For Memorial Day weekend, Bern and I spent a day at the Disney Sea Resort which is located in the Chiba prefecture (just outside of Tokyo). Disney Sea is what California Adventure is to Disneyland, it's a much smaller park but included a few rides geared more towards older folks. As you can imagine, there were many similarities between Disney Sea and California Adventure but a few differences as well. Here's a look at our trip:
Disney Sea is just one aspect of the entire compound which includes the actual Tokyo Disneyland and a few hotels spread throughout the area. So they have a monorail set up to get guests to their destinations.
Right when we walked through the turnstiles, there was a huge globe that welcomed us into the park.
We quickly got "X'd" (crossed arms that make an X, a widely accepted Japanese gesture geared toward foreigners meaning NO) by a Disney Sea employee when we brought out a camera extender to take a couple picture. Apparently, selfie sticks are considered weapons so they have banned them completely...which begs the question just how many violent incidents have there been with selfie sticks? haha
We then walked through an Italian inspired town and through the archways we saw Mediterranean Harbor which is the main entrance into Disney Sea. In the background, there is Mount Prometheus which is a part of Mysterious Island.
This is a view from the opposite side of the Harbor:
American Waterfront is the area very similar to that of Main Street USA at Disneyland; taking us back to the early 1920's. Bern and I grabbed some lunch at a New York style deli where we had our very first pastrami sandwich here in Japan, not bad at all!
There were a few attractions at the American Waterfront such as Toy Story Mania, a 3D ride where we played carnival style games shooting at moving targets.
And even the Tower of Terror... Never got the chance to ride this at California Adventure so I was really excited. Bern on the other hand wasn't to keen on the idea of a straight free fall but it was a real quick drop that didn't last very long so she did fine.
To help save us some time and energy, we then boarded a train (similar to the one in Disneyland) that took us to the other side of the resort...destination: Lost River Delta.
Lost River Delta is their version of Adventure Land, a jungle inspired area that had two main attractions. The first one is the ever popular Indiana Jones Temple of the Crystal Skull ride:
The second was called Raging Spirits, a roller coaster ride that featured a 360 degree loop:
Between rides, we ate at a Mexican inspired restaurant that was no where close to the kind of Mexican food we were used to. The dishes were definitely Mexican inspired (tacos, quesadillas, etc...) but geared more towards the Japanese appetite (i.e. teriyaki beef quesadilla).
People loved wearing Disney themed hats so we wanted to see what all the fuss was about:
Next, we then hit up the eastern part of Disney Sea which included two distinct parts: Mermaid Lagoon and Arabian Coast. I would lump these two areas together and say it's like their Fantasyland. Starting off at the Mermaid Lagoon, their main attraction was Triton's Kingdom which was themed after the Little Mermaid movie.
Inside of Triton's Kingdom was a world that made you feel like you were "Under the sea..."
A majority of the rides here were definitely geared towards little kids, but there was one ride called The Whirlpool that we just had to go on which was similar to the teacups at Disneyland. The only difference is that we were unable to control the center wheel that controlled the amount of spinning we did, but it was a blast nonetheless.
The Arabian Coast was inspired by the movie Aladdin with a Middle Eastern motif.
This was where Sinbad's Storybook Voyage ride was located, taking a page from the Small World attraction at Disneyland with all of it's moving puppets. Thankfully, they weren't playing the Small World song at every corner!
Disney Sea's idea of Tomorrowland was called Port Discovery.
Here they had two rides similar to ones also found at good 'ol Disneyland, the first one was called Storm Rider. This was a motion simulator where the premise of the mission was to eliminate a powerful storm by dropping some sort of nuclear reactor to explode in the middle of the storm (not really sure since it was all in Japanese! haha) But can you guess what ride this is similar to at Disneyland? Simple...Star Tours
And the next one is a dead giveaway; Disney Sea has Aquatopia; Disneyland has Autotopia We were on bumper boats that drove themselves around a shallow body of water.
Mysterious Island was an area of Disney Sea I briefly mentioned earlier; I would compare this to Frontierland. Mysterious Island also had two similar Disneyland rides; the first one was the Journey to the Center of Earth attraction. It was like a combination of both Splash Mountain and Thunder Mountain. It was a rollercoaster that went in and around the big mountain with a big drop at the end, but there was no water involved.
There was also The 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride but it was unfortunately closed for repairs, but it did look like it was similar to the old Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland.
Our last attraction was watching the Fantasmic water show over on the Mediterranean Harbor. This is where Mickey Mouse is a sorcerer that fights some of the evil Disney characters like Ursula in the Little Mermaid and the wicked Queen on Snow White.
No trip to a Disney theme park would be complete without visiting the gift shop at the end of the day. There were some interesting Japanese snacks/candies with of course a Disney twist:
Three really quick points about Disney Sea I wanted to share:
1. They incorporate the Fastpass system into all of their rides
2. Food and drinks were actually quite affordable!
3. Groups of Japanese guys and girls love to either match from head to toe or dress up in a theme
Bern and I had our very first date back in 2002 at California Adventure so it was nice to have our very first Tokyo Disney adventure at Disney Sea as well!
The following day, we got the chance to unwind and relax with our great friends, The Cariaga's, and enjoy a Memorial Day BBQ on base. Ted rented a gazebo on the northern edge of the base that's right off the water front.
He was grill master for the day cooking up the usual BBQ fare with hot dogs, burgers, and chicken:
We had fun throwing around the football and even shooting some water guns:
Kristian loved the bubbles:
We were all jumping for joy that summer was finally here!
The perfect way to ring in the season!
As always, Thanks for checking in! Hope you're enjoying your summer wherever you are in the world:
