Disney on a Budget…Tokyo Disney

Fact: I love Disneyland! When I lived in Southern California, I had an annual pass to Disney, because I love it that much (it’s the most magical place on earth!)

Fact: The prices at Disney are really ridiculously high these days! I used to hold an annual pass that allowed me to go every day except spring break and on Saturdays during the school year…and it was around $130. Now, tickets for just one day in the park are often $120. We are a family of three…Disney could get expensive really really quickly!

Want to know how to save on Disney tickets? GO TO TOKYO! Seriously. Beautiful, clean, fun parks, and they’re around $60 a day! That’s half off the price of the US parks. (The park prices do vary, so it’s tough to be too specific about prices!) Tokyo has two Disney parks: Tokyo Disney, and Tokyo Disney Sea. Since the tickets are half the price of the US parks, I thought it made sense to spend a day in each!

We brought L to Tokyo Disney and Tokyo Disney Sea in April 2023. It was magical! Afterwards I asked her, “Was it everything you hoped and dreamed?” She replied, “It was better!” This may not seem to be that big of a deal, but L is pretty dang hard to impress. I don’t think she’s ever said that something was better than she imagined before!

I loved Tokyo Disney too! Here are a few tips to help you if you choose to go:

1. Buy tickets in advance. At Disney Tokyo they do not sell tickets at the gate. Tickets must be purchased ahead of time. They also cap how many tickets they’ll sell, so buying in advance ensures you’ll get in on the date you want.
2. If you’re American, Klook is a reputable ticket dealer. The Tokyo Disney website does not like American credit cards. I tried and couldn’t get it to work. Finally, I followed what Reddit told me to do: I bought through Klook. It worked just fine! If you can’t get your card to work on the Tokyo Disney website, go with Klook.
3. Get there before they say they open. We got to the parks about an hour in advance because I read that they typically open 30-45 minutes before their published opening time, and this turned out to be true! We got through the gates well before the published opening time!
4. Eat the popcorn. The Tokyo Disney parks are known for having special flavored popcorn. Unique flavors like curry, chocolate, etc. It is fresh, warm, and delicious. Chocolate was my favorite, but chocolate everything is my favorite, so that’s not too surprising!
5. To save $$, avoid Disney hotels. We stayed at an AirBnB in Shinjuku Tokyo for $50/night. It was really not that big of a deal to take the train into the Disney parks.
6. TRY THE LITTLE GREEN DUMPLINGS. I thought I should try these because they’re adorable, but because they’re called dumplings, I expected them to be savory. To my delight, they’re actually cream-filled mochi! They come in a set of three: vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.
7. Leave walking time for Tokyo Disney Sea if you take the train. We did our first day at Tokyo Disney, and getting there from the train was an easy little walk. I was surprised when we had to walk and walk and walk and walk to get to the Tokyo Disney Sea park. It’s much farther from the train stop!

Here are some unique things about the Tokyo Disney parks:

1. Duffy. Yeah. So…he’s a teddy bear that is beloved in Japan??? As far as I know, he’s not featured in any films, but I guess he’s just rumored to be Mickey’s friend, and you’ll see him everywhere in the Tokyo parks. They have lots of Duffy merchandise, have Duffy meet-n-greets, and (most shocking to me) there are a LOT of grown adults walking around cuddling stuffed Duffy bears and taking pictures with their stuffed bears everywhere they go.
2. Food! I wrote about my two favorites above, but there are several unique cute food options at the Japanese parks.
3. Non-Disney characters. Tokyo Disney and Tokyo Disney Sea are the only Disney parks that are not owned by Disney. Therefore, they have some of their own characters that they use. This was most prominent at Tokyo Disney Sea, where many of the rides were themed around non-Disney characters. L’s favorite was called “Sindbad’s Story Book Voyage.” It featured a boy name Sindbad, and you follow his story on a boat ride through various rooms (It’s a Small World style).
4. Unique lands at Tokyo Disney Sea. Tokyo Disney Sea has an incredible huge castle for Ariel called the “Mermaid’s Lagoon.” It’s huge! So huge that several rides fit inside it so that it’s a great place to visit if it rains. There’s also an “Arabian Coast” area, themed after Aladdin. The coolest thing about the Arabian Coast area is that instead of piping a sugary sweet smell into the air, like they do at most Disney parks, at the Arabian Coast, they pipe middle eastern spice smells (kind of curry-esque) into the air. It’s really cool!
5. Big poofy headpieces. So you know how we wear mickey ear headbands here in the US? In Japan, huge character stuffy-heads are popular. I’m not explaining this well, but basically it’s a cross between a hat and a legit mascot’s head. They make the wearer look a bit like a bobble head. You’ll think you’re seeing a real character, and then suddenly realize it’s just a regular old park-goer wearing a huge massive character headpiece. It’s pretty unique!
6. Lots of characters out and about. Prior to going to the Tokyo parks, I had spent one day at Disney Hong Kong, and many many days at the California Disney Parks. I saw 2x the number of characters up close in the two days I spent at the Tokyo park than I’ve seen in all my other park days combined. Now, I had never been to a Disney park with a kid before, so there is a possibility that I would have seen a lot more characters at the other parks if I had been in the kiddie areas. BUT I actually suspect that character sightings are more thrilling to the Japanese audience than to other audiences, so perhaps they provide more of them! Generally for the drive-by sitings (when the characters are just out and about) in Japan, they will not let adults get very close to them, but most of the time the characters will seek out kids to take pictures with, so L got a lot of pictures with the characters. We did quickly learn that if they characters were just out and about they would NOT sign her autograph book…we had to wait in line to get autographs!

Most importantly: if you’re an adventurous family, going to the Tokyo parks is a great compromise: The kid gets a kid day, and you get to travel and explore another culture for the rest of the week! Everybody wins!