Trip Report - Universal Studios Japan and Tokyo Disney November 2013

[zanzibar138]

Yay loving the updates so far

I was just trying to remember if Mickey's Philharmagic in HK was in English or Cantonese. I have no idea And I've only seen it there... 3 times...

I hate that nightly shutdown too, it's such an inconvenient time for us

 

[PrincessInOz]

I've only seen Philharmagic at WDW....a number of times. I don't know why we didn't go check it out in HKDL.


Loving the updates.
And yes....you chickened out on Splash!

 

[FireflyFi]

So Critter Country sorta sits in a corner by itself. You can't walk through it to another area of the park, so there's a little backtracking along the edge of the lake.

I thought this was just adorable!

You have to walk up a few little steps to get to the well, and then as I was walking back down I noticed these little details:

Little critter footprints!

And then there's also this. I'm not sure if you can see it too well, but there's an animal on each side of the popcorn maker on the left hand side, spinning the popcorn:

It looks like I continued going around the park in an anti clockwise direction, as the next photo I have is for BTM. I do remember coming to this ride after PHH and trying to get a FP, and it wouldn't let me because my time hadn't opened up again. I was a bit miffed at that. I don't remember the exact details, but I remember thinking I got the raw end of the stick in terms of the FP rules when I picked up the PHH FP so early. Anyway, I love BTM and was desperate to ride it, so I jumped in the queue, which was at about 30 or 40 minutes.

I didn't mind waiting. Have I mentioned this before? I can't remember. But I brought my Nintendo 3DSXL with me for the trip, and carried it just about everywhere. If you're not familiar, this system has the capability to exchange data with other systems that are nearby. It's called Street Pass. So if someone else is carrying one, you can swap puzzle pieces and collect their characters for games, etc. So any time I was in a queue, I would just whip out the 3DS and clear out my Street Passes. You can only hold 10 people at a time, so you need to clear it out regularly if there are a lot of people in proximity with the system. And that was pretty much all the time in Japan! I think I picked up about 500 people while I was there. And actually had some good interaction with other kids playing, even across the language barrier. So yeah, if you are looking for ways to kill the boredom when in a queue, bring a 3DS with you! And buy the Street Pass games.

Ok, so there is a bit of a climb up to the entrance of BTM, and it gives a nice view back over Westernland:

And then by the time I emptied Street Pass, and then emptied again for the people I had picked up while just standing in the queue, I was at the front of the line. I do remember having to quickly stash the system in my bag before jumping in the car.

And BTM at TDL was just as fun as I remember the WDW version being....wheeeeeeee!

After getting off the ride, actually I remember getting a bit lost. Trying to find a toilet and then sorta going in circles because the entrances and exits were a bit of a maze. By the time I got back out on the streets to Westernland, people were lining up along the kerb. That could only mean one thing! According to the park schedule I kept, this means it must be about 10:40

It never snows where I live, so I'm probably a bit ignorant, but I would have thought you would at least need clouds haha

Ahh, here's Chip (or is it Dale's?) girlfriend. I don't like most of the characters girlfriends, but this one seemed particularly...trampy...

These things were hilarious! This bridge that they're going over is made from wood, so as they went over, they would shake from the wheels bumping on the wood panels. Vibrating Christmas trees!

 

[PrincessInOz]

That's not snow.....that's pixie dust. It doesn't need clouds.

You picked up 500 people??? That reads and sounds so wrong on so many levels.
My DS is going to freak when he finds out how many people you can pick up on Street Pass.

Love the Disney details.

 

[Fairy Floss]

Yay loving the updates so far I was just trying to remember if Mickey's Philharmagic in HK was in English or Cantonese. I have no idea And I've only seen it there... 3 times... I hate that nightly shutdown too, it's such an inconvenient time for us

At HKDL, we saw it in English

 

[FireflyFi]

ohhhhh no....when I write this I have Photobucket in one window and DIS in another, and I alt tab between them as I'm pasting in photo links...I somehow lost my alt tab rhythm and ended up losing the next post, that i was three quarters of the way through...


this might have to wait until tomorrow...

