Disneysea is a theme park that has been on my bucket list for the longest time so I had to make it happen on this trip to Tokyo! Initially, my husband and I only planned to visit Disneysea but in my rush to score us a deal on Klook, I ended up buying tickets for Disneyland instead lol. As a result, we each had to utilize another promo code of $10 off a minimum spend of $60 for our Disneysea tickets and rejigged our plan to visit both parks on consecutive days.
There is a dedicated app for both the Disney theme parks and I highly recommend downloading it as it provides up-to-date wait times, park map navigation and easy submission of entry requests or fast passes.
If you’re not staying at one of the hotels onsite, you can access the park via train, bus or car. According to reviews online, the most popular (and crowded) form of transport is the train. As such, we opted to take a bus from Tokyo bus interchange instead. The trip there took about 40 minutes but at least we were comfortably seated the whole way.
- Inclusions:
- 1-day entry tickets to Tokyo DisneySea
- Spent: SGD$141.68 (for 2 tickets)
With more of a nautical, adventure-focused theme than Disneyland, this 176-acre mega park is segregated into 8 different zones or “ports of call”:
1. American Waterfront
2. Arabian Coast
3. Fantasy Springs (newly added in 2024)
4. Lost River Delta
5. Mediterranean Harbor
6. Mermaid Lagoon
7. Mysterious Island
8. Port Discovery
I wanted to take time to explore each zone and its rides but when we were there, I realized this wasn’t physically possible to do in one day. The distance between zones is significant (and mostly unsheltered), but I was very enamoured by how immersive it felt even as we walked from zone to zone. The mega-structures towering overhead and themed fixtures along the way really made me feel like I was in a different world. This is unlike Disneyland where the paths in between zones felt quite empty and void of interesting scenes.
The first ride we headed to was Journey To The Center Of The Earth where we queued for about 75 minutes. It is a short ride with sudden accelerations and drops that happen mostly in a dark tunnel. Spoiler alert, once you see the huge monster on the right, be prepared to be accelerated upwards before rushing down an open-air drop.
The second ride we took after queueing for 40 minutes was 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. It is a kid-friendly, simulated underwater ride with some mild accelerations. You can control a light with the joystick in front of your seat to explore the surroundings. Throughout the ride, a recorded “guide” narrated what was happening in Japanese (the volume was uncomfortably loud). Even though we couldn’t understand a word, we could roughly tell by the tone when the “scary” parts were coming.
We then took the Electric Railway as a means to traverse the length of the park to get to our dining venue. It is an effective way to cover long distances between zones, saving time and energy if the queue is short enough.
Our lunch was at the very crowded New York Deli that serves mainly sandwiches. We got the Grilled Reuben set meal (JPY1430), comprising a beef and cheese sandwich with fries and a coke. This was yummy comfort food, plus my husband loved that the coke tasted nicer than the one we have back home. We also added on a New York cheesecake (JPY400) that was mildly sweet, a little dense but overall an okay dessert.
Next, we caught the Big Band Beat show at the Broadway Music Theatre. For this, we needed to make an entry request on the app, which we did straight after we entered the park to secure our seats. I initially thought it was free seating but apparently the app assigns you seat numbers so be sure to check that to avoid sitting in other people’s seats like we did 😛
The show lasted about 25 minutes and consisted of Disney characters dancing to pre-recorded jazz numbers. It was a bummer that there was no live music except one super short segment where Mickey Mouse plays the drums (even then, I’m not sure if that was pre-recorded too!). Anyway, you wouldn’t be missing much if you don’t manage to catch this show.
The third ride my husband went on was the Tower Of Terror. He took this ride on his own as I don’t like rides with straight vertical drops. He queued for approximately 90 minutes and according to him, the ride involved going up and dropping down thrice, with various “levels” having differing scenes. At the end of it, he said it wasn’t all that thrilling.
While my husband was queuing for the Tower Of Terror ride, I went to check out the American Waterfront zone. Feeling peckish, I bought myself a stick of churros with sweet-soy sugar (JPY500) and iced green tea (JPY300) from Liberty Landing Diner.
