Tokyo DisneySea is a theme park located in the Tokyo Bay area of Tokyo. Unique to Japan it is accessible from Maihama station. To find out how to get to Tokyo from the UK visit our How we got to Tokyo page.
We are big Disney Park fans. The fact that Tokyo has two was another reason for our visit. They are both similar and different to the other Disney Parks, if that makes sense. Similar means familiar which is always nice but also helped in terms of navigation. Different means new experiences. That’s important to us. We think it’s sort of what life is all about. We really enjoyed both parks.
Before we went we bought this guide which helped us with our planning. If you are considering a visit to either or both parks we hope the information below will help you.
Where to Stay
There are four Disney Hotels in the Tokyo Disney Resort. Tokyo Disneyland Hotel, Disney Ambassador Hotel, Tokyo Disney Sea Hotel MiraCosta and Tokyo Disney Celebration Hotel. All of these are quite expensive.
Within the Disney Resort there are also 6 Resort Official Hotels and 4 Partner Hotels. All of these offer a complimentary shuttle bus to the monorail loop. Transfer to the parks by shuttle bus takes approximately 15 minutes. The 6 Resort Official Hotels also guarantee park admission.
Finally there are 21 Good Neighbour Hotels which also provide a complimentary shuttle bus. These hotels tend to be further away from the Tokyo Disney area.
We stayed in the Hilton Tokyo Bay which is a Tokyo Disney Resort Official Hotel. You can read what we thought of it here
How to get to the park
Getting to Tokyo DisneySea was easy and convenient from the Hilton Tokyo Bay Hotel. The hotel provided a free shuttle bus to the monorail station.
From there we took the Monorail to the park. In actual fact it was easier and quicker to walk to the station but we enjoyed the bus. We had a race back to the hotel one evening to see which was quicker. The walkers beat the ‘busers’ by a good 5 minutes! A bit childish but we enjoyed it!
You need to purchase a ticket for the monorail – adults were Y260 (£1.80) and under 11s Y130 (£0.90) – and we were able to do this at the hotel.
Tickets
We bought our tickets from our hotel, the Hilton Tokyo Bay. Partly because we found it difficult to book tickets online before we went but also because we wanted the flexibility of deciding which days to go on when we got there.
We bought 4-Day Magic Passports. Adult prices were Y22,400 (£155), Junior (12-17) Y19,400 (£135) and Child Y14,400 (£100) and had to be paid for in cash.
Weather
As you can see from the photographs the weather, in April, was very pleasant. Not too hot and no rain. The nights did get noticeably cooler though and required an extra layer or two!
We didn’t get to see many firework displays because of the ‘wind’. At Tokyo Disney we found that the fireworks were often cancelled. Apparently, this was because of “high winds”. To us, it was breezy. Living in the hills of West Wales, we have a different view on what constitutes wind!
The Park
We visited Tokyo DisneySea in April. Timed to avoid Golden week. Our visit coincided with Easter and the Tokyo Disney 35 years celebration. The parks were quite busy then but not elbows out!
We aimed to get to the parks about half an hour before opening. Even then the queues were quite long. And some of the more popular rides were already extremely busy. The wait for FastPasses to Toy Story Mania was 1 hour 40 minutes! We skipped this. Not least because we’ve done Toy Story so many times in Florida but also because we felt the time could be better spent.
Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea do have the FastPass system. But it wasn’t the same as in Walt Disney World in Florida. We couldn’t book them online and there was no app but we believe this is being changed. We were able to get paper FastPasses at the Fastpass machines. These give a return time for Fastpass entry to the ride where you get to skip the queue. Each person must have one to use the Fastpass entry. Immediately after that FastPass is used you become eligible for a new FastPass. You can also take advantage of the single-rider lines which tend to be much shorter than the standard lines.
We found the Cast members to be very helpful, friendly and polite. This only added to our enjoyment of the parks.
Attractions
As the name suggests, the theme of Tokyo DisneySea is the Sea and everything is centred around the large lagoon.
One of the big attractions for us was the park itself. Because it’s unique to Tokyo it’s so different to any of the others. That’s probably why we spent more time wandering and savouring than on rides! And we were glad we did.
Like most Disney Parks, Tokyo Disney sea is split into different areas.
Arabian Coast
This was one of our favourite areas. Named in reference to Sinbad and Aladdin it was a beautiful place. Spotlessly clean and well designed, we took our time to take it all in. We saw some amazing magic tricks in Agrabah Marketplace. We’re still not sure if we were hypnotised but we did buy a couple!
