Tourism in East Asia

Snapshots and Thoughts from Tokyo Disney Resort

By Amy Bowen


I was raised only an hour's drive from the original Disneyland in Anaheim, Califronia, and got my first Annual Passport when I was about ten years old.  When I was growing up, my family went there together very frequently, and I came to know it so well and feel so safe and comfortable there that it was, and still is, one of my favorite places in the world.  It may seem logical that with this kind of prior experience, I would feel no need to visit Disneyland's counterparts in other countries because I've seen the original, but this is not the case.  Far from it; it was precisely my love of the park, and of the escape into fantasy that it offers, that drew me to the Tokyo Disney Resort.

One regret I have from my time in Japan is that I spent the second half of Golden Week, the holiday week at the beginning of May, in my apartment in Kyoto, rather than in Tokyo with some of my fellow international students.  Having missed this opportunity, I traveled alone to Tokyo on the weekend of June 29-July 1, 2007.  The advantage of traveling alone was that I had the leisure to go wherever I wanted in the park, take pictures, and record my thoughts using the voice recorder function on my camera.  Below, you will find a selection of pictures and some of the thoughts I had during and after my visit to the park.

Aloha!    I think the single word that best describes the entrance plaza at Tokyo Disneyland is "efficient."  All the important guest services, like coin lockers and stroller rentals, are gathered together in the buildings on either side of the entrance to the park.  The flower bed shown in this picture is a standard feature of the entrances to all parks built on the Disneyland model, and is always one of the park's most popular places to take group pictures.  This one was no exception.  Usually, the flower beds are planted to look like Mickey Mouse's face, but this one wasn't when I was there.  I discovered upon entering the park that there was a special event called "Find Stitch!" going on.  The premise of the event, as stated in the special flyer handed out with the park map, is: "Stitch wanted to make everyone part of his ohana, and put up wonderful (?) decorations in the park!  Listen to what his cousins and friends have to say, and go with Lilo to look for him!" (I translated this from the Japanese myself.  Yes, the question mark is there in the original text.  Ohana is Hawaiian for "family.")  Some of the decorations are visible in the background of this picture; on the flyer, Stitch's cousins and friends give out hints as to where to find him.  
    By the time I got to Tokyo Disneyland, I already knew that the character of Stitch was extremely popular in Japan, so I was only a little surprised to discover that he had his own special event.  Because of that popularity, this event makes more business sense in Japan than it would anywhere else in the world.  The event, therefore, was designed to appeal to the local population, rather than the tourist population, and in retrospect, I value and appreciate it as a cross-cultural experience.  It made sense to try to attract locals at that time of year, too, since Japanese schools hadn't started their summer vacations yet, so there weren't likely to be too many tourists visiting Tokyo Disneyland from other parts of Japan.  The fact that it was fairly busy the weekend I was there may have been due to the fact that it's near a major metropolitan area from which it can draw a lot of local business, just like the Anaheim location.

Tanabata Festival Decorations    At Tokyo Disneyland, the street that leads from the entrance to the park to its center is called World Bazaar.  I was expecting to see a street filled with buildings representing various countries, like a miniature version of Epcot's World Showcase in Florida.  I was surprised to find a replicated street from early-20th-century small-town America, just like at the two American parks.  The glass roof is eminently practical for protecting the street and the guests from the elements, but to me, it was a reminder that the environment I was in was artificial and controlled.  In retrospect, it looks almost like a giant glass museum case.
    The decoration in this picture was in the center of the street, halfway down its length.  It took me a few seconds to realize that it was a decoration for the Tanabata Festival, which was coming up on the following Saturday, July 7.  Tanabata is a traditional Japanese festival celebrating the one night every year that the two lovers separated by the River of Heaven (Milky Way), Orihime and Hikoboshi, can meet.  This decoration depicts Mickey Mouse as Hikoboshi (the Herder Star, Altair) and Minnie Mouse as Orihime (the Weaver Star, Vega).  Bamboo is traditionally used to decorate for the festival.  I was glad to see that Tokyo Disneyland celebrates Tanabata in the same way as the American parks celebrate holidays like Halloween.  I took this as a sign of efforts to make an American institution like Disneyland fit more smoothly into the culture of Japan.




Cinderella's Castle    Cinderella's Castle, the icon at the center of the park, is almost identical to its counterpart in Florida.  This picture of it was taken from behind.  The blue-and-yellow-striped beam in the lower left corner of the picture is one of the support arms of the Dumbo the Flying Elephant attraction.
    Most of the walkways at Tokyo Disneyland are very wide, and there's plenty of space between attractions for crowds to move from place to place.  The park was definitely designed to handle crowds well and move them around effectively, and that's wonderful.  However, I find that the illusion of being in another time, place, or realm, which these theme parks are designed to create, is more immersive and more effective when everything is closer together, and I can really feel surrounded by the theme.  I didn't feel that quite as strongly in Tokyo Disneyland as I always do when I visit Disneyland in Anaheim.  Fantasyland felt especially spread-out and disjointed to me, especially because all three of the attractions that have circular footprints - Dumbo the Flying Elephant, the carrousel, and Alice's Tea Party - are sitting out in the open behind the castle, rather than being nestled in among all the other rides.  It gives me the impression that whoever designed this park focused on the attractions as individual experiences, rather than on creating the atmosphere necessary for total immersion in the theme.  To give Tokyo Disneyland credit for what it does well, though, I noticed that every attraction had its own, unique costume for the Cast Members running it, and the costumes were well suited to the themes of the attractions.

