Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to episode 337 of the TDR now podcast. We're the first English speaking podcast about various Asian theme parks like Tokyo Disneyland and Disneysea. And you can find us anywhere. Under TDR Explorer, you'll find lots of fun information and resources for your trip. I'm Trish. I'm one of your co hosts and I am the one who was enjoying spring, but it suddenly became winter again. And you can find me on social media, @dream sweetslove, on Instagram and Threads. And with me, as always, is the delightful and charming Chris. Hello.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Hello.
Yeah, I'm also the one just confused with this weather. Like last week, right, it was 24 degrees and then it started raining and then yesterday it felt like it was minus four. Like, what is it? Like, this is weird. I had so many people, like, message me.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: Like, I had so many people message and just, and just say, oh, is it usually this cold around this time of year? And like, no, it's usually pretty warm. Like, usually by mid March. It's nice weather, not winter.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: The thing is that we, we basically like the way someone described it online. And I'm like, it's so true the way the weather is here now. It's like we've shifted a month. So March is still winter, March is February, and April is now March. And if you think about it, if we were in March, this would be normal. Right? And there's even a Japanese word for like, your spring starts and then it goes back to like winter weather. I forgot what the word is, you know, but there's a word for it even. It's just that we've shifted like a whole month in terms of weather at the beginning of spring. Even though we should be well into proper spring by this point, right?
[00:02:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Because summer goes well into September now.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. September is August.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: It's a shifts in the weather.
It's very odd.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: It was so cold. It was so cold though. And rainy. Cold and rainy. And I'm like, no, cold, rainy, windy blossoms. Yes, it was.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Just not a good combination. No, it's just like knocking. Yeah. Like any of the sakura trees are like in full bloom. Like they're gonna be just blown away pretty quickly, right?
[00:02:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm kind of like really watching like the local parks closely because our local park was still not in bloom, right. So I'm like, please bloom after the rain.
[00:02:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, um, there's a street that has like, it's lined with sakura trees and I can see them. They were starting to Bloom. But then they stopped. I'm like, okay, good. Just wait. Please wait. Hold.
Hold on for another day. And then. Then. Then go for it. Yeah.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It's.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: And I. I don't know about you. I. I get, like, seasonal depression. And for a while, like, it's like my whole mood was, like, uplifted. I felt energetic. I felt like a complete sh.
Then this weather hit and it's like, no.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. Just the. The cold and everything just kind of makes you, like, come on.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. But seeing the cherry blossoms helps, so it's like.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: It does. It really does.
And. Yeah, well, once they bloom, too, they don't last long. Like, not even a week.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Our apartment, the. The. Actually inside the apartment complex, most of them were like, like, at 80% before the rain. And I'm like, oh, man, they're going to look all sad now.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Yeah, but that's just how it is. It's hard to kind of pinpoint when everything's going to be in full bloom. I know so many people trying to plan their. Their trips around, like, the blooming of the sakura, and it's like, it's kind of tough to predict. Like, they have prediction calendars, but that. That's, as the word says, it's a prediction. Right.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And with climate change, who knows? You know, like, all of a sudden, this sudden cold and rain, which is lasting quite a long time, we don't know what it's going to be like.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: You know, it's supposed to rain tomorrow and then supposed to finally get.
Then it's supposed to get warm again. So I think we're okay.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Oh, my God, I'm excited. Okay. I have to go out tomorrow, though, so I'm not looking forward to that.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I have to as well. But that's okay.
But, yeah, speaking of, like, terrible weather and stuff, I was at disneysea yesterday.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: No.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: It wasn't like, I guess it was my choice, but I wouldn't have gone or I would have changed my date if it wasn't the first day of, like, the changes to Fantasy Springs. Like, I kind of want to be there to kind of see how everything worked.
So, yeah, for. I'm sure most of you listening already know the changes that we're going to be talking about that we talked about in last week's episode. The long story short, Fancy Springs, the attractions there, they're all. They all have standby lines now. Just normal standby lines. You can just walk up to them and wait. You don't have to do any of that standby pass stuff.
It's perfectly fine. Like you don't have to do any of that stuff. And the Disney Premier access still available for those for Peter Pan, Rapunzel and Frozen, which is nice.
Yeah. I wanted to go and just see how things worked.
I guess I should rephrase everything.
