Major Expansion Announced for Tokyo DisneySea

[Bowser]

I was there last week on Thursday. Had a great day, doing the following:

get there early. I arrived in the entrance queue around 730 and that was probably pushing my luck, since the queue moves miserably slowly and I only got in the park around 930. That was still early enough to load the app and get a standby pass for peter pan, a priority pass for whatever you want, and a premier pass for journey (all other fantasy springs passes where sold out already). after an hour or so you can get more premier passes, so I got one for tower (could have done soaring or toy story, but meh). They seem to release batches of premier passes randomly on the half-hour, so I kept checking throughout the day but eventually at 2:30 I noticed there were a bunch more fantasy springs ones on offer, so I just sat down and repeatedly refreshed the app until I actually got a frozen one I could buy---took about five minutes of refreshing.

So ultimately I didn't end up waiting in any standby lines for the big attractions (other than the transit steamer/sinbad, etc) and used priority+premier passes to never wait more than about 20 minutes all day. I only got the two (considered the better) FP rides---I actually never saw tangled premier passes come up for sale again. Personally I'd rank peter pan extremely high and frozen decently high. I just think the former is almost a perfect 'fantasyland' dark ride, with excellent theming and just a huge fun factor. Frozen is certainly beautiful and good but as a cohesive dark ride I found it a little more boring. Still worth the effort though

This seems like such a miserable way for a theme park to operate. I know Universal Osaka is similar having recently been, though nowhere near as bad as it's at least only Nintendo World that has this (plus you can either book in advance or generally get access later in the day unless it's especially busy).

Is there any way to visit DisneySea and not spend your day glued to a phone trying to get slots and arriving at absurdly early hours? Can you buy advance fast passes that cover most things?

 

[AidanCKY]

I was there last week on Thursday. Had a great day, doing the following:

get there early. I arrived in the entrance queue around 730 and that was probably pushing my luck, since the queue moves miserably slowly and I only got in the park around 930. That was still early enough to load the app and get a standby pass for peter pan, a priority pass for whatever you want, and a premier pass for journey (all other fantasy springs passes where sold out already). after an hour or so you can get more premier passes, so I got one for tower (could have done soaring or toy story, but meh). They seem to release batches of premier passes randomly on the half-hour, so I kept checking throughout the day but eventually at 2:30 I noticed there were a bunch more fantasy springs ones on offer, so I just sat down and repeatedly refreshed the app until I actually got a frozen one I could buy---took about five minutes of refreshing.

So ultimately I didn't end up waiting in any standby lines for the big attractions (other than the transit steamer/sinbad, etc) and used priority+premier passes to never wait more than about 20 minutes all day. I only got the two (considered the better) FP rides---I actually never saw tangled premier passes come up for sale again. Personally I'd rank peter pan extremely high and frozen decently high. I just think the former is almost a perfect 'fantasyland' dark ride, with excellent theming and just a huge fun factor. Frozen is certainly beautiful and good but as a cohesive dark ride I found it a little more boring. Still worth the effort though

Thank you so much, I'm visiting tomorrow! I didn't find the app stuff too bad at TDL the other day, the app is really badly designed but once figured out it was okay and managed to get on Beauty and the Beast a couple of times.

We have another full day at TDS as well so if I miss anything I can try again.

 

[cocoa]

This seems like such a miserable way for a theme park to operate. I know Universal Osaka is similar having recently been, though nowhere near as bad as it's at least only Nintendo World that has this (plus you can either book in advance or generally get access later in the day unless it's especially busy).

Is there any way to visit DisneySea and not spend your day glued to a phone trying to get slots and arriving at absurdly early hours? Can you buy advance fast passes that cover most things?

I was really dreading it, but actually, it was so much better than when I last came in 2019. Getting there early sucks, but those first couple hours in the park are enough to rack up all the passes you need to enjoy the rest of the day comfortably---there are three distinct pass kinds, and they all let you book a new one every hour, which feels very generous to me. It was easily my most relaxed day at disneysea ever---I left 1-2 hours between bookings and walked around areas, perused details, ate snacks, sat and enjoyed the ambience, rode the various filler rides, etc.