 

[zanzibar138]

Oh I HATE when that happens! It's ok, we can wait until tomorrow

The layout of Critter Country and Westernland reminds me very much of DLR.

I'm with PIO, you picked up 500 people?

Thanks Fairy Floss! I had a feeling if it hadn't been English I would have remembered

 

[FireflyFi]

Yay loving the updates so far

I was just trying to remember if Mickey's Philharmagic in HK was in English or Cantonese. I have no idea And I've only seen it there... 3 times...

I hate that nightly shutdown too, it's such an inconvenient time for us

On the days I'm not sick at home, I'm usually on the train when the nightly DIS shutdown kicks in. That was always my prime DIS catch up time. Now it eats into my precious TV on the couch time

I've only seen Philharmagic at WDW....a number of times. I don't know why we didn't go check it out in HKDL.


Loving the updates.
And yes....you chickened out on Splash!

I knowwwww...and it's the only ride in TDL with single rider (I'm pretty sure). I could have walked straight on if I had the guts. Oh, just wait until you hear the extent of my chickendom in the next few posts...

That's not snow.....that's pixie dust. It doesn't need clouds.

You picked up 500 people??? That reads and sounds so wrong on so many levels.
My DS is going to freak when he finds out how many people you can pick up on Street Pass.

Love the Disney details.

Hahaha, yep picked up 500 people I think you can store up to 1000 people before they start recycling? Don't quote me on that. I think I've reached that point. I picked up about 400 while at PAX, so make sure you take your 3DS to that And if you haven't bought the games, they're actually pretty good, but only if you're picking up a lot of people. Not so much fun just around Melbourne.

And pixie dust, eh? I don't remember floating after it fell on me...? Maybe if I had have clapped my hands, or tapped my heels or whatever it is you need to do to activate the stuff

 

[FireflyFi]

Oh I HATE when that happens! It's ok, we can wait until tomorrow

The layout of Critter Country and Westernland reminds me very much of DLR.

I'm with PIO, you picked up 500 people?

Thanks Fairy Floss! I had a feeling if it hadn't been English I would have remembered

Oh good, so if I make it to DLR next year, it should feel at least a little familiar!

haha, yep. You just have to walk through a train station, and bam! Ten new people picked up. It was really handy to have while travelling alone, because it gave me something fun to do while eating out or catching trains. I didn't feel so bored. Also when having some down time in the hotel room, as none of the TV channels are in English.

And you probably wouldn't have seen it three times if it wasn't in English...right? Then again, maybe not.

 

[zanzibar138]

And pixie dust, eh? I don't remember floating after it fell on me...? Maybe if I had have clapped my hands, or tapped my heels or whatever it is you need to do to activate the stuff

Think of the happiest things... it's the same as having wings

All it takes is faith and trust!

 

[PrincessInOz]

Hahaha, yep picked up 500 people I think you can store up to 1000 people before they start recycling? Don't quote me on that. I think I've reached that point. I picked up about 400 while at PAX, so make sure you take your 3DS to that And if you haven't bought the games, they're actually pretty good, but only if you're picking up a lot of people. Not so much fun just around Melbourne.

I don't do street pass. DS does. I showed him your post last night and he said that he got about 1000 people at PAX last year. I'll have to ask him if he's noticed that capacity/recycling mark.

 

[FireflyFi]

Attempt number three at this post...

Continuing the photos of the parade:

These were adorable. Is one of the reindeers pinching the other's nose??

These guys finished the parade, and as they got to the start of the bridge, they all stood in line and bowed to the crowd.

After the parade passed, I crossed back to the right side of the park to see if there were any Monsters Inc fast passes left. Surprise!

Yep, that would be a fastpass for the last 25 minutes of park opening. Oh well! It meant I could knock over the two big rides in one go.

