JOANNA LAI: March 2017

What's good y'alls? Today's Phonetography is on Disneysea & Disneyland, the dreamy photo worthy land, yes. I'll be sharing about how I got there and some tips, yes tips, you'll need it, trust me.

Getting to Disneysea & Disneyland: [Here] is Disney's official website route. Your goal is to reach Maihama Station. The station nearest to my place was Higashi-Shinjuku Subway, so the worker at the Subway recommended we take the Oedo Line all the way to Tsukishima and change to the Yurakocho Line to Shinkiba Station then take the JR Keiyo Line to Maihama Station, this was one way to avoid the huge crowd at Tokyo Station. But if you don't mind the rush & the huge crowd & you bought the JR Pass, you can take the Keiyo Line from Tokyo Station.

Once you've arrived at Maihama Station, you'll see signs to lead you to the Disney Resort Line. For Disneysea, you have to purchase a train ticket that takes you to Disneysea. You do not have to do this for Disneyland, you just have to walk all the way to the entrance.

DISNEYSEA

Lo and behold, the cutest mochis you'll ever find. If you go to Disneysea, you have to try these alien mochis!! They're kept refrigerated, so when you buy it, it's nice, soft, cold and firm. There are 3 different flavours inside, but I'll let you figure out which one is which ;) They sell these both at the entrance of Toyville and at the bakery as well.

If this band debuted, I'd support them. They were seriously so good. It was like a KPOP group's energy when it came to playing instruments + dancing + interacting with the audience. They performed so well, they even asked for any Disney song requests (I think I almost cried when they played a Tangled song).

Lunch time! We had lunch at Zambini Brothers Ristorante because we saw on the list of restaurants, this one sounded like they had good food + there was only one $ sign. We ordered two pizzas and a snack which was sufficient for two people. The lunch cost us 1640¥ in total.

Ended our tiring night with dinner at a restaurant right outside Maihama station.

DisneySea - I really really enjoyed Disneysea! (I prefer Sea over Disneyland). Disneysea has less people, less kids that's for sure. Yes, in a way Disneysea is more for adults, well they do have a few kiddy rides as well but less compared to Disneyland. Disneysea had more scary rides definitely! I don't know if Disneysea is always less crowded than Disneyland but we were very fortunate to be able to get fastpasses even when we arrived at 9am.
Personally my favourite & my family's favourite rides/attractions: I absolutely loved Journey to the Center of the Earth!! Unfortunately we couldn't wait for the 2 hour Toy's Story Mania! queue, and fastpasses were out fast. Hahaha, get it? So, I'm not really a fan of shows and slow, chill rides but others that went with me who didn't mind said that they really enjoyed Sindbad's Storybook Voyage and Mermaid Lagoon Theater.

DISNEYLAND

The bomb ride, Splash Mountain!

The absolutely crazy long line about 20 minutes just for popcorn..

The fireworks show was canceled due to bad weather and I prepared my heart for the fireworks but it didn't happen. (But a couple got engaged right next to me so, I guess that was different haha.)

Disneyland - On the day we went, there was a New Years special. I actually thought there'd be less people because the New Year holiday was over and people would be going back to work maybe, but nope, nope, I was so wrong. Tons of families were there that day and we wondered why, but oh, now we know why. I would say I didn't really enjoyed my entire day at Disneyland because we spent more time waiting in line than actually having fun, we made a huge mistake by taking the wrong fastpass tickets. Well it wasn't wrong, but the fastpasses that we took for some just wasn't worth it (Monster's Inc. and Buzz Lightyear, which would really be enjoyable for children. I've tried the Buzz Lightyear one in HK Disneyland so I knew what it was about, but I had a real good time when I was there back when I was 11.) Queues were extremely long that day, yes even the queue for snacks and lunch! The line for popcorn and smoked turkey was crazy, the line extended soooooooo long, it was probably a 30-45 minute wait for a snack. To beat the queue for lunch we didn't go at peak hour which helped a lot.
Our favourite attractions: Splash Mountain. Splash Mountain!! It was so good! But the line for this was crazy long, we waited for about 110 minutes. Space Mountain and Star Tours as well. I've rode Space Mountain before years ago in HK Disneyland, and this one is bigger and cooler with more turns and drops (YAS TO DROPS). Star Tours, if you're a huge Star Wars fan, you have to. You're gonna love it, it's like living your Star Wars dream.

DISNEYSEA & DISNEYLAND TIPS
Imma tell y'all this now, y'alls gotta know tons of stuff before entering the dreamy yet scary disney world. I was very fortunate to have my cousin do some planning on the attractions & rides before we went.

#1. PLAN BEFORE GOING - I'm not kidding. Plan Plan Plan. Search up their rides and attractions, which one interests you the most and which one is highly recommended by people (there are tons of reviews and stuff online), usually the rides/attractions with Fastpass are the really popular ones and YES YOU WILL NEED THOSE FASTPASSES. On dates with special shows or events, there's going to be a major crowd let me warn you.

#2. AH, FASTPASSES - I kid you not, once you enter the place (especially Disneyland), run, yes, run to the ride/attraction you think you want to go for the most and go get your fastpass. People who go to Disney are well educated on how to get their way around. Without the fastpass, the really popular rides have a waiting line of up to 2 hours. You can only take one fastpass in 2 hours. While you wait for the next round of fastpass, go to rides/attractions with a 30 min-1 hour wait. Shows with fastpasses run out slower and the queue in general is shorter.
Fastpass recommendations:
Disneysea - Journey to the Center of the Earth, Toy Story Mania!*, Raging Spirits, Tower of Terror*.
Disneyland - Splash Mountain*, Space Mountain, Star Tours, Big Thunder Mountain*.
*Fastpasses run out really quick & the normal waiting line is really really long.

#3. BE THERE EARLY - Yes you must, especially for Disneyland since it's in some way cuter & many people prefer going to Disneyland. Before the gates even open, a huge crowd is gathered there. Seriously, wake up and go there early. If you go late, you won't get many fastpasses and you'd probably waste time queuing up than actually having fun. This also applies to parades & shows, if a parade/show starts at 7.30pm, gurl if you go there at 7:10pm, there's no way you can get a good view, trust me. People start getting ready at 6:30pm.

#4. BUY YOUR TICKETS BEFOREHAND - Do this so once you reach there you can just go straight to security check and enter without having to wait in line or to even waste time purchasing tickets because the line to get into Disney is crazy.

#5. OOTDs ARE IMPORTANT BUT - Don't lie, and am not gonna lie, yes, females and couples love to match up and go to Disney for a photoshoot session and what not but wear appropriate attire if you want to go on cool rides. This goes from the hats & beanies you wear to your glasses, to the bags you carry. On rides that are pretty "hardcore" (Journey to the Center of the Earth, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, etc), you will have to remove all hats, even the cute headbands you purchase along the way, they even warn you about your glasses falling off, and your bags have to be secured tightly, not something with a huge opening or something that can fly off. If you're having a bad hair day and you wanna wear your beanie or cap all day long and can't take it off, I'm sorry, but you gotta. If you go for Splash Mountain, yes you're bound to get wet or even a little. And yes, do carry light stuff when you go to Disney, don't bring your whole set of lenses or your laptop around, it's really tiring to carry that the whole day walking about or standing in line.

I really suggest going to both if you have the chance to! But if you really can't make it for both & wanna just choose one, my suggestion, Disneysea if you're not a huge fan of all the characters & parades and just wanna enjoy fun rides.
Thank you for reading this long post! [previous post]