Tokyo Disney Part 2

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Where was I? Oh yes, time for lunch I think. It was now gone past 12pm and we ha only had a light breakfast at the hotel as we thought we would eat when we got to the park. Well that plan didn’t work as we got slightly distracted by the rides, which is fair enough excuse. We had a look at the Alice in Wonderland themed restaurant that was in fantasyland, but there was nothing on the menu that really appealed to any of us. So off we went in search of some grub. To get out of fantasyland we had to go past the Haunted Mansion! 😞 which was shut! WAH not fair at all! How dare they shut it! Did they not know that we were coming? Shame on them! Well complaining wasn’t going to reopen it, so I guess that means that I will have to come back out to Japan. As we had entered into Fantasyland we had stopped off in the shop at Pooh’s Corner to see if they sold any gloves (remember I had forgotten to bring them for myself and HB - what a bad nanny I am). No such luck. They only sold gloves that were Mickey Mouse hands. I think not. They did tell us that there was a shop in Westernland (that is Frontierland to everyone else) that sold them. Of course there is. So after looking longingly at the beloved HM we headed into Westernland. Perfect timing - it had just started to rain. Wonderful. Cold and wet. I could have stayed in England for this sort of weather. We found our shop, but this was not just any shop, oh no! This was a shop that did photos that you could get dressed up for. Well, it would have been silly to say no. Yup, we all got dressed up and had our photos taken. It was like we had just walked out of the Wild West! It was great. We even had a little audience watching us as we had our photos taken. F was a little annoyed when they gave him a small gun, but that frown was soon turned upside down when they gave him a rifle instead. Instead of getting just a pair of gloves we got a totally unnecessary photo as well.

That was one task down, but we still hadn’t managed to find any food yet. Our wondering took us to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, we considered riding it, but the line was 45 mins, so we got fps for later. F’s ability to smell out food came into its own here, and his nose lead us to a Turkey leg stand. You can smell these things from a mile away. Although the smell wasn’t as bad as the ones that you can get in Disney World. Nor are they as big, the Turkeys in Japan are obviously aren’t as big as the ones in America. HB and I opted not to have one, we decided to go back to World Bazaar and have a very traditional Disney park lunch of hot dogs and French fries -yum. See I make sure that the children in my care get nutritional food and are kept warm on cold days.

We had a little time before the parade, so we thought that we could squeeze one more ride in. They have a Monsters Inc ride here! It is along the lines of the Snow White/ Peter Pan type rides (not a roller coaster of the doors unfortunately). The queue for this was an hour and all the fastpasses had been used up for the day, so this ride was out of the question for the moment. Just around the corner was Star Tours which only had a 5 min wait! Hurray! A short wait for something. F was over the moon, this was his favourite ride. HB wasn’t so sure about this ride, I gave her the same piece of advice that I was given by my mum ‘just shut your eyes and pretend that you are going down a bumpy road’. Well, she didn’t shut her eyes, but she was a little confused to what is going on. It was very strange listening to all the characters talk in Japanese after hearing it in English so many times before. There was now only 15 minutes before the parade, and it was still drizzling. The pavement outside World Bazaar was completely empty, so we could have picked seats there, but that would have meant a longer wait in the rain for the parade to come past. I took the executive decision to find a spot near to the start of the parade route. Seems that everyone else had this same idea as well. We found a brilliant spot just by the start, but we weren’t allowed to stand there, humph, so we sat there instead. The CMs didn’t like that so they tried to get us to move. This is where they made a big mistake. They told us to move in Japanese - I don’t speak Japanese - so we didn’t understand them, so we stayed were we where. They eventually gave up and left us alone. Score 1 for us.