Sorceror MickeyThis statue of Sorceror Mickey, from the 1940 Disney film Fantasia, is located directly behind the castle.  It certainly seems that the Japanese reputation for loving to take pictures of themselves and their kids at famous places is well-earned.   This is one statue that does not exist in California, nor in Florida (to my knowledge; I've only been there once).  The coat of arms on the castle, however, is present in both American locations.



Rivers of America    Of all the lands at Tokyo Disneyland, Westernland had the best attention to theme and felt the most immersive to me, so it quickly became my favorite.  I think it's the easiest of the classic lands to do well, though: the most important thing is to plant enough vegetation to make the area truly feel like a wilderness, and Westernland succeeds beautifully in that.
    The picture at left is of Tom Sawyer Island, and the line for the rafts to get there.  Exploring the island was one of the most fun parts of my day at Tokyo Disneyland, because it had all the same places to explore (fort, caves, treehouse, and a seesawing rock) that the island in Anaheim did when I was a kid, before it started to deteriorate and was ultimately remodeled.  "Here age relives fond memories of the past," as Walt Disney said in the dedication speech for the original Disneyland; this refers to the lands there that celebrate historical America, such as Frontierland, to which Westernland is the counterpart.  However, I appreciated the island because there, I could relive some fond memories of my own past, memories of experiences at another Disney theme park.  

Mark Twain   That's a very idiosyncratic way of seeing things, though.  I expect that Japanese guests just see themselves as experiencing the history of another country.  Here, Tokyo Disneyland's riverboat, the Mark Twain, is seen to be just as popular with the local guests as either of the ones in America.  I think it's the linchpin of the land's theming.  Its presence indicates not only that the river that takes up much of the land is an American river, but also defines which time period we're in.
    Overall, I enjoyed my day at Tokyo Disneyland.  In the end, I did feel like I'd done and seen a lot of it before, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun.  The whole time I was there, I listened to announcements and attraction narration and ordered food all in Japanese.  Therefore, I had a constant background awareness that I was in Japan, which differentiated this theme park experience from the ones I'd had in the United States.










Monorail    A monorail system for transportation between theme parks and hotels is another standard feature of Disney resorts.  At Tokyo Disneyland Resort, the monorail system is called the Disney Resort Line.  Its trains are larger than in America, and roomier on the inside.  Unlike the resorts in America, this resort charges 250 yen per ride for use of the monorails.  Tickets are sold and collected via the same types of machines used by practically every other train system in Japan.  These facts, and the presence of straps to hang on to when no seats are available (pictured at left), combine to give the impression that these monorails are a genuine, useful system of transport, on a par with Japan's many other train and subway systems.  In other words, the monoral system has been adapted to meet Japanese expectations of how a train system should work.  However, as this picture of the hanging straps and a window shows, Disney's signature design elements make the monorails more fun and less utilitarian.  The monorails also offer overhead views of the resort and its theme parks, which adds to their unique appeal.









The Renaissance    Tokyo DisneySea is the second theme park at Tokyo Disney Resort, and is unique to that resort.  It is widely renowned among fans of Disney theme parks for its beauty and for the richness and depth of its detailed theming, and it deserves every bit of its excellent reputation.  I was immersed and engaged in the theming every moment I was there.
    This is my favorite photograph of the entire trip.  I'm standing on the deck of a galleon, the Renaissance, which is docked at one side of the park's largest body of water, Mediterranean Harbor. I'm wearing the blue-and-white "pirate" bandanna that I bought in Adventureland the previous day (for me, having a hat that connects to one of the park's themes is an important part of the fantasy).  The beautiful buildings behind me are actually a working hotel, Hotel MiraCosta.  I was amazed by how seamlessly it fit into the created environment of the theme park.  This picture was taken by a Cast Member, who has just shown me how to "fire" the cannons by pulling on the nylon rope.  They make quite a bit of noise, and some steam.  One of the things I loved about Tokyo DisneySea was the interactive areas, like this one.







The Docks    To caption this picture, I'll use a direct quotation from one of the audio recordings I made while in the park: "I just realized that that collection of barrels and crates over there is actually a kids' play area, and the fact that I didn't notice that the second I looked at it first is a testament to how well-themed it is.  It looks like it's just a bunch of cargo that's stacked up here on the docks.  Then you notice that some of it has tunnels through it.  Then you notice that it's got that rubber matting under it.  Then you notice that part of it is squirting water out of it.  So, yes, very, very cool, and very, very much a part of its environment.  Kudos to whoever designed this place."
    While I was in Tokyo DisneySea, I ran into a friend from America who was also studying abroad, and one of her Japanese friends.  According to him, Tokyo DisneySea was more popular among the locals than Tokyo Disneyland as a dating spot, and I could see why.  It's a very beautiful place, and part of that beauty is that from some vantage points, you can see the real ocean, just beyond the boundary of the park.  Even though the environment within the park is artificially created and themed, it takes advantage of its location to form a close connection with its overall theme, the sea.