TOKYO DISNEYLAND
at the Tokyo Disney Resort
Tokyo, Japan (Abbreviation: TDL)
Disney & Oriental Land Company (OLC)
Ride Rehabs - These dates are not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as refurbishments are subject to change.
Swiss Family Treehouse - NOW CLOSED through TBD (Closed April 1, 2022)
Monsters Inc. Ride & Go Seek - NOW CLOSED through Nov. 27
Enchanted Tiki Room - NOW CLOSED through Nov. 20
Splash Mountain - Nov. 28 through Dec. 28
Beauty & The Beast - Jan. 9 through Jan. 25, 2024
Haunted Mansion - Jan. 9 through Feb. 6, 2024
Peter Pan’s Flight - Jan. 26 through Apr. 24, 2024
Pooh’s Hunny Hunt - Jan. 26 through May 24
Big Thunder Mountain - Feb. 7 through June 13
Mickey’s PhilharMagic - Feb. 13 through Feb. 22
 General Resort News - (11/4/2023) The Tokyo Disney Resort has reported increased attendance at their properties thus far for the first six months of the Oriental Land Company’s fiscal year. This represents a nearly 40% increase over the same term from the previous year for a total of 12.5 million visitors, with 1.63 million of them being international guests visiting from countries outside of Japan. Rising international tourism is a good thing to see, after Japan largely shut down visits from international visitors throughout the pandemic. OLC’s prediction for the full 12-month fiscal year that will end on March 31st, 2024 is estimated to be around 26.3 million guests.
This will all take place before the opening of the huge Fantasy Springs expansion in the Tokyo DisneySea park in June 2024 that will surely boost attendance once again for next year’s numbers.
(8/5/2023) The Tokyo Disney Resort has updated their planned attraction closures for the first half of 2024 and another item that caught my eye was a 4 month long planned closure for Big Thunder Mountain. The biggest roller coaster in the park will be closed from Feb. 7, 2024 until June 13th, 2024. No word yet on what may be planned. While some scenic improvements are always a possibility, there is also a chance that the roller coaster track itself may be undergoing some extensive maintenance during this time period as we’ve seen take place periodically at the US counterparts.
(5/25/2023) Big news from Oriental Land Company came out last Friday as their Chairman and CEO, Toshio Kagami, announced he will be stepping down after leading the Tokyo Disney Resort company for more than a quarter century. Current VP Yumiko Takano will succeed Kagami, which will also make her the first female Chairman and CEO to helm the company.
(11/28/2022) Tokyo Disneyland has something special cooked up for their Haunted Mansion that will take place from Jan. 26, 2023 through to the end of March 2023. This is a little something they are calling a “Disney Story Board” and in short, they’ve come up with an update Haunted Mansion story that will feature anime style characters. I don’t believe this will involve any changes to the ride as they switch it back from the Nightmare Before Christmas themed version to its regular self, but it is supposed to involve some AR photo filters and brand new special merchandise for guests to collect.
(10/7/22) According to The Japan Times, the Tokyo Disney Resort is set to make a sharp shift in their business focus. The plan would see the resort’s focus shift to allowing fewer visitors into the parks in exchange for the ability to offer better customer service. The plan almost sounds like Tokyo Disney was inspired by what Six Flags’ current CEO set out to do, with an intent to actually cut back the Tokyo Disney park’s attendance levels by “about 20%” in exchange for better guest satisfaction achieved by smaller crowds and shorter wait times throughout the parks.
The idea is that any revenue lost from the attendance decline would be made up through increased guest spending in the parks on dining and shopping sprees. They’ve already started to offer “Disney Premier Access” to specific attractions for a fee of ¥2,000 (aprox $13.80 US), which is essentially the Japanese version of the Lightning Lane passes being sold in the American Disney parks. The resort has also previously switched over to a variable admission price system where the cost of admission is more on busy weekends, and cheaper on less crowded weekdays. The tickets are also pre-sold for use on specific dates with a limitation set on the number of tickets available to be sold on each day, thus limiting the daily attendance possible at each theme park.
It sounds like the plan is to transition slowly however and make their plans take effect little by little between now and the 2024 year, with a goal of having a maximum attendance of 26 million in 2024, which is about 20% down from the resorts pre-pandemic record of 35.55 million served in 2018.
