Tokyo Disneyland in a Day: Your Ultimate Guide to Making the Most of It!

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Make a plan

Visiting Tokyo Disneyland for just one day? Then you’ll need to make a plan. This park has multiple attractions, shows, Premier Access, and it is composed of many lands. Trying to do everything would be impossible.

Before your visit I would recommend you to follow these steps:

1. See what is closed: Check the Official Tokyo Disneyland website to check for open and closed rides. It is really annoying to plan a trip to these parks and then see your favorite ride closed for refurbishment.
2. Check the calendar and times: Before you head into Tokyo Disneyland, see if the times work for you. Plan the commute in the morning and at night accordingly, or maybe see if you can take a break in the middle of the day.
3. Download the Disney Resort app: The app can tell you wait times, restaurants, and you can easily access your plans, and solicit Entry Requests (more on that below).
4. Familiarize with the types and number of rides: What I always do is I check recent YouTube videos of the park to see how these rides look. If I like them then I save them as “Travel Plans” in my Google Maps, this way I also familiarize myself with the plot of the park. Check the list of rides in the Disneyland website, and maybe Google “best attractions in Tokyo Disneyland”. Even though this can be very subjective, the information online could guide you to what you need. For example, if you have little kids you might want to prioritize less thrilling attractions. Also, check height requirements, especially for the little ones.
5. Check the weather: As you’ll see in my Tokyo DisneySea evening report, and in my Tokyo Disneyland Evening Report, the weather got horrible, and they cancelled Believe! Sea of Dreams, the fireworks show at the end of the night. It can get very windy and rainy here, so be aware of this. If it is going to rain later in the day, maybe do the exterior rides first thing in the morning, and leave the restaurants, shopping and interior rides for the evening.
6. Get to know the 3 types of Special Entry Tickets:
   • Disney Premier Access: This is not like Genie+, but it is more like Individual Lighting Lane Selections. If you do not have much time in this park, and it is going to be busy, I would recommend to buy the Disney Premier Access. It has to be bought one by one, and there is some time in between purchases (usually 60 minutes). But by doing this you can save a lot of time in the park, skipping the lines. As of May 2023, the rides with this service are: The Happy Ride with Baymax, Enchanted Tale of Beauty and The Beast, and Splash Mountain. The shows Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade and Disney Harmony in Color also have DPA. Prices go from 1,500 to 2,500 yen (approx. 11 to 19 USD), per ride. It is worth nothing that if you do not have Japanese credit cards, you would have to buy this DPA every time in the Guest Services office located at the entrance of the park.
   • Stand By Pass: Some restaurants and retail stores will require you to get this pass on the app in order to enter, this is to control the crowds inside of these places.
   • Entry Request: Also on the app, you can request for free, entry to shows using this feature. It is better to do it as soon as you get in the park, since they fill out very fast. As of May 2023 the shows that have ER are: Disney Character Greetings, Mickey’s Magical Musical World (The Best), Club Mouse Beat, and Jamboree Mickey! Let’s Dance.
7. There is no Park Hop: Please be aware, your ticket to Tokyo Disneyland will not work for Tokyo DisneySea, and there is no way to go to the two parks in one day, unless you buy two separate tickets for each park.

Getting to the park

Now, I was staying in Grand Nikko Tokyo Bay Maihama, a beautiful hotel, part of the Tokyo Disney Resort and just steps from the Bayside station of the Disney Resort Line monorail. The hotel has a restaurant downstairs with an amazing buffet breakfast, but now it was too late to go there.

The park opened at 9:00 AM, but I still had tume to get some coffee, so I just walked to the Bayside Station of the Disney Resort Line (Monorail), passing by the Hilton Tokyo Bay and the Tokyo Disney Resort Toy Story hotel. The hotel also provide shuttles to the Bayside Station and the Maihama JR Station if you need them (they are also included with the stay).

Needing a bunch of cash for transportation in Tokyo was not on my checklist, but yes, in case you do not know, many of the train stations only accept cash to buy tickets, so you better change some currency or use the ATMs. For me, it was better changing dollars, but just starting this Round The World Trip, I did not want to use all of my cash.

Similar to the one in Hong Kong Disneyland, this resort had a resort line, almost connected to the city metro. It takes you to Resort Gateway, very close to the Maihama JR station, where I was able to finally get a cold brew in the Starbucks. Then I went next door to a convenience store to grab a very light breakfast (egg sandwich).

Expect Long Lines

It was the moment of true, and 45 minutes before opening I started to do the line in the very front of the park. There were a lot of people, but the next day in Tokyo Disney Sea was going to be even worse.