Yesterday was obviously the first day of it happening. But also since it was such a terrible weather day, the crowds were a lot lower than probably what they would be normally.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: My experience is probably not indicative of exactly how it's going to be going forward.
I expect the wake times will probably be higher than what I experienced. But you can kind of get a general, general sense as to what, what's. How things are going to play out, I guess.
But yeah, the weather was just horrible. Like I, I don't know what time they let the happy entry people in. My guess is probably 8:15 or 8:30 because I didn't get there until about just after 8:30.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Because I would not want to wait in the line in the morning on a day like today.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah. That was kind of the main reason. I just did not want to wait outside in the rain and cold that long. But.
But yeah, it wasn't like it. It was. It was fine. I guess I was bundled up and everything. It just sucks when the gust of wind happens.
The gust of wind sucks so bad.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: And DisneySea is like so close to the. To the oceans. It's like super windy.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
Anywhere in this, in this. In the city of Ureyasu, it's just windy. Windy, windy, windy.
Goodness.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: What did it look like in the morning though, would you say? Like it was like, how were the crowds in like the morning line?
[00:07:50] Speaker B: A lot less than normal. But the, the security line moved slow, of course. Quite slow. Yeah. Not sure why because they're all open.
But it just. Things just seem to kind of move a little bit slower than normal.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: I mean it kind of makes sense on a rainy day because like if you're like, oh no, do they open the bags anymore? No. Right.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: So how it works is there's like a scanner you go through.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:21] Speaker B: Then they decide if like you need further checking or not.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: Right.
Yeah.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: But also too, they kind of like hold people because after once that happens. Because that's at where the old ticket booths were.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: After that there's only so many people that can fit in that little space between the ticket booths and the ticket gates.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: So if that fills up, they kind of have to hold and you know, seems like there could be holds up at the ticket gates.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: It's so strange because I almost feel, and I know this is like sacrilege and, and especially coming from me, but I almost feel like the ticket gates, they don't use them anymore, you know.
[00:09:01] Speaker B: They need the ticket booth.
[00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Why not Just, you know, you can keep the upper structure, you can keep the walkway, but remove the ticket booths and change where the security check in is done maybe.
[00:09:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Move it elsewhere because Universal Studios Japan actually recently changed their security procedure. Or like where, where it's done now. Yeah, I guess, like really quickly about that. So most people come for, for Universal. When people come, they're coming through CityWalk, right. And they go under the arches. And how it used to work is you could just like walk right under the arches and then pass the ticket booths and then they would do security check at the ticket gates.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: And this created like a really big line even past like the arches when, if it was busy enough.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: But now they changed it where everyone is funneled to the other arch. So once you walk through the first arch from CityWalk, you have to go all the way to the right. Like, it's all fenced off now. You go all the way to the right arch. And then that's where they have this, this long line of like security basically. Like airport scanners and it like funnels everyone over there.
And there's. There's also a ton more lockers. They, they built more lockers, which is thank goodness because finding a locker there was kind of a nightmare before. So now they have tons and tons of lockers.
But yeah, you go through the security there and then you kind of like double back to the front of the park on the other side of the. The new fences that, that they put up. And when I went middle of March when it was super busy, it felt very smooth because like, they're, they're like. They kind of moved the bottlenecks around so they weren't like on top of each other.
And it just made it for like a more smoother experience. So I'm hoping Disney maybe kind of figures that out for disneysea. They kind of like, they've kind of done that already with Disneyland because the security is well before because it's under the, like the monorail station.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: Right, right. Like something like that where they just move the security area.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
It's wild to think, like we never had security until like, what was it like they installed that in what, 20, 21 or something? Like, it's very Recent. Yeah. Up until then we had no. Like, basically, do we even had security? I don't think they ever checked our bags. I don't remember.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Oh, I don't remember. Like, I feel like. Was there something? There was.
I don't remember. I feel like there was something, though.
[00:11:47] Speaker B: I can't remember now.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: I feel like there was something because I always felt like. Because coming from Disney World, I always felt like Disney World is so violating the way they do it, and I really hate it or I haven't been in a long time, so I don't know if it's changed. I kind of doubt that. But yeah. And I always was like, oh, Tokyo Disneyland, it feels much nicer. So I feel like we had something, but I don't remember what it was.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: It was very lax. It was kind of like they just kind of like looked in the bag. I think she's like, okay, you're good.
