Our 17 hour Tokyo Disneyland Trip

In February we went to Disneyland in Tokyo. We decided to go with ITT, which is a tour group on base that specializes in bus tours. John and I know that we are not bus tour people, but we priced it out and weighed the options of driving ourselves and how lost we just might get. We decided to go for it. We woke up at 0430 and took the kids to the bus, the kids did really well on the bus and we arrived around 0930 at Disneyland just in time for all the Disney Characters to greet everyone at the front gate. We have been to Disneyland in Anaheim, Euro Disney and now Disney Tokyo and NEVER have I seen older women vying for the attention of Cinderella and Buzz Light Year. They were pushing to get through and did not care what 4 year olds they took out. It was pretty comical, some of these women were in their 60's and 70's. Most of the characters had 3-4 body guards and would continuously say back-up, back-up, to the adults I might add.

After the Disney Characters we decided to get our first fast pass, we weren't really knowledgeable on the fast pass and how it works, but it was now 1000 and the first available fast pass for Buzz light year was 1420, so we went to Space Mountain, first available was 1500. This was not how we expected Disney to be on a Monday, also a non-Japanese Holiday Monday. Next we went to the Pooh Honey Ride, that ride was available on a fast pass at 1400, we thought we better take that, but there was a 15 minute line just to get the fast pass, we took it and decided to go back and get the fast pass for the other rides. For those of you familiar with Disneyland you already know you can not get another fast pass until you use the pass you have. We did not know this!

We decided on Pirates of the Caribbean, one of our favorites, the line wasn't too bad, 45 minutes and everyone enjoyed it. Next was Small World, sung in Japanese, we went on that ride twice. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs scared the kids to death and the tea cups everyone, but Mommy loved. I don't do well with spinney rides and I just about got sick and had a tough time standing after the ride, but I looked around and found everyone else in the same boat. It was cold and windy so I thought Splash Mountain would be a shoe in, but it was closed for renovation. We did a few rides in Tiny Toones Land. We went back to the Pooh Honey Ride and used our fast pass, which was cute for the kids, but........why would anyone over 10 want to do the ride or wait hours to go on it if you didn't have kids. I have to say most of the people did not have kids, why? It should be mandatory, kids only. We also flew on the rockets, but sadly, I told Lexi we would get our next fast pass for Space or Thunder Mountain, because she wanted to do the roller coasters. I figured all the fast passes would be for around 1900, it was now 1430. How wrong I was! The fast passes were sold out and the wait was 3 hours long. Lexi was a good sport as I apologized profusely since we weren't able to do any roller coaster rides. We did manage to get a pass for Buzz Light Year around 1930. We had dinner at Pirates of the Caribbean Restaurant, which was a really nice break from the hustle and bustle. That is where we had our first meltdown, 12 hours later with no naps. I thought that was pretty good for Anika and Alexander.

Mom thought it would be a great idea to go to the Haunted House after dinner, since there wasn't ANY line, must not be a popular one in Japan. I figured the voice of reason, my soothing voice telling Anika it wasn't real would do the job, John would have Zander and Lexi was fine. Well............Anika never cried, but she had a death grip on me and buried her head in my hair and shoulder. Alexander, well that is another story, he cried the entire time, it sort of blended in with the screams of the ghosts. I know some of you are thinking how could you! There was NO line and we rectified the situation at hand with another dose of Small World.

Everyone had a great time and we went on many rides, but NEVER expected it to be so busy for a Monday. It was crazy, busy and it was really hard to maneuver the double stroller through the crowd. We found out later that week this was the day that many of the Japanese Schools in the Tokyo area sent the children to Disney for a field trip. Who would have thought.

That night we got home around 2230 and put 3 tired munchkins to bed, they had school the next day. Now the next day was a fun day! LOL.

Our next adventure is Disney Sea, we can't wait to go and see what it's like.