Japan: Tokyo Disneyland

Jiejie's friend got her a ticket to Tokyo Disneyland for her birthday.  CK and I tried to get Jiejie's friend to buy our tickets too, but that didn't pan out.  Alas.

Anyway, the day we went to Tokyo Disneyland, it was rainy and gloomy.  It was also a random Monday in September, so we hoped that meant there would be less people.  

No such luck:

There were a couple rides that were unique to Tokyo Disneyland, but the majority were the same as what's in Anaheim.  When Abby and I went to Disneyland a couple years ago, we managed to get through all the major rides before lunch and then repeated our favorites until the park was close to closing.  I thought we could do the same in Japan, but that was impossible with how long the lines were for each ride.

It was interesting to see which rides were most popular with the Japanese.  Whereas in the States, FASTPASS wait times for the more cutesy rides would be significantly shorter, in Japan, those were just as long, if not even longer than rides like Space Mountain.  In fact, the FASTPASS wait time for Pooh's Honey Hunt was so long that we skipped it altogether.

We had barely gotten through a a third of the park when we hit up Huey, Dewey, & Lewie's Good Time Cafe for lunch:

We were super excited because Tokyo Disneyland is known for its incredibly adorable Disney-themed food offerings.  Like this Mickey glove-shaped bun (¥980 / $9.12 for a set meal, ¥600 / $5.58 for the sandwich alone):

It came with roasted chicken, egg, and some greens:

There was also this Mickey-shaped pizza (¥930 / $8.65 for a set meal, ¥550 / $5.12 by itself):

The Halloween special (¥990 / $9.21 for a set, ¥610 / $5.67 by itself) wasn't exactly Disney-themed:

But the creamy scallop croquette in the fluffy Jack-o-lantern bun was pretty darn tasty:

All the set meals came with fries and a drink:

We were surprised not only by how good the food actually was, but also by how affordable it was as well.  When I go to an amusement park, I expect to shell out money left and right.  Especially when that amusement park is located in Japan, which isn't exactly known to be the cheapest country in the world.  And a Disney park on top of all that?    Forget it.

But not only were tickets to Tokyo Disneyland less than $70 per person, we were able to get a whole meals for less than 10 bucks.  That's insane to me!

Another thing Tokyo Disneyland is known for is its flavored popcorn.  You can find these popcorn carts across the park each selling a different flavor at ¥400 ($3.72) per box:

We originally planned on collecting all the popcorn flavors, but ultimately we stopped at three.  We got the milk chocolate:

Which was an interesting blend of sweet and savory.

And the soy sauce and butter:

This seemed to be a popular flavor combo judging by the number of soy sauce and butter flavored chips we came across in Japan.

Apparently the strawberry flavor was a special, so it was a bit more pricey at ¥500 ($4.65):

The best part about Tokyo Disneyland isn't so much the rides, but the people.  People in Japan take dressing up for Disneyland extremely seriously.  Some of the best character costumes we saw that day weren't on park staff, but on regular visitors.  Entire groups of people dressed in identical outfits or wore matching accessories.  Even groups of young men!  It really doesn't get much better than munching on a box of popcorn while sitting back and people watching.  I highly recommend.

Later in the day, we stopped by Cowboy Cookhouse:

Jiejie really wanted a smoked turkey leg (¥800 / $7.44):

I was hoping to fit in another round or ten of Astro Blasters since our first ride was less than satisfying.  CK had placed her bag on the floor of the car and when the front part moved to lock us in for the ride, it somehow managed to push her bag off and onto the tracks.  We spent the first half of the ride trying to feel around the floor in the dark for her bag.  Then after the ride, we had to stand at the side and wait as staff stopped the entire ride to find the bag for us.

Needless to say, that wasn't my best score.

If I had known that Jiejie would end up spending over an hour shopping for souvenirs, I probably could've ridden Astro Blasters a couple more times.  Instead, certain that she would be done soon, CK and I got ourselves a table at the Sweetheart Cafe:

We picked up a couple pastries thinking to share them with Jiejie once she joined us.  We got a Mickey-shaped dark cherry danish (¥330 / $3.07) and tuna and corn danish (¥360 / $3.35):

As well as this adorable Mike's melon bread (¥300 / $2.79):

It was soft and subtly sweet, but we wish there was some kind of filling inside to break it up a bit.

The taramo salad danish (¥280 / $2.60) wasn't in any kind of fun shape, but after visiting Greece, I've been a big fan of taramo (salted fish roe):

Remember when I said we were going to share the pastries with Jiejie?  Well, we didn't.  For every 20 minutes that we waited, we ate another pastry.  Until the two of us killed off ALL FOUR.

When Jiejie finally rejoined us, we considered getting dinner in the park.  In the end, we decided to just get some onigiri from a convenience store and call it a day.  We were all pooped by the time we got on the train back to Tokyo.  But we'd only gotten as far as one stop when Jiejie suddenly realized that she'd left her cell phone in the bathroom of the Disneyland train station.

Wut.

Of course we immediately got off and hopped on the next train back to Maihama Station.  CK and I weren't super optimistic when Jiejie couldn't find her phone in the bathroom stall.  To our great surprise, someone actually turned Jiejie's phone in to the station info counter and she was able to get it back after accurately describing the phone case and the photo on her home screen.  We really should have had more faith in the Japanese people. 

Dorothy, I've a feeling we're not in the U.S. anymore.

Call us pessimistic, but that's just how things go in the States.  My sister once left a shopping bag with a pair of pants in a mall bathroom stall.  She realized her mistake when she got to the bathroom entrance, but when she turned around, someone had already taken it. 

It's nice to know there are still decent people in the world.

Especially when the news these days are all about people protesting COVID-19 shelter-in-place policies and the idiot-who-shall-not-be-named giving ridiculous medical advice.

When all this is over, I think we all deserve a trip to the happiest place on earth.  Disneyland, take all my money!


東京ディズニーランド
千葉県浦安市舞浜1−1
https://www.tokyodisneyresort.jp/