Japan 2023 - Day Eight DisneySea

 We made it to the bus stop by 6:30am to catch the 7am bus to Tokyo DisneySea. Unfortunately the 7:00 bus was completely full and we couldn't get on it. So we turned to GoogleMaps and came up with a Plan B... trains. 

Andy couldn't join us in the morning because of a meeting at his new school. 

It didn't go as smoothly as we would have liked but we eventually made it to the monorail and got in the first giant line of many that day. But not even monster lines could kill our Disney spirit...

the monorail had Mickey shaped windows and hand-holds

We shouldn't have been surprised at the crowds. After all we were at the 4th busiest theme park in the world during their spring break! 

Eventually we made it into the park. We already knew lines would be long and made the decision to ride as many as we could and do only the rides that were unique to the park. No reason to wait 210 minutes to ride Soarin' for the 20th time.

I was surprised at how many of the rides and attractions didn't allow photos... 

DisneySea is a totally unique Disney park based on the theme of the myths and legends of the sea with seven different ports of call: 

Mediterranean Harbor: the park entrance is styled after an Italian port town with gondolas and buildings housing the Hotel MiraCosta...

 Mysterious Island: This Victorian Jules Verne themed land houses the giant volcano, Mt Prometheus and the Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea rides. This was our first ride, sort of. It broke down while we were in line and they made all of us leave. Thankfully it came back up and we were able to ride it once Andy joined us later that evening. We weren't so fortunate with 20,000 Leagues... 

we had to try one of the famous savory potato churros stuffed with demi glace 

Journey was a super unique ride to the "center of the earth," starting with a ride in the Terravator down to below surface levels. We then rode in a enclosed mining machine/tractor with each of the three pairs of riders given their own spotlight to control and better view the creatures and scenery as we descended. It was a pretty cool ride and our longest wait at about 2 hours.

Mermaid Lagoon: This indoor land is home to Ariel, the little mermaid and her friends and quite a few kid-geared rides. As well as a whale of a gift store... The only ride we rode here was Scuttle's Scooters roller coaster. 

Arabian Coast: This is a nod to Aladdin 1001 Arabian Nights. It was our second stop where we rode Jasmine's Flying Carpets and Sindbad's Storybook Voyage, which was a lot like It's a Small World including the very catchy song (The Compass of Your Heart by Alan Menken) that we felt left out not knowing. It was fun enough (and with a short enough line) we rode it a second time with Andy... 

here we had a Long Naan with Curry and a Sultan's Sundae (ice cream, mango pudding, red jelly, cocoa krispies and a chai churro) Yum!

Lost River Delta: This Central American jungle houses the Indiana Jones ride and the Raging Spirits roller coaster. We did both rides twice (without and with Andy) because they were the only two rides in the park with single rider lines! Yay! Raging Spirits was also the first roller coaster with a loop that moved so slowly you were slightly afraid it might not make it around... LOL

this ShellieMae teddy bear is the Minnie Mouse to Duffy, the DisneySea Bear mascot

Port Discovery: the marina of the future is where we rode Aquatopia. It's like the Luigi ride at DCA on 3" of water...

American Waterfront: This is meant to resemble the NE coastline of the United States. But it also has an entire backstory that feeds into both the Tower of Terror ride and the S.S. Columbia (the ship contains a restaurant, lounge and Turtle Talk with Crush). 

"This city's backstory revolves around the wealthy Harrison Hightower III, whose power grew stronger amid New York, as one can guess seeing his Hightower Hotel, symbol of his might until he mysteriously disappeared after retrieving a cursed African idol. His business rival Cornelius Endicott, owner of the S.S. Columbia ocean liner and a vast shipping empire has since picked up much of the slack, though his effort to tear down Hotel Hightower was blocked by his own daughter Beatrice." 

We didn't win any of the lotteries for the show seatings but the Big Band Beat show has a stand-by line for the first show only and we got in. With everything in Japanese it took us a few minutes to catch that the show was entirely in English??? I think we really realized it when Mickey said to give Minnie a hand for her solo and no one clapped... (no pictures allowed during the show)

The only ride we did here was the Transit Steamer Line Tour...

This is probably also where we ate the weirdest thing while in Japan: the LinaBell was a cold pastrami and shrimp salad sandwich on a pink cheesebread bun. 

While I posted these pictures completely out of sequence, we did thankfully find one last restaurant still open before we left the park...

And because we hadn't done any shopping for souvenirs yet we fought the biggest and densest crowd of our entire trip! It was so awful we just grabbed a pair of ears and a quick postcard set and left... 

We were so blessed that we were able to catch the bus we had intended to ride in the morning straight from the park to the station between our hotel and Andy's apartment!