Theme park fans love to debate whether Orlando or Southern California is the best destination to visit. But let's not sleep on a place that might offer an ever better theme park experience - Japan.
Theme Park Insider readers this year voted Tokyo DisneySea as the world's best theme park. Yesterday, we featured Universal's most-visited theme park, which is Universal Studios Japan. It's just three and a half hours from the Universal City station in Osaka to the Maihama Station at the Tokyo Disney Resort, via the high-speed Shinkansen train. That's about the same time that it takes to go from Six Flags Magic Mountain to SeaWorld San Diego, given typical SoCal traffic.
But before DisneySea and USJ, there was Tokyo Disneyland, which opened in 1983. Today, we are pleased to offer our newly updated Visitors Guide to Tokyo Disneyland to help you plan your Tokyo Disney trip.
Theme Park Insider offers one-page visitors guides to four dozen popular theme parks around the world. These guides include our reviews and rankings of top attractions, on-ride videos, and practical advice for getting the most from each visit. For many parks, including Tokyo Disney, we also offer links to discounted tickets.
You can think of Tokyo Disneyland as a greatest-hits combination of California's Disneyland and Florida's Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom, in one park. But the line-up here is led by an attraction not found in the United States - Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast, a trackless dark ride featuring some of Disney's most advanced Audio Animatronics. A new nighttime spectacular, Reach for the Stars, has brought Marvel's Avengers to the park for the first time, too.
Be advised that there are no novice Disney visitors at the Tokyo theme parks. These fans do not mess around - arriving at the park early and mastering every trick in the book to get on the rides and in the shows they want. So I hope that you will take a look at our Visitors Guide to Tokyo Disneyland to get some of that "insider" knowledge as well.
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Yes, yes, 1000x yes! Tokyo Disneyland maintains fidelity to their attractions through regular upkeep. Even if you've been on an attraction stateside before, the Tokyo installation feels new: all animatronics and ride effects are working .
Not to mention the incredible cast members and the Little Green Alien mochi!
It is on my bucket list to go to Tokyo Disney. Looks spectacular. Just need to save save save lol.
Japan is definitely on the list of must-visit places for my family, but I do think for many Americans there is the perception that international travel is prohibitively expensive. I was actually just at a project site with some laborers who were talking about their holiday vacations. They said that they had never left the country before because they didn't make enough money, but they talked about taking trips to WDW and Las Vegas. Their perception was that traveling across an international border was 2-3 times more expensive than traveling within the US. The reality is that while international travel can be more expensive than most intrastate travel, it's not as much as most people think, unless of course you're in business/first class and staying at high-end accommodations/resorts.
Honestly, I think the biggest barrier for most people traveling internationally is getting a passport and the shear amount of time it can take to reach many international destinations. I also think there's a perception that the language barrier in many countries is difficult to overcome, but between a wider acceptance of English around the world and the advent of easier to use translation tools/apps, being a stranger in a foreign land is not as hard as it used to be.
Robert, the answer to your question is definitely yes! The parks are beautifully maintained, management is willing to spend to create top tier attractions, and cast members are devoted to provide the guest service that made the US parks an example for the industry in the 1970s and 1980s.
A good friend of mine asked me to sum up my thoughts on the Tokyo Disney Resort after going there with him on my first visit. I responded, "They get it." I'd love to send every mid-level or higher executive from the US parks and Disney Experiences to Tokyo so they could observe what a Disney theme park experience should be like.
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Japan is one of those places that should be on everybody's bucket list. I've been there several times on business trips and my only regret is that I couldn't stay longer.