So now I really had to move to get back up to PHH and hand in my fastpass. The problem was, I was following the parade around the park, and the closer I was getting, the more crowded the park was becoming. I got to a point where the parade just about finished, and the crowd become so thick, I couldn't really move. I heard a CM announcing something to the crowd, but I didn't know what she was saying. I should have guessed, given the reaction of most people was to look at the CM, listen, and then turn and walk in the opposite direction. But no. I had a date with Pooh that couldn't wait! So I pressed on.

Given the density of the crowd, I couldn't really see where I was going, I just knew I had to stick to a general direction. So powering through, I eventually found myself...in Toontown. Which is a dead end. Ah! That's what the CM was announcing. They must have blocked off the paths into Fantasyland to let the parade exit. Or something.

Anyway, Toontown was a dead zone. I had no intention of visiting there at all during my trip, but I figured I might as well find something to do for a few minutes to let the crowd disperse. Roger Rabbit was sitting at about a 5 minute wait, so I walked on:

It was cool. Spinny, and I like spinny. It's been a long, long time since I've seen the movie, so I was very sketchy on the details of the story, and all the audio was in Japanese. It was interesting to here sexy Jessica and Roger's gruff friend (enemy?) in Japanese, though hehe

 

[zanzibar138]

OMG the reindeer are so cute!

Nice work getting one of the last fastpasses of the day for Monsters Inc

Too bad you came across such mad crowds on the way to WTP. Roger Rabbit seems like a pretty good distraction to me. I quite liked the one at DLR, I assume it was pretty similar.

 

[FireflyFi]

And I have but one photo of the outside of PHH at this point.

The line isn't as cool as the line I remember at WDW (no interactive walls of honey), but there are giant pages from a book that tells the story leading into the ride. There's also a very cute little room just as you enter that is supposed to be Christopher Robin's room. I'm not sure if I got a shot of that - there is such a demand for this ride, that as soon as you enter the FP queue, there's this sense of have-to-get-on-as-quickly-as-possible that I just rushed past most of it.

Each time I rode, I was lucky enough to be put in the front of the honey pot (each honey pot has two rows big enough for about two adults). And on this particular ride I got blasted in the face during 'that' sequence hehehehe

Once I was done at PHH, I think I was looking to just cruise around the park. The line at It's a Small World might give you a clue as to why:

And it looks like I crossed the park again, down into Adventurelando

Love this shot (and yay, the lighting was actually ok!)

And then back down to the New Orleans style corner (does it have a name? I can't remember). I do remember that this was my favourite area of the park. I'm guessing this is the same for the other Disney parks, but I don't have much experience, so it was new for me lol but, because the park was decorated for Christmas, the whole park was playing Christmas tunes. To make it even more interesting, each area of the park was playing tunes to the theme, and in this particular patch, they were playing lots of bluesy / dixie kinda songs that I just love!

There's not much in this area, mostly shops and a couple of food places. In the shot above, on the right hand side is a store that had the best selection of Disney Nanoblocks. I bought a few (many) while I was there. It also was the only place that I spotted Disney pins. I don't think they were the official Disney Pins but they were definitely pins of a Disney style hehe

I was really struggling to figure out what to eat here. The counter service food selections didn't seem as exciting as TDS, and all the restaurants seemed to have long queues in front of them. So I stopped at this crepe place, just on the corner of the same street. I think I got some kind of chicken wrap thing, which was quite nice, but it was all the other bits and pieces that I added to it that made it special

The wrap / crepe thing is hidden in the paper, but you can see I also ordered a rhubarb and lychee tea, that came with a white chocolate and raspberry spoon. It's an...err..acquired taste hehe, not yucky by any stretch, just not what I'm used to. I only bought it because I wanted the thing on the very right, which is a heat proof sleeve, complete with little dangly charm. It's been nine months since I bought that thing, and I have never used it...! hahaha

What next? Well, I guess I'm in the area, so how about some pirates?!

I can't see a wait time, but I'm pretty sure it was only about 15 or 20 minutes or something. Just long enough to get to the end of the line. At the start of this ride you cruise past the Blue Bayou restaurant. Maybe I was sitting on the wrong side of the interaction, but the idea didn't really appeal to me. It's an 'outdoor' seat that's actually indoors and just looks at people in ride boats float past? So I scratched that restaurant off my list of things to do (I had also checked out the menu a little earlier, and I don't think it was my style - probably too much seafood or something).

So there I was sitting in my boat, ready to slowly cruise past some pirates doing their pirating thing, when...whoosh! We have a quick little drop down into the start of the ride. What the?? Where did that come from? I absolutely do not remember that happening at WDW, and besides that, how can they have a drop in a ride where you're not held down by anything...omg, this is an outrage! hahaha

Here's the only shot I managed to take that didn't come out a dark and blurry mess:

It felt like there was more detail to this ride than I remember. More explosions and more animatronics. In terms of a boat ride through animated scenes, I still preferred Sindbad

And then I headed back over to Tomorrowland (?) to see if I could score a ticket to the show, One Man's Dream II. My luck didn't see me through this day, as I got a buh-bough sound after pushing all the buttons. I should add that the lottery room itself was really quite busy at this point in time, and a bit disorganised. There were a few people floating around the room helping people through the sequence, but before that, once you got to the front of the queue it was a bit hard to see which terminals were free to use, because of the layout of the room.

I was planning on wrapping up my day at Disneyland at this point in time, but I couldn't leave on a downer. Given the lottery terminals are right next to Space Mountain, which is right next to Star Tours, I figured I would ride one, and standby the other. Star Tours had the shorter wait, so I grabbed a FP for SM (and the LED signs quoting the FP return times were facing right into the sun and impossible to read, so pulling a FP was kinda like a lottery anyhow!), and jumped in the other queue.

This is the food place across the road:

The queue area inside is quite big:

These guys had a bit of discussion (in Japanese, so don't ask me what it was about!)

I didn't get to do Star Tours at WDW the year before, so I have no prior experience, and I'm not a Star Wars fan at all. The whole ride is in Japanese, so I really had no idea what was going on, apart from...we were flying...? In space? Trying to escape someone? *shrug* eh! Sorry hahaha

 

[zanzibar138]

Yay! Another non Star Wars fan Sometimes I feel like everyone who loves Disney must also love Star Wars and I don't get it because they're such totally different styles I went on Star Tours with my dad at DLP, and I think that was in French. I managed to get the gist of it, but it's definitely not a must do ride for me (especially since motion simulators make me sick

On the other hand, I love POTC and Blue Bayou! I didn't know they had a Blue Bayou in Tokyo. I'm big on novelty factor, so for me the fact that you can go in for lunch in the middle of the day, and feel like you're sitting outside by a bayou at night, is definitely what sells it. Watching the ride also provides some entertainment, especially when it goes down and the boats are all building up before the drop. We particularly enjoyed watching the shadows of CMs behind the scenes trying to get it going again

 

[FireflyFi]

And then I decided to leave the park for an afternoon break. On the way out, I actually got to appreciate the World Bazaar. Look at this magnificent tree!

And the gorgeous shopfronts

Hmm, I must have turned around to get this shot

And the entrance to the monorail station, with the hotel in the background

From the top of the monorail station, facing back toward the park

And back to the other side of the monorail station looking at the hotel

Sooooooo pretty! It looks even better at night

Ok, so a few posts back I mentioned just how chicken I was with not riding Splash Mountain. Well...at this point of the trip I was holding onto a fastpass to Space Mountain. And I couldn't remember my experience from WDW in that much detail, other than loving it, but thinking 'i don't think my body could handle doing that again!'. So I kinda started to over think the situation (omgggg what if there's great big drops through the ride? I'm going to be in a mad state of anxiety the whole ride...) and questioned whether I would even do it. But then, I had come all this way! What I waste! The only solution? Google. Yes. I actually googled to find out how intense the ride is at Space Mountain. That is how I spent my afternoon break I didn't find a POV youtube that was at all useful (they're all so dark you can't see anything) but I did find a site that described it as mild and quoted the length of the drops (in feet, but it sounded short).

