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TOKYO DISNEYSEA
at the Tokyo Disney Resort
Tokyo, Japan (Abbreviation: TDS)
Disney & Oriental Land Company (OLC)
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Journey to the Center of the Earth - NOW CLOSED through Nov 13
20k Leagues Under the Sea - Nov. 14 through Dec. 13
Aquatopia - Nov. 14 through Dec. 18
DisneySea Electric Railway - Jan. 8, 2025 through Mar. 3, 2025
Raging Spirits - Jan. 16, 2025 through Feb. 19, 2025
Magic Lamp Theater - Feb. 18 through Mar. 6
Jasmine’s Flying Carpets - Mar. 5 through Mar. 17
General Park News - (1/17/2024) According to AllEars, the Tower of Terror at Tokyo DisneySea is undergoing a temporary change from now through to April 7, 2024. According to the report the changes and tweaks will be done in phases, so you may have to visit several times to see them all before it reverts back to normal.
The current version running through Feb 4th is said to be called “Tower of Terror: Level 13” where more thrills are added to the elevator experience.
Feb. 5th through March 6 will see Level 13 give way to the “Shadow of Siriki” where the details of the spooky curse will be given more of a spotlight.
Following that, guests will be asked to vote for which version they liked the best and the winner will get an encore run from March 7 through April 7, 2024.
(8/5/2023) The Tokyo Disney Resort has updated their planned attraction closures for the first half of 2024 and one that caught my eye was an over 7 month long planned closure of the Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage dark ride at Tokyo DisneySea. The website lists that the attraction will close on Feb. 13th, 2024 and not reopen again until Sept. 24, 2024. Whenever an attraction is closed for this length of time, there are usually some major changes planned, either to the ride system itself, or perhaps some changes to the scenes. Either way, this will be something to keep an eye on next year.
 Spring 2024 - Fantasy Springs (New Land) Adding Frozen / Tangled and Peter Pan Lands + New Hotel -
(5/12/2024) While the official opening of Tokyo DisneySea’s new Fantasy Springs land isn’t supposed to take place until June 6th, it appears that the park did soft open the land and all four new attractions in a special preview event for invited guests this week. I’m not sure if this is the start of a public soft-opening or not, so keep that in mind.
So take this as your SPOILER WARNING, because video of the new attractions in action will be posted below.
This includes a look at “Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies”, which you might describe as a short all outdoor “dark ride” style experience on four passenger vehicles that are capable of rapidly spinning guests around to look at the various scenery while in motion. If you’ve ever ridden The Cat in the Hat attraction at Universal’s Islands of Adventure, then imagine that style of ride, but placed outdoors in Tinker Bell’s Fairy Hollow setting.
Next up is “Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey”, and like the other Frozen flume rides built at Epcot and Hong Kong Disneyland (and soon Disney Adventure World in Paris) guests will ride in a boat and enjoy a flume ride that has few very small drops and points and sections where the boat will float backwards instead of forwards. Unlike the Epcot and Hong Kong rides however, the new version in Japan features many entirely new scenes, presented through both physical sets as well as some projection based scenes. This also gives them time to include scenes based on many of the film’s other famous musical moments not seen in the other attractions. (Note: some of the ride’s audio in the video below gets muted during some of the musical scenes, which I assume is being done to avoid copyright issues.)
The world of Tangled finally gets a long awaited dark ride as well in Japan with ‘Raptunzel’s Lantern Festival”. Like the new Frozen Journey ride, this too is a flume based dark ride, but this journey starts with a series of outdoor scenes with animatronics before venturing indoors for the remainder of the ride. Based on the video length, this attraction seems a little shorter than the Frozen ride, but still packs in a number of great animatronic figures and some incredible scenes, especially the giant scene showcasing the Lantern Festival itself.
And lastly… we finally get to see Disney Imagineers create their own dark ride that is very similar in concept (technology wise) to Universal’s Adventures of Spider-Man ride with the new “Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure”. This is a huge first for Japan as well, as I guess you could say that Disney’s previous attempt was the Ratatouille dark ride, but that only exists in Paris and Florida. It also isn’t lost on me that Universal Studios Japan closed their Spider-Man ride for good in January 2022 and has yet to announce what is replacing it. Like Spider-Man, guests on Peter Pan are asked to put on 3-D glasses and go on an adventure ride through the world of Neverland that heavily features all the action on projection screens blended into the scenery. While Spider-Man’s use of screens ends with a large-scale virtually all-screen finale, Peter Pan’s use of all scene scenes gets very heavy handed by the mid-point of the journey and rarely lets up. Unlike Universal however, the Tokyo Disney guests have not yet gotten to the same level of what many call, “screen exhaustion”, and the animation created for this attraction looks incredible and promises to be a highlight attraction for the new land.
