Disney Loving Peas / Universal Loving Peas

I can only comment on the first two of your questions:

Unless you have been many times, I would focus on one park rather than multiple in a day.

Our favorite Disney park is whichever one has Galaxy’s Edge in it.

caangel, no, just general, because we haven’t been to Japan. It’s why I only responded to those two questions. I think they apply to any of the Disney parks. We have only been to Disneyland (on our honeymoon, decades ago) and Disney World (4 times, most recently last fall).

Each Disney park will have some unique aspects, as well as some of the same rides & attractions you’ll find at other Disney parks. If you do a multi-park pass at a Disney park that you have never visited before, you may miss out on some things worth seeing and doing because you don’t really have time to thoroughly explore the park when rushing from one park to the next in the same day. Just my opinion.

I don’t know if Japan has Galaxy’s Edge. We’re just big Star Wars fans, and loved Galaxy’s Edge. It was truly unique, and had our favorite ride of all time. We’re going to Disneyland/California Adventure later this year, and are looking forward to going on Rise of the Resistance again. On our trip last fall, as we were exiting, we heard an enthusiastic voice say in a very Australian accent, “BEST RIDE EVAH!” We totally agreed with him. It’s a great ride, even if you aren’t Star Wars fans, but far more so if you love those movies. If you hate Star Wars, then skip it, unless you are going with others who are Star Wars fans.

It’s your time and money. I recommend watching YouTube videos (especially if they have any on Disney Japan), because they really helped us see and do more of the things that mattered to us when DH and I went by ourselves last fall.

Alrighty peas strap yourselves in with the safety bar down cos this is going to be one hell of a ride aka long post re Tokyo Disneyland (let me know if you are interested in Universal Studios Japan too and I’ll do a separate one for that!)

Before I begin, I am an Aussie pea. The only other Disney trip I have ever experienced was wdw in 2004 during spring break in the time of fast passes and when the Caribbean resort accessed the four parks through buses and not the chairlift thing so please keep that in mind. Also keep in mind I was travelling with hubby and two kids who do not like roller coasters or drop rides on their first overseas trip ever 😁

Firstly for anyone who is anxious about traveling to Japan due to the language difference - don’t be, especially in Tokyo. With google translate and the local train system app (free in the App Store) we were easily able to navigate our way from the airport, to Tokyo Disneyland resort, and sightseeing around Tokyo with barely any problems. Many locals wanted to practise their English with us and we only had knowledge of a few basic words (hello, thank you etc) and made it work. Happy to go into more detail about the trains/subway etc if the details are of interest to anyone.

We stayed at the Tokyo Disneyland resort hotel. Main reason is no travel time to get to the Disneyland park (100m walk to security and entrance, or 50m walk to monorail and then about 5min ride to get to disneysea park) and you get the early entry which is almost mandatory for beauty and the beast, soaring and Toy Story mania whose lines did not go below 90mins the whole time we were there (we rode them in 30 mins though due to the early entry advantage). We have not ridden these rides anywhere else but I would think that they would be the same as those in the USA if your parks have these rides.

Staying at an official resort means you are guaranteed a ticket entry into the park even if you buy it the night before/day of. Tickets to these parks are offered three months in advance and can sell out super quickly. Purchasing tickets without a Japanese credit card can be troublesome/impossible so if you’re not staying at a Disney resort I recommend a site called klook to buy tickets (this goes for most Japanese experiences including teamlabs and universal studios). We could not pay via visa online for our tickets through the official Tokyo Disneyland website so bought ours the night before at the resort ticket counter.

Note that the parks can sometimes open earlier than the posted opening time, and people were lined up from 7.00am outside when the gates officially opened at 9.00. We went in off peak and in summer. Please make sure if you are going that you do not go in golden week or the summer holidays in Japan as I have heard that these times are ridiculously busy. For more information on when to visit I highly recommend tdr explorer or YouTube and the web - he is a Canadian who speaks fluent Japanese who regularly visits the parks and has heaps of great tips specific to tokyo Disneyland and disneysea. Going on a Tuesday and Wednesday if possible is best as the weekend and Mondays are pretty busy.

Do not run in the parks especially upon entry, they will yell at you and it is highly frowned upon/rude.

Get the Tokyo Disneyland app and look at it before you go to get an idea of what is popular and what is not in both parks - for instance the line for Star Wars was 5 - 15 mins most of the day, but baymax was 120 mins all day (we missed both of these as my kids have no interest in either.) The Star Wars ride from what I’ve seen online reminds me of the ride I rode 20 years ago so I think it’s very different to the one in the USA parks now! The app also lets you know which rides are down for maintenance, space mountain and Astro blasters were the two main closures while we were there.

All of the rides and shows we went on in both Disney parks were in Japanese (small world has some parts in English and so did pirates but that’s about all.) For me this was okay, but if you want to understand what’s being said this may be a deal breaker. For us, it meant that we were okay to miss the super popular stage shows that had huge wait times or lotteries for entry as we didn’t understand them 😁

Tokyo Disneyland and disneysea are two completely separate parks that require different tickets - there is no park hopping but you can get one pass out per park per day and you can get a half day ticket entry too to both parks. My way to describe them would be Tokyo Disneyland is like your magic kingdom park, and disneysea is a little Epcot (heavily Italian themed) with a little of the old mgm park and Paris Disney thrown in there (tower of terror, journey to centre of the earth, 20,000 leagues under the sea).