So, armed with my research, I held onto what little courage I had and got in line. It really didnt help that, as you walk through, you are constantly given the option to chicken out. I think I saw at least three or four 'you can exit here' signs on doors / hallways on the way through. This regular offer to turn back now really didn't help my nerves - just how bad is this ride if people need multiple opportunities to bail out?! I pretended they didn't exist and pressed on, and when I finally got on the ride (about third row back, phew!)....I loved it! There was barely a drop in it - lots of long, fast, turns, and lots of wind blowing through my hair hahaha. I'm pretty sure it took me half a minute to relax and enjoy it - there is a bit of a climb up that made me nervous (what goes up...). As soon as I got off, I wanted to get back on it. All that stress for nothing hahaha

The line was too long to go back again, so I walked across the road to Captain EO. I figured it might not be around for too much longer (and now I see they still have it at Epcot, doh) and so I better see MJ dance to save the universe while I still can. Me and maybe twelve other people came nowhere near filling the theatre lol

Once that was done, right across the entrance / exit was Buzz Lightyear. The wait time was only about 20 minutes, which is incredibly good for that ride, and for good reason, the electrical parade was on! I remember turning to look towards the middle of the park and seeing something float past that was all lit up, but then noticed the short wait time and decide to take advantage. I still had another night planned at TDL, I could see it then.

If I could go back in time and smack myself in the head, I would.....I ended up getting quite sick over my last two days at the park, with just a headcold, but it was enough to keep me from wanting to brave the cool nights at the park. I never did get to see the electrical parade, or any of the fireworks

Next time...

Back to Buzz

This all looked very similar to what I saw at WDW

And then after Buzz, I figured I'd get some dinner. So I went right next door to Pizza Port. It wasn't crowded, it was pizza, and it had this going on:

It's a bit hard to see in a photo, but above the serving area, there is this great big scene of an alien controlling the making of the pizzas. The alien is animated, as is a few of elements that build the pizzas, and every few minutes there's a little show that goes through what they're doing. This is just for a counter service place!

There are two floors to Pizza Port, and you can see the alien better from the second, and you also get this view:

 

[FireflyFi]

And then the last few photos of the night. I didn't really know what to do with myself until my MI FP opened (shoulda, coulda, woulda - Haunted Mansion...!) so I just went wherever the wind blew me. Which was here:

What a yawner! Maybe it's fun if you've never driven a real car before and being out in the open air at that time of night at that time of year wasn't a smart idea.

So I just walked around taking photos (maybe I did check the time at HM...?)

Themed vending machines!

World Bazaar

and this is where my camera's multiple night shot function works well. For pictures where lights are flashing different colours, it thinks each colour is a different shot, so keeps them all:

And then finally, it was Monsters Inc time!

This is the ceiling just inside the doors:

I can see why this ride is so popular. It was a whole lotta fun, and it looks amazing as you go through.

And then, outside, Mike's car:

 

[FireflyFi]

And I couldn't leave the park without taking just a few more photos.

Window scenes in World Bazaar:

Loved the stitching on their feet!

Closer shot of the tree

Dumbo (blurry, blurry Dumbo)

Inside the monorail station:

And...that's it! For now

 

[PrincessInOz]

Fantastic FireflyFi.

Really enjoying this TR of Japan. So much that is similar and so much that is a little different.

Glad you got on Splash.

 

[zanzibar138]

Great night photos

Personally I'm not a big fan of Space Mountain. I'd much prefer drops to just going round and round in the dark. That makes me sick too But it certainly seems popular. Glad you liked it

And the crowds are crazy! Was it a busy time of year? I really don't know what the crowd calendar is like for TDR.