(12/23/2023) For anyone planning to make a trip to Tokyo DisneySea in time to see the opening of the new Fantasy Springs area, the resorts new Fantasy Springs Hotel, which opens on June 6th, 2024, will begin to take reservations starting on Feb. 8, 2024. The new hotel is attached to Tokyo DisneySea and will feature an exclusive entrance right into the new Fantasy Springs area for those resort guests.
Depending on when you are planning to visit, there are a few different windows for when advanced reservations will be accepted which you can see on the official website.
(10/27/2023) Tokyo DisneySea has announced that their new Fantasy Springs area will be ready to officially open to guests on June 6, 2024. A great little preview video showing off concept art and construction footage from over the past few years can be seen below.
(8/30/2023) According to comments made by Oriental Land Company CEO Yumiko Takano during a media tour last week, they are still many options available to expand the Tokyo Disney Resort. According to Takano, “We believe there are still various possibilities when it comes to expansion” and “developing attractions and entertainment for Tokyo Disney Resort as a whole.”
While there was no speculation as to what may come next, the resort is currently already in the middle of a huge expansion with the addition of the Fantasy Springs land at Tokyo DisneySea set to open in 2024. This massive new eighth land for the theme park will also include the new Fantasy Springs hotel, as well as four large and unique new attractions: Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival, Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure and Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies.
Meanwhile work has already begun at Tokyo Disneyland to build a brand new 21st century version of Space Mountain to replace the existing ride in 2027, as well as open-up and expand the park’s Tomorrowland plaza in front of the new attraction, creating a new space that will offer a new relaxing space during the daytime and feature a “spectacular world of light and soundscapes” after dark.
(5/28/2023) A couple of pages of construction photos from Tokyo DisneySea showing off the progress on the new Fantasy Springs area were posted by Disney Geek on May 16 and May 19 that are worth checking out, align with a look at the new Fantasy Springs Hotel.
(10/30/22) Tokyo DisneySea has officially pushed back the opening date of their new Fantasy Springs area from 2023 to have a new Spring 2024 opening timeline. The new land will feature a mix of IPs, with a total of four new attractions themed to three themed areas: Frozen Kingdom, Rapunzel’s Forest and Peter Pan’s Neverland, plus the opening of the new Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel.
(9/11/22) A new videos showing off the Fantasy Springs expansion area coming to Tokyo DisneySea can be seen below. As previously reported the new area will add attractions and spaces themed to Tinker Bell, Tangled, Frozen and Peter Pan and the video includes footage of models, concept art, the actual construction site and more. In the second half of the video they show off models of the new ride vehicles for each of the four attractions.
The Tangled attraction shows off a 16 passenger boat as the ride vehicle, complete with a lantern hanging off the back of the boat.
The Frozen attraction also features a similar looking 16 passenger boat (4 rows of 4), but with a slightly different theme.
For the Peter Pan attraction, we seen what appears to be a unique looking three-rowed dark ride vehicle with high sides and and a back, themed as if someone cut off the back of a pirate ship and put in a sled rails. With the rider’s view out the front is kept very open while the view out the sides and back are blocked, this is similar in design to how Universal has created their Spiderman and Transformers dark ride vehicles, which makes me wonder if this will be some kind of 3D ride with a heavy use of projection screens, or perhaps just more of an elaborate simulator concept. The early word on this ride from 2018 was that you would board “flying boats to travel through the Neverland jungles to battle Captain Hook and rescue Wendy's brother John.”
Finally the Tinker Bell attraction looks to use a smaller 4 passenger vehicle (2 rows or 2), looking more like the classic Disney dark ride vehicles used on Pinocchio’s Daring Journey in Tokyo Disneyland. The ride vehicle looks like a woven basket of sorts, with some oversized props here and there to drive home the size of Tinker Bell, but it also seems to have a fun nod to Mary Poppins included. The back seat is made up from a folded letter addressed to 19 Cherry Tree Lane, London England, which I can only assume is the house next door to the Banks family in Mary Poppins, who lived at 17 Cherry Tree Lane. (Perhaps this is the address to Admiral Boom’s house?)
(11/19/21) Tokyo DisneySea has released a new aerial drone video showing off the construction progress of the new Fantasy Springs expansion of the theme park. The video shows off the progress made from the start of the project back in 2019 when it was just a parking lot up how it looks not long ago, and then compared to the concept art at the end.
Check it out below.
(4/25/21) Another look at the Fantasy Springs model can be seen below, this time with a look at the Peter Pan, Frozen and Tangled themed areas.
(4/16/21) Tokyo Disneysea has released a new video teaser for the Tangled section of their new Fantasy Springs land, now under construction. Lots of detail to be seen, so it obviously looks amazing, though they don’t show off any details on planned attractions here yet.
(12/19/20) Some fantastic images of the new Fantasy Springs area under construction at Tokyo DisneySea as seen from the top floor of the nearby Sheraton hotel have been posted to Twitter this week.
