One day Tokyo Disneyland Guide

Last year I went to Tokyo Disneyland. This was one of the things I was probably the most thrilled about, I mean, I absolutely LOVE Disneyland. I have the chance to live in Paris near Disneyland Paris, so, I visited the park a fair amount of time. And I couldn’t wait to visit Disneyland Tokyo and I am even more excited to write my guide about my one day Disneyland Tokyo to share my tips and experience!

There’s also Disney Sea I would like to visit, but we didn’t have enough time to do both Park, so I figured out starting by “main” one would be better, even though it would have been nice to see Disney Sea as this is something we don’t have in Paris.

First thing first before we get into the details of this one day visit to Disneyland you need to get a ticket!

You can easily buy your ticket at the Disney Store in Shibuya. Or on the internet to avoid the queue at the entrance. The Disney Store in Shibuya is also probably one of the cutest Disney stores I ever seen, at least comparing to the one we have in Paris.

It’s super easy to get your ticket there, so I’d recommend going there to buy your ticket to either the central Disneyland Park or Disney Sea this way you don’t have to queue to buy your ticket at the park. A one-day ticket for the Disneyland park cost ¥7,400.

Plan your one day trip to Tokyo Disneyland: A Guide

Journey wise transports in Tokyo are absolutely incredible it was pretty easy for us to get from our hotel in Meguro to Maihama. You can see several itineraries on the official website.

Though Disney is a popular destination if you’re going during the summer it might be a little crowded in the train. It might be a little easier to ride the train to Disney during “off-peak” season (does Disneyland really have an off-peak season though?)

The outside of the park is as impressive as the one in Paris, if not more in some ways, as they say, the devil is in the details.
There’s a little walk from Maihama Station to the entrance of the park, you can find along the road near a store (kind of like the Disneyland village in Paris) a lot of decorations, which are pretty awesome and put you right in the mood for the day!

I wish I could have had a Disneyland stamp in my passport!

You can find most of the main characters in Paris such as Mickey, Minie some of the princesses, walking around the park. At Tokyo Disneyland, I found the variety of characters much more INTERESTING and various. I never ever saw Bernard from Bernard and Bianca in Paris nor Pinocchio and nonetheless side characters such as the fox.

This was a huge plus. I’d say that Tokyo Disneyland is mostly about the visual. So, the props, the animation and the decors are the main focus. I mean that’s the case in every Disney around the world, obviously, BUT you actually also wait to have some thrill on the rollercoaster. Well, that wasn’t the case here. Space mountain was fair…dull to me.

Also, the queues are MASSIVE the number of people flooding through the park is scary. To be honest, sure it was summer; however, everything was so crowded. Most of the queues topped to nearly 2h wait or more even for the most simple attraction. This is crazy. One day at Tokyo Disneyland can quickly turn into a day of waiting.

We only managed to do 4 attractions in a 7h/8h span which really isn’t much. Although, we were quite lucky because for one of them we just did 30 minutes of queueing.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR YOUR DAY TRIP TO TOKYO DISNEYLAND :

• Schedule your day –  The earlier it starts the better. This way you can avoid the mass as much as possible. Disneyland isn’t obviously something you can fully do in one day so if you really want to see and do EVERYTHING. And as I write above, buy your tickets before it will already save you a lot of time.
• Check what ride you want to do. Do the most famous ride early in the morning and take advantages of Fastpass. Which that you get a Fastpass for any ride you want to do later on and in the meantime you can do another ride or anything else you’d like to do.
• Pack your lunch beforehand. You can obviously also eat at the restaurants in the park, but then again be ready to queue a lot. Plus if you’re on a budget it’s always better to bring your own food! Same for the drinks the vending machines are much more expensive than the one in the city. But I must say that Disney designed bottles are really cute! I still have my Pocari Sweat Goofy bottle on my shelf, it’s that cute! Of course, you can get some proper steel designed bottle which is better!
• Don’t stress it out. It’s crowded, it’s stressing, it’s tiring (especially in the summer with the heat and heavy humidity). But you don’t have to rush all the day between attractions, organise yourself well and take time to enjoy, there’s plenty of awesome decors to look at in the park. Enjoy, the last thing you want is to be stressed out and miss out the opportunity to enjoy your day trip to Disneyland!

MAIN DIFFERENCES BETWEEN DISNEYLAND TOKYO AND DISNEYLAND PARIS :

• Castles aren’t the same, here in Disneyland Paris we have Sleeping Beauty Castle while in Tokyo Disneyland it’s Cinderella’s castle.
• Rollercoasters don’t give you as much adrenaline in Tokyo, which makes them seems a little dull to me, for example, Space Mountain in Paris does include a looping, in Tokyo the ride is much more chill.
• The stores in Tokyo are AWESOME. The choices are wide, the designs of the shirts feel much more unique. And you can pretty much find anything Disney like for your home as well. This is a huge thumb up.
• Toon town! This is something I particularly enjoyed, and I wish we had it in Paris as well now. Tokyo Disneyland, unlike other Disneys Parks, doesn’t have the same kind of contract with Walt Disney, so they get somewhat more ‘freedom’ when it comes to the areas of their parks. Which makes Tokyo Disney an exciting place to visit.

   

If you visit during the summer make sure to bring a water bottle and wear some sunscreen! Also, a backpack, a hat and a camera, if you enjoy taking pictures, might come in handy! And even an umbrella actually as we got badly rained on all that while queuing, oh the fun!

Hopefully, in the future, I will get to visit Tokyo Disney Sea and the parks in the USA and China.

Overall, it was a good experience it was nice to see a new aesthetics, and I am happy about it, but I still felt a little underwhelmed by it because we got drench at some point, the humidity and the mass. Definitely avoid going to the park in the middle of summer if you can!

Nothing to do with the actual park of course, but those things can sometimes entirely change your experience of something.

Have you ever been to Disneyland Tokyo/ Paris or the US or maybe even China?  If so what did you think about it? Let me know!

Related Post :

• Tokyo Ultimate Travel Guide
• 10 Things To Love About Tokyo
• Themed Restaurant In Japan 
• Day Trip from Tokyo: Hiking Mt Takao

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Enjoy,
Lyne

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