My kids are not into thrill rides so we missed a few longer queues as a result. Most rides at the Disney parks we could get on in around 30 mins by looking at the app and planning it out.

They still have splash mountain at Tokyo Disneyland.

Some experiences (shows, shops in peak seasons, photos with Mickey at the front of disneysea) have entry based on a lottery system where you scan your park ticket into the app and then request entry and either get it or you don’t - if you don’t get entry you can’t reapply for the same type of experience again that day.

For all food ordering:
Some places have touch screens (English as an option) and most food shops have plastic replicas of dishes on display with a number next to them near a machine. Once you press what you want on the machine and pay you get a receipt. You hand the receipt to staff and they collect your order. This is for the theme parks as well as a lot of restaurants on the streets so technically for these places you don’t have to actually talk to servers at all!
Alternatively most places had staff with enough English to put the order through OR they have a menu in English you can point at behind the counter that they bring out when they see you. If you are respectful and patient then you will have zero problems in Japan in any shop from my experience.

One last piece of advice - cash is king in smaller shops in Tokyo etc, but cards are fine in all shops and carts in the parks. When paying for an item your cash goes on the tray on the counter, they will also put your change in this same tray.



Also visited in this Japan trip (pea message if you want more details I’ve taken up enough of this thread!):

TOKYO

Teamlab planets Tokyo - interactive art, everyone loved it even though the kids didn’t want to go initially

Shibuya scramble crossing - worth seeing once

Cat cafe - expensive, cats are sick of people and don’t come near you for a pat, go at feeding time if you must and then leave (bit of a tourist trap but the kids liked it)

Imperial palace - serene, nice gardens

Travelers notebook store in Tokyo metro station - go to the north entry to find it, if you like travelers company items they have limited edition ones only available here (this is the original company that created midori and tn notebooks from what I know!)

Loft store - so much stationery!

OSAKA (less English than Tokyo, a little harder to navigate around)

Universal studios japan - don’t want to hijack the Disney thread but happy to go into more detail on this 😁

Nintendo store Osaka - kids loved it

Osaka castle - worth the walk if you like history/culture, don’t take the lift to the fifth floor as the line is huge and all the interesting artefacts etc are on the first to fourth floors

Dotonbori district - busy, lots of neon so go at night, street/food markets with massive 3d signs, kids and hubby didn’t get it but I could have stayed there and tried all the food for days!

Try to travel on the subways/trains and get to your destination by 8-9am if possible to avoid crowds and peak hour which can be very squishy. They will literally put their bags in front of themselves and push until they fit onto the train even if you know there isn’t enough room. Quite an experience!

@ig THANK YOU!! So much great information!

Once I know how many days and exactly when we are going I'll reach out again.

Also Duffy is Mickey's Teddy Bear. He had a presence at DCA for a while but I haven't seen him recently. I don't really know where he came from.

I sort of got the Duffy part but then there was a cat and a rabbit and a turtle too…🤣

I have no plans to go anytime soon but I loved reading all of this. It sounds like you had an amazing trip!
I really would love to visit all the Disney parks at some time.

thank you, and seriously! this one feels so shady too lol. It's not 60 days out like everything else at DLR, but literally calling the number at midnight of the first day of the month 2 months prior to your trip and leaving a message. ..then hope they get back to you 

it feels like some speakeasy secret password kinda stuff 

Has anyone used a notebook to keep track of what you do each day? We had a schedule of planned activities for our last trip, but things didn’t always go according to plan. As I have been trying to create a photobook of that trip, it’s been harder than I expected to remember what we did each day and when, vs. what we had planned to do.

Do any of you do a daily journal during your Disney trips? If so, do you take something less expensive, such as from Dollar Tree, just to take notes, or something nicer? I’m wondering if it will get beat up on the trip.

I just took a quick photo of the ride or show sign when we entered the line and then filled in my tn with any additional notes each night (what we ate etc) as the last thing I wanted to do was try and find a notebook or pen in my pack all the time. I did have two kids I had to entertain as well though in their first Disney lines, and didn’t want to be on my phone instead of chatting with them!

Oh yeah and I also kept allllll the receipts as they are date and time stamped too so I sort and cross reference those with photos I took etc as I don’t go around taking photos of racks of merch for no reason 🤣 this gave me an idea of why there were a couple of blank times in my timelines each day, I was too busy shopping to go on rides or see shows 😇

I had a photopass question, got an answer from a family member, so I deleted my earlier question.

Different question: if anyone has had to deal with salt restrictions, (or family members who did) are there restaurants/quick service restaurants you recommend that can accommodate it?

I use the notes app in my phone! It's soooooo handy! I also love how easy it is to update. I never worry about space constraints and if I was rushing to add something, I can always go back in later to update. I will then transfer to my paper journal at a later date. I've even done memory keeping in my journal where I printed out a screenshot of my notes app. I rely heavily on my paper journal for all my scrapbooking.