In reponse to your qs: afaik, there is no regular way to buy things in advance, and tbh it would only make the allocation system even more unfair. I think staying at the resorts does get you into the park early. You don't need to be glued to your phone at all---they only release new passes occasionally on the half hour as far as I could tell, so you just check the app once an hour to see how its doing. Getting there early is as bad as it sounds, but IMO, worth it for how chilled the rest of your day is as a result of it. I think of it like...pre-queueing for rides. I can either bring a picnic and do it at 730, or do it over and over again in 100+ minute lines in the afternoon sun/rain.

The last time I was there, the way it worked was that they would open the gates and then the crowd would SPRINT to the big rides, creating 1-2 hour lines just for the fastpass machines, so that if you didnt get there early and then run, you would never have a chance of even getting a fastpass for a major ride. Then the standby queues would be 2 hours all day anyway. So now you get there early, wander in at a casual pace, sit next to the fountain and book your passes. Its really so much better.

Of course this is predicated on you wanting to put in the effort to enjoy a disney park. If that doesn't float your boat, so be it, there's other easier parks in the world to enjoy. But nothing like disneysea anywhere.

 

[Bowser]

I was really dreading it, but actually, it was so much better than when I last came in 2019. Getting there early sucks, but those first couple hours in the park are enough to rack up all the passes you need to enjoy the rest of the day comfortably---there are three distinct pass kinds, and they all let you book a new one every hour, which feels very generous to me. It was easily my most relaxed day at disneysea ever---I left 1-2 hours between bookings and walked around areas, perused details, ate snacks, sat and enjoyed the ambience, rode the various filler rides, etc.

In reponse to your qs: afaik, there is no regular way to buy things in advance, and tbh it would only make the allocation system even more unfair. I think staying at the resorts does get you into the park early. You don't need to be glued to your phone at all---they only release new passes occasionally on the half hour as far as I could tell, so you just check the app once an hour to see how its doing. Getting there early is as bad as it sounds, but IMO, worth it for how chilled the rest of your day is as a result of it. I think of it like...pre-queueing for rides. I can either bring a picnic and do it at 730, or do it over and over again in 100+ minute lines in the afternoon sun/rain.

The last time I was there, the way it worked was that they would open the gates and then the crowd would SPRINT to the big rides, creating 1-2 hour lines just for the fastpass machines, so that if you didnt get there early and then run, you would never have a chance of even getting a fastpass for a major ride. Then the standby queues would be 2 hours all day anyway. So now you get there early, wander in at a casual pace, sit next to the fountain and book your passes. Its really so much better.

Of course this is predicated on you wanting to put in the effort to enjoy a disney park. If that doesn't float your boat, so be it, there's other easier parks in the world to enjoy. But nothing like disneysea anywhere.

So what happens if you arrive at say 10am? If the passes are released every 30 mins anyway what benefit does the early arrival get you beyond a first ride? Aren't you still competing with an increasing amount of people for slots as the day goes on?

What if you're in a group, is one person in charge and can book multiple slots?

It's so off-putting to me personally. The park looks wonderful but the design seems so flawed because ultimately they're prioritising customer numbers over experience. It's one of the main reasons why i found Efteling to be incredible. No fastpasses, just turn up and take the day at your leisure safe in the knowledge you're virtually guaranteed to get on every ride you want and this is a park with quality almost at the same level as Disney imo.

Tbh i prefer the paid Fast Pass systems as you can budget that in if it's a park you're probably only going to visit once in your life. Knowing you might not get on otherwise operating rides simply because of the nature of the booking system despite purchasing an entrance ticket feels more unfair than anything and preys on the uninformed. I don't think it's a reasonable expectation for all visitors to make that level of preparation.