I also happened to walk past the Dockside stage where the last segment of the Dockside Splash Remix show was ongoing. Just more high-energy dancing from the Disney characters, which I guess is a treat for the kids.
In addition to the Electric Railway, you can also take the Transit Steamer Line to travel across the various zones in the park. The queue for this, on average, was around 10 minutes and the views can be pretty spectacular (:
The next show we went for was titled “Let’s Celebrate With Colours” at the Mediterranean Harbor. It was a 10-minute parade on water that entailed Disney characters dancing and waving while on a moving boat. Again, you can consider skipping this if you have better things to do.
Our fourth ride was Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple Of The Crystal Skull! Our queue time for this was about 60 minutes. The ride was entirely indoors with lots of bumps, jerks and sideway tilts but surprisingly, no steep drops. We enjoyed this ride a lot as the scenes and props inside were super epic and intricate, creating a riveting, larger-than-life experience.
Our fifth and final ride of the day was Soaring: Fantastic Flight. Looking at the snaking queue, my husband and I decided to divide and conquer to save time – he stayed in the queue while I went to Yucatan Base Camp Grill restaurant to order takeout dinner for us to eat while queuing. However, the restaurant didn’t have takeout boxes so I ended up carrying the entire tray of food from one end of the park to the other upon the restaurant staff’s suggestion (she shared that I could return the tray at any restaurant). The people around us must have thought us mad but hey, it worked!
The reason I trekked all the way to Yucatan Base Camp Grill instead of a nearer restaurant was because I really wanted to try the green alien mochi (JPY400). Past reviews online indicated that this was sold at other locations like Mamma Biscotti’s Bakery but when I checked the app for the latest menus, Yucatan was the only one with this item on the menu.
One mochi set comes with three distinct flavours: vanilla, chocolate and strawberry. The latter two flavours were delicious but the vanilla one tasted rather artificial and was my least preferred. For our main, we got the baked chicken set meal with kirin apple tea soda (JPY1420) to share. The chicken was surprisingly succulent and very decent for theme park food standards.
After a whopping 150-minute queue time, we finally made it inside the building of the Soaring: Fantastic Flight ride. We were herded into a holding area where they played a pre-recorded narrative (entirely in Japanese) and the cool part was the technology used that made the seemingly static paintings come alive! Then, we entered another room with a gigantic surround-screen and got strapped into a long row of seats that lifted us off the ground.
This ride literally took us soaring across several wonders of the world from a high vantage point, which was very breathtaking. However, sitting at the lowest row actually made the experience feel slightly less immersive because we could see the bottom where the screen ends (maybe the middle row would’ve been better). They do issue a cautionary note for those who are afraid of heights as the visuals and motion can be quite realistic.
Queueing for the Soaring: Fantastic Flight ride meant that we had to give up watching the Believe! Sea Of Dreams evening show, which was unfortunate as the large-scale set-up suggested that it would’ve been a more exciting show than what we’ve seen so far. We were still hopeful that we could conclude our time here with the Sky Full Of Colours fireworks show but it was ultimately cancelled due to poor weather conditions. Such a pity!
Since we weren’t keen on squeezing with the crowds taking the train, we took the bus headed for Shinjuku instead. It was a comfortable ride where we were guaranteed a seat the whole way (:
My overall rating of the experience: 5 out of 5 stars. Firstly, I was wowed by the park environment, from the hugely epic structures to the tiniest details on the street lamps. It really made me feel like I’d been transported to a totally different world. Secondly, the quality of the rides was superb. Even though we didn’t get to try all of them, the ones we did were pretty immersive and unique! In particular, we enjoyed the Journey To The Center Of The Earth, Indiana Jones Adventure: Temple Of The Crystal Skull and Soaring: Fantastic Flight rides. Thirdly, the food was better than average compared to those at other theme parks we’ve visited. I wished we’d gotten 2 or even 3-day passes as we barely scratched the surface of all there is to explore here. The shows may not have been all that entertaining but there were more than enough spectacular aspects of this park to make it a worthwhile experience (: We hope to be back again someday!
If this post helped you in some way and you’d like to buy me a coffee, I’d be incredibly grateful (:
Dania Experiences 
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