(5/15/22) Tokyo Disney has announced that they will begin selling a “Disney Premier Access” pass option to guests starting on May 19, allowing them to cut to the front of the line on either Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the Beast at Tokyo Disneyland or on Soaring: Fantastic Flight at Tokyo DisneySea. This is the same name that Disney has been using for the service at Disneyland Paris as well, but it functions in much the same way that the “Lightning Lane” service is being offered at the American parks: guests can purchase this option through the official Tokyo Disney Resort app for ¥2,000 (about $15) while available.
 2023 - Disney Harmony in Color - (9/25/22) Tokyo Disneyland will open a new parade for the park’s 40th Anniversary celebration in 2023 called “Disney Harmony in Color”, sponsored by NTT DOCOMO, Inc.
The 40th Anniversary celebration will take place from April 15, 2023 through to the end of March 2024 and is also being referred to as the “Dream-Go-Round'' celebration.
The new parade will feature a number of characters and floats from many of Disney’s more modern animation films such as Coco, Moana, Wreck-It-Ralph, Zootopia as well as some classics like Mickey Mouse and Tinker Bell.
2024 - Nothing is known at this time...
 2027 - New Space Mountain - (7/22/2023) Construction continues as cranes and piledrivers are assemble on the site of Tokyo Disneyland’s next-gen Space Mountain, as shown in the tweet below. As we previously mentioned, the plan is to begin building the new domed structure BEHIND the existing Space Mountain structure, which will remain open until they are ready to close it for good sometime in 2024.
Once demolished the site of the old Space Mountain will be cleared out and used to create a new open plaza area in front of the new attraction building, which is something they were not able to do when they built the first one. A fan’s 3D modeling of what the new plaza space may look like once the new Space Mountain opens can also be seen below.
(5/28/2023) A couple of new pages added to DisneyGeek this past week show off construction progress on the new Space Mountain at Tokyo Disneyland as seen on May 13 and May 16, as crews are preparing the site for the new attraction just behind the existing Space Mountain structure.
(1/9/2023) Special thanks to reader Ted Gressick who visited Tokyo Disneyland just before Christmas and managed to grab a great photo from the monorail showing off construction already in progress for the new version of Space Mountain set to open in 2027. While the existing Space Mountain will remain in operation through to 2024, we can see that the entire space behind the existing attraction has been cleared out and work crews are already installing piles into the ground back there needed to support the huge new domed attraction structure.
With at least a year or more to go until the old Space Mountain closes down, what this also means is that the NEW Space Mountain structure will rise long before the old one closes, but this also means that the new attraction will likely be bigger and definitely located further out towards the outer perimeter of the park than the existing Space Mountain. This would put the new Space Mountain more in line with the peritmiter created by the new Beauty & The Beast attraction building. This also explains why in the artwork, the new Space Mountain seems to have a nice wide entrance plaza in front of it, while the existing Space Mountain does not.
So when the time comes to close Space Mountain sometime in 2024, the new Space Mountain structure located behind it should likely already be well under way. This would technically allow the new ride to be under construction at the same time that demolition crews arrive to begin gutting the inside of the old ride hardware, ahead of a full demolition of the structure itself once it is empty. The interesting thing is that once the old Space Mountain building is ready to come down, they will likely already have the new ride structure fully enclosed behind it to establish a new skyline for Tomorrowland a year or two before they are ready to open it.
(4/28/22) Tokyo Disneyland surprised everyone with the announcement that the park’s Space Mountain attraction will be undergoing a complete overhaul. As part of the announcement, new concept art was released that definitely gives the iconic mountain attraction an all new look that will set it apart from its American counterparts.
Gone is the old classic hard-line design and find a new Space Mountain design that seems to have taken on more of a swooping organic style of design instead. According to the release this will be an “entirely new attraction” featuring new “immersive special effects”, but will maintain the original concept of an indoor roller coaster ride through outer space.
As you may have guessed, this seems to be a complete rebuild of the attraction that will see the original Tokyo Disneyland Space Mountain close for good sometime in 2024 and reopen sometime in 2027. The project will also see a new enhanced plaza built around the new Space Mountain that will “express the connection between Earth and the universe, representing an image of a future where humans are in harmony with nature.””
No further details were given about what the new attraction experience may offer but I am very curious. Tokyo’s Space Mountain opened in 1983 and was built essentially as a clone of the Disneyland version that opened in 1977 and later closed for it’s own rebuild in 2003. When the Disneyland version was rebuilt over a two years period, they really only rebuilt the actual roller coaster ride inside of the structure. It isn’t known if any of Tokyo’s original structure will remain, or if this will be a complete rebuild.
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