All the Time, Suzie, Queue

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It had to be done. We weren't really sure if it was for us these days, but how would we know if we didn't try it? We'd seen the old one, a long time ago, but now there's a new one. Is it better? Or is it the same, and we're old, so it's the same old, same old?

Today we went to Tokyo Disneyland. Except not Disneyland, exactly, but its newer, younger more up-to-date version, Tokyo Disneysea. Built in the same general area, and these days surrounded by Disney Resorts and Hotels. As I have mentioned, until yesterday it has been a summer holiday period for many businesses here, but today was back to normal - although it's still summer holidays for schools. And I suppose there could have been more than a few people taking leave for another two days to get a good long break for their holiday, as the Japanese government seems quite keen for their citizens not to die through overwork any more. So although Disneyland sea may not have been as crowded as it was earlier this week, it was still a shock to see quite so many people, and to have to queue quite so long for quite so much.

It opens at 8.30am, and obviously we weren't going to bother to aim for that, so we just left when we left, and got there when we got there, which was about 10.15 We hadn't looked terribly hard at what attractions had what kinds of rides, and we're not terribly familiar with a lot of the Disney movies from recent years, so we just followed the crowds to start with. We found ourselves in Mysterious Mountain, a Jules Verne-themed area, and joined a queue that was moving quite briskly. We were funnelled towards some ticket machines, which gave us two tickets labelled 19.20-20.20. We had to ask what these were for, and were told that they were Fast Pass Tickets, for use on the Journey to the Centre of the Earth ride, between the times printed. We snorted, because there was no way we'd be staying that long. We asked how long to would take to queue for the ride now, and were told 2 hours. Nah, we don't need it that much.

We went outside and found a queue that was only 40 minutes long. This was for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. As we were queuing, we saw people striding past our line, heading for the Fast Pass entrance. Ah. Now we saw how the system worked. You get your Fast Pass, skip the queues, and have a wonderful day. Wish we'd known. We did the ride (40 minutes later) and it was okay, but a bit lame. Their animatronics technology hasn't come on that much in the last 30 years. Just a few creatures popping up suddenly with brightly lit eyes, a big whale, giant octopus, but they were more like clockwork than electronics.

We came out and looked for a ride to get another Fast Pass for. We chose an Indiana Jones ride and went to the ticket machines there, but it turned out that we were unable to get another Fast Pass until 12.35. This is their way of limiting the people with a Fast Pass ticket - you can only get another one after two hours. The one we got for the earlier ride was for the hour between 7.20 and 8.20pm, and I would guess that for every 5-minute increment they might allow 20-50 tickets; but by now, all the Fast Passes were only showing availability for after 9pm. So we changed our mind about that. We definitely wouldn't be staying that long. But it was already lunchtime, so maybe 7.20 wouldn't seem so late after all.

But now there were queues everywhere. Every little snack cart on the street had a queue. All the restaurants had queues. Even the merchandise shops had queues. But we had to eat, so we picked a restaurant whose menu looked okay, and joined the queue. We were told it would be an hour. But, hah! We won! Because from joining the queue to sitting down with our meals was only 50 minutes! We tried to eat slowly, and we tried to sit quietly for a bit after lunch to make the time last longer, but we finally moved on.

At an earlier ride I had heard a little kid ahead of us in the line, who seemed to be getting queuing information on his phone and telling his dad all about it. So I surmised there was an app, and I found one and downloaded it while we were waiting for lunch. Now we were able to see what had the shortest queues without traipsing all over the park on the off-chance. A 7-minute steamer cruise was only a 5-minute wait, but when we got there we were told it was closed, as they were preparing the harbour for a pirate fight display. The cruise would be back at 3.30. In the meantime a choreographed Get Wet ride on computerised bumper boats was only 30 minutes away, so we waited for that. The ride itself was about a minute and a half. When the cruise reopened it was now a 10 minute wait. But we waited.

Given our lunchtime experience, it seemed sensible to have dinner before the rush, so at 5 we started queuing for our evening meal. The restaurants are pretty efficient - they all offer only 3-5 mains, so there's no mucking around. You order before you even get to the front of the queue, they take your money, you keep shuffling forward, and there's only a short wait at the counter while they assemble all your bits and pieces. It's not quite fast food, but it is Hello-Kitty assembly line food - everything perfect, everything identical.

We made it to 7.20, with another ride after dinner: again, 30 minutes' wait for a 1-minute ride, on whirling cups this time, and then we waited outside the entrance of our Fast Pass ride for 10 minutes until our tickets became valid, then presented them to the ticket checker, who looked surprised, and told us we were at the wrong place. Sure enough, for some reason we had both mis-remembered the morning's events. We though we had Fast Pass tickets for the Indiana Jones ride, but that was the one that would have been far too late, so we never got those tickets. Now we had to make our way back to Jules Verne's Mysterious Mountain, and take a Journey to the Centre of the Earth. We found the Fast Pass entrance, but made a quick check before we went in... Yes - the real queue was still 150 minutes long!!! It was worth it after all! Having watched people walk so casually past us in other queues, I really wanted to know how it felt to do that. There was still a bit of a line even in the Fast Pass system, so I didn't feel too hated by the people in the long queue, but I felt that I'd served my time in queues already today, now I was allowed a bit of luxury. When we go on, it turned out that this ride was not lame: the second half was a proper roller coaster, and quite scary - part of it in pitch dark with an almost vertical drop and a lot of speed. Some screaming may have occurred. And when we got off, it was 8 minutes since we had arrived at the start of the line.

It was now just before 8 pm. There have been some booming sounds audible from the flat some nights at around this time, and I had wondered if it may have been fireworks from Disneyland, so I was interested to see what might happen. There was indeed something due to start in the main harbour at 8, but all the good vantage points had been taken. As the show started we found a spot where we could see between people for some of the goings-on, but after a few minutes it became apparent that it would be better if you were already familiar with the movies, the characters and the songs, and since we weren't, we decided to make a move before the other tens of thousands of people headed en masse for the station. As it was, we only followed a crowd of a few hundred who were leaving before the end.

I have recently read, and Stephen is currently reading, "No Logos" by Naomi Klein, and it has turned us off Disney (and quite a few other corporations) quite a bit. They were one of the first companies to contract out the manufacture of their merchandising, thereby absolving themselves of the responsibility to care for the workers - now all in third world countries - who make their stuff. I have to admit that we went to the site today with a less than positive attitude, and we remained somewhat cynical throughout the day. I did look in a couple of the gift shops, and I thought it was possible I might succumb, but there was nothing I wanted for myself or as a gift, and I'm quite proud to say that we came away without any shopping bags at all. We were the only ones on the return train unburdened.

Home at about 9.15 - just less than 12 hours out. Sore feet, worn-out shoes: cup of tea and a bath. I think it will be a good sleep tonight. Good night!

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Photos

Tokyo Disneysea
First glimpse of the main harbour

Tokyo Disneysea
The first 5 minutes of a 40 minute queue. Jules Verne's contraption for burrowing to the centre of the Earth can be seen above.

Tokyo Disneysea
Look! It's not raining!

Tokyo Disneysea
Not a queue, just a Tokyo Diseneysea of people.

Tokyo Disneysea
Actually a pretty cool effect of water on fire

Tokyo Disneysea
Okay, it looks pretty by night