Summary of Japan Trip (Nov 2009)

Here’s a summary linking up all the posts related to our 18-day Japan trip in November 2009.

The posts with asterisks was updated with some videos after it was first published. Do go see!

Japan Trip: Day 13 (26 Nov 2009)

After our somewhat disappointing visit to Tokyo Disneyland yesterday, we headed to Disneysea today. From what we have read, most visitors find Disneysea to be better themed and more fun for adults as compared to Disneyland.

We alighted at Maihama station and realized that Disneysea is located at some distance away. Seems that most visitors take the Disney Resort Line to get there, but we decided to save on the ticket fare and walk to the resort. A single trip costs 250yen and a day pass is 650yen.

Anyway, turned out that it’s really not that far to walk – took us about 15mins, after asking for directions and following other people who looked like they were also going there. It was a hot and sunny day and I was melting when we reached the resort.

The resort is divided into 7 ports of call.

Here’s the Mediterranean Harbor, and you can see the volcano (part of the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride) at the end.

We boarded the Renaissance ship later in the evening and there were some cool scientific displays in it. We found many people “camping” at the top and shielding themselves from the cold wind, while waiting for the Candlelight Reflections show to commence. It was interesting to note that they were well-equipped with mats, blankets, snacks, etc!

Japan Trip: Day 12 (25 Nov 2009)

We had bought the Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea 2 day passport (cost 10,000 yen!) earlier when we were at Shibuya. This was to save us the trouble of queuing for tickets at the park. Well, in fact, there was a small queue for buying the tickets at the Disneyland store too. And, if you didn’t know, these are the only 2 Disney parks that are not owned by Walt Disney.

This is the 1st time we are going to a Disneyland park! And, many visitors were decked out with Disney stuff like caps and all kind of accessories bought from the various shops.

Disneyland is actually not in Tokyo but located in Chiba. Nevertheless, it is easily accessible by taking the JR line to Maihama station and a 15-min walk to the main entrance. There’s also a huge Disney store along the way.

Both of us ruled out taking rides that simply spins and spins and make you all dizzy! Hate those! In fact, the rides in the park are not very enticing…

These are  the rides that we took:

Tomorrowland

• Grand Circuit Raceway – This is the 1st ride that we took. As you can derive from the name, it is  modeled as a race circuit and we can steer the race car along the track. I remembered there’s a yucky gasoline smell at this attraction. The car is kinda smallish too but it was not bad a ride.
• Microadventure - This was quite entertaining. It is essentially a 3D movie based on Honey I Shrunk the Kids. Quite a popular attraction. There are so few seats designated for English audio and we couldn’t get them. The special effects included some spraying mist around the legs area and that took many people by surprise and elicited some shrieks…keke.
• Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters – On this ride, we need to shoot at targets using the 2 laser guns on our car. I scored really badly because I only knew how to work the gun mid-way through. G kinda enjoyed it though, haha.  I can’t remember what other rides we took…

Adventureland: Pirates of the Caribbean – This is a pirate-themed boat ride and the interior is quite dark. It didn’t leave much of an impression on me.

Westernland:

• Country Bear Theatre – A show with some bears playing music. I think I dozed off a bit inside the theatre.
• Tom Sawyer Island Rafts – The rafts brings visitors to Tom Sawyer island. I wanted to go there because there’s a stall that sells milkshakes! However, it was already closed when we visited the island, sigh. The island itself is quite boring and we finished a walk in no time.

Fantasyland:

• Pooh’s Honey Hunt – This was fun!! There was a point in time when we were in front of a device and it poofs mist right into us, hehehe.
• Haunted Mansion – Not scary at all.

Critter Country: Splash Mountain - We got a bit wet from this ride but actually, the drop is not that scary.

I think we were lucky to be there on a weekday and we didn’t have to queue very long for any rides. Before the trip, I read about people queuing up for 1h or more!  I think for us, it was at most a 20min wait and we didn’t even have to use the Fastpass system.