(2/7/20) The Oriental Land Company has announced that they are delaying the opening of the Fantasy Springs expansion land (which will feature Frozen, Peter Pan and Tangled attraction areas) to the Tokyo DisneySea by one year. The new expansion will now open it in 2023, which puts it in the same timeline as when they will be celebrating the 40th Anniversary of Tokyo Disneyland.
(5/22/19) The Oriental Land Company released new details, artwork and the official name on their newest expansion area coming to Tokyo DisneySea. This eighth themed port for the park will be called Fantasy Springs and is slated to open in 2022 along with a new themed hotel, with an investment cost of 250 billion yen.
Fantasy Springs will consist of three different themed areas themed to the world’s of Disney’s animated films: Frozen, Tangeled and Peter Pan. Guests will enter the land past waterfalls and ponds flowing with “magical spring waters”. Besides the new hotel, which will overlook Fantasy Springs, the new land will feature four attractions, three restaurants and a gift shop.
(8/27/18) Construction on the huge expansion to Tokyo DisneySea is said to have begun and it looks like some ground work is taking place in the parking lot area near the Bayside monorail station.
(6/15/18) Big news from Tokyo Disney Sea, as the park has confirmed plans for their biggest expansion ever that will include three new mini-lands and attractions as well as a new hotel by 2022. The project worth $2.27 billion will be added with a new pathway running between Arabian Coast and Lost River Delta, where the new properties will be built on what is currently a parking lot. The new lands will include:
Frozen - Previously announced and then sort of put into Limbo for awhile, plans to add a Frozen themed area have now been reconfirmed as guests will be welcomed into Arendelle. The main attraction here will be some kind of boat ride that will retell Anna & Elsa's story, as well as a restaurant inside the castle.
Tangled - Enjoy the famous Lantern Festival from the film as Rapunzel journeys to the city with Flynn as part of another boat-ride attraction. Fun note... you will also be able to eat in the Snuggly Duck restaurant.
Peter Pan - Yep, even though there is a Peter Pan themed dark ride in Tokyo Disneyland, the story will get a themed land here in Tokyo DisneySea that will include two rides: one where you will board flying boats to travel through the Neverland jungles to battle Captain Hook and rescue Wendy's brother John. The other attraction will be something themed to the world of Pixie Hollow and feature Tinker Bell and her fairy friends.
If you followed the link above, you'll also get a look at the artwork of the new proposed hotel outside Tokyo DisneySea which promises to have the "most luxurious accommodations ever at Tokyo Disney Resort".
(7/7/16) In an interview with the President of the Oriental Land Company, he reveals some timelines and important details regarding the future expansion of the Tokyo Disney theme parks. In 2021 or later he reconfirmed that Tokyo DisneySea will be opening a new themed land based on the smash hit film, Frozen. He also mentions that they are looking into expanding into what bits of surrounding land they have available to them to ensure they have enough room to fit in the new expansions, especially for the new Frozen land.
(4/28/15) The Oriental Land Company has released a new piece of artwork showing off the new “Scandinavia” themed Port they are adding to the Tokyo DisneySea theme park. While they only say that the new Scandinavia port will have a portion of the area themed to the smash hit animated film “Frozen”, so far it clearly looked to be entirely themed to it.
It has a clear copy of the Arendelle castle and village (with frost magic in the air overhead) on the left and to the right there is a “mountain” that appears to have a waterfall coming down, along with a couple of cave entrances portals into the mountain itself off the main pathway, which is probably where a “Frozen” themed dark ride or some sort will be built. In the lower right corner of the picture, there is a small circular grove which seems to have a small geyser or something in the middle surrounded by a bunch of round boulders, which I’m guessing may be a fun little show area for the Trolls.
No solid opening date is listed, they only say that it will be after the start of fiscal 2017.
(10/30/14) The Oriental Land Company made a huge announcement regarding the future expansion of both the Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea theme parks a short time ago. This is apparently part of a planned 500 billion Yen investment into the resort over the next 10 years, which roughly converts to an amazing $4.59 billion US dollars. (Click here to see the Fantasyland plans)
At Tokyo DisneySea the park will add an entirely new land, or rather, a new port, into a section of empty land left open for future development located south of the Lost River Delta area. This new 8th Port will feature new attractions, shops and restaurants. While they also promise “multiple major attractions” to be part of this new port, they also say that the overall size and scale of the port will be about the same size as the Arabian Coast port.
While they don’t come right out and say it for sure, it is believed that the 8th port at Tokyo DisneySea might be Arendelle, the kingdom from the hit animated film, Frozen. While not listed in the press release itself, it was mentioned elsewhere that they would be adding a Frozen area and since Arendelle is a “port” kingdom, it would only make sense to put it in Tokyo DisneySea as well. More on this when we find out! |
