Fantasy Springs — Attraction in Urayasu

Fantasy Springs is a beautiful new addition to Disney Tokyo. It is located inside the Disney Sea park, and the first step to access it is a Disney Sea park ticket. There is also an exclusive hotel on the edge of Fantasy Springs with direct access to the area.

That's where the simplicity, convenience, and the 'magic' ends.

I had plenty to say about our experience, but I've abbreviated it due to the Maps review character limit.

Here are the takeaways:

It is not possible for a normal park goer to hit more than two attractions in Fantasy Springs in a single day, no matter how early you line up. If you're the first person through the normal gate, you'll get 1 DPA and 1 standby reservation (2/4 rides) and that's that. All other availability will be gone by the next time you're eligible to try again.

Depending on the entry time difference between those two rides, you may have to waste your day doing absolutely nothing in Fantasy Springs to hit your second ride (since you can't line up for others in the area in the meantime without a minimum of a standby QR code). People were actually sleeping on restaurant tables and benches for this reason. Or, leave and be unable to return for your second ride that day, as once you leave, there is a strict no same-day re-entry policy, whether you are holding another digital ride reservation or not.

There is no reasonable path to buy your way into a better Fantasy Springs access situation, except maybe the previously mentioned exclusive on-site hotel. There is also the Tokyo Disney Resort VIP Tour Services, for guests of other official Disney Tokyo hotels, starting at about $3,000 USD for 6 hours.

Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea are great theme parks. Fantasy Springs is a beautiful addition, but the access controls are abysmal, poorly executed, and really just plain unacceptable.

If you want to ride all 4 rides in Fantasy Springs, then go to Disney Sea on 2 separate mid-week days, and line up at the security gates before the sun comes up (I don't know exactly, maybe 6AM at the absolute latest because 7AM wasn't early enough). Then hit the buttons on the app faster than everyone else to do 2 rides per day. But I wouldn't recommend it. Go ride Tower of Terror 5+ times instead.

An owners response to a review like this would probably along the lines of 'The park is brand new' and 'We're still working out the best experience and access for Customers', to which I say: Great! This absolutely needs to change! Because the existing experience is significantly below Disney standards and Customer expectations.

Unfortunately, Fantasy Springs remains just that for most people; a fantasy.

SPOILER ALERT: The reason I've opted for 2 stars instead of 3 is the quality of the rides. The Frozen and Tangled rides are basically sing-along, storyline, slow boat rides for children. Frozen has some impressive visuals. If that's not for you, go for Peter Pan, which is excellent (think old school universal Florida spiderman mixed with Harry Potter level tech), or ignore Fantasy Springs entirely and just have a...

As a huge Tangled fan from the US, I was deeply disappointed by my recent visit to Tokyo DisneySea when I was unable to get into Fantasy Springs to see Rapunzel's Lantern Festival or eat at the Snuggly Duckling. I've been following the development of FS for years and finally seeing it was my dream that didn't come true.

The Bad: It turns out that getting into Fantasy Springs is designed to be a luxury gacha game. You pay for a chance to MAYBE enter, and you're not guaranteed the ride you wanted. There are few winners in this game, and many paying customers who lose out, even if they do everything "correctly" to increase their chances of entering. We went on a weekday in September, but access passes for Rapunzel's Lantern Festival were still unavailable all day (which was especially weird because the app showed wait times for the ride were only 10-30 minutes for most of the day.) We were constantly staring at our phones, refreshing the app, hoping a pass would appear. We saw passes appear for Peter Pan and Frozen maybe 4-5 times. One pass appeared for Rapunzel's ride at 6pm and was instantly gone. MAYBE if we had come to the park at 6am and MAYBE if we had booked the expensive Fantasy Springs hotel for multiple days (even though it would've been far away from everything else we wanted to do in Tokyo), then MAYBE we would have had a better chance - but look online and read the reviews here on Google Maps and see how often doing those things STILL doesn't guarantee you entry. I would have paid extra $$ and waited even 3+ hours to guarantee my entry (just to see what is apparently a beautiful but very short ride.) Instead I wasted time, money, and emotions. It feels like a scam.

Other downsides: No water is sold in the park (only coke and tea.) We did not enjoy our meal in the Aladdin restaurant. Lines were long everywhere. Some areas had limited shade (apparently Fantasy Springs is even worse) so be aware of skin protection.

The Good: The park really is beautiful and impressive, and so was the 6:30pm light show on the water. Tangled features strongly in the show, so fellow fans may want to stick around to watch it (especially if you don't get to enjoy the actual Tangled attractions.) The staff were all very kind, complimentary, and eager to help. I was able to get some beautiful pictures and some nice merch - although I think I will refrain from spending any money with Disney for a long time after this experience. It just...

Disneysea, a companion park of Disneyland was supposed to be the 'happiest place on earth' but it was soiled by Fantasy Springs. It is now the park that creates the 'most disappointments'. Even if you enter the park punctually at 9am, it was impossible to get standby tickets for rides at fantasy springs. They unofficially admit ppl on before 9am (of course mostly those without kids and can afford to not have breakfast first).

You could only enter fantasy springs if you had a pass to ride any of the rides inside. We kept refreshing our Disney app, much like others, morphing into zombies refreshing and refreshing the app constantly and finally got 4 tickets for our family via Disney premier access (18 sgd for each person).

We thought if we enter fantasy springs with this pass, we could queue for any rides inside (like usj on Nintendo world). Hold this thought.

We could not. You are NOT allowed to QUEUE for any rides in fantasy springs unless you have a standby pass (which were all given out by 9am opening time).

We flew all the way from Singapore to Tokyo for fantasy springs only to know that it was like that? How could it be that one was NOT ALLOWED to queue for rides.

We got lucky to get one ticket to Anna and Elsa frozen journey. I went for the ride alone because only people with ride ticket could enter. Which means none of my daughters could enter on their own - they would get lost trying to find the ride.

When I reached the ride, I was appalled to see that it was operating in LESS THAN FULL capacity. There was literally no queue at all.

Why the exclusivity Disneysea? Trying to milk people to buy fantasy springs hotel tickets?

I DO NOT RECOMMEND buying tickets to disneysea just for fantasy springs. You will be sorely...