Port Discovery
This large area is dedicated to two popular water rides. Aquatopia and Nemo and Friends SeaRider. We didn’t do either of these as the queues were long and we had other priorities
From here you can catch the:
DisneySea Electric Railway
This is a bit of an attraction in itself and gives great views of the park. We took the ride to:
The American Waterfront
Possibly the largest at DisneySea this area is home to two of the most popular attractions. Toy Story Mania and Tower of Terror. This was for braver mortals than us!
Mediterranean Harbour
A beautiful place, this area pays homage to Venice and is home to many shops and restaurants. It was a particular favourite of ours and offered a relaxing contrast to the busier areas of the park.
Mysterious Island
This was home to one of our favourite rides. Here you can Journey to the Center of the Earth or dive 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
We weren’t big fans of 20,000. We felt the ride a bit claustrophobic and quite hot. But that may be just us! We loved Journey to the Center of the Earth. This is one of the big rides at Tokyo DisneySea but we had no problem getting on it.
In fact we were able to do it 3 times during one visit with strategic use of a fast pass. We tend to hold on to our fastpasses if the line is 20 minutes or under. In this case we’ll use the regular line at least once. We’ll finish with the fast pass as either the regular line gets to 30 minutes or we get close to the fastpass pass expiring.
Sometimes it’s best to adopt a strategy of repeating a ride on a loop when the queues are short. By short we mean anything under 20 minutes. No matter where you are headed we would not recommend by-passing a ride you fancy where the queue is less than 15 minutes. And where queues were 10 minutes or under we did the rides whether we wanted to or not!
Lost River Delta
Home to another one of our favourites, Raging Spirits, a roller coaster with a 360 degree loop. We really enjoyed this ride and did it at least half a dozen times on each visit!
We also enjoyed the Indiana Jones Adventure and ride here. Unfortunately, we haven’t got any photographs of this one. It was quite dark in there!
For more info check out our dedicated post on Tokyo DisneySea Rides & Attractions
Food and Drink
We found absolutely no problem at all finding things to eat and drink in TokyoDisney. In fact, this was such an attraction that we’ve covered it separately in our Tokyo DisneySea Food post! We enjoyed everything we tried and found pretty much all of it good value for money. Actually, we found it cheaper compared with Florida. We enjoy snacking but did have some sit down meals too.
One of us is a massive popcorn fan so the parks in Tokyo were like a kind of heaven. There were loads to try including Caramel, Garlic Shrimp, Blueberry, Milk Chocolate, Black Pepper, Salt, Curry and Herb-Tomato. We made it a mission to sample them all. A portion of popcorn cost Y350 (£2.50).
We had Pizza at Sebastians Calypso Kitchen which was delicious. Two Pizzas, fries, Pop’n’Shrimp and 2 drinks came to Y2770 (£20).
At Sultan’s Oasis we were able to get Maple Cream balls and ice-cream. These were a particular favourite. The Maple Cream balls and an ice-cream cone cost Y770 (£5.50).
Ristorante di Canaletto
In the Mediterranean Harbour we found Ristorante di Canaletto. This is an Italian table-service restaurant. We had a 3-course meal with drinks here. With a choice of starter, main and desert all the meals were beautifully presented. One “problem” was that you had to choose two deserts! Yes two! And they were great! As well as being delicious we found the meal really good value for money. For 3 adults and 1 child the meal came to less than £65! In Tokyo! In a Disney Park!
New York Deli
At the New York Deli we got the hot corned beef and cheese sandwich (The Reuben), Salad, Chicken Soup, fries, two cheesecakes and two drinks. All of this came to Y3790 (£26). It did take a while to get a booth but it was worth it. Again, everything we ate here was really good.
More Info
We hope this helps you decide whether a visit to Tokyo DisneySea is for you. There are lots more things we could say about the park but we were concerned that the page was getting a bit on the lengthy side. We have created a separate post on Tokyo DisneySea Rides & Attractions
If you would like more information please feel free to leave a comment and we’ll do our best to reply. Or you can contact us on social media using the icons at the top of the page.
2 thoughts on “Tokyo DisneySea”
Like!! Great article post.Really thank you! Really Cool.
I love the way they’ve set up Journey to the Center of the Earth or dive 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. When I was a kid I was hugely fascinated by Jules Verne’s books and the films based on them.
Seems like a fun concept to have a Disney Park based on the sea.