darkrose of sorrow: Japan Trip Day 6: Disneysea

Thank God that my good luck streak still continues until today. Disneysea opened at 9am today. It is the latest opening hours from the few times I have been here and it meant I had shorter hours to enjoy. This turns out to be a blessings in disguise. Based on my experience in September, characters (at least those in Arabian Coast) start to appear at 9am. I immediately went to Arabian Coast and I was so lucky to see Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar, and Abu.

Non-face characters such as Jafar and Abu will be impossible to get their attention if it is crowded as they will prefer to play with kids. So yay!! I had nice interaction with Aladdin and Jasmine although I had a small regret. As we said goodbye, Jasmine extended her arms to give a goodbye hug but I was too shy and I offered my hand for a handshake instead T_T Dang!! I was too excited to get a photo with Jasmine for the first time and I did not realise that in the photo taken, it was taken at an angle that I looked far from her and I was blocked by Aladdin. I should have asked for a repeat. My Aladdin shirt is really a good investment since it attracts the attention of the characters. Even Abu was playing around it and gave me a goodbye hug. Thanks to the staff who took my photos with Abu as she also took photos when we hugged goodbye.

While waiting for the next characters, usually in 30 minutes time, I went to play at Abu Bazaar. I still had no luck for both games although I successfully landed 2 balls on 2 plates just before the goal plates for the cobra game. I went to watch King Triton's Concert that I did not manage to watch in September due to technical difficulties. As it was the first show, the hall was not full and I still managed to sit at the first row. The show is amazing with Ariel suspended throughout singing and spinning and dancing on air as if she is swimming.

After the show, I went back to Arabian Coast and with only an hour difference, the crowd was already crazy. There was no way I could get another photo with Jasmine and Aladdin. I decided it was time to try my luck to find Minnie at the entrance plaza. I do not really enjoy Disneysea parades because of the layout of 1 main stage and few side stages and I was not planning to watch the Easter parade. Due to these unforeseen circumstances, I ended up watching the parade from Fortress at Mediterranean Harbour. My camera convinced me that it is still worth keeping because I can still get beautiful photos with maximum zoom. I suppose resting my hands on the railings as support helped to get these photos.

Unbelievable quality for 10x zoom (the maximum for my camera)

On the way to the Plaza, I decided to have lunch first and surprisingly finding seats at New York Deli was quite easy. I spent almost an hour queueing for photo at the Plaza and finally I got to take photo with Minnie in Disneysea outfit. Another goal achieved. I returned to Arabian Coast to take photo with Stitch and Angel but before that I took a photo with Daisy in Arabian outfit. Suprisingly there was a queue for the photo with limited numbers of tickets for her instead of the usual free roaming. This does not happen all the time or with all characters so I consider myself lucky.

When waiting for Stitch and Angel, I was asked about the Disney Photo Keycard. Stupid me I said "arimasu" instead of "arimasen" T_T Otherwise I would have gotten it. Angel and Stitch were playing with my Aladdin shirt but all these were not captured in camera. Huhuhu..

From here I returned to American Waterfront to take photos of the Easter decorations. I took a fast pass for Indiana Jones for fun and I was lucky to get a photo with an unknown Monkey at Lost River Delta. The person in front me asked for signature and the character literally signed off as "Monkey". It is not popular and since there were not so many people, I gave him business and requested for a photo. Lol.

I found the cart that sold Alien (Toy Story) mochi and because of that I had to walk around first instead of taking photo. My luck continued as I met Cruella de Vil. It was at the moment where she wanted to walk to change location and I used my English advantage to walk next to her and asked if I could take a photo. Hehe.. She agreed. The staff was very nice and took 4 pictures for me including the moment when we said goodbye.

The Alien mochi is overrated in my opinion. After finishing it, I went to queue for photos at the Easter decoration and this time I was really lucky to the max because the lady gave me the Disney Photo Keycard. Finally T_T It was too late to return to the entrance Plaza as it was past the photo taking hours. Thus I went to Ariel which I did not plan. The queues for Mickey and friends and Donald were more than an hour so I decided to eat dinner first at Horizon Bay restaurant. In the morning I tried my luck to ask if I could go for Character Dining and it was full house. I never ate here before so I might as well give it a try.

After dinner, I took photos with Donald and Minnie as the queues for photos really did not get any shorter. Sigh.. By the time I was done, it was almost 830 and Fantasmic was over. They also already closed the queue for Goofy and Mickey. I could not make it to watch the fireworks (Disney Light the Night). The music choice is nice since it features songs from the less mainstream Disney shows such as Tarzan and Coco. I took evening photos of the Easter decoration before going to Sinbad, which as always had no queue, and to Indiana Jones with the fast pass. I took it for fun but in the end I got to use it.

Another sign of aging was I did not stay until park closure since I was already too tired. I left Indiana Jones at about 930pm and started to walk towards the exit.

WOW! WOW! WOW! That is all that I can say for today. I have visited Disneysea so many times and I still get new experience each time. Today is my best so far since I get to take photos with so many characters. Getting the photo keycard will simply mean some change of plan for tomorrow at Disneyland to maximise this card. Hehe..

I also gain insight that visiting the park at this time of the year is really ideal. It is the second week of school so the park is not so crowded with local tourists. It was so easy to get seats for meals or those random seats along the way. It has never been like this in my previous visits (May, September, December). I suppose this is the reason the park opens slightly later at 9am since the visitor load is smaller. There are definitely more foreign tourists compared to my previous visits. The good thing about that is that the staff seem to be more open towards speaking English. The downside is the queues for character photos are damn long because we all love character photos as foreign tourists. Not to mention that tourists from certain Asian countries are generally bad mannered with cutting queues and being inconsiderate when people wanted to take photos with the Easter decorations.

The weather is also amazing: not to hot and not to cold for all the outdoor queueing. The nice weather also allows the characters to appear for longer periods of time. In September I noticed that characters took rest after 15-20mins of appearance. Today I noticed they were out for 30-40 minutes. Stitch and Angel did not even change throughout the duration I was queueing for them. I also noticed that the characters spend more time with those having the photo keycard. May God bless the kind souls that helped me take more than one pictures with the characters and bigger blessing for the lady who gave met the keycard.

Here are some pictures of the Easter decorations to end this post.