DAY TWO (30/8) - Part One – AN AMBASSADORIAL WELCOME!

At precisely 9:02a.m. Nippon time, we land at Tokyo’s Narita airport.
NARITA AIRPORT


This is located some 40 miles north east of Tokyo and thus we need to get a transfer to Tokyo Disney which is where we are headed. This is done by limousine bus (as they call it). Now, you will note we landed at 9:02 and what time does the bus leave? 9:05! Of course, we have the merry gambit of Immigration and Customs to negotiate so no chance of getting that bus. A couple of finger print reads and a photo of us and we’re through with a smiling “Welcome to Japan!” thrown in. Their Customs form is way simpler than the U.S. one and within ten minutes we are sorted, bags picked up and bus tickets purchased. It’s 2,400 Yen each (£16 ish). The next bus isn’t until 11:05 so we trundle down into the bowels of the airport to find a coffee shop. It’s my first real chance for me to practice my pigeon Japanese. I do pretty well getting two “American style” coffees and it’s our first experience of somebody bowing to us. We’ll discover as the holiday goes on that they are an incredibly polite race of people to the point that you find yourself bowing naturally when shopping or communicating. The coffee by the way is excellent – good and strong. I’ve forgotten to mention the temperature outside. It will hover between 32 to 36 C by day (97F) and 26 to 28C at night. And it’s humid! - 98% humid! Now in that sort of heat you’d like a drink, wouldn’t you? How about this one?

DRINK TITLE


At precisely 11:00 the bus arrives at Stop #11. A young man with a tray full of labels asks which hotel you are headed for. To ensure there is no mistake (and it has happened to previous travellers we know where they arrive at one hotel and their luggage was offloaded at another), we have a laminated picture clearly showing the Disney Ambassador Hotel and our cases are labelled appropriately.The bus takes approximately one hour to reach the Disney area and along the way we take in the industrialisation to the north of Tokyo. I don’t know what I imagined this country to look like but around these parts it looks pretty much like the suburbs of any European city even though we are in the Orient. It’s only the eastern tiled roofs of dwellings that give a hint that it is Japan. And they drive on the left – sensible people! There are paddy fields of rice dotted here and there in the various villages we pass through. Just as we grow potatoes, they grow their own rice.
We pull into the forecourt of Disney’s Ambassador Hotel and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a blue and white edifice with deliberate art deco architecture and it is located roughly half way between the two parks and has its own entry to Ikspiari – a sort of Downtown Disney. As usual, the hotel screams Disney’s touches of detail. The lobby leads down to the Hyperion lounge which serves for meals throughout the day – breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and cocktails and light snacks in the evening. More of that later.
AMBASSADOR HOTEL


HYPERION LOUNGE


We check in but our room isn’t ready as it is only just gone midday. Leaving our luggage with Bell Services we buy our park tickets at Guest Services. Now according to the guide books the maximum number of days you can purchase in one go is four. (You can get one day to three day tickets too.) You have to state which park you wish to do the first day – Disneyland or Disney Sea. Whichever park you didn’t choose on the first day will become the park you visit on the second day. It’s only on the third day that you can start to park hop. However, since “Tokyo Disney made Easy” was published a couple of years ago, things have changed. We can now buy four day tickets with park hopping EVERY day if we so choose. (17,000 Yen each = £115 each).
PARK TICKETS


Also, although the parks don’t do Extra Magic Hours like America or Paris, they do offer what they call “Magic 15”. This allows on - site guests a 15 minute window ahead of off - site visitors. That’s not 15 minutes to dash across the parks but 15 minutes earlier to get through the turnstile before the crowds, up Main Street and right up to the ropes to the various lands. At precisely 8a.m. the ropes are removed and it is then you race at break neck speed to get to the rides. You are, though, a good ten to fifteen minutes ahead of those piling through the turnstiles. We found this gave us a major ride and a chance to get a Fastpass for another ride every morning at Disneyland. It does not apply at DisneySea. I’ll come back to that in tomorrow’s report.
Right now it’s around 1p.m. To get to the parks there are the “Park Cruisers”. These are air conditioned buses which just ooze Hidden Mickeys and are made to look like American “Airstream” RVs (camper vans). We’ve decided to head to Disneyland park.
BUS PIC


The grab straps inside the bus are obviously Mickey influenced.
GRAB STRAP PIC


There’s a one way system in operation so it takes about ten minutes to get to Tokyo Disneyland. The park faces the Disneyland Hotel which we’ll have a nosey around later. There is a monorail station between the hotel and the park entrance. The monorail – Disney Resort Line - completely circles both Disneyland and Disney Sea parks but you have to pay to use it. In Japan if you run any type of railway on common land then a fare is payable. This is why the park steam trains don’t circle the Disneyland Park. A single journey on the monorail is around 250 Yen (£1.70). You can get a daily pass for 650 Yen and multiples thereof. We never actually got to use it and compared to the Florida ones we feel it’s quite ugly by comparison. Still it serves its purpose calling at four main stations around the property – Resort Gateway Station (near to our hotel and handy for the Japan Railways mainline Maihama station), Tokyo Disneyland Station (right opposite the Disneyland Hotel), Bayside station (handy for the Disney Resort Official (Neighbour) Hotels) and the Tokyo DisneySea stop.
MONORAIL


