We made it to the Disneyland entrance, and found ourselves at the back of a very large crowd. I’m not sure what exactly was going through Teresa’s head, but I don’t ever recall in any of our trips to one of the parks and Disney World having a crowd this large waiting to get in.

The clock struck the top of the hour, the gates open, and the crowd started to make their way through. It went much faster than I expected. And when we got to the gate, we had to scan our tickets and pass through security. I found that too to be hassle free, and love that we stepped into Disneyland.

Teresa had gotten us a package deal. It came with the one night stay at the Maracosta, happy hour admission to DisneySea, admission to Disneyland, lunch and dinner reservations at some very nice restaurants, and priority passes to skip some of the very long lines. Over the next two days I go to appreciate those priority passes. I would highly recommend that you shop for Disney deals and pull together a package that works the best for you.

Like Disney World, Disneyland opens to a Main Street, filled with shops, eateries. Here, though the street is covered, just like the marketplaces we had visited route our trip. And even though we were near the back of the crowd to get in, the crowd seemed to dissipate the further we got. 

The first ride that we had passes for was for “Beauty and the Beast”. We made our way to the castle and noted that the line was already 90 minutes long and growing. The priority pass line was much shorter than after scanning her passes, we were let right in. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, though Teresa said she had seen a couple videos or read about the ride. We got up to the front stood through the pre-show before making our way to the ride itself. I don’t wanna give a whole lot of this one away, but for those who have been to Disneyland or Disney World in the US, this ride was very much like the ratatouille ride. I think the difference though is the production value, the special effects that happened during the story were amazing. Again, not wanting to give a whole lot of away, the ride itself is visually stunning.

Next step was a ride I wanted to go to, the Haunted Mansion. About a year ago I had seen “behind the scenes” of the different Disney parts. One of those episodes talked about the history of the Haunted Mansion and how it is different not just in every country, but even regions. The one in Disneyland has a different backstory, maybe not quite the right word, back stories would fit better. So we get up to the pre-show, expecting it to be similar at least in a fashion to the one with familiar with in Orlando, it is not. Not only is the pre-show different, but it is of course in Japanese. Still you get the gist if you’re familiar familiar with the story. We made our way to the car and took our seat, and found ourselves in the hauntings of another culture. Some of the production was a little more modern, and I found myself wishing Disney Orlando would update a few things. We rode several more rides, including what I think was called “The Happy Ride with MayMax”, where nursebots whirl you around in unexpected ways all while playing Japanese EDM. It reminded me of the alien ride from Toy story.  

I should also mention that we saw a lot of people laying out blankets and mats. And they weren’t placing these in like grassy areas, it looked like there were actual markings in the street and they were reserving their place to watch parades. It seemed like.one person from the group would stay while the others went their way and had fun. I think I found it strange yet I’m using? Standing in line and holding a place, it’s definitely a cultural difference.

As we walked around, we came across the “It’s a small world” ride. Theresa always teases me about this rhyme when we’re in Disney World. It’s always one that I’m hesitant to get on, it just seems dated and boring for me. She pointed to the ride and I think she might’ve been surprised when I didn’t try to talk her out of it. We have been on another rides, and each of them were different enough from what I would call the originals that I wanted to see what was different here. We got in line which moved fairly quickly and got to the boat. Other than the size these boats were smaller, held few people, it didn’t look or feel that much different. Boy was I in for a surprise. As we passed the threshold, we were developed by the familiar song song in Japanese to start. And as we got to each country, the song blended and changed to that country. Now you might say, “Jim, doesn’t the US ones do the same thing?” And I would say yes, but what the US one lacks is Groot.. 

So in the first display that we came to, I spotted Groot dressed up and dancing. In the next display or a country, the characters singing and dancing had some of the characters from the Disney story from which that country was that. For example, when we saw Norway, we saw Anna and Elsa amongst others. In England, we saw the Royal guard, and Groot trying to blend in. We also saw the characters of Iron Man, Captain America, Ant-man, Thor, and many many more of the DC universe spread throughout the “small world” ride. Part of me, wanted to go back, take more photos, and maybe see characters that I had missed. But the day was still young and they were playing more rides. We wanted to go see.

Just like Disney in the US, the park is divided up into “lands”. We stopped at “Western land shooting Gallery”. I wanted to see how it compared to the one in frontierland. It was similar, but I think they calibrate their sites a bit differently as I only hit one out of 10 shots. They had a few water rides like splash Mountain, but it still was a little chilly and it actually got a little overcast and rainy. We weren’t gonna let a few showers damp in our mood. However, we had packed rain gear.

We found Pirates of the Caribbean, and realized the ride went right through the “Blue Bayou”, the restaurant we had had lunch at. The ride also had a few small drops, and I found the animatronics to be on close to what we see in the US. 

Besides Groot, one of the other characters that seemed to be popular with Stitch. We wanted a place to sit down for a short time, and we came across the tiki room. Of course the dialogue and the songs of the birds were in Japanese, but I didn’t take anything away from it. It was really amusing was when stitch came out and took over the show. The music went from something maybe a little tropical to something a lot more energetic.

I wanted to see “Star Tours”, so we made our way over to Tomorrowland.  Much of the section was walled off the way we were able to get to the ride. I found it quite amusing to hear C3 PO speak Japanese with a bit of a proper English accent. The ride had a similar story, but was different enough. It was very enjoyable. The exit was actually on the “second floor” and as we left, were able to see over the wall to see the construction that was happening. It looks like they’re building their version of space mountain.

I think it was this point that we checked the app, not just to see the map but to see the wait times. It looked like we had used all of our priority tickets, but we still had a few hours left in the park. They had a ride in Toontown that we wanted to try and the line was not as long. Along the way, we stopped for a ride in Fantasyland called “Pooh’s Honey Hunt”.  It was a nice ride, again narrated in Japanese, but I heard the same Pooh voice I’ve heard for years. 

In Toontown, we got in line for “Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin”. Hear, you boarded a “taxi” and got to “take it for a spin”. The cars were like the trackless cars in Remie’s adventure in Epcot, with a twist. While they danced around each other, you had a steering wheel and it let you “spin” the car. All I can say is I am glad we had not just gotten up from eating. 

We did so much more there. I cannot remember it all. It was a wonderful day and we stayed long enough to see the castle lit up before heading back to the hotel. While we have Disney World in Orlando to see time and time again, Tokyo Disneyland was different, more modern, and definitely worth a visit.