Choosing between DisneySea or Disneyland

During my first full day in Tokyo, we visited the Tokyo Disney Resort. I have been to Disneyland several times, but Tokyo’s DisneySea was foreign to me. Although I had originally intended on buying a two day passport for ¥10,000 so we could visit both parks (Sea and Land) and save some money, I didn’t think we would have the time to visit for more than a day so I opted for the one day passports (¥5,800) instead. Unfortunately, (fortunately? haha!) we ended up coming back two days later, so I actually lost out on some pretty nice savings.

Advice: If you haven’t been to Tokyo Disney Resort, opt for the two day passport for both parks. One passport is good for Disneyland and the other for DisneySea. You may only visit one park per day, but its well worth the pricing if your considering visiting both parks at some point during your stay. I should have just went ahead and purchased the 2 day instead of hesitating on it. Even if you have visited the Magic Kingdom before, it never hurts to visit again!

If you can’t spend more than a single day there, here are my recommendations. Disney Resort caters to people of all ages, but DisneySea is much more of an adult oriented theme park than Disneyland is. If your on a honeymoon or are taking a vacation just as a couple, DisneySea is the way to go. If your going as a family with small children, Disneyland is the clear choice. We walked through Toontown and Fantasyland and I felt like a child again! Everything in those two theme lands cater to young children.

Getting There:

When you arrive at the park using Tokyo’s very efficient public transportation (JR and Metro), you’ll arrive via the JR Maihama Station (South Exit). After entering, you have the option to either take a right or a left. The left of the resort leads you to a theater and also to DisneySea. Taking a right takes you on a fairly lengthy walk to Disneyland. Keep in mind that if you decide to visit DisneySea, you’ll have to ride Disney’s private railway to get there. The railway system is not free and will set you back an additional ¥500 each for a round trip. I believe there is a one day pass as well if you decide to leave the resort and return later in the day. Here is additional information on getting to the park.

Best Time to Go:

We made sure to visit each park only during the weekday to avoid the huge crowds so that alone saved us alot of time. We didn’t have any problems with the wait, and every major attraction took less than 10 minutes to get on. If your only opportunity is during a weekend or Japanese holiday I suggest you read up on their fastpass option. I’ve heard that it does save alot of time. The only real issue we had was the weather during the month that we decided to travel. It was basically a hit or miss type of game and during our 10 day stay in Tokyo starting from the end of June into the second week of July, it was overcast and drizzled almost everyday. The absolute worst time to travel to any amusement park in Japan from what I was told is during summer break for Japan’s students which begin Mid-July, so we took our chances leaving during the peak of Japan’s rainy season, but it turned out to be a blessing in the end.

Mapping out your Routes:

I highly recommend that when you first get to the parks that you spend some time mapping out your routes with the maps they provide. At DisneySea we totally exhausted ourselves because we just jumped on the first attractions we saw and realized much later in the day that we missed some featured attractions located on the opposite end of the park. We made sure we didn’t make the same mistake on our second outing and it definitely saved us time from waiting in long lines and from wearing down our feet.

Overall I enjoyed my experience at both DisneySea and Disneyland. Both had something to offer to people of all ages, but Disneyland was definitely more “children” oriented. My only complaint was that most of the shows and commentary were in Japanese. You can’t really complain since the park was built for Japan, but if your taking young children to the park primarily for the shows, I’m not certain if they would enjoy themselves. Several of the shows had English translation devices, but it was pretty difficult to enjoy the performances when you are trying to read the translations at the same time. If your looking for the full Disney experience for your children and only speak English, I’d definitely recommend going to Disneyland in Anaheim or Disney World’s Epcot Center in Florida.