Yeah, Yeah. I think it was like in. In response to the Olympics.
[00:12:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, no, we had Definitely before the Olympics.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: But we didn't have the machines. We had like.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: It was definitely machines. No. Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, it took some time to get through. Through security for that, which kind of sucked. It's. But it is what it is. But I was checking the wait times because you can check the wait times for the. On the Tokyo Disney Resort app when you're not at the park. So if you're at home, even if you're overseas, you can still check the wait times as long as the park is open.
So, like right at 9:00 because, like, early entry people, if. If you're in the park before 9:00, the. The wait times and stuff don't start. Like, they don't show up in the app until 9. So it's like there's no way to know what the wait times were before that.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: But right at 9:05, I took screenshots. So frozen was at 50 minutes, Rapunzel was at 40, Peter Pan was at 20 and Perry Tinkerbell was at 5, which is not bad. And then of course, it just kind of climbed from there. Right. I think.
Yeah. Not even 20 minutes later. 9:17.
Frozen shot up to 100. 110.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: And then Rapunzel was 40 and Peter Pan was 40, and then Tinkerbell was 15.
[00:13:47] Speaker A: I feel like that's not bad at all.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: No. The highest I saw was 130 minutes for frozen at 9:30 and then 60 minutes for Rapunzel, 40 for Peter Pan and then 40 for Tinkerbell so they kind of, kind of kept climbing, right?
[00:14:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: And then later in the morning, it was 100 minutes for Rapunzel, same for. It was 120 for Frozen, 70 for Peter Pan, and 40 for Tinkerbell. I think that's the highest they got to.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: I'm surprised Rapunzel gets up that high with it being so short and like a boat ride.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: I think it's because the. The queue is not very big.
It doesn't have a big cue. So for. For Disney Premier Premiere Access, it's no surprise Frozen ran out first. And I don't. I think it ran out at 10:30. Around 10:30 is when it ran out. And then I kind of kept checking throughout the day and Rapunzel and Peter Pan never seemed to have run out of their dpa. But again, this is all because, I think because it was a slow day because of the weather. So I would say probably on a normal day, they'll probably sell out at some point, but maybe like, not until the afternoon or something. It's hard to say. I'll have to kind of check as the days go on. But with Frozen, I noticed more became available later in the evening.
[00:15:22] Speaker A: Ah.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Which is interesting. So I don't, I, I. Obviously they don't tell us this, but I don't know how they decide when to release more. Like, I know people have the theories, like, oh, it's at these times that they drop and stuff. Like, I don't think that's the case. I think people are just trying to.
Just trying to figure out a pattern, but I don't think there is one. It's probably someone just like deciding, you know, what, we can release more or something.
But I don't know that for a fact. I'm just guessing.
So overall it was like, it's pretty easy to get DPA if you want to.
But what I did notice is so Rapunzel, because it has the shortest queue in terms. Well, except for Tinkerbell, Tinkerbell has the short queue, but Rapunzel, of the three, like, big ticket attractions, it has the, the shortest physical cue. So, like, the queue kind of wrapped around past the entrance to Fantasy Springs at one point in the morning, like, it was quite long.
And then Frozen as well, it kind of wrapped through arendelle and, like, towards the hotel.
And that was kind of like first thing in the morning. And then as the day kind of went on, it kind of like kind of stabilized a little bit. Wasn't as, like, the line wasn't as physically long. It Seemed.
But for Peter Pan, I never saw it go above 70 minutes, which is pretty good. Peter Pan has a. Peter Pan's queue is massive. It's a people eater attraction. And it moves. Pardon me? It moves a lot of people through.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: I think there's what, three.
Three ride vehicles that go out like every probably minute or something like that. And I think each one holds like eight or nine people or something like 10 people, something like that. So, like, it pushes people through pretty quickly.
[00:17:25] Speaker A: Yeah, compared to, like.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, compared to the other two. The other two are boat rides. So, you know, boat rides are. They take a little bit longer to load and unload.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Oh, sorry, what were you going to say?
[00:17:39] Speaker A: No, I always hear that Peter Pan is the easiest one to get on.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
And Tinkerbell is now as well. Since you don't have to do any standby pass stuff. You can just rock up to it. It's a cute little ride. Like, it's fun. It's one of those, like, do it when you can. Like, I don't think you need to prioritize it, but make sure you do do it at some point because it's a cute little ride.
