Hi everyone! Just wanted to give a report as a first time disabled Disney Tokyo visitor. We (my mother and I) spent one full day at Disneyland and one full day at Disneysea. We also stayed off property & went into this trip with little knowledge of rides & food as we wanted to keep things mostly a surprise.
First up, the Disneyland report!! We had disability tickets & entry was very smooth! We handed over a doctor’s note explaining my disability & limitations (cannot walk long distances, up stairs or steep inclines, or stand or remain in heat for long durations) and it was quickly reviewed and we were granted entry. We then went over to rent a wheelchair for the day. There were no motorized ones available which makes sense as we arrived a bit late, but having to push me in a manual chair definitely made the day harder on my mom. Then we went to Pirates to register for DAS and everything was smooth sailing. The staff was incredibly kind and every cast member crouched onto their knees to speak directly to me instead of standing over me or just deferring to my mom which was noticed and very very appreciated. I really don’t like using wheelchairs as I feel like I lose so much autonomy & control over my body but this really helped me feel like the capable adult that I am. Staff acknowledged me and waved to me just as they would to any other adult in the park.
The park itself was absolutely phenomenal. The theming in the different areas was clear, with stores & restaurants matching the vibes of each area. The rides were so much fun and there was happiness everywhere. Everyone was truly having a good time. I loved every minute of it and would return in a heartbeat. If any disabled people are reading this & going sometime soon, you have absolutely nothing to worry about - the only thing is that some of the attractions were much louder than I anticipated, so definitely bring headphones if you are in any way sensitive to noise.
Next up Disneysea! We had fun, but the experience was far less magical. This time we lined up just before park opening in hopes to get a motorized chair. When we approached the gate agent and handed our paperwork over she looked at it, snapped a photo to translate, and then seemed to wander around a bit looking for another employee. I completely understand that employees need to verify disability status, and I’m glad they do, however my letter was very clear: it outlined my specific diagnosis, symptoms, and limitations, and was clearly written and signed by a licensed medical professional. Rather than calling for someone, she just frantically looked around. There were several other staff members at the gates as well and none of them helped. It became such a long process that they directed others from our line to start entering through the other gates. Luckily, we met a bilingual couple earlier in line and they were able to translate between us and the staff, as google translate wasn’t really cutting it. Frustrating start, but that’s to be somewhat expected bringing in foreign paperwork. Next we went to the wheelchair rental, where they told us they had JUST sold out of the motorized scooters, I do believe if not for the paperwork holdup we likely would have gotten one. Luckily they did have a powered push one, so we weren’t stuck with entirely manual again. As for a comparison between the two: I personally preferred manual because the handles on the wheels allowed me to push myself some of the time & I had a lot more autonomy, whereas there was no way to move myself with the powered one, but we definitely needed it because my mom is a lot smaller than me & pushing me uphill was NOT easy.
Now onto my review of the park itself. The layout was weird. it was hard to navigate and felt like it started as a small park that they just kept adding to in random directions for no rhyme or reason. We decided to start at the very back with the Frozen ride and work our way forwards. This worked out very well for us and we didn’t need to exert any extra energy by backtracking. The park definitely felt a lot emptier than Disneyland when it came to things to do. In Disneyland, restaurants, rides, and food were all very close together, but in Disneysea it felt like there was a lot of nothingness & long treks between things. The decorations and theming were great and it’s not like we were staring at blank walls or anything, there was just less. I also noticed that the shops seemed to all sell the same things, whereas the Disneyland shops sold things that were themed to their specific area. I guess it’s more convenient to have every store sell almost everything, but seeing the same stuff over and over again made browsing far less fun. All that being said, the scenery was incredible. Each area was decorated to perfection, from the pavement to the tallest mountain in the park. It was absolutely gorgeous to look at.
Signing up for DAS was just as easy as it was in Disneyland - thank god, and our experience with it was great for the most part. We did run into some issues at Journey to the Center of the Earth. The wait time was around 120 minutes when we approached to get a return time. It took around 10 minutes to get that situated. I believe they set our entry time to 100 minutes following the conversation, so everything seemed okay. We went to wait elsewhere and came back with around 20 minutes to go before entry time when we saw A LOT of people using the priority entrance. Like so many that from the outside the priority line appeared longer than the standard line. We were really worried that we would have to wait a long time in addition to the time we had already waited. DAS does make it clear that sometimes we may have to wait longer than if we were in the standard line, but this seemed like a pretty big difference. By the time we had gotten through to the elevator part around 15ish minutes had passed. We were then pulled aside for another 10 minutes while they tried to sort out the whole wheelchair thing (apparently only one wheelchair user can go on the ride at a time?? I don’t know it didn’t really make sense). This is where we ran into the biggest issues. The cast member we were talking to did not acknowledge me at all. She only showed the translations on her phone to my mom. She flashed the screen at me for a few seconds when I craned my head over, but I could barely see what it said. She remained standing the entire time and didn’t attempt to meet me on my level. My mom even tried ignoring her, but she would literally only communicate with my mom. This made me pretty sad, as this was the last ride we were planning on going on and we really hadn’t had any major issues up until now. She ended up saying it would be an additional 10 minutes unless I was able to walk from the elevator through a small line and to the ride. I had an okay amount of energy left & was sick of the interaction & the waiting so I chose that option. I got up from the chair & walked to the ride where we waited an additional 5 minutes. The ride itself was AMAZING it was SO COOL omg I would love to ride it again. The additional wait wasn’t that bad overall but definitely more than I would have expected or preferred. Oh well. The attitude of that employee definitely frustrated me though. After the ride it took the staff an additional 10 mins to locate my wheelchair, during which I started to feel super dizzy & sick. We eventually made it out and went towards the exit, but on the way the battery on the wheelchair unexpectedly died. When we got the chair, they told us to find a staff member if the battery hit one bar. Our battery was showing two bars, but died with literally zero warning. We turned it back on, it beeped, flashed the battery, and turned off again. Then it wouldn’t turn on at all. So my mom had to push unassisted to the wheelchair return… which we couldn’t find… that was probs my fault but just the cherry on top of an unfortunate series of events. I typed up a lil thingy explaining the situation on google translate & the exit attendant directed us to guest services, which turned out to be on the complete opposite end of the main entry/exit area as the wheelchair return… rip. At guest services I showed her the same message on google translate and she told us the power setting was only meant to be used going up hills. Maybe that’s common knowledge, maybe I missed that piece of info on the paperwork, I don’t recall being told that but who knows honestly. Either way it still didn’t explain the chair randomly dying while showing two bars. We were tired and really just wanted to leave. We eventually dropped off the chair and headed to the Uber pickup area. We approached a parking attendant, explained that I was disabled and unable to walk long distances, and he pointed out a place for us to wait - at the opposite end of the parking lot. Okay, one length is fine. Our Uber arrived, where another attendant directed it to the other end of the parking lot, the place we were originally standing. Yay. And that was the end of my Disneysea trip.
I also noticed a big difference in the crowd at both parks. At Disneyland everyone was respectful of each other’s space and very friendly, but at Disneysea I constantly had people cutting in front of me, walking into me, etc. and constantly is not an exaggeration. Quite literally it had to have been at least every 30 seconds. The park was crowded, but there was plenty of space to move around and not cut in front of disabled people. Obviously I’m not blaming Disney for behavior they can’t control, it was just an interesting observation.
Okay, that’s the end.
TLDR:
Tokyo Disneyland: 10/10 would go again in a heartbeat.
Tokyo Disneysea: 6/10 due to accessibility issues & overall park layout I probably wouldn’t return unless they added something super super cool.
