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Disney Crowds Out of Control, Thousands Flood Park Entrance

in Tokyo Disneyland

Posted on by Chloe James 2 Comments
Crowds outside Tokyo Disneyland

Credit: @Triple_Disney

One Disney theme park is experiencing extremely high demand lately – and we mean extreme.

Footage taken at the entrance of Tokyo Disneyland has been consistently overwhelming in recent months. Thousands of guests have flocked to Japan’s oldest Disney theme park each day, leaving it sold out on several occasions.

Crowds gather around Space Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland
Credit: ARICAD via Wikimedia Commons

The latest video dropped from the park today (February 1). Shared by X (formerly known as Twitter) user @Triple_Disney, the clip was filmed from the Tokyo Disney Resort monorail and shows the entrance totally gridlocked with parkgoers.

Disneyland is super crowded! Isn’t today Thursday? Please be careful if you are going this season!

 

Similar videos emerged from Tokyo Disney Resort earlier this week – not to mention in December, September, August, June, April, and, well, just about every other day that Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea were open to guests in 2023.

Why Is Tokyo Disney Resort So Busy Right Now?

Congestion is a well-documented issue at the resort. However, this hasn’t always been the case. While Tokyo Disney Resort has always had consistently high attendance, the crowd situation was much more manageable pre-COVID-19 (something this writer can attest to, having survived the notoriously busy Marine Day at Tokyo DisneySea in 2019).

DisneySea overview Mountain
Credit: Tokyo Disney

There are a few reasons why this has changed. Despite it being several years since the parks were last in lockdown, Tokyo Disney Resort is yet to reintroduce normal multi-day tickets or Annual Passes, which has massively disrupted the flow of attendance compared to pre-COVID. Combined with the general late onset surge of tourism in Japan as people pursue “revenge travel” that they missed at the height of the pandemic (and an understaffing issue that continues to impact both Tokyo Disney Resort and Universal Studios Japan), you have the kind of crowd situation documented in the footage above.

While these crowds should – hopefully – thin out in the next couple of years, the reality is that Tokyo Disney Resort likely no longer has an ‘off’ season (and if it does, it’s now much harder to predict). The same is true at other Disney parks across the globe. Disneyland Paris, for example, has seen a significant attendance shift post-COVID, with regular parkgoers declaring that the concept of a ‘slow’ season no longer exists.

Tokyo Disney Resort's Cinderella Castle amidst a blue sky during the hot, summer months
Credit: Tokyo Disney

Disney World has also seen massive changes, with summer (typically one of the busiest periods of the year) being relatively quiet at Magic Kingdom in 2023, and the former autumnal ‘off’ season seeing extremely high wait times.

When Is the Right Time To Visit Tokyo Disney?

There’s never a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ time to visit any Disney theme park, but if you want to skip crowds like these, you may want to give Tokyo Disney a wide berth this year. Tokyo DisneySea is set to debut its biggest expansion ever in May with the opening of Fantasy Springs – containing mini-lands inspired by Tangled (2010), Frozen (2013), and Peter Pan (1953) – and its accompanying luxury hotel, inevitably boosting attendance through the rest of the year. Japan is also bracing for yet another surge of tourists in 2024.

Have you ever visited Tokyo Disney? Share your experience with the crowds in the comments!

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