[00:18:02] Speaker A: I really want to do it.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: The queue. I think the queue is super cute. It's really cute. It's a cute queue.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: I want to see cheese.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Yes, you need to see cheese.
As for, like, we kind of talked about it last episode. Like, what strategy should you do? I guess there's a couple ways you can go about it because as we mentioned before, too Fancy Springs is kind of a trek from the front of the park. Like, it could take you like, 15 to 20 minutes to walk there from the front of the park.
So one thing you could do is get like, Disney Premiere access for Frozen as soon as you get into the park. And then if you want, go all the way to Fantasy Springs and then, like, get in line for Rapunzel or. Or Peter Pan. Or if you don't want to do that, you can get it. Like, I would still get a DPA for Frozen and then go do something like Journey to the center of the Earth or Tower of Terror. And like, because that's closer to the front of the park.
[00:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: And then. And then, like, make your way back to Fantasy Springs. And what you could do is kind of gauge what the wait times are. And you could, if you want to grab a. Like, grab a DPA for Rapunzel. Even though I don't really think in terms of, like, quote unquote value, because Rapunzel is such a short attraction.
If you want to compare it that way compared to Frozen. And they're both 2,000 yen per person. Yeah, you're kind of getting more bang for your buck with Frozen. And if you bought some, like, if you want to buy another dpa, do it for Peter Pan.
But with Peter Pan, the wait time never really gets too high. So you could just wait in the queue as well. So you could also maybe just like depending on the wait time for Rapunzel, you could just weigh in the standby line. For me personally, my, my threshold for buying DPA is if the wait time is over an hour, then I'll like. Then I'll consider the dpa. If it's like, if it's 60 minutes or less, then I'm like, nah, I'll just wait in the standby line. Like an hour is fine to me.
[00:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I really don't usually buy it unless we're with family.
Then we would buy it, but like, I don't really see the need, you know?
[00:20:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
And for the DPA stuff, again, like, once you buy it, you have to wait like before you can buy another one. And when you buy it, it'll tell you in the app when your next one is available.
I think it's in 60 minutes. Yeah, it's either like you buy it and you have to wait 60 minutes to buy the next one or once you use the current dpa. So if you bought one for right away and used it, then he could buy another one right away, like after it's used.
I believe that's how it works.
So yeah, there's a lot of different strategies just because, like, the park is so oddly shaped now, right?
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: How much do you want to be walking back? Like you don't want to be walking back to the back of the park, to the front of the park. To the back of the park, to the front of the park. Right.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: It's so time consuming. So it's good to have like a, a strategy to like do it in blocks if you can.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
Me personally, I'd probably.
My preference would probably, probably be when to get in by DPA for frozen. Maybe later in the day, like later in the morning or something. And then just kind of do the stuff at the front of the park and then kind of just like let the morning rush go back there because everyone's going to go there. Everyone's just going to run there and then kind of just kind of take your time with it.
I think it's probably the best way to go about it. But I haven't done that theory yet, so I have to kind of try it out and just see how it goes.
[00:22:06] Speaker A: I think it's hard too, when you're in a group of people. If you're in a larger group, it's sometimes harder to move around or decide.
Some people want to do one thing, some people don't want to do it. Like Tower of Terror, for example. Some people just don't want to write it.
[00:22:21] Speaker B: Some.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: So, like, it's kind of like harder when you're in a bigger group.
[00:22:25] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, 100%.
And I guess too, like, a lot of people are asking what was the worst thing at the Fancy Springs Hotel now that you can't. They don't have their limited ride ticket stuff.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: I still think it's worth staying there because you still get early entry into Fancy Spring, like, or into Disney Sea, and your entry is. Goes right into Fantasy Springs. You could in theory knock out Frozen and Rapunzel before the first guests even get to the back of Fantasy. Like, get to Fantasy Springs from the front of the park.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: I mean. Yeah. But you could stay at a nicer hotel like Miracosta, and it doesn't make a massive difference, so. I know. Well, no, I would recommend Miracosta, you know.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Well, no, I'm. I'm just talking from a pure strategic standpoint.
[00:23:19] Speaker A: I mean, sure.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: That's your sole focus.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: Knock things off a list, for sure.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like, you still have that. You. You still have that advantage. But no, I agree. I think the Mirror coast is a better hotel overall.
