The Happiest Place on Earth – or at least, in Tokyo

I remember as a kid, I think I was about 5, being told about Disneyland. I remember being told about the rides and the characters all walking around. And I remember this burning desire to GO TO DISNEYLAND. And so at *thirtysomething* – I went.

I had been forewarned that Tokyo Disneyland is very busy. And truth be told, it is pretty busy. But I was also told it was SO BUSY YOU’LL NEVER GET ON A SINGLE RIDE ZOMG!! IT TAKES 30 MINUTES JUST TO GET POPCORN!!! And… it wasn’t THAT intense. But we did do some research before we went and that made it a little easier.

The best thing we did was choose the day we went carefully. We used the crowd calculator to pick the perfect day. It takes into consideration new ride and merchandise dates, holidays and weather to give a pretty accurate estimate of the crowds. We went on a weekday during the school term in winter with no new rides opening or merch being released. The result was our wait times were pretty low and we found the crowds very manageable.

We arrived right when the park opened and grabbed our first fast pass at Monsters Inc Ride and Go Seek. This is a TDL exclusive, so one we did not want to miss out on. While we were waiting for that we jumped in the line for Buzz Lightyears Astro Blasters and then Star Tours. We didn’t actually grab another fastpass after this as we found the ride wait times were actually shorter than the time you’d have to wait for the fastpass to expire. The longest we waited all day was 60 minutes for Splash Mountain. Even that wait wasn’t so bad as it was in the shade with plenty of water stops on the way.

We actually found a lot of rides had little to no wait time at all! We walked right onto the Jungle Cruise, walked right into the front row of the Stitch show, and had no issues getting a good view for the Christmas Parade. The only complaint really was that the coffee was… so so. But as an Aussie coffee snob, I didn’t have much joy with Japanese coffee.

I ticked off a lifelong goal of going on the It’s a Small World ride, I’ve now had the song stuck in my head for the last month but it was so worth it. I can now hand on my heart say that this is my very favourite Disney ride.

The Christmas decorations at Tokyo Disneyland were next level. I would highly recommend going on the Haunted Mansion if you’re there at Christmas time as the decorations there are just spectacular – you’ll love it if you love Nightmare Before Christmas.

They do get really into themed dress at TDL. I was given the tip to wear a Disney shirt so you don’t feel out of place and I agree with this. I wore my Mulan BlackMilk Touchdown and felt right at home. But don’t worry if you don’t have anything, you can always buy something cute at the park. I bought Fantasia Ears and a 101 Dalmations hat and scarf combo, oops!

And don’t forget your popcorn bucket! We got a couple and the popcorn was so delicious. They also travelled home with us to Australia with no issues.

We found the easiest way to manage our time in the park was to forget about fastpasses and just go from area to area. We actually went on every ride we wanted to, we were in the park for about 12 hours and left when the kids were tired and had enough. We didn’t stay at the resort, we were staying in an airbnb and caught the train to the park from Ueno station. We didn’t go to Disneysea – but will next time for sure.

In short, I recommend using the crowd calculator, picking a day that isn’t so busy, getting fastpass if it’s busy, and just having a magical time.

If you’re after more information on Tokyo Disneyland I watched this video by PaolofromTokyo many times before we went and I found it very helpful.

We’ll be going back to Disneyland again, hopefully really soon.