Disney Sea!

When my parents were first planning on coming, they asked me what I wanted to see. I quickly explained that I had visited almost all of the big tourist venues around me except one place: Tokyo Disney Resort! I demanded that the only thing that HAD to happen during this visit, was a trip to Disney Sea.
A little bit if back story on me: I normally don't like amusement parks. I get really bad motion sickness so it's not the best place for me. BUT, I also knew that the Japanese are not as intense about their rides as we are in the States so I really wanted to check out Disney Sea.
On their third day in town, we all got on a train at 6:30 AM to head over to the other side of Tokyo. We arrived and took the Disney shuttle over to the park. It was super cute! Everything in the train right down to the windows and hand holds were shaped like Mickey.

Precious!

We bought our tickets and investigated the map. The only ride I was interested in was the Tower of Terror. It was my favorite ride at Disney World (In fact, I rode it about 5 times the last time we were there as my siblings were interested in other rides that I could not handle). I had heard it was different from the one in Florida, so I wanted to see what it was all about. After a quick family photo:

Cuties

we booked it to the Tower of Terror. Much to our dismay, it was about a two and a half hour wait to get into the ride. We snacked and huddled from the cold outside and finally got up the Tower. It did have a very different story line form the Disney World Tower of Terror. From what I could gather (as the ride was in Japanese), the owner of the hotel was the most interesting man on Earth and decided to just take and steal from ancient cultures because, well, he deserved it. One artifact he stole was in fact a cursed statue. He kept it on his mantle, scoffing that such a curse could exist. Low and behold, the statue disappears and explodes the elevator cable at the top of the tower. The very top view right before the last large drop was spectacular. It perfectly framed the Sky Tree and the Disney Land castle. I wish I could have taken a picture!

Tower of Terror! What, what!

After that, we had lunch at the American Seaside right next to the real sea.

What a nice view!

We rode a couple more rides after that and had dinner and a Mexican restaurant on site. Here's the thing to understand about Disney parks in Japan. In America, we focus our parks on the rides and attractions. Here, it was almost a purely commercial trip. Most people come to buy more Disney exclusive stuff or eat some of the odd flavored popcorn.

We gave into the consumerism. They are such cute hats though!!

There really are not that many rides let alone rides that we would consider thrilling. My siblings went on the most intense roller coaster in the park. All it did was one 360 degree loop. There were signs all over the ride stating to be careful since the ride was "intense". We all got a hardy laugh out of that especially my youngest brother who had been riding things like the Rockin' Roller coaster since he was like 6 years-old. We still had a great time! Rode some bumper boats, 2 small roller coasters, the Indian Jones ride, and a huge merry-go-round with an Aladdin theme.

Yeah that's right, he's riding the Genie. Take that Robin Williams.

Another interesting thing to note is the different popular characters between cultures. For example, people in Japan LOVE the Aristocats especially the cute white kitten named Marie. Now, I'm going to be honest, I haven't seen the Aristocats in about 20 years so I barely recognized the character when I first got here. I told one of my older students that and she looked at me like I was insane for not knowing her name. They also really like Chip and Dale, Stitch, and the Genie (not Aladdin or Jasmine. In fact, there was not a single statue or mention of them in the Arabian town area. It was ALL about the Genie.)
One thing that did stick out to me that I loved was that Disney Sea did not have a Cinderella's castle. If you wanted to see that you would have to go to Tokyo Disney Land. Instead, they had Ariel's castle. This was about a bazillion times more exciting to me. The Little Mermaid was one of my favorite Disney movies.

Look at that and tell me it is NOT amazingly cool. You would be lying to yourself if you did.

After I let my 7 year old inner fan girl frolic around Ariel's castle, we headed off to the lights and fireworks show. I'm just going to say it: I was totally let down by the fireworks. They were about 5 mins long and kind of lame. BUT the light show totally redeemed it all! It turned into this epic battle between Mickey and the forces of good and like every villain ever ending with a giant animatronic Maleficent (in dragon form) vs. sorcerer Mickey. It was an epic way to end the night!