Friday, June 10, 2011

DISNEY SEA

This past Monday Tracy and Marissa half-dragged me to Disney Sea. I'm not normally a big Disney person and I'm not attached to many cartoon characters here in Japan (at least not attached like EVERYTHING I OWN MUST BE _____ ), but I went along since I've never been there. I went to Disneyland with John way back when, which was fun but I wasn't left with a burning desire to go back. I figured Disney Sea would be the same.

As far as I can tell from my other post, prices haven't gone up - 6000yen for admission and about 5000yen between food and souvenirs. That translates into a higher dollar amount but what do I care, my paychecks come in yen bwahaha. I was told Disney Sea is more about the *atmosphere* than rides and attractions, which was kind of true. Just walking around the park was nice and some of the movie-themed places were REALLY well done, but I'll get to that in a bit. 

They split up the rides pretty evenly between the two parks. Disney Sea has Indiana Jones, Tower of Terror, Journey to the Center of the Earth, among others. I was forced into going on all of them, much to my dismay. Had Tower of Terror lasted one more second I would've thrown up lunch, and I didn't realize that Journey to the Center of the Earth's ride was the one where you're blasted out the side of the volcano. THAT WAS A BIG SURPRISE omg.

Have some photos!

Mickey's head is everywhere! Kind of like Hello Kitty's...

GLORIOUS KETCHUP AT LUNCH.

Almost threw up all over poor Marissa,
who managed to survive with a numb arm the rest of the day.


LAMEST RIDE EVER!

See that loop in the middle? I went on it. FML.

Indiana Jones, take 1.

But for me, one of the absolute best parts of the day was stumbling upon part of my childhood. I have been told many, many, many times that I watched The Little Mermaid everyday as a toddler. I knew all the lines and could sing all the songs, and my father and older brothers still make fun of me for it even though it was 20 years ago (omg I can't believe I just wrote that).

The Little Mermaid portion of the park is an indoor bit that's aimed at entertaining the young kids; it reminded me a lot of Puroland. The ground is that spongy stuff that you find at public parks in America, the rides are fairly lame, and the place is packed with strollers. It wasn't great and we almost decided to forgo any exploring to head straight to the gift shop, but I just wanted to see around this one cave. You know what I found?

ARIEL'S GROTTO.




We all took turns taking pictures with Prince Eric.




I'm not a very sentimental person. My reaction to most things in life is, "Meh." I STOOD IN THE ENTRANCE AND MY JAW DROPPED. I always loved Ariel's grotto in the movie and for just a little while I felt like maybe Disneyland was a magical place. I'd go back to Disney Sea just for this.

After at least half an hour, we managed to pull ourselves out of the grotto and continued with our day. Tracy and I had a few gyoza dogs (steamed manapua buns with gyoza filling in a hot dog shape) and Marissa became addicted to the curry popcorn in Aladin land.



We ended our glorious day in the medieval science castle place, looking at optical illusions and astronomy things and riding this contraption some old dead white guy designed.



All in all a day well spent. Someone tell Marissa how they make their curry popcorn.

6 comments:

  1. I've actually never been to Disney LAND but I've been to Disney Sea twice now, hahaha. I also have similar feelings towards the Little Mermaid as you do... but for me the big thing was Aladdin's palace. I STILL would marry him if I could.

    I can't ride those rides. The fact that you're still alive and speaking and interacting with me after riding them is amazing to me. I rode the rides in the mermaid grotto, and 20000 leagues under the sea. That's my limit.

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  2. I put the Little Mermaid on TV for Ella the other day. I think she liked it, but she wasn't as captivated by it as you were.

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  3. @Caroline ALADDIN IS ALSO A FAVORITE~ I was sad they didn't have any toys for the tiger, I forget what his name was. Lol Gilbert Godfrey as the parrot. I don't think we ever found the 20000 Leagues Under the Sea ride :/

    @Pip I tried to explain how awesome the grotto was to my 17-year-old male student. He didn't get it, either.

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  4. OH MY GOD.

    The Little Mermaid was my favorite favorite favorite movie in the whole world when I was little. I used to ask God to make me a mermaid.

    It never happened and I mostly just got all pruney in our pool.

    SO OMG REALLY REALLY REALLY.
    I wanna go just for that. I had no idea this existed. XDD

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  5. T o T omg I wanna go sooooo badly! i have an awesome all year no black out day pass in California, but i doubt it would work at Tokyo D-land! So sad!

    I love your pictures! Looks like you had fun haha even on the LAMEST ride XD

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  6. @Miss Wave IT'S SO AMAZING. And it's built for kids to climb all over and explore so it's even MORE fun. You can open books and play with stuff, it's so great omg.

    @Xanny The year pass here is like 80,000yen! CRAZY. We thought the lame ride was like water bumper cars but it wasn't. That would've been WAY better.

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