Welcome to the start of a new series! This one will centre around planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort!
Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are two of my favourite Disney parks. I was blown away by how amazing both these parks are. The cast members are all wonderful, the attractions are immersive and exciting, the food is delicious, the merchandise is adorable, and the shows are spectacular. There is very little negatively to say about Tokyo Disney, except maybe, possibly purchasing tickets.
Purchasing tickets is definitely something to research before heading to Tokyo Disney because it’s confusing and even a bit frustrating. The ticket system is different from any of the other Disney parks. For anyone who doesn’t know, Tokyo Disney isn’t actually owned by the Walt Disney Company (gasp!) It is owned and operated by the Oriental Land Company who licenses the characters, theming, etc from Disney. This is why the website looks quite different than the other Disney parks’ sites.
Types of Tickets:
First off, there is a plethora of options, especially if you only want to visit for one day (which I don’t recommend, stay as long as possible!) Tickets at Tokyo Disney are called passports. There is the basic 1-Day passport which gets guests into one of the parks all day, the Starlight Passport allows entrance for guests into one park after 3 pm on weekends and holidays, and the After 6 Passport which allows guests to enter one park (you guessed it) after 6 pm on select weekdays. Check out the official park calendar to see when the After 6 passport can be used.
If you want to visit for more than a day, there are 2-Day, 3-Day, and 4-Day passports available. Please note there are no passports available for more than 4 days like there are at Disneyland and Walt Disney World aside from the Annual Passports.
Park Hopping:
There is no separate park hopping option when it comes to purchasing Tokyo Disney tickets. 1-Day and 2-Day passports are one park per day only. At the time of purchase, guests must choose which park on which day they would like to visit. It is possible to change your selection before entering the park initially, but not after entering.
3-Day and 4-Day passports allow park hopping only on the third and fourth days. This is a bit confusing, I know. So for example if you purchase a 4-Day passport, day one would be spent only in Disneyland, day two in DisneySea (or vice versa), and then days three and four allow park hopping between the two.
Parking hopping isn’t super easy between the two parks. Disneyland and DisneySea are right next to each other, but the entrances are on opposite ends. It would be a long walk between the parks and though there is a monorail station near to each park, fare is not included in park tickets. We ended up just spending two full days in Disneyland and two full days in DisneySea without park hopping.
Where to Purchase Tickets:
It may or may not be possible to purchase tickets online. According to the website, credit cards from countries outside Japan must have a 3-D secure authentication to be able to purchase tickets online. We have this authentication and ours still didn’t work. We tried multiple cards, calling helplines, and even calling our bank (they couldn’t even see an attempted transaction much less a blocked one), so buying online didn’t work for us. However, after reading multiple discussions on sites like TripAdvisor, it sounds like sometimes cards work and sometimes they just don’t. So try this first and if you are unable to purchase online, don’t worry. It is very easy to purchase tickets once you are in Japan. And this way you get the cute paper ticket instead of an e-ticket, though it is possible to exchange an e-ticket for a physical one at guest relations for a small fee.
Select Disney Stores in Japan sell park tickets and this is where we purchased ours. It was very easy. There was a separate register for purchasing park tickets so we didn’t have to wait in line and despite a language barrier, communication was simple. The cast member had a calendar in English and we just pointed at which days and how many days we wanted to purchase tickets for, including which park for which day. The cast member triple checked everything to make sure we were paying for exactly what we wanted and away we went with Tokyo Disneyland tickets! The Disney Store Japan website has a list of which Disney Stores sell park tickets.
At the Tokyo Disney Resort, guests can purchase same day tickets only at the ticket booths located at the entrances to Disneyland and DisneySea. For advanced tickets, there is the Ticket Center in Ikspiari which is Tokyo’s version of Downtown Disney. There are also Group Ticket Booths for parties of 25 or more at both Disneyland and DisneySea.
The Disney Hotels (Disneyland Hotel, Hotel MiraCosta, Ambassador Hotel, and Celebration Hotel) and the Tokyo Disney Resort Official Hotels (good neighbour hotels; list found on official Tokyo Disney website) have ticket counters in the lobbies for guests staying there to purchase tickets.
I have also heard recommendations for the third party booking platform Voyagin which offers slightly discounted tickets, but I have no personal experience with them.
Please note, tickets are available up to three months in advance.
So that’s all my advice on purchasing tickets for Tokyo Disney! I hope this post was actually helpful and didn’t just make everything 100x more confusing. If you have any tips I missed, please leave them down in the comments.
If you have a trip coming up to Tokyo Disney Resort, I would love to hear about it! Have the most awesome time!
Other Tokyo Disney Resort posts:
Quick Guide to Tokyo Disneyland
Quick Guide to Tokyo DisneySea
A look at Tokyo Disney Merchandise
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