But if you are staying at the Fantasy Springs Hotel, like, you'll definitely get your. Your strategy would be different. Like, I don't think you need to buy DPA for anything. You can just do Frozen first thing and then probably get a. Get into Standby for Rapunzel and then you're good. And then like, the other two would be easy enough to do later in the day if you want to.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: For sure.
[00:23:58] Speaker B: Because, like, you can kind of do everything opposite of everyone. You kind of do those first and then you kind of make your way to the front of the park while everyone's coming back there.
And I think that'll. That'll. That could make a big difference, I think.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: Oh, for sure.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: What else was I going to say about this? Kind of went through my list already.
[00:24:19] Speaker A: How are the, how are the restaurants to get into? I mean, I know again, I know the weather. It was like kind of like a special situation. But was it rather easy to get into. Or was there still, like a big restaurants are.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: The restaurants had tons of availability. And even like two days before that, actually, I went. I had to go. I. I wanted to use my Fantasy Springs magic ticket that I bought in December that I couldn't use.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Because I was sick. So I went on March 30, which was this. What day was that? Sunday. I think it was a Sunday. Is that a Sunday?
[00:24:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. No. Yes, Sunday.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: No, it was.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:24:56] Speaker A: No.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it was Sunday the third.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: It was Sunday. It was Sunday. Because the first was Monday. Yeah.
[00:25:00] Speaker B: First was Tuesday. Yeah.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Sorry.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: I just looked up. I haven't changed my calendar over yet. Oops. I need to change my calendar.
But yeah, even on then, like, the Sunday was a lot busier and it was super easy to get mobile order for all three of the restaurants.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: In Fantasy Springs. So there's just a lot of availability.
So I. It's not like a mad rush as it once was, it seems like.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: So it's not like, super important to have to, like, make sure you get your DPA then mobile order. Like, you can kind of like leave the mobile order till later, kind of when you know when you want to eat. Like, maybe start checking, like, half an hour before you want to eat just in case.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Or like, when you have an idea of, like, what you're, like, what you've already knocked off and what part of the park you'll be in and be like, oh, we'll be close to that area. We can do it at this time.
[00:26:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Because the. And it's. It's only the Fantasy Springs restaurants that are mobile order only. There's other restaurants in the park that have mobile order, but they also have just a regular, like, regular line that you can walk into.
I was kind of thinking, like, are they ever gonna make these? Not mobile order, but looking at how the restaurant is set up, there's only one register and for each of the restaurants.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: So I don't think they're ever. I think it's going to be mobile order unless they want to rehaul all three of the restaurants to add, like, more like, place, like physical places to order. And I don't think they're going to do that.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: Hmm. Okay.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Which is kind of interesting.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Like, I do know, though, like, most people are going to be using the app. Right. Because you kind of have to. But if you don't have. If, like, if you don't have the app, you can go up to them and ask Them like, hey, I don't have the app, but I want to eat here.
They will let you order in person, but they might give you like a return time to come back.
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, because I thought it's so strange because I know there are. And I, like, this is kind of like unthinkable to me, but I, you know, everybody's different when they travel and we, we, you know, when I was working at the tourism office, we did encounter quite a few people who would ask to use like, where is the payphone? Because they did not have a mobile with them. So there are a lot of people who travel and they just don't use a mobile. And I know some elderly might still be using like an old, old style phone. Right.
[00:27:49] Speaker B: So Glapkos phones.
[00:27:53] Speaker A: I don't even, I don't know. But like, you know, so. Yeah, it's kind of interesting like thinking about that, right?
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess, like going off on a little bit of a tangent. You can buy like Disney Premier access and like get these passes and stuff. Without a phone. You just have to talk to a cast member.
You.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: I think it's usually so inconvenient and it would take time out of your day. You have to line up and that line can get long, you know, but you can't.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: Like, it is doable.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:29] Speaker B: You don't. Like.
I'm. I'm sure most people listening will be using their phone, so I think it's fine.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Oh, for sure. Yeah.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Overall, it was the first day, I think was pretty good.
We'll just have to kind of keep an eye on it and see how it goes.
Goes from there.
Like, who knows?
But yeah, the, the weather was not. The weather was not great. It didn't help anything.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Freezing.
[00:28:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was, it was pretty cold. It was, it was cold.