We go through the farcical security check – do those guys really know what they are supposed to be looking for? The tickets are bar coded and that’s all you need. No fingerprint check here.
The first thing you notice is Main Street is very different to any other Disneyland / Magic Kingdom you have ever encountered. Firstly, it is all under a glass roof like a giant greenhouse.
MAIN STREET WORLD BAZAAR


This was added to shield visitors from the rain of which there can be plenty in Tokyo but, for this visit, it seems far away.(We’ll discover later how heavy it can rain). It’s absolutely scorching (in the 90s) and I’m glad I’ve put some sun protection on. They call it Main Street World Bazaar and it’s filled with shops and restaurants. This Main Street has a crossroads through it with the left road leading into Adventureland and the right road leading into Tomorrowland as you face the castle. I’m going to have to struggle not to compare the Japanese parks to any other Disney parks as they were built for a completely different market. All I will say is that as our time at Tokyo Disney goes by, we decide it certainly has an edge over WDW – the theming, the CMs, the quality of food….you’ll see as we go along. Just remember these parks aren’t run by Disney. They are run under licence by the Oriental Land Company who have huge offices just along the road from our hotel. They just took what they liked of the American counterparts and made it their own with many other additions. The Cinderella castle, for instance, is a duplicate of Orlando’s but the stonework is darker in colour at the bottom. It contains a Storybook feature – there is no banqueting hall.
CINDERELLA CASTLE


To the side of the castle is a Snow White waterfall – a duplicate of the one you’d find at Disneyland California with the white marble figures of Snow and the Seven Dwarfs.
WATERFALL


There is no hub as such – more of a square and gardens with the Partners statue and then a huge area full of seating in front of the castle stage – the reason for this will become clearer later…. and there are two turreted towers which house lighting and sound departments for the stage shows.
We choose to go to Adventureland which also has a New Orleans area for Pirates of the Caribbean, a Royal Street with a Blue Bayou restaurant but no Club 33.
NO CLUB 33 ?


Number 33 here is a crystal glass ware shop. They do have a Club 33 but it’s in World Bazaar. We need lunch and so grabbing steamed Mickey shaped buns from Boiler Room Bites we find a table in the shade to enjoy these strange but delicious delicacies. The ears were filled with aromatic pork and the face with Terryaki chicken. The place we bought these is called Boiler Room Bites and it is cleverly contained in the end of a ship that appears to be plonked in the middle of everything.
STEAMED MICKEY


BOILER ROOM BITES


Darrin chose a kind of ginger beer drink and I had the ubiquitous Coca Cola which doesn’t quite taste like the U.K. version. Refreshed, we start to explore the area. The Disneyland Park is celebrating 30 years this year and they are doing it in style. The theme is balloons and happiness. The park is heaving. The Japanese are coming to the end of their summer season. It all comes to an end on 1st September and we are in the tail end of it. We head over to the Mark Twain River Boat. They have a few chairs on the lower deck and we choose to sit in the shade as the commentary starts in English but suddenly becomes Japanese. We are in no rush as we know the crowds will dissipate from Tuesday onwards.
RIVERBOAT


Our next attraction is Philharmagic. 20 minutes in totally cooled air-con. The whole show is in Japanese but is still funny. I always find it amazing that Donald flies over everybody’s heads at the end of the show but nobody turns around to see his feathery rear and legs sticking out of the hole in the wall until he goes “Oh! Oh!” and falls into the hole.
PHILHARMAGIC


Before the show began Darrin spotted out first Hidden Mickey. Look at the shape within the horn – it’s on a diagonal:
HORN HM


We seek out a spot for the afternoon parade. We find a shady spot outside the Elias Hotel (Walter ELIAS Disney) and this will become our preferred spot for all parades throughout the week. This is how it works. You put down a ground sheet up to one hour before the parade. (Any sooner and a CM will remove it.) It is your space. Nobody will infringe on it even if you go away. However, you sit on the mat not stand. Mats can be bought in the Disney shops if you don’t have one. We’ve brought our Waitrose picnic sheet with us. However, we have cocked our backsides on the boardwalk that sticks out beyond the Elias Hotel frontage. You can’t stand on the boardwalk itself as it is a walkway and a route of escape.
ELIAS HOTEL


Two rules. You are not allowed to raise an ipad, camera or video above the level of your eye nor may you put children on your shoulders. Kids are allowed to sit at the front of everybody. What a sensible bunch the Japanese are. The Parade is called “Happiness is here!” The floats are stunning and the character interaction with the crowds is really good. Even the dancers make a real effort to involve the crowds:
HAPPINESS IS HERE




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wow...looks amazing. Can't wait to read the rest

Great report, looking forward to reading more.

Oooh really enjoying this - can't wait to read and see more. So good about the parade rules!

Great read Geoff

This place looks amazing. Lovely trip report so far. X

It looks fabulous Geoff...loving the parade.

Fantastic start.

Loving your report. Didn't realise this park wasn't ran by Disney, how interesting... maybe that's why the tickets are so cheap Not sure about Main street appearance, but I guess its nice for it to be a little different to the rest and the roof is there for a reason. Looking forward to reading the rest

It looks amazing, familiar yet totally different. Great report and lovely photos.