Trip Report about my day at Tokyo DisneySea doing everything Soaring Fantastic Flight 07/26/2019

Absimilliard

Mouseketeer
Joined
Nov 15, 1999
I decided a month or so ago that I wanted to ride Soaring: Fantastic Flight at Tokyo DisneySea when it opened July 23rd, 2019. I liked the merchandise selection, special menu and I knew from experience the merchandise would not last very long there. So, I made plans to go for a long weekend to Tokyo from Montreal to spend a day at the park and one day doing shopping around Akihabara and Nakano Broadway. I spent an whole evening before leaving for Tokyo making a priority seating for Magellan's on the Japanese site by creating a japanese Disney account, which in turn allowed me to log in on the Tokyo Disney application.

I downloaded the most recent Tokyo Disney apk file for Android online and had no issue installing it. I then figured out how to log in and it linked my priority seating too. Perfect! I bought my park ticket online and grabbed the earliest train I could get out of the Ariake Washington Hotel Tokyo Bay. By 06:10, I was sitting in front of the Tokyo DisneySea gate, with maybe 15 people in front of me. More people showed up and there was a lot of people by the time 07:45 rolled around at the Magic 15 turnstile next to me. As soon as 08:00 hit, I was in the park by 08:02 and immediately scanned my park ticket in the fast pass tab of the app after it went through the turnstile. By that time, due to the Magic 15 people, I was down to a 13:20-14:20 Fast Pass for Soaring which I scored. I relaxed a bit and powerwalked toward the ride to see the situation. The line was getting longer and longer by the second and was already over 2 hours long at that point I estimated as they could not update the wait times fast enough. Fast passes were at that point by not even 08:10:

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I had a great walk-on ride on Journey to the Center of the Earth by the time I got there. They had just opened the standby queue. I walked back toward Soaring and it was 08:25 at this point:

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I then took the day in a quite relaxing way, since I had been to the park plenty of times before and my priorities were Soaring, the merchandise and the food. I scored fast passes for Indiana Jones Adventure, Tower of Terror, Journey to the Center of the Earth and used Single Rider queues at Indiana Jones Adventure and Raging Spirits. I had my favorite snacks before moving to the Soaring menu:

Spiced Smoked Chicken Leg from the Lost River Cookhouse near Raging Spirits. My favorite chicken thing in the world.

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Asian Pear Crushed Ice served at Tropic Al near Mermaid Lagoon in Lost River Delta, absolutely amazing.

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Now, for the Soaring: Fantastic Flight menu, starting with the pineapple churros:

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Tapioca Litchee drink, AMAZING and I kept the plastic glass after!

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I rode Soaring Fantastic Flight with my fast pass and it was... incredible. The Fast Pass queue for once has most of the story elements through the paintings seen in the standby. They added them to the fast pass entrance as well, so you can figure what the idea of the Museum of Fantastic Flight is about. The main rotunda is incredible and jawdropping in its beauty. The music, the paintings, props, etc. everything comes together for what I think is the most beautiful queue in the world. After the rotunda, you reach the first preshow room, where, without going into spoilers, Tokyo DisneySea reinvents the book on how to make a preshow and get people inspired. The security preshow is the safety video and again, its clearly hidden how they do it.

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Now, for the main show: I am not a fan of either Soarin' ride movies as it doesn't hold my interest due to poor format and editing, especially for the Around the World version. The ride vehicles also do very little. Here though: they managed to impress me. They themed the ride chamber as the balcony of the museum at night where we're about to take a flight using our imagination aboard the Dream Flyer. The Dream Flyers are all elaborately themed and the chamber with its marble fence felt luxurious and authentic. For the movie itself, I'll say that the Tokyo specific stuff raise this above any other versions around the world.

I was extremely impressed with the ride and I prefered it to Flight of Passage. The architecture of the building is fantastic too, since it looks like the museum in the lower portion... and an italian footage in the top part, making it appear from far like an extension of Hotel Miracosta.

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I then add dinner at Magellan's later after I grabbed the ride Popcorn Bucket:

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The popcorn part rotates and spin the Dream Flyer around:

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As for Magellan's, this is the special Soaring: Fantastic Flight Menu:

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The first course, the chicken with mustard:

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Seafood Bisque, with nice pieces of shrimp, clam and a scallop:

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The fried flounder dish:

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Bread Service:

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Kuroge Beef (Japanese A5 beef, equivalent to real Kobe or Matsusaka beef):

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Dessert, with the orange-yuzu sherbet and vanilla tart. The cloud is cotton candy.

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For my drink, I went with the signature non-alcoholic drink of the restaurant. Tasted like a nice pineapple juice!