Also i can't speak for the US but this sounds very much like the effort required to enjoy a Japanese Disney park specifically. It's certainly not representative of Disneyland Paris where outside of some peak days you're unlikely to be queuing more than 60 minutes for anything and typically a fair bit less (except Crush's Coaster lol).

 

[Trax]

So what happens if you arrive at say 10am? If the passes are released every 30 mins anyway what benefit does the early arrival get you beyond a first ride? Aren't you still competing with an increasing amount of people for slots as the day goes on?

What if you're in a group, is one person in charge and can book multiple slots?

It's so off-putting to me personally. The park looks wonderful but the design seems so flawed because ultimately they're prioritising customer numbers over experience. It's one of the main reasons why i found Efteling to be incredible. No fastpasses, just turn up and take the day at your leisure safe in the knowledge you're virtually guaranteed to get on every ride you want and this is a park with quality almost at the same level as Disney imo.

Tbh i prefer the paid Fast Pass systems as you can budget that in if it's a park you're probably only going to visit once in your life. Knowing you might not get on otherwise operating rides simply because of the nature of the booking system despite purchasing an entrance ticket feels more unfair than anything and preys on the uninformed. I don't think it's a reasonable expectation for all visitors to make that level of preparation.

Also i can't speak for the US but this sounds very much like the effort required to enjoy a Japanese Disney park specifically. It's certainly not representative of Disneyland Paris where outside of some peak days you're unlikely to be queuing more than 60 minutes for anything and typically a fair bit less (except Crush's Coaster lol).

It’s actually not as bad as it sounds. But being early is definitely an advantage. It makes way more sense to be there quite a bit before opening and leave earlier than vice versa. With that it mind the usually works out in your favour.

Tokyo Disney doesn’t need to prioritise visitor numbers. They are always full.

 

[Bowser]

Tokyo Disney doesn’t need to prioritise visitor numbers. They are always full.

That was my point. Some parks restrict capacity so the customer experience is better.

 

[cocoa]

So what happens if you arrive at say 10am? If the passes are released every 30 mins anyway what benefit does the early arrival get you beyond a first ride? Aren't you still competing with an increasing amount of people for slots as the day goes on?

What if you're in a group, is one person in charge and can book multiple slots?

It's so off-putting to me personally. The park looks wonderful but the design seems so flawed because ultimately they're prioritising customer numbers over experience. It's one of the main reasons why i found Efteling to be incredible. No fastpasses, just turn up and take the day at your leisure safe in the knowledge you're virtually guaranteed to get on every ride you want and this is a park with quality almost at the same level as Disney imo.

Tbh i prefer the paid Fast Pass systems as you can budget that in if it's a park you're probably only going to visit once in your life. Knowing you might not get on otherwise operating rides simply because of the nature of the booking system despite purchasing an entrance ticket feels more unfair than anything and preys on the uninformed. I don't think it's a reasonable expectation for all visitors to make that level of preparation.

Also i can't speak for the US but this sounds very much like the effort required to enjoy a Japanese Disney park specifically. It's certainly not representative of Disneyland Paris where outside of some peak days you're unlikely to be queuing more than 60 minutes for anything and typically a fair bit less (except Crush's Coaster lol).

I would say the premier and priority passes for the best rides (journey, indy, etc) started running out between 10-11. So you might be able to book one, maybe two if you're lucky. If you're in the park earlier you just have more opportunities to book more, and usually you can choose your time. I think I scheduled Journey at 5pm so I got some nice sunset vibes in the area. If you're in a group, it is very straightforward to link your tickets and one person can book for everyone.

I've been to Efteling, I adore it. I recommend anyone who's thinking of taking their kids to DLP to just go to efteling instead. But I promise you its not disneysea, there's no other way to explain it. that said, I would never convince anyone who doesn't want to go to disney, to go to disney. you could go to universal instead, where they allocate way more paid fastpasses than disney and make the parks practically unusable without them. or fly to cologne, germany and go to phantasialand, i guess. also a great park no doubt.