There was a little doubt whether the parade would actually take place as it was now beginning to rain quite hard. It did take place - all the characters and performers just wore ponchos! How intelligent of them. They probably would have cancelled it in Disney World. The parade was very good. I read somewhere that Tokyo Disneyland Resort is owned by one company instead of having lots of owners. Therefore all the money goes back into the park, which keeps everything up to date, clean and fresh. Each time they have a new parade they get new floats, they don’t reuse like other parks do. This park is truly incredible. Disney has always been famed for putting so much detail into every small little thing. The parks in America are great, but their detailing is NOTHING compared to this park. This one is extraordinary. No stone has been left untouched. Not only that but this park is spotless, really spotless. The park opened in ’83 I believe and it looks like it has only been open a year or so. If you ever get the chance to go to Japan, don’t miss the opportunity to go here. Anyway, back to the parade. It was very good, the music was great, the floats and decorations were fab, but somehow it was missing that little oomph. I asked HB what she thought of it and her answer was ‘I really like it, it was cool (everything is good or cool in her books), but I liked the one in Hong Kong better’. Out of the mouths of babes the truth will come, or whatever the saying is.

It was a good decision to watch it from the beginning and not half way round the parade route, because by the time it had finished with us it was pouring down. We had no ponchos or umbrellas, and it was cold. Quickly into a covered ride. This would have been the perfect time to go on Haunted Mansion or Pirates or the Caribbean, pity they were both closed. We did the next best thing, we went on Peter Pan. Nothing like flying over the streets of London to brighten your day, from there it was onto Snow White’s Adventures. F didn’t understand why there was a sign that said small children may be frightened. He did once we got of the ride. If you have ever been on this ride in one of the other parks, you can understand what I am talking about. For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, let me tell you. This ride focuses on the witch from the Movie. Snow White is in the ride a grand total of once, and that is when she is climbing the stairs to find the bedroom. HB, who had taken SM and Star Tours in her stride, almost broke down on this ride. Especially when the ride stopped and stayed in the place where the evil witch tries to tip a boulder on us. Poor HB she really didn’t understand why a ride for Snow White wouldn’t have Snow White on it.

We needed to cheer up HB quickly, she was in shock. Scary monsters from Monsters Inc should do the trick! Nope, line is too big. We headed from there into World Bazaar to see what was going on in there, and maybe find out if any characters would be coming out. HA! The Disney Gods were smiling at us. Who should be out but our favourite Princess and her Prince. That is right, Princess Aurora and Prince Phillip were out. YAY. The problem was how to get to them, they was a rather large crowd gathered. Hmmmmm, light bulb moment. We pushed through. No one can resist the cuteness of HB. It worked. We edged and pushed our way into the inner circle and voila they spotted us. It can only help when you are the only white people around. The face characters always seemed very happy to see other western looking people. So instead of having to wait a long time and run the risk of not seeing them, we got to see them in minute. They were truly wonderful; they spent ages talking to us despite there being swamped with people. That certainly resorted HB to her happy self. Although for the first 10-15 mins or so she couldn’t actually string two words together.

Our fastpasses for Thunder Mountain had come round so of us happy three went. Looking incredibly smug we bypassed the 60 min line. Hahahaha. HB rode it, but didn’t like it as much as SM. Mainly because she could see were we were going and what was happening. She did insist that she enjoyed it, but wouldn’t ride it again today. Bless her. We had time for just one more ride before we had to start on our way home. I am not sure why, but we choose to do Rodger Rabbit’s Toon Town Spin in Japanese. No idea what was being said. The wait was rather fun as there were lots of gags around.

Then it was time to say goodbye to this happy and very wet land. It was tipping it down, and we got soaked on our run to the taxi stand. I would have loved to have stayed longer to see the fireworks, but we couldn’t. Mr and Mrs G and F had dinner reservations at a certain time so I needed to get them back. I was so proud of them; they were both so great today.

Well that was me done for the day, and tomorrow I have the day off!

To be continued...

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Photos

The Wild West
Hehehehe, not that I had fun doing that or anything

Cinderella's Castle Again
From a side view

World Bazaar
See how it is covered!

1st float
see how pretty they are.

Cwock finds his mummy
awwwww

The Haunted Mansion
sigh

Tokyo's big band
they were pretty good actually - although not surprising seeing as some of the best musicians come from Japan

On Thunder Mountain
Not sure if that is a scared face or not.

A closed Splash Mountain
not that I would go on a water ride in this weather.

Critter Country
Cwock is in there somewhere

Did I do that?
No Cwock that is a little too rabbit shaped for you.

A new hiding place
HB never noticed.

home at last
All cozy in my bed - well till the photo is taken then she had to get out of it.