Tokyo DisneySea During Super Typhoon Vongfong
The reason the park was so deserted, aside from the obvious fact that most people aren’t crazy enough to head to a theme park when a Super Typhoon is forecast, was because of the JR Line into Tokyo Bay being down.
It turns out that my earlier fear about the rails stopping operations had proven correct, with a number of lines all around Tokyo going down. If a clueless tourist was able to foresee this, I assume every Japanese local was as well, and either they didn’t go to the park at all that day, or high-tailed it out once announcements were made in-park about the JR Line going down.
While we were there, these announcements were made about once every 30 minutes, first with an official sounding, pre-recorded Japanese one being played in the same style and voice as the official park closing announcement. That was followed by an what sounded like random Cast Members coming over the loud-speaker and trying their best to get through the announcement in English.
We joked that they must have seen “those crazy Americans who didn’t check the weather forecast” over park security cameras and tried to improvise because they didn’t have a pre-recorded announcement for the occasion. The warning certainly was appreciated, but fortunately, we didn’t have to rely upon the JR Line when leaving the park.
Presumably, the Japanese local Annual Passholders who normally overwhelm the parks on weekends didn’t have this same luxury, as they headed home (rather than back to hotels) at the end of the day, which left large swaths of the park virtually empty well before park closing.
Much of our time was spent simply wandering around, as Jen and Guy feasted upon the visual treat that is Tokyo DisneySea.
The dead-ness of the park presented an interesting dilemma: take advantage of almost every ride being a walk-on, or enjoy the tranquility of experiencing that tremendous ambiance without the crowds? This ‘agonizing’ dilemma was perhaps the ultimate First World Problem.
We ultimately decided upon a mix of the two, doing a lot of wandering and a few marquee attractions.
Really can’t complain about a 5 minute wait for Journey to the Center of the Earth…with pretty much all of that wait being the time it took to walk through the empty queue.
It was about an hour before close at this point, and Sarah was justifiably exhausted from our long day, so she headed back to the room. The rest of us walked her to the front of the park and continued on…
Half the people in the park at this point were probably in line for Toy Story Mania. This wasn’t a high priority attraction for us, so we passed on it even with a 20 minute posted wait (which is absolutely unheard of there).
Instead, we headed back towards the other end of the park, doing more walking and gawking before ultimately arriving in Lost River Delta.
What was really amazing about all of this was that every attraction was fully operational. Given the circumstances, it would have been completely understandable if there weren’t enough Cast Members to operate all attractions, or if people were sent home early. That did not appear to be the case.
Something I’ll probably never see again: the queue for Indiana Jones Adventure totally empty.
I am never one to purchase an on-ride photo, but I definitely can’t fault Guy on springing for this one, given that we had a ride vehicle all to ourselves.
I wanted to get some photos to document the evening, but it was a huge challenge (hence the poor quality of many of the photos here). Erring on the side of caution, I only brought my backup DSLR and one lens. Not thinking, I brought the one lens without a hood, meaning I had to carefully hold an umbrella over the camera as I shot to prevent rain drops from getting on the lens. This was a losing battle.
In hindsight, I think the rain drops convey a bit of the ambiance of the evening…or perhaps I’m just telling myself that so the shots seem okay.
They are far from my best shots of Tokyo DisneySea, but they instantly transport me back to that fun evening. That makes them more special to me than shots that are better from a creative and technical perspective, but that lack personal resonance.
At park closing, we made the slow stroll to the front…
Although we only spent a little over 4 hours in Tokyo DisneySea that evening, it was an awesome introduction to the park for Jen & Guy, and Sarah & I had an amazing time enjoying a “new” experience in our favorite park.
With that, we walked to the front and ended the night, knowing we’d be doing it all again early the next morning. The funny thing is, long before making my first trip to Tokyo Disney Resort, I listened to an episode (#527) of Be Our Guest Podcast with Bernie Edwards, who visited during a snow storm and had a similar experience of enjoying a basically empty park due to a similar situation with the JR Line.
At the time, I was so jealous because it sounded like a once in a lifetime “fluke” that would be both an amazing experience and make for awesome photos. Bernie definitely has me beat because he got to experience this in the snow (snow > rain), but it was definitely an incredible experience having a “private party” in my favorite theme park, Tokyo DisneySea. It ranks among one of my best theme park experiences of all time, and it turned out the rain didn’t spoil the fun one bit (aside from making photos challenging).
The next morning, the storm skies had cleared completely, allowing us a rare (normally the air isn’t clear enough for this from Tokyo Bay) glimpse at Mt. Fuji from out our hotel room.
Suffice to say, it was a great way to start our visit to Tokyo Disney Resort, and the rest of our visit proved to be a lot of fun, too…
If you’re thinking of visiting Japan for the first time and are overwhelmed with planning, definitely check out our Tokyo Disney Resort Planning Guide. It covers much more than the parks, from getting there to WiFi to currency and much, much more. For more photos and an idea of what we did day-by-day during our first visit, read our Tokyo Disney Resort Trip Report.
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YOUR THOUGHTS…
What do you think of our visit to Tokyo DisneySea during Vongfong? Would you have done it, or were we crazy? Have any additional questions or thoughts? We love hearing from readers, so please share any questions, comments, thoughts, etc. below! 🙂
Love the photos! The light reflecting on the wet pavement is beautiful! Great post, Tokyo Sea is definitely on my bucket list
We spent four days at TDR back in April 2009. On one of our DisneySea days, it rained from late afternoon and all evening. We stuck it out and were rewarded with an empty park. We rode all our favorite rides over and over again. It was wonderful! I would have done exactly what you all did!
P.S. My husband wants to know what camera you used! Your pictures are wonderful.
For this post, I used the Nikon D600.
Those are your “poor quality” photos? I’d kill to take photos half as well in perfect weather. You’re putting those of us that are terrible at taking pictures to shame with these.
They’re not awful by any means, but I look at them and think about how much better they *could* be if I had better conditions and a tripod.
The double hand wave…yes!!! You must’ve done something amazing to generate that much happiness in a CM! Last summer we visited my wife’s friends in Tokyo (she is from Kobe) and met at the Tokyo Sky Tree…as we approached them we got the double wave and ear piercing screeches of excitement! Good stuff. Anyways, amazing photos and thanks for sharing this unique DisneySea experience with all of us, and good on taking Guy and Jen on Sindbad’s Storybook Voyage first…they are fun people…judging from our interactions on IG! That photo of the Indiana Jones queue is beautiful.
BTW…how was USJ? We went in December 2014 for the first time and loved it. Oh, and if my family and I were in the park that night we would’ve become very friendly with the CMs on Journey to the Center Earth most likely earning copious amounts of double hand wave action!! Love that ride!
“You must’ve done something amazing to generate that much happiness in a CM!”
Haha, I think all we did was demonstrate that we were enthusiastic to be there, which probably wasn’t all that common that day given the weather!
Universal Studios Japan is an excellent park, particularly if you are a fan of old school Universal Studios (they still have Jaws, Back to the Future, and Backdraft). It is, however, an insanely busy park.
While I didn’t have quite the crowd level that you experienced, my trip on a Friday in September 2014 had a lot fewer guests than I was expecting. I went on every major attraction 3-4 times with never more than a 20 min wait. I even got into Big Band Beat without any trouble. I am still not sure quite why the crowds were so low because the weather was great that day.
That’s really surprising for a Friday. Usually that’s the 3rd busiest day of the week. I know there was another typhoon forecast in September…were you there during it or otherwise bad weather?
Love it! As always, thanks for allowing us to travel through your blog!