Limited Time in Disneyland

[Kyjin]

Since I'm in Japan over Thanksgiving this year, I thought it would be fun to do something special to celebrate the holiday. Why not go to Disney? Even better, two of my friends are in town, and I have another local friend who decided to join us. The weather, however, is really not cooperating. (High of 39 and raining all day on Thursday.) We decided to switch to Friday instead, going to Tokyo Disneyland. However, I just found out tonight that the park closes early (6:30PM) instead of usual hours like we planned. Talking with the group, we decided to still go to Disneyland on Friday. (Disney Sea is also open with regular hours, but more people want to do Disneyland.)

Here's my question: what advice do you have for a group with limited time in the park? Our current plan is to get there an hour before park opening, perhaps get an early lunch if we're hungry (or survive on snacks through the day), then get a big "Thanksgiving" dinner in Ikaspri after park close. (Also do most of our shopping in Ikaspri after park close, unless there are must have items only available in the park.) Any other strategies/advice you can offer?

A little about the group:
-2 locals (Japanese and American), 2 out-of-towners (American and Australian)
-3 of us are fluent in Japanese
-General consensus is rides are priority
-2 of us have been to the park before, and we're the most Disney obsessed of the group

Thanks for any advice!

 

[ko4211]

Probably it's closing early due to a private party at Disneyland. If that's the case, you should be able to purchase a special ticket called 'Extra Fan Passport' for 2000 yen and you can go to Disney Sea from 3 pm to its closing time. When it closes early, it's usually less crowded in park, so I think you will have great time there and if you could buy the Extra Fan Passport, you could enjoy both parks in one day!

 

[Kyjin]

Huh, I've never heard of that before. Do you know how we would go about purchasing those? (I assume it would be within the park that day?)

 

[ko4211]

You can get it at the park entrance. In this case, you need to go to Disney Sea to buy it, but usually casts are telling visitors that they can buy the fan pass at other park when they are closing early. You can ask them. I'm sure they are happy to assist you

 

[Kyjin]

Just wanted to update anyone reading this thread: going on days when the park closes early is great. My group got there just at park opening, and ended up staying till 6. (Went to a very nice dinner at Ikaspiari before all the crowds got out.) Only needed fastpasses for Monsters Inc and Pooh (and scored a second ride of Pooh with no wait when we happened to walk by right when it reopened after going down for a bit!). Space Mountain and Star Tours were walk-ons, and our longest wait of the day ended up being 15 minutes for the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall. The Extra Fan Passport seems like a great deal though; we were given coupons with info about that when we entered the park. You're required to present that coupon and your Disneyland ticket to Disney Sea in order to purchase that. Since we really did get to accomplish everything in Disneyland, we decided we were good without fighting the crowds at DS.