Thursday, October 2, 2008

"Buzz Lightyear is a real person"

When Arno had a day off from school last week, I took him to Tokyo Disneyland. What a day. 12 hours of Buzz Lightyear, It's a Small World, Mickey and Donald, Peter Pan, waiting in lines, and a nighttime Light-Bright parade. It was a lot of fun, though, and Arno was thrilled with the experience. This is what he looked like all day, pointing at stuff and saying, "Look!"


We went with my friend Laurie Lebrun and her son Max, who is in Arno's class at Willowbrook, and our friend Rachel and her daughter Audrey. Max is one year older than Arno but the boys get along really well. Laurie drove. Here's the highway in Tokyo and what we saw when we arrived.



Inside, the boys checked out the castle and Halloween decorations.





I've heard horror stories about crowds and hourlong lines for each ride. Fortunately, it wasn't that crowded and we also got lucky with our timing.

Our longest line - 45 mins - was for our second ride, Peter Pan's Flight. Arno totally loves Peter Pan. You climb into a pirate ship and sail, lickety-split, thru scenes from the movie. The ride lasts, like, 3 minutes, which is a bummer, but I did catch some quick pix that will be familiar to other experts of the Pan oeuvre. (This posting has too many pix, but what the hell.)



We spent a lot of time in Tomorrowland because the boys are really into space. There was the kinda-scary 3D movie MicroAdventure, a derivative of the movie "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids"...


and Arno's and my favorite ride, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. (We got a "FastPass" that reserved a ride-time, so we didn't have to wait in line.)



This ride was more active than most: you use an astroblaster gun to fire lasers at targets. Superfun! Here's a short "you are there, too" video.



And the StarJets ride. The boys wanted to wait until it was dark so it was more like "real space."


Disney serves mediocre food. Arno had french fries for lunch. I had a shrimp fritter (only in Japan?). But who cares? When the crowds flocked to a daytime parade, we hit the kid rollercoaster three times in a row with no line!

My least favorite ride was the Grand Circuit Raceway. Too noisy and smoggy. But the mini cars did make for good pix. Here's Laurie and Max...


I could barely squeeze into the car.


Here's Rachel and lovely 2-yr-old Audrey. Rachel's husband, Chris, is Disney's marketing manager in Asia. (My mom and Rachel are both Wellesley grads.)


Arno thought Pirates of the Caribbean was "too scary." I liked it when my family went to Calif. Disneyland 30 years ago, but now every other pirate looks like Johnny Depp. We went on the Jungle Cruise and to the Country Bear Theater. Tom Sawyer's Island closed at dusk - before we arrived. Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin broke down as we waited in line. Small World was eh. We skipped Pooh's Hunny Hunt because of the 1 hour line.

The boys went crazy in Goofy's Bounce House - though they were allowed only about 4 minutes for bouncing.


We stayed late to see the nighttime parade: Disney Princesses decked out like the Electric Horseman. It was pretty.


I'm going to overdose on Disney this month. In a few weeks, I'll take Lucinda (with some Nishimachi friends and their moms) to Tokyo Disneyland during her fall vacation.

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