Tokyo Disneyland Opens! - April 15, 1983

In honor of Tokyo Disneyland's 29th birthday today, I'm posting an article that appeared in The Los Angeles Times six days before the park officially opened on April 15, 1983. I'm also including a few photos of some of the attractions mentioned in the article. These are all photos that were taken during my very first visit to Tokyo Disneyland.



This first part of the article mentions Tokyo Disneyland's castle being the same one that "adorns the California park," but in reality it is the same as the castle at Walt Disney World in Florida.



The Starjets can be seen below. These also resemble Walt Disney World's original Starjets attraction more closely than Disneyland's Rocket Jets. Fortunately, Tokyo's Starjets have not undergone a hideous remodel job like the Disneyland and Walt Disney World counterparts have.





This photo shows a far more crowded "World Bazaar" in comparison to the photo above, which was taken during one of the park's preview days.



The 18 minute presentation of "movies and three-dimensional visuals outlining Japan's 3,000 years of history" mentioned below, was Tokyo Disneyland's Meet The World attaction, which was unique to Tokyo Disneyland, but has since been torn down. :-(



Another attraction that was unique to Tokyo Disneyland at the time it opened was Pinocchio's Daring Journey. As the article mentions, it was only unique to the park until the New Fantasyland opened at Disneyland the following month.




Happy 29th Birthday, Tokyo Disneyland!

Halloween Balloons

Today we just have some shots of Tokyo Disneyland's Halloween balloons. Enjoy! (The pumpkin balloons are from 2005 and the Mickey and Minnie ghost balloons are from 2007.)

In & Around The Castle

This is the view from inside the archway of Cinderella's Castle at Tokyo Disneyland. Off in the distance is World Bazaar (Main St.) with it's glass roof. This photo was taken a few years ago before the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel was built in the parking lot. The new hotel just opened this summer and is now visible over the rooftops of World Bazaar, but it has been designed in a turn of the century style and the two of them fit together quite well.

The sea serpent topiary above sits to the right of Cinderella's Castle, approximately in the same spot as Anaheim's Snow White Grotto. Tokyo does have a Snow White Grotto, but their's is located to the left of the castle, approximately in the same spot as Anaheim's Plaza Gardens.

It's difficult to tell from just looking at the photo above, but the grotto and wishing well sit between the castle and Westernland (Frontierland). As an interesting side note.....neither Tokyo Disneyland or Disneyland in Anaheim list their Snow White Grotto as attractions. Hong Kong Disneyland however, does list their grotto as an actual attraction. My guess is that they do this because they are SO lacking in real attractions (their only "E" ticket-type attractions are Space Mountain, Jungle Cruise and It's A Small World) that they have to really stretch to come up with some way of making people think there is actually more to do in that park than there really is. After all, Hong Kong Disneyland also lists their "island" attraction and their "rafts to the island" as two separate attractions. To me that just WREAKS of desperation. Poor Hong Kong Disneyland! As an additional side note....neither Disneyland Paris or Walt Disney World have a "Snow White Grotto."

World Bazaar

This is Tokyo Disneyland's World Bazaar. It's called World Bazaar because it was originally going to be themed to different countries from around the world. That concept was later dropped and replaced with the classic Disneyland "Main St." theme, but the name "World Bazaar" was never changed. The original concept came from early plans by Walt Disney to have an "International Street" at Disneyland. That street was going to run parallel to Main St. and would have been accessed off of the east side of Disneyland's Town Square, approximately where the gate opens for park parades.

The roof over World Bazaar is made up of 3,000 panes of glass. It provides guests with protection from the elements, since Tokyo gets a pretty fair amount of rainfall. The photo above shows Center St. which crosses World Bazaar from east to west. Disneyland in Anaheim has a Center St. that crosses it's Main St. in the same fashion, but it is very short with "dead ends" on both sides. In Tokyo, this street actually leads somewhere. If you turn left, you can go directly into Adventureland without having to go through the Plaza. If you turn right, you can go directly into Tomorrowland. This extra access greatly improves the flow of traffic.

Notice the "flat curbs". This also improves traffic flow and cuts down on the number of guest "accidents".

It's HUGE!

Did I mention in my last post, how BIG the Plaza area is at Tokyo Disneyland? Today, I'm posting additional photos to try and give a true sense of it's size.

In the photo above, the "center" of the Plaza is actually still behind us. By the way, these photos contain a good view of Tokyo's World Bazaar (their version of Main St.) As you can see, it has a glass roof overhead. This comes in handy on those wet days that Tokyo occasionally has. Okay....not so occasionally.

I am guessing, but I'd have to say that at least two...and possibly even three, of the original Disneyland's Plaza would fit into Tokyo Disneyland's Plaza area.

For my next post, we will be moving away from the Plaza. But we'll be back at a future date to show some of the wonderful displays they erect here for holidays and special events.