It was not good. It's not a good time.
But I, I did get to meet Mickey at the front of the park. That was nice.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: That's kind of like one of the perks of going like in a bad weather day, though you don't have as much of a way you might meet the characters more easily, you know.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:23] Speaker A: So that's not, that's like a good point.
[00:29:27] Speaker B: Yeah. I met Mickey at the front of the park. It was pretty like straightforward and there was like five people in line.
[00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Which is unheard of. You never see that.
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:39] Speaker B: So it's just very interesting.
Well, I shouldn't say it's interesting. Like that's kind of what happens when the weather's really Bad. Yeah, Bad weather keeps people away at least. Like low. Like it keeps local people away for sure.
And a lot of people, I guess when I say people, people that live in Japan, like, they will change their dates. Like people that are staying, they live.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: In like the greater Tokyo area. Right?
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, you'll be like, let's not go to this change. Or like, let's change our ticket for sure. But of course, if you're staying at the hotels, like, you're not gonna change your days because you kind of can't. That's kind of why you're there. Right. But kind of works in your favor, I think.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Yeah, works out.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: The.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: The rest of the park was also quite, quite quiet. Like soaring was 70 minutes, which is unheard of. Soren's usually well over 100 every single day.
[00:30:41] Speaker A: That's great. Yeah. That you could get in so easily.
[00:30:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
But I guess in order of popular like or like high wait times, Frozen is all like, is going to be the, the, the longest wait out of. Out of the Foreign Fantasy Springs, followed by Rapunzel.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: And then Peter Pan will be third. And that's just because it's not, it's not that it's not a good ride. It's. It's excellent. It's just, it's. It's a people eater, so they push people through pretty quickly. And then Tinkerbell is just a cute little family fun ride. So the wait times. Not. Not going to get too high on that one either.
Yeah, it's fun. It's all good.
[00:31:29] Speaker A: Well, it sounds like. It sounds really great. You know, I'm really looking forward to it. I'm like, when. I'm just trying to think when to go. Like, what is a good time to go?
[00:31:39] Speaker B: You know, once the weather's warm.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Although the wait times will be higher. But.
[00:31:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Although I heard from a friend who went like last summer and she said that the wait times were really low in the summertime.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been too hot.
[00:32:00] Speaker A: Yeah. That's the thing. It gets so incredibly hot. So I'm like, I wonder if that might be a good time to just go knock out whatever we want to do and either. Can you. This is like a weird question. I have not been in such a long time. Can you still leave and come back?
[00:32:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You just have to scan your ticket.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:32:23] Speaker B: Like they, they, they don't do the hand stamp anymore. They just. They scan your ticket.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I wonder if that might work out. Like, go in the beginning part of the day. Take a Break in the middle of the day, like, relax somewhere, like, nice and cool, and then go back and hit it again at night.
[00:32:41] Speaker B: You know, that's what I did yesterday. Um, yeah, like, mid. After, like, early afternoon, I came. I. I left just to get out of the. The weather and just, like, relax and stuff. And then I went back in the evening.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: So. Yeah, that could work.
[00:32:58] Speaker B: That's easy. But yeah, just make sure you. You get them to scan your ticket before you leave.
[00:33:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:33:04] Speaker B: The cast members ask, like, they ask if you're coming in, like, or. Or coming back. Back in, I should say.
Which is good to know, I suppose.
It was also really cute seeing the characters underneath the Miracosta archway.
[00:33:25] Speaker A: I love it. Yeah.
[00:33:27] Speaker B: Because usually the characters will be roaming, like, in the. Like the. In front of the Aqua Sphere, like the Plaza, and then also, like, in Mediterranean harbor in front of the. Like the. In front of the harbor. But of course it's raining, so they're not doing that. So they all kind of come out and just kind of, like, congregate underneath the. The archway there. So it's like Mickey and Minnie don't wander around. They have, like, their own little dedicated spot.
But the. The other ones, like Clarice, Chip and Dale, Donald, Daisy, Goofy and Pluto, they all kind of roam about. And then Geppetto, Geppetto, Pinocchio, they all, like, those characters kind of roam around as well.
