Each time we visit Tokyo Disney, we split our time evenly between Disneyland and Disney Sea. Each of the previous times we've said that Disneyland was good, but left something to be desired.

Today was no different.

The next 2 days are going to be exhausting. Leaving Disney until the last few days of the trip is probably insane, but that's how the schedule lines up on this trip.

The alarms (yes plural, for the sake of redundancy) sounded abruptly at 6am. We dragged ourselves out of bed, and attempted to wake the kids.
As a bonus, Angela and I are coming down with a cold. Not surprising, given the extremes in temperature which we've been going through over the last couple of days, and the close proximity we've been keeping to approximately a bazzilion people, both sick and healthy, over the last couple of days. As a result we both had pounding headaches for the first half of the day.

The hotel we're staying at is, by Tokyo standards, in the middle of ******n nowhere. From Tokyo Disneyland, one has to get on a courtesy bus and travel for 20 minutes through empty lots and industrial estates, before arriving at the hotel. In our experience, this isn't normal. We're used to having hotels right at, or within a few hundred meters of a train station. Almost always there is 100 dining and shopping options within walking distance as well. This Disney hotel however is none of these things.

As a result of this, the convenience store built into the ground floor of the hotel is the only dining option unless we feel like an hour walk. This means that this convenience store doesn't have to try very hard. It is, without a doubt, the worst convenience store we've ever been to.
Convenience stores in Japan are generally spectacularly good with their range of product, the availability of these products, and their pricing. There is one reason for this...competition. This convenience store has exactly zero competitors anywhere near it, of the convenience store or restaurant type, so it can get away with selling a fraction of the range of products, at much more expensive prices, and still clear its shelves everyday, as cashed-up and hungry Disneyland patrons molest every item on the shelves before, and after, each long energy zapping day at Disneyland.

So for breakfast at this convenience store we grabbed whatever we could from their limited range, and hastily ate it before catching the 7:10am bus to Disneyland.

Leaving at 7:10am for a park which doesn't open until 9am sounds excessive, that's because it is. But that's the lengths we go to for a Disney day, otherwise you find yourself in a queue of 50000 people (literally) all shuffling towards the park entrance when it opens.
With our "VIP" park entry privileges, which we got by staying at an official Disney hotel, we were allowed into a segregated park entrance, and were second in line for entry. After claiming our spot in line, Charlotte and I walked back to Maihama station for coffees and hot chocolates, before returning to find each line a few hundred people longer than when we left it.

Upon entry into the park, we initiated our plan. Disney has a system of ride queue jumping called the Fast Pass system. Every hour or so you're able to scan your entry ticket at a ride of your choice and you're given a "fast pass" which allows you to enter a fast queue which generally gets you onto the ride in 5 to 10 minutes.
Charlotte ran to Westernland, and got fast passes for Big Thunder Mountain, while I went to Tomorrowland to get fast passes for the Monsters Inc ride for Veronica and Isabelle.

The crowds for the day were predicted to be either "light" or "normal" depending on which crowd prediction website you checked. The crowds were pretty heavy in my opinion, but it generally didn't stop us from riding everything we wanted to in the day, somehow without really waiting in any massive queues. The longest I can remember waiting for a ride was around 20 minutes, which by Disney standards is great.

The food, as anyone who has been to Disneyland will attest to, is overpriced, and pretty ordinary. Still, it's not bad, and there are some gems to be found.
For example, I discovered that curry popcorn is the most fantastic snackfood ever invented. I wasn't exactly keen on the thought of curry as a popcorn flavour before today, but my mind has been changed. I'm going to have to try to recreate it at home.

Other things of interest included strawberry churros, which were exactly as sweet as they sounded. Pork rice sticks, which was a cylinder of rice about an inch thick and about 6 inches long, wrapped in bacon and cooked with some kind of sweet teriyaki glaze. Easily the strangest Disney food I've ever had, and I wasn't sure about it at the time, but I found myself craving it later on.

The best Disney food however, by far, is the little green men. These dumplings come in groups of 3, and are green mochi consistency dumplings filled with chocolate custard, vanilla custard and strawberry filling. I've read good things about these online before today, so they were on the must-try list, and they lived up to the hype. Simple but fantastic. I wish they could be bought outside of Disneyland.

