Disney's biggest new attraction debut of the year is coming up this June in Tokyo. Walt Disney Imagineering and its partners at the Oriental Land Co. are now sharing their latest looks inside the new Fantasy Springs expansion at Tokyo DisneySea. Let's see what fans can expect from this new land, which includes sections themed to Disney's Frozen, Tangled, and Peter Pan.
Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey will be a six-and-half-minute boat ride, but it's not a clone of the Frozen Ever After rides now found at EPCOT and Hong Kong Disneyland. Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey will recreate the now-familiar story of the 2013 Disney Animation film, starting with Grand Pabbie, the leader of the trolls, narrating the story of Anna and Elsa to two young trolls. But it will include the film's climatic scene, with Anna turning to ice to save Elsa from Hans. Along the way, guests will hear "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?," "For the First Time in Forever" and "Love Is an Open Door" in addition to the ubiquitous "Let It Go." Each boat will accommodate up to 16 guests and there will be no height restriction on the ride.
The land's restaurants will be Royal Banquet of Arendelle, a 570-seat counter-service restaurant in Arendelle Castle, and Oaken's OK Foods, a stand serving "Oaken's Yoo-Hoo Bread" - cardamom bread filled with Scandinavian-style spiced meat, accented by lingonberry jam.
Rapunzel's Lantern Festival will be a five-minute boat ride that recreates Rapunzel's "best day ever" from the 2010 Disney film, Tangled, culminating in Rapunzel and Flynn Rider singing "I See the Light" as floating lanterns fill the night sky. As with Frozen Journey, each boat will accommodate up to 16 guests and there will be no height restriction.
The Snuggly Duckling will be the land's restaurant. The largest restaurant in Fantasy Springs, The Snuggly Duckling can accommodate up to 620 guests. Set behind the foliage of a massive tree that is growing into the building, the counter-service restaurant will serve "Duckling's Dream Cheeseburger" and "Sweet Ever After Dessert," a lemon and strawberry pastry served in Rapunzel's frying pan.
This land will include two attractions. Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure will be a six-minute 3D dark ride. It will be the only attraction in Fantasy Springs with a height restriction - 40 inches. Tinker Bell will sprinkle fairy dust on your 12-person "boat," allowing it to "fly" as you try to rescue John from Captain Hook and the pirates.
Fairy Tinker Bell's Busy Buggies is a two-minute track ride through Pixie Hollow, where riders feel like they've been shrunk to fairy-size.
Inspired by the Lost Kids (no longer gender-specific, I see), Lookout Cookout will seat about 200 guests in this counter-service restaurant. Made from parts of a Never land shipwreck where the Lost Kids live, the restaurant will serve a "Lost Kids' Snack Box" with chicken tenders, seaweed fritters, banana chips, and shrimp chips.
The signature drink will be "Pixie Dust Soda," a kiwi soda with a star-shaped topping that dissolves into the drink, "creating a silver sparkling effect inspired by Tinker Bell's magical pixie dust."
Finally, the Popcorn Wagon will a new popcorn flavor for Tokyo Disney - roast beef flavored popcorn. Tokyo Disney said that it will be "seasoned with salt and black pepper and aromas of roasted meat and gravy."
Fantasy Springs opens June 6 at Tokyo DisneySea. However, access to the land will be limited to those with passes for the land or its attractions. Guests staying at the new Tokyo DisneySea Fantasy Springs Hotel or on select Tokyo Disney Resort Vacation Packages will be allowed to buy a "1-Day Passport: Fantasy Springs Magic" that provides admission to the land and its attractions.
Otherwise, park guests will need either to purchase a Disney Premier Access pass for Anna and Elsa's Frozen Journey, Rapunzel's Lantern Festival, or Peter Pan's Never Land Adventure or get a Standby Pass for one of those rides or Fairy Tinker Bell's Busy Buggies in order to get into the land. Access to the land may be provided without these passes, based on attendance level, but I would not count on that during the first weeks after the land's debut.
Park guests can reserve a free Standby Pass or paid Disney Premier Access pass in the official Tokyo Disney app on the day of your visit. You may buy only one Disney Premier Access attraction pass per ticket per day and can hold only one Standby Pass for an attraction at a time. The number of passes will be limited, so it's possible that without the Fantasy Springs Magic passport, the most a guest may be able to experience in Fantasy Springs will be two rides: one that you buy a Premier Access for and whatever other one you can get on a Standby Pass before they're gone for the day. Quick fingers and deep familiarity with the Tokyo Disney app will be musts when visiting.
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The shear size and scope of this expansion is impressive. While most of the attractions are relatively small (but way more than intricately themed flat rides or playgrounds), this expansion represents a very different approach to themed lands. It will be interesting to see how crowds respond, because while the Peter Pan attraction might be seen as an "e-ticket", I think it will be more like a d-ticket when compared to other major attractions at the Tokyo Disney resort.
The question then becomes whether the current model of one massive e-ticket attraction anchoring a land and supported by one or 2 smaller c/d-ticket attractions and a highly themed environment is still the path forward, or if fans would prefer 3-5 smaller highly themed attractions in a highly varied themed environment. Personally, I think putting all your eggs into 1 basket (1 massive e-ticket) brings risk, but is probably necessary for 2-3 lands within any major theme park. However, once a park has those big draws, expansions should focus more on increasing the total number of attractions to better spread out crowds and demand across more attractions that may appeal to different guests.
I really like what I see from this development, and hope that Disney and other designers take note of what's being done here to apply to future expansions.
I actually think both the Peter Pan ride, which seems to compare to Flight of Passage with the added gimmick of your ride vehicle physically lifting off of water into a simulator dome, and the Frozen ride (much larger and more involved than a clone of Frozen Ever After) appear to be E-ticket attractions. The Frozen ride building is absolutely massive and I think it'll compare favorably to the Beauty and the Beast E-ticket at Tokyo Disneyland, which is the most popular ride at the resort and one of the best rides in the world. You have to remember that Soarin' is also considered an E-ticket by locals; it is the most popular attraction at Tokyo DisneySea. A flying theater Peter Pan ride will certainly attract that level of attention, if not more.
I agree that this is the approach I'd like to see Disney take going forward, especially with the "Beyond Big Thunder" project at Magic Kingdom and whatever they end up doing with Dinoland at Animal Kingdom, a park craving capacity upgrades.
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While I can't wait to experience the Frozen and Tangled lands here, it's what Disney has planned for Peter Pan that interests me most. The Peter Pan rides at Disneyland and WDW stand number-one on my list of attractions that most desperately need a rethink from WDI. While fans love the suspended ride vehicles, the nature of those vehicles demand a lot of engineering to keep the attraction from becoming a low-capacity nightmare, which Pan currently is on both costs.
Disney's using a different ride system in Tokyo, so I am curious to see if it can provide the fun perspective of the traditional Pan rides while boosting hourly capacity.
The bigger issue with Pan, however, is its appalling and unacceptable depiction of indigenous people, which Disney has disclaimed on Disney+ (and really should do in the queues at DL and WDW, too.) There is so much that people love about Pan that I would welcome a fresh take on this IP from WDI that excludes the unnecessary caricatures in the current Pan rides.
Beyond Pan, the Rapunzel dessert in the little frying pan is brilliant. And I know that some people will gag at the thought of roast beef popcorn, but TDR does such an amazing job with popcorn flavors throughout the parks that they've earned the benefit of the doubt here. I'd try it - and, as I have written before, I don't even like popcorn.