Oh, this wasn't yesterday, because it was raining all day. But also, like, they have. A lot of. The princesses will roam around in Fantasy Springs, which is really cute. It was actually really cute. I didn't get it on camera, but Rapunzel and Aurora were walking by and they were holding hands. It was so cute.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Aw. It's so weird to see Aurora in Disneysea, though.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, she does have, like, some stones. She's in the rock work.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like, I guess, like, as we've mentioned before, like, that's kind of like the Fantasyland area. So, like, that's where all the princesses are. Right.
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Like, I feel like if we're breaking that rule, why can't we get Ariel back in Disneyland? You know? I would love to see her there.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Does Ariel meet there?
[00:35:04] Speaker A: No.
[00:35:04] Speaker B: She does. Does she? No, sorry. At disneysea. In Fantasy Springs.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: At disneysea.
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Oh, I can't remember if she does or not, like, as a roaming character in Fantasy. I don't know because, you know, they got rid of her meet your greeting area a while back.
[00:35:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's gone.
[00:35:23] Speaker B: I don't know. I know. Like Anna and Elsa, Rapunzel, Aurora. I think Cinderella and Belle are also show up as well. I. I think. I'm pretty sure Ariel does. I can't remember off the top of my head. There's so many characters I can't remember. And it's not like they all come out at once. You know, they're all just kind of staggered about.
[00:35:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah.
I think Flynn comes out sometimes too with Rapunzel's.
[00:35:51] Speaker A: Cool. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: And was it Philip? Is that Aurora's prince?
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Prince Philip, Yeah.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Okay.
I was second guessing myself. I've been watching the crown. So, like Prince Philip, right?
[00:36:07] Speaker A: No, it is. It is. Yeah.
[00:36:09] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anna, Nelsa and I think it's. Yeah. The only frozen characters are Anna and Elsa.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: It's nice.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah, that sounds lovely.
[00:36:26] Speaker B: It's nice that they bring out characters, you know.
[00:36:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. I thought I'd have more to talk about with this, but I guess not.
[00:36:35] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:36:36] Speaker B: It's pretty straightforward though. Like you get to walk in now and just kind of less passes to have to deal with. Right. Like one less. It's a good change overall, in my opinion. Like, it's.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: I mean, I just like it being available, you know?
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Giving people the option to wait is better than.
The wait time is 10 minutes. But you can't wait because you don't have a pass.
[00:37:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Sorry. You traveled from Hokkaido or Fukuoka. Sorry. If you came from overseas. So it's nice that you have the opportunity to write it no matter what. Which I think is amazing.
[00:37:12] Speaker B: Which is nice. It's a nice change.
[00:37:15] Speaker A: It's important. It's really important, you know, so. Yeah.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Fantastic.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: I'm surprised they got rid of it as well, you know? I don't know.
Did they get like. Would you consider them. They got rid of this requirement pretty quickly or slowly.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: I feel like, like comparing to how it was getting into Beauty and the Beast, I feel like a similar amount of time before you could ride that.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Being in the Beast was normally freaking worst.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:46] Speaker B: It was all. It was all entry requests, basically.
[00:37:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I remember a lot of tickets. We lost it.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: You go in and it's like, okay, do I get to ride be in the Beast? No.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: Nope. Sorry. Please don't stand in the. In front of the castle for too long. Please keep moving. It's like, okay.
That was weird. Yeah.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Well, yeah. BNB's open during COVID too.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: So supposed to. It was. I remember it was supposed to open like April 2020 and then they just.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: The height of the pandemic.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that messed that all up.
But that's in the past now.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: I mean, I. I guess. Yeah, kind of.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, there's obviously the changes affected how the parks work now, which is unfortunate, but we can't change it, so no point in dwelling on it.
Yeah. So I'll go back to disneysea again, sooner than later to see how things kind of play out.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: I have a question.
Okay.
I don't remember if I was talking with you or with another friend. Are there cherry blossoms in Fantasy Springs?
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Oh, it was me. I didn't notice any. It's all just, like, green ferns.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: Okay. Okay.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's. There's no cherry blossoms, I guess.
Peter Pan, like, Neverland, I guess, wouldn't really have, like, Neverland. Seems like it's just forest. Right.
Same with Rapunzel and Arendelle.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:39:26] Speaker B: It was all just, like, mountainy kind of areas that you really wouldn't have. Cherry blossoms, I guess.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. No, you know, because we were. And I was talking with another friend this weekend, and she was telling me that they have something called almond blossoms, which look really similar to cherry blossoms in Arabian coast, except it has, like, a very vivid, like, pink center. And, like, I was like, oh, my gosh. I had never considered the type, the way almonds grow.