The regular Disney daytime parade has been put on hold in favour of an Easter "special" parade, which features "Usatama" which are large white chook eggs, with rabbit ears, Mickey Mouse's arms and legs, but no face. These egg/bunny/mouse life forms, for some reason have escaped, from what I'm not sure, and how, considering they have no eyes, isn't clear to me either. Yes it is exactly as stupid as it sounds.

The Disney characters have however decided to chase these egg things around to catch them, so for this reason, the previously excellent "Happiness is here" parade has been replaced with the much lamer, and far more difficult to comprehend "Usatama on the run" parade.
At least Charlotte found us an excellent front row position at very late notice so we could watch the lame parade from a great viewpoint.

Another disappointment for the day was the lack of Disney characters, or princesses, or anything, walking around the park. Apparently it was the Disney character's day off. We were pretty actively walking all over the park today, and there isn't a pathway we didn't traverse today, and inside the park we saw Donald Duck being mobbed by 200 people, and a few lame Disney animals we didn't recognise, and that was the extent of the Disney characters available for the day, unless you wanted to line up for 90 minutes to "meet Mickey".
It was a pretty disappointing effort. Surely it doesn't take much to dress a hobo or one of the park cleaners up in a Disney character suit and let them wander around the park for a few hours? Seemed to be too much to ask today though. Aside from the Disney characters running around like idiots behind the locked gates before the park opened, we saw virtually none of them at all today. And not a single Disney princess, which was a very poor effort.

Disney time passes quicker than regular time. A Disney day of 15 hours may sounds like a long day (and lets face it, it really, really is) but it goes quickly. After quite a few more rides, fast pass queue jumps and various interesting but nutritionally devoid snacks, it was time to prep for the nighttime parade.

Right around sundown it got really, really cold. During the day it was hot. t-shirt weather, and we all got a decent sunburn. The sun went down, and the wind started blowing in off Tokyo bay, and was absolutely freezing. Colder than I've been all trip, and that included the trek across the Alpine Route a few days ago.

The Disney parade "Dreamlights" features a cavalcade of light-up floats of all of the Disney characters and themes, in a well choreographed parade through the park, starting at 8pm.
We staked out a fantastic position on the parade route and patiently waited. And waited.

3 minutes before the parade was scheduled to start, and announcement was made that due to "inclement weather" the parade, and the fireworks display, has been cancelled.
Apparently to Mr Disney San, "inclement weather" is breeze. It wasn't even what I'd consider to be strong wind. Just breeze.
Maybe, for the extremely cautious, cancelling the fireworks may have been justified, but cancelling the light parade because of a little wind now?! WHY???
Are they using candles instead of electric lights now?

This summed up Tokyo Disneyland for me. Great, but with bits of stupidity or disappointment intermingled which meant we left the park with mixed feelings, rather than on the euphoric high reminiscing about the perfect theme park day, that one would expect from a Disney park (and the associated pricetag).

After this disappointment, the park effectively cleared out. I would estimate that 50% of the crowd simply went home, even though there was over 2 hours before closing time. Worked well for us, because it bought all of the wait times down for the rides to around 5 minutes each.

After riding space mountain, and again heading over to the other side of the park (again we must have walked 10km today) we reached the concourse in front of Cinderella's castle in time for the illumination to start. Quite well done, like every other projection/illumination that Japan seems super fond of. It didn't make up for the unfathomable cancellation of the parade, but it helped.

Riding pretty much every ride for the next 2 hours, we were finally kicked out of the park at closing time, and grateful for the courtesy bus since we were almost unable to walk any further, we boarded the bus seconds before it departed. Being the closing time bus, it was absolutely full, which was less than pleasant. Isabelle and I rode home on the luggage rack.

Once again we made use of the sub-par convenience store for dinner before collapsing into bed. Isabelle, the earliest one to get to bed, was asleep by 11pm, while I didn't get to sleep until after midnight.

Alarm goes off at 6am tomorrow morning so we can do it all again, this time for Disney Sea. Should be interesting to see if we make it.