Japan Day 16: DisneySea, Heat, and Maybe One Amusement Park Too Many

After a much-needed rest day, we were ready to head out again — this time to Tokyo DisneySea.

Well… “ready” might be a strong word.

By this point in our trip, we had already been to Universal Studios Japan, Chiikawa Park and Sanrio Puroland. And I was beginning to suspect something about myself: maybe I don’t actually like amusement parks that much.

Still, DisneySea was on our itinerary for a reason. None of us is particularly crazy about Disney, but we had heard that DisneySea was worth visiting and, since it’s unique to Japan, we wanted to experience it for ourselves.

A Very Deliberate Late Start

Our original plan was to arrive around 10 AM.

Then we looked at the weather.

It was going to be another extremely hot day, and we had also heard that the evening show, Believe! Sea of Dreams, was really worth seeing. Arriving at 10 AM and staying until the show would have meant spending about ten hours at DisneySea.

No, thank you.

Instead, we decided to take it easy in the morning and arrived at the park at around 2:30 PM. It took us more than an hour to get there from our Airbnb, so even with the late start, DisneySea was still very much the main event of the day.

For the final part of the journey, we took the Disney Resort Line instead of the bus. It was a small thing, but definitely the right choice. The monorail started building the Disney atmosphere before we even reached the park and made our arrival feel a little more special.

An Afternoon at DisneySea

Since it was still very hot when we arrived, our first priority was simple: find something indoors!

We started with 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which gave us a welcome break from the heat.

From there, we spent the afternoon exploring the park. We walked a lot, wandered through the different areas and stopped for Mickey-shaped ice cream along the way.

The ice cream was good.

It also needed to be eaten VERY quickly in that heat!

We eventually made our way to the Mermaid Lagoon area, where we rode Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster. We liked that one enough to come back and ride it a second time later. We also did Scuttle’s Scooters.

So yes, we only went on four rides in total, counting Flounder twice, but the rides were only part of our afternoon. We spent much more of our time walking around and taking in the park.

And there was plenty to see.

More Than the Rides

The park itself is beautiful.

The architecture, scenery and different themed areas are incredibly well done. Even when we weren’t going on rides, there was always something interesting to look at. It feels like a place designed to be explored rather than simply a collection of attractions.

Things also got considerably better for us after around 5 PM, when the heat finally became more bearable.

We could slow down and enjoy walking around without constantly thinking about how hot we were.

We ate supper early, then continued wandering around before it was time to find a spot for the evening show.

Believe! Sea of Dreams

We had heard so many good things about Believe! Sea of Dreams, and visually, it really was beautiful.

Unfortunately, I think we made one strategic mistake.

We were apparently standing very close to a speaker.

The show was LOUD.

Not just normal big-show loud. Soooo loud.

After a while, it became difficult to enjoy it, and Kid 1 especially had had enough. Eventually, all three of us agreed that we were ready to leave.

So we slipped away a little before the show ended.

That actually had another advantage: we could get ahead of the huge crowd that would be leaving when the park closed at 9 PM.

By the time we finally made it home, we were completely exhausted.

So… Do I Actually Like Amusement Parks?

This trip may have taught me something unexpected.

I don’t think I like big amusement parks very much!

Or perhaps I like them in much smaller doses than I thought.

Too many people. Too much noise. Too much waiting. And when you add summer heat to all of that, it can become exhausting very quickly.

But that doesn’t mean I regret going to DisneySea.

The architecture, atmosphere and scenery alone made it worth experiencing. We didn’t see everything. We didn’t ride everything. But that wasn’t really the point for us.

We spent an afternoon exploring DisneySea, stayed for the evening show and saw what makes the park so different.

And for us, that was enough.

Coming Next

The next day, we traded amusement-park crowds for a completely different kind of Tokyo treasure hunt…