And we were looking at pictures, and it has, like, almonds growing next to the almond blossoms. And I'm like, oh, my God, that looks amazing. I want to see it. So we're like, yeah, they're almond blossoms.
[00:40:14] Speaker B: Oh, I took a picture in front of those.
[00:40:17] Speaker A: They're really cool. I want to go see it.
[00:40:21] Speaker B: Oh, my. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, it looks very good. It looks like sakura. Pretty close to it. Oh, I see what you mean. Like, the middle is very red.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
Wait, I'm gonna look at my picture, because I took a picture with it the other day.
[00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah. We were talking about, like, flowers and, like, how, like, we were talking about, like, the annual pass and, like, how one of the nice things about having the annual pass is that you could really, like, it wasn't about, like, getting, you know, things done in the day. It was, like, you could really enjoy your surroundings. Right. And we were talking about, like, the different flowers and, like, where they grew, like, things like that.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. Yeah, I just pulled up the picture. Yeah, those are. Those are the ones. Yeah. The centers are very red, and the. The petals are, like, a pink. Like a. Like, sakura pink.
[00:41:12] Speaker A: Yeah, they like, the same shape as, like, sakura petals.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: Oh, that's so interesting.
[00:41:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:41:19] Speaker B: Huh. I had no idea. I learned something new today.
Yeah. There's. There's no sakura in Fantasy Springs.
[00:41:27] Speaker A: Okay. Good to know. Thank you.
[00:41:30] Speaker B: Okay, well, I think we can leave it off here and. Okay, next. Next episode, we're going to talk about Universal. We're going to talk about all the spring stuff there.
[00:41:45] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I love it.
[00:41:47] Speaker B: Yeah, we're going to talk about Wicked and talk about Kuromi and her million costume changes that she does in her show.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:42:00] Speaker B: Minions and Peanuts and Jurassic. The Jurassic World Journey event is, like, one of the biggest reasons to go. It's. It's like I. I actually wasn't.
It's not that I wasn't excited for it. It was just kind of like, okay, yeah, they're doing a Jurassic, like a Jurassic World event. And then actually, after seeing, I'm like, oh, this is actually really fun. I love that they did this.
So, yeah, we'll talk about that in the next episode.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: I'm so excited.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: So before we go, though, we want to thank some wonderful explorers that are supporting us over on Patreon. So if you want to support the show, head on over to patreon.com TDRNow you get access to the newest episodes a day ahead. We have bonus episodes and everything. So, yeah, go check it out. So a big thank you to Acro Disney Girl, Adam, Amanda C, Amy B. Amy C, Mama Explorer, Benjamin, Brent M, Carrie, Chris B, Claire, Claudia, Dave, David, Baker, Kevin, Harry, Marina, Beth, Eli, Robinson.
[00:42:57] Speaker A: Taylor, Mellon, Alex and Jamie, Jose, Kathy, Lee, Marie, Michelle, Murray, Sophie, Spoopy, Thomas, Kate, Alexandra, Lizzy, Amy, and Andy, Dana, Cassandra, Annie, Sonia, W.W. paige, Adelaide, Tara, Nina, and Tuyen.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: If you haven't already, make sure you subscribe. Hit that follow button, you know, whatever. Whatever it's called on your podcast app of choice. So that way you don't miss any of our newest episodes. I'm one of your host, Chris. I'm the one that was freezing himself in line for Fantasy Springs to get content for everybody. So the things I do joining, as always, is the wonderful Patricia.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: I want to go see almond blossoms at disneysea.
I need to choose a day and go.
I'm waiting for the weather to just stabilize a little bit. And I was talking to the teen. I'm like, hey, you want to go together? And he's like, yeah. So we're trying to think of a day because he just started uni so when our schedules can align. But yeah, I want to go.
All right, guys, let us know. Okay, Let us know, first of all, what are your like, go to things that you feel help make a rainy day better. And then also, are you in the parks right now? What are you doing? Have you tried the new, like, Fantasy Spring system where you don't have to use any special passes? And let us know how your trip is going. And keep exploring, explorers.
[00:44:32] Speaker B: We'll see you in the next one. Bye.