I actually think of all the disney parks, tokyo (and by that I mean oriental land company) is by far---probably by an order of magnitude---the best at prioritising guest experience. the tickets are firstly about half the price of eg disneyland tickets in anaheim, so even with 2-3 paid premier passes, you're still getting the cheapest day at the best disney parks. The food is like two orders of magnitude better than anywhere else, transport there is piss easy, everyone there is polite and well behaved (and waaaay less children than the other parks. Its become like a young person date spot weirdly in tokyo). the fact that its possible---if you just wake up earlier than normal---to have a smooth day at disney in the largest metropolitan area in the world is honestly astounding. imagine if 40+ million people lived within an hours subway ride of the orlando parks? for me personally, waking up two hours early was a small price to pay for a relaxing day afterward.

 

[AidanCKY]

I would say the premier and priority passes for the best rides (journey, indy, etc) started running out between 10-11. So you might be able to book one, maybe two if you're lucky. If you're in the park earlier you just have more opportunities to book more, and usually you can choose your time. I think I scheduled Journey at 5pm so I got some nice sunset vibes in the area. If you're in a group, it is very straightforward to link your tickets and one person can book for everyone.

I've been to Efteling, I adore it. I recommend anyone who's thinking of taking their kids to DLP to just go to efteling instead. But I promise you its not disneysea, there's no other way to explain it. that said, I would never convince anyone who doesn't want to go to disney, to go to disney. you could go to universal instead, where they allocate way more paid fastpasses than disney and make the parks practically unusable without them. or fly to cologne, germany and go to phantasialand, i guess. also a great park no doubt.

I actually think of all the disney parks, tokyo (and by that I mean oriental land company) is by far---probably by an order of magnitude---the best at prioritising guest experience. the tickets are firstly about half the price of eg disneyland tickets in anaheim, so even with 2-3 paid premier passes, you're still getting the cheapest day at the best disney parks. The food is like two orders of magnitude better than anywhere else, transport there is piss easy, everyone there is polite and well behaved (and waaaay less children than the other parks. Its become like a young person date spot weirdly in tokyo). the fact that its possible---if you just wake up earlier than normal---to have a smooth day at disney in the largest metropolitan area in the world is honestly astounding. imagine if 40+ million people lived within an hours subway ride of the orlando parks? for me personally, waking up two hours early was a small price to pay for a relaxing day afterward.

I agree about DisneySea after visiting again this week. But I disagree about universal. Only needed Express for the Nintendo stuff.

The rest of the rides often had a 20 - 40 min queue. That's this time of year of course.

 

[Bowser]

I would say the premier and priority passes for the best rides (journey, indy, etc) started running out between 10-11. So you might be able to book one, maybe two if you're lucky. If you're in the park earlier you just have more opportunities to book more, and usually you can choose your time. I think I scheduled Journey at 5pm so I got some nice sunset vibes in the area. If you're in a group, it is very straightforward to link your tickets and one person can book for everyone.

I still don't fully understand how this system works tbh.

You mentioned earlier how slots were released every 30 or 60 minutes. So based on that how would they run out between 10-11?

Conversely you said you can pick your time which contradicts with slots being released gradually?

Looking it up it seems that:

Priority Pass is free but with a limited selection of rides and slots every 2 hours. You cannot pick the time, hence why these tend to all get allocated as soon as people enter the park.

Premier Access is paid and covers the more popular attractions. This seems like the one where you can pick a time and you can only buy one ride every 60 minutes. This is where the frequent phone refreshing element comes in i believe (combined with Priority).

And on top of this you have Fantasy Springs which is another system in itself.

Does that all sound correct?

I still think you're taking for granted how much organisation and preparation is involved compared to basically any other theme park in the world. I imagine a lot of people, particularly international visitors will get caught out and end up having a terrible day at the park as a result either queueing for multiple hours at a time or completely unable to access certain areas, especially with the language barrier. Personally i think that's an inherently flawed way to run a theme park, regardless of the quality of the rides, food and theming.