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It was probably among the top 3 best meal I ever had. The beef was incredible, as good as the Matsusaka Beef I had a few years back. The portion was just right as real A5 beef is incredibly rich and any more would make you full. Every dish had layers of flavors and everything was presented in an imaginative way. Love the Cup and Saucer for Soaring? Its the only way you can buy it, along with the souvenir glass. What's great is that unlike other parks, they never serve you directly in souvenir dishes or glasses. They either serve you in a generic one, put a cover on it or in this case, give you new ones in nice boxes that protect them. The meal was expensive, but worth it!

I also hit the souvenir shop where I score many things. I love the T-shirt, seen in their largest size, LL (a small XL-Large L in the US):

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Back:

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Beside that, I had a few good character encounters, including this beyond rare one:

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I also met Goofy in his Port Discovery outfit:

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Anyone have any questions? Thank you for reading!
 
Jiminy Cricket is actually fairly common in both Tokyo parks and usually comes out around Earth Day in Hong Kong Disneyland and Animal Kingdom. Port Discovery Goofy is a lot harder to meet in my opinion.
 
Do you think people without the app and without happy 15 have any chance getting FP for Soaring?
 
Yeah, same question..... would I, without the app and no happy15 and no speak Japanese, even stand a chance of getting a soarin FP. :sad:
I will be visiting on 1st week Dec.
May be I get a sore-in FP.
 


Jiminy Cricket is actually fairly common in both Tokyo parks and usually comes out around Earth Day in Hong Kong Disneyland and Animal Kingdom. Port Discovery Goofy is a lot harder to meet in my opinion.

Did not know that, thank you. It was the second time I met Port Discovery Goofy, but the first I saw Jiminy Cricket.

As for the question about getting Fast pass for Soaring, only if you do do like I said: arrive as early as you can at the park before opening. Walk quickly toward Soaring Fantastic Flight and if you're there by 0810, you have a good chance of getting one.
 
I wonder if OCL reserves some percentage for manual pulling FP at the machines. Otherwise those machines may be just nice display units.
 
I doubt there's any special allocation for manual FP. I've arrived at DisneySea an hour before opening on capacity days and they would announce that TSM FP were gone by the time I got the gates.

It's definitely still possible to get a FP without the app and I'm sure it'll settle down in a bit once the locals have all experienced it. It's not like they're forcing people to make reservations which filled up months in advance (*cough* Star Wars Land and Flight of Passage *cough*)
 


Thanks for the tip on getting a japanese disney account so you can make restaurant reservations. It was having none of my USA attempts to make a reservation. Trying that.
 
No luck.
Looks like you have to use a different email from your US Disney account, and you have to have a physical address in Japan. Going to try the walk up option in the morning for Magellans.
 
No luck.
Looks like you have to use a different email from your US Disney account, and you have to have a physical address in Japan. Going to try the walk up option in the morning for Magellans.

I used my hotel address as my japanese address. Try that and you should be fine.

You can then download the apk for the tokyo disney app so you can book fast passes as soon as you enter the parks.
 
I used my hotel address as my japanese address. Try that and you should be fine.

You can then download the apk for the tokyo disney app so you can book fast passes as soon as you enter the parks.
Question: Where did you download the apk from? And can you get it for iphone?
 
Question: Where did you download the apk from? And can you get it for iphone?
From your iphone, you just need to change the country of the App Store.
1. Touch the Apple-Id in settings, then go to iTunes & App Store.
2. Touch Apple-id again and then select view Apple-Id.
3. After you verify your touch-id, you will see a Country/Region setting.
You can change to any country's App Store there. when asked for payment method, just select none.
 
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VERY COOL. I saw pics of the merchandise, too, and am sorry I wouldn't get the chance to buy anything. Glad you got to go!!
 
Thanks for the detailed review...I am concerned people without the app are going to be severely disadvantaged by not being able to get FP straight away. I have tried to get my husband to set up an account, and despite normally being tech savy, he doesn't seem to be interested to do all the work needed to get the app. Hopefully we will still manage to get some FP during the days we are there
 
Well, summer holiday is over in Japan and Soaring's wait times and fastpasses are more reasonable now. You can still get FPs at 9 AM (with 20:45 return times). Wait times at 8:45 is 80 minutes, peaks at 210 then drops to 120-150 mins at midday.
 
Yeah, just checked the wait time app, and FP ended at 9.20am but that's just 20 min upon opening still. Not much better.
Seems to hover around 180 from noon onwards. Guess that's better than 300mins. :crazy2:
Have not check disneyreal today.
 

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