The weather seemed a bit against me for this trip. I was hopping clear skies, but maybe it was just a Tokyo microweather situation? Maybe Osaka would be less cloudy?

At 9:00 AM they let us in, and after passing security, and checking my Klook tickets, I was inside.

And now I just realized, I had been to 9 Disney Parks:

1. Magic Kingdom
2. Hollywood Studios
3. Epcot
4. Animal Kingdom
5. Disneyland California
6. Disney California Adventure
7. Disneyland Paris
8. Walt Disney Studios Park Paris
9. Now Tokyo Disneyland

Tomorrow, I was going to: Tokyo DisneySea and in a few days to Hong Kong Disneyland. Only Shanghai Disneyland was the one left for this challenge, maybe next year in 2024.

Things to do as soon as you enter

The park was ready to celebrate their 40 years. Opened in 1983, this Magic Kingdom style park is now the third most visited park in the world, and surprisingly, it is  not owned or operated by The Walt Disney Company in any capacity.

As soon I got in, I went to the Guest Relations office to buy the Disney Premier Access of the day: Enchanted Tale of Beauty and The Beast, which already had some times later that morning. Following this, I tried to get into the Mickey’s Magical Musical World Entry Request using the app, but even though it showed me times, by the time I click JOIN in the app, they were already gone. So, I would recommend to do the Entry Requests (FREE) on the app before or while you do the Premier Access.

If you have a Japanese credit card, you do not have to go to Guest Relations, just like it to the app and do everything in there, just like they do in the American parks.

Now, what to rope drop? Considering I had spent almost 20 min doing all this? I went to the right to Space Mountain.

Tomorroland

After this ride, I needed to get a snack (already), and went to Pan Galactic Pizza Port, to buy the iconic and famous Little Green Dumplings for 400 yen (3 USD), 1 USD per dumpling is a steal.

After having this delicacy, I stayed in the same Tomorrowland and went to Star Tours: The Adventures Continue, practically the same ride as the one in Hollywood Studios.

I cannot skip these Star Wars rides wherever I go. Disney please give me more Star Wars and Marvel rides, those are the best ones.

Toontown

I left Tomorrowland to go to Toontown, a small land that is similar to the recently refurbished one at Disneyland California, but it is really cute as well. I was mostly looking for the Egg & Chicken on Chinese Bun that could be bought at Huey, Dewey and Louie’s Good Time Cafe in Toontown.

OMG, this was one of the best snacks I tried in Tokyo. Definitely, put it on your Food List. It is very flavourful, moist, and has the right amount of spice to it, that makes it perfect for younger and older guests. I devoured this treat just while I looked at the cute blossoms in this land. I was going later that there were still some cherry blossoms left in Tokyo.

Fantasyland and Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast

While I was waiting for the return time for the Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast, I went to Haunted Mansion (In Fantasyland, silly right?). Although, everything is in Japanese, you would still enjoy this ride, very similar to their counterparts in America.

Now, the time had come to go to my Disney Premier Access for Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast at Tokyo Disneyland. The new attraction was THE thing to do in this park, re-telling the story of The Beauty and The Beast. I recommend you to SCROLL to the end of this post if you don’t want to get spoilers.

SPOILERS FOR Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast

At the beginning there is a pre-show with very impressive animatronics, with Beast basically welcoming the guest to their castle.

The ride uses a trackless system similar to the one in Star Wars: Rise of The Resistance in Disneyland California, and can hold a lot of people in each of the cars, which resemble tea cups.

The cars move a lot, not only to all directions but also spins where required for the plot, allowing guests to see a 360 degrees view of the show, and not miss any detail.

The car will then take you to different rooms, being the most amazing one where Lumiere sings Be Our Guest. Props and animatronics would show up out of nothingness on the table and everywhere else. It was very surprising, even though all of it was in Japanese. But something even more surprising was the Transformation of The Beast. To this day I do not even know how they did that, WOW!

The ride ends with Tale as Old as Time, with the animatronics dancing on beat, like, what? Really well made ride, I really hope they bring this to America, hopefully Orlando soon…

END OF SPOILERS….

Time for another snack

That ride got me exhausted, even though I was just sitting there, so I decided to go to the front of the park and get something to eat. The view of the Cinderella Castle from the Main Street was just marvelous.

Nothing better than a Disney shaped waffle for this noon, and you could get them at Great American Waffle Company at Tokyo Disneyland, for 500 yen (almost 4 USD).

While I was eating my waffle, a few characters were popping up around and went to see who they were.

The Prince and Belle were around The Confectionery at World Bazaar.

And just like that after 4 hours in the park, I had decided to leave… BUT WHY? You would have to ready the next part of this story, already up in this blog: HERE!