Tokyo Disneyland first opened on April 15, 1983, and on its 40th anniversary this year, it kicked off a year-long event to celebrate, with the theme of “Dream-Go-Round.” The biggest piece of entertainment to debut during this event was the new daytime parade, “Harmony in Color.”
In this photo report, you’ll see front-row pics of the parade, along with anniversary decorations at the park entrance, on Cinderella Castle, and in a room at the Tokyo Disney Celebration Hotel. We’ll also talk about how the parade factors into some of the changes that have occurred, for better or worse, at Tokyo Disney Resort since the pandemic upended the theme park business.
Premier Access and Priority Pass (Fastpass 2.0)
Five years ago, we won the free ticket lottery and were there in the front row to see Tokyo Disneyland’s new 35th-anniversary parade, “Dreaming Up,” the month it debuted. Since then, a lot’s changed at Tokyo Disney Resort. For one thing, Oriental Land Company (OLC), the owner and operator of the resort through a licensing agreement with Disney, confirmed in a June press release that it has permanently ended its Fastpass system, which had been on hiatus since the beginning of the pandemic in February 2020.
In its place, the resort is doing a “40th Anniversary Priority Pass,” which will function like a Fastpass and be available “for a limited period,” starting later this summer (on an unspecified date). This Fastpass 2.0, as it were, should help fill up some of those empty fast lanes built into the queue of many rides. However, line-hopping for the most popular attractions at Tokyo Disney Resort is now something you have to pay to do through the Premier Access system.
The system also covers “Harmony in Color” and the nightly Electrical Parade. You can still see people staking out spots along the parade route hours beforehand, but in Tokyo Disneyland’s central plaza, they now have a reserved seating area roped off exclusively for Premier Access guests.
Front-Row Pics of the ‘Harmony in Color’ Parade
We wanted to see Tokyo Disneyland’s new 40th-anniversary parade — which should run for the next half-decade, until the 45th anniversary — but we held off on visiting the park until last week, because we also wanted to ride the classic version of Space Mountain one last time. It’s closing for good in 2024 (to be replaced by a redesigned Space Mountain in a new ride building, which already broke ground this May), and we couldn’t foresee visiting the park again before then.
This year, Space Mountain was closed for maintenance from April 17 to June 21 as well. So it wasn’t until last week, just before the start of a new summer event (which began yesterday), that we had a chance to do a farewell ride and see the “Harmony in Color” parade on the same day.
As you can see in the pictures throughout this post, “Harmony in Color” has parade floats themed to the Disney and Pixar films Zootopia, Up, Moana with Tangled and Pocahontas (a 3-in-1 float), Coco, The Incredibles, Toy Story, Wreck-It Ralph, and Big Hero 6 (apparently repurposed from “Dreaming Up,” with Baymax riding the same torii gate bridge from San Fransokyo).
The overarching theme, per OLC, is a “harmonious world of colors,” grand-marshaled by Tinker Bell, with Mickey Mouse and friends bringing up the rear in the final 40th-anniversary float. Below the swinging acrobats, you’ll also see a mix of marching characters from early Disney films like Pinocchio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, as well as the usual run of princes and princesses from Disney Renaissance films such as Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast.
The Advantage of Happy Entry 15
We went ahead and forked over the extra ¥2,500 per person for Premier Access to the parade, and it ended up working in our favor, insofar as we managed to snag front-row seats again and have Cinderella Castle as a scenic backdrop for the float procession. Yet this was the result of a unique set of circumstances, and I wouldn’t necessarily expect it to be the norm.
This was our situation: we were staying at the value-type Tokyo Disney Celebration Hotel (in a room specially decorated for the 40th anniversary), and it and the other four Disney hotels come with the benefit of “Happy Entry 15,” which allows you to enter the park 15 minutes before it opens to the rest of the public. We had also arrived a bit early in the morning, so we were sitting toward the front of the line of hotel guests, and I bought our Premier Access tickets for the parade as soon as we passed through the turnstiles at 8:15 a.m.
I think our parade seats would have probably been much further back if we had entered the park at 8:30 like everyone else. The reserved seating area for the parade goes back several rows, and I can envision a scenario where someone might pay for Premier Access, only to wind up sitting in back with a worse view than if they had just camped out for free somewhere else along the parade route.
It’s almost like you have to pay a second upcharge (the cost of a Disney hotel) to get the full benefit of the first upcharge (the cost of Premier Access). This is just one way that Tokyo Disney Resort, in its 40th year, has stopped favoring simple one-day park tickets and become geared more toward pricey add-ons and reservations booked months in advance.
The Kingdom of Dreams, Magic, and Money
On the plus side, entering Tokyo Disneyland 15 minutes early allowed us to do Space Mountain as a walk-on. Within the first hour and 15 minutes, we had knocked out that ride, Pooh's Hunny Hunt, Peter Pan's Flight, and Big Thunder Mountain, with all but one of those being Fastpass rides under the old system.
For the new Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast ride, which I covered in a photo tour for /Film last year, the line stretched back a long, long way. Everyone went for that attraction first in the morning, so we just did the Premier Access thing with it, too.
With a one-day park ticket and the right bit of strategy, it used to be that you could arrive at Tokyo Disney Resort early in the morning and realistically do everything you wanted to do. Now, everything comes at a price, making the Kingdom of Dreams and Magic, as Tokyo Disneyland is nicknamed, feel like a money pit, to boot. The resort in general caters more toward guests who are willing to pay for Premier Access, a Disney hotel, and/or Vacation Package, in addition to their park ticket.
That might be par for the course for stateside Disney park guests, who have already grown accustomed to the byzantine system of advance reservations and Genie+ and Individual Lightning Lane and all that. At Tokyo Disney Resort, though, it feels like they’re giving a little less value now than they were before. As Nippon.com and other news outlets have reported, even the price of a park ticket (which is now variable depending on the calendar of peak times), is set to exceed ¥10,000 for the first time ever this October.
The Impossible Mission of Catching Certain Shows
We still enjoyed ourselves at Tokyo Disneyland, but visiting a Disney park has become a more rarefied thing in the 2020s, and Azusa is more excited now by Universal Studios Japan, which is newer for us and a bit more adult-oriented. Though equally pricey, it’s easier through Universal’s Express Pass system to have a selection of rides locked in before you even get to Osaka, so you don’t have to worry about not being able to do something you want to do while you’re there.
Another one of Tokyo Disneyland’s 40th-anniversary entertainment offerings is a special version of “Club Mouse Beat”—a show that can only be accessed via Entry Request. Basically, you do what you would if you were playing the ticket lottery with shows before, but now you’re doing it through the park’s official app. And if you don’t win, you’re out of luck that day.
Unlike “Mickey’s Magical Music World,” which had its first show of the day open to non-reserved guests when we were there, all five “Club Mouse Beat” shows were available through Entry Request only. Unless something’s changed, however, guests with Vacation Packages should be able to book reservations for the show ahead of time. The same goes for dinner shows like “Mickey’s Rainbow Luau,” which returned to the Polynesian Terrace yesterday for the first time in years, but which requires advance reservations.
This all goes to say: good luck trying to get into some of these shows, which are usually booked solid. Who knows, though, maybe you’ll get lucky, and Tinker Bell will sprinkle a little pixie dust on your vacation plans at Tokyo Disneyland during its 40th anniversary.
Good luck, and for more on Tokyo Disney Resort, check out my full portfolio of Disney parks coverage, which includes an in-depth photo guide to Tokyo DisneySea.