of the pictures. Each popcorn stand had a different character bucket. We got Mickey Mouse. They were good sized buckets! Also, they had different tasting popcorn such as Soy Popcorn, Caramel Popcorn, Curry Popcorn, and of course our favorite that took forever to find, Butter and Salt Popcorn. Unfortunately, John and Caden forgot our bucket in the bathroom and by the time they realized it and went back to find it, it was gone. The ice cream there wasn't the best either. They had 3 kinds--the regular Mickey ice cream head sandwich, an apple flavored Mickey on stick and I believe a banana flavored one. Not that greatest selection, but hey, it worked. John wanted to eat at Paco Bills, a Velazquez Tradition, well before my time that is. He was a little sad to see that T.D.'s verision of the resteraunt was a little cafe. We have a picture of that too. For those friends of mine who worked at Cosmic Rays in WDW, they have the same thing here, except it was called Tomorrowland Terrace. Thats where we had lunch. Good food, but I think Cosmic Rays has more of a selection.

On a brighter note, at the end of our day, Tokyo Disney had their version of the Electrical Parade. The music started the same, but somewhere in the middle it went different. The characters were also different, but at the same time, it was still fun to see.

Overall, I think Tokyo Disney was fun and definitely an experience to remember. But unfortunately we didn't love it like we do with Walt Disney World. I think we are just so used to WDW and the great perks of all 4 parks/water parks/Downtown Disney and you actually feel like you are treated like a true guest. Here it was completely different. It's like you didn't feel any magic in Tokyo Disney. It wasn't all bad, but ehhh, it seemed like a good majority of it wasn't exciting. As mentioned above, we've been to Disney World a billion times and each time we've gone, its like there is something new and fun about it. I do think Disney tried over here, but unfortunately, its just not the same. But, I do have to say, it will be great to tell folks, "Yep, we've been there and done that!!"