I have similar feelings for Universal Osaka and have no doubt that had i not visited with Japanese friends my day would have been much poorer.

 

[Geeky Pastimes]

This seems like such a miserable way for a theme park to operate. I know Universal Osaka is similar having recently been, though nowhere near as bad as it's at least only Nintendo World that has this (plus you can either book in advance or generally get access later in the day unless it's especially busy).

Is there any way to visit DisneySea and not spend your day glued to a phone trying to get slots and arriving at absurdly early hours? Can you buy advance fast passes that cover most things?

Staying in the hotel is definitely much easier if you're planning to spend whole days in the park, like if it's your first time. You get in a little bit earlier (and completely skip the giant queues), can book your fast passes as soon as you're in the gate (when we went earlier in the year we got a few free ones including the ones for the soft opening of Fantasy Springs) and then the rest of the day you can just do what you want. Some rides get bigger queues, but nothing outrageous compared to any of the other Disney Resorts.

If you're not staying at the resort you can just buy an evening ticket, that's what we're doing in February when we go back. You get cheap tickets that let you in about 5pm, by then a lot of the queues have died down and you've got a few hours to do what you want in the park. When we did this for one day this year we easily got a Beauty and the Beast fastpass, which is probably the most 'in demand' one in Tokyo Disneyland.

Because the park is so easy to get to from central Tokyo (there's a metro line running to it that doesn't take long from Tokyo Station) we'll probably spend some time in the day exploring things in Tokyo, then go to the parks over a couple of evenings.

I think Universal Japan was much worse for things like that, there fast passes are a bit of a nightmare and the queues for rides get really out of hand. If you're happy enough exploring the park, trying food and just wandering around, it's a fantastic place, but if you were time pressured to get every ride done, I think you'd struggle.

 

[Bowser]

Staying in the hotel is definitely much easier if you're planning to spend whole days in the park, like if it's your first time. You get in a little bit earlier (and completely skip the giant queues), can book your fast passes as soon as you're in the gate (when we went earlier in the year we got a few free ones including the ones for the soft opening of Fantasy Springs) and then the rest of the day you can just do what you want. Some rides get bigger queues, but nothing outrageous compared to any of the other Disney Resorts.

If you're not staying at the resort you can just buy an evening ticket, that's what we're doing in February when we go back. You get cheap tickets that let you in about 5pm, by then a lot of the queues have died down and you've got a few hours to do what you want in the park. When we did this for one day this year we easily got a Beauty and the Beast fastpass, which is probably the most 'in demand' one in Tokyo Disneyland.

Because the park is so easy to get to from central Tokyo (there's a metro line running to it that doesn't take long from Tokyo Station) we'll probably spend some time in the day exploring things in Tokyo, then go to the parks over a couple of evenings.

I think Universal Japan was much worse for things like that, there fast passes are a bit of a nightmare and the queues for rides get really out of hand. If you're happy enough exploring the park, trying food and just wandering around, it's a fantastic place, but if you were time pressured to get every ride done, I think you'd struggle.

Good tips, thanks!

Yeah i had one day at Universal so bought the 7 ride FastPass which definitely paid off as there was a thunderstorm and the entire park closed for several hours. Much less stressful though as knew in advance i could get on all the main things i wanted to and just wander round at our leisure for the most part.

 

[cocoa]

I would not say my experience is that queues die down past 5pm. all of the major attractions were still pushing 120+ min queues well into the evening, on a rainy thursday in november. maybe if you just want to walk around and ride the transit steamer you could be okay. disneyland is usually much better because there's just so many more rides there, its a bit more doable than disneysea this way

anyway i said my piece enough times here, i feel like we're just going in circles. sometimes i forget that its impossible for thoosies to actually enjoy or appreciate theme parks