Haters of virtual queues, rejoice! Fantasy Springs, the new $2 billion land featuring Frozen, Peter Pan, and Tangled that opened last summer at Tokyo DisneySea and has had the most complicated policies for accessing attractions is finally ditching them. This covers the big changes, why we’re on board with eliminating the guest unfriendly protocol, plus our expectations for what this means going forward.
For starters, I want to underscore just how miserable of an experience the rope drop process has been at Tokyo DisneySea since last fall. If you visited during the opening few months of Fantasy Springs, you likely missed this. Suffice to say, it got much worse over the holiday season as people waited until “after” the initial rush…and then all descended upon TDS at the same time.
We had an awful experience attempting to enter Fantasy Springs at Christmas-time, which almost soured the day in Tokyo DisneySea for us. You can read Why Disney’s #1 Park is Getting 1-Star Reviews for a full recap, but suffice to say, we are far from alone in having these issues. This came after pretty smooth and seamless experiences with Fantasy Springs during the (slower) summer season.
As perhaps the most long-time and passionate American “cheerleaders” for Tokyo Disney Resort, we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention this. For all of the complaints about how Walt Disney World is complicated and has policies that are seemingly hostile towards guests, nothing the domestic parks have done surpasses TDR’s original approach to Fantasy Springs in terms of awfulness. Their slow pivot from that has been frustrating (albeit typical of change in Japan), but thankfully, that’s about to change in a big way!
Starting April 1, 2025 you can experience the attractions at Fantasy Springs in Tokyo DisneySea by waiting in line or by using Disney Premier Access (fee required). This means that Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey, Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure, Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival, and Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies will all drop their virtual queues (called Standby Pass) and switch to regular ole standby lines.
For longtime Walt Disney World fans who bemoaned similar recent changes to Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind and Tiana’s Bayou Adventure and are disappointed by this, operating under the assumption their “skills” would transfer to Tokyo: don’t. We have an over 99% success rate (only one fail ever, due to a glitch) at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. Despite our best efforts and showing up over 90 minutes early, we still got shut out of Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey.
This follows a change earlier this year removing the blanket entry restrictions for Fantasy Springs as a whole. It’s important to emphasize that this is at present, and is not necessarily a permanent policy change. Tokyo Disney Resort has basically reserved the right to reintroduce a virtual queue for accessing the land.
Here’s how you’ll be able to tell whether there are entry restrictions in place for Fantasy Springs:
- If there are no area entry restrictions, after you enter Tokyo DisneySea, the Park Ticket screen on the Tokyo Disney Resort app will display “You can enter at any time.” When this message is displayed, you are free to enter Fantasy Springs as you wish.
- If there are entry restrictions in place, the TDR app will have a grey box for a “valid time of entry to Fantasy Springs” (that will be populated with times if/when you secure Standby Pass or Disney Premier Access)
- If you would like to check before entering Tokyo DisneySea, please look for the Fantasy Springs Entryway signs on the Tokyo Disney Resort app on the morning of the day you wish to visit.
Since making this change, Tokyo Disney Resort has not brought back the entry restrictions for Fantasy Springs. Accordingly, the logical conclusion is that they are probably gone for good.
At the same time, this switch to standby lines for the attractions as of April 2025 could change the equation. Standby lines might draw more people back to Fantasy Springs, resulting in the land as a whole hitting capacity. I’m skeptical that this will happen, but we really won’t know until the first stress test, which will come up during Golden Week at the end of the month. If there are ever going to be entry restrictions, they’ll happen then. If not, we’re probably safe.
The big question now is what wait times will be for these attractions. Over the course of the last month, the average wait times for Soaring, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Tower of Terror, Toy Story Mania, and Indiana Jones Adventure have all been above 2 hours. Soaring: Fantastic Flight is the busiest of the bunch, and routinely hits 240 minute peaks.
It’s safe to say the Fantasy Springs attractions will surpass these highs. Based on current demand, Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey will become the new #1 wait times at Tokyo DisneySea starting this April. It’s hard to say how high it’ll go for the all-time Golden Week peak, but 300 minutes on a regular basis would not be the least bit surprising.
The Tangled ride will likely be #2 in Fantasy Springs and probably the park due to newness factor. Never Land Adventure will be #3 in Fantasy Springs, but maybe not the park due to it being a screen-centric simulator that’s not as appealing to all guests.
These are obviously very high wait times, and you could conceivably spend the better part of a day waiting in line for just the 4 Fantasy Springs attractions on that basis. That is, assuming you did all standby and lined up when wait times are at their peaks. We wouldn’t recommend that.
Against this backdrop, we’d recommend prioritizing as follows:
- Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey
- Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure
- Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival
- Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies
Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure is higher on the list than Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival not due to demand, but because it’s better.
Disney Premier Access is available for a fee, and guests can purchase Disney Premier Access using the Tokyo Disney Resort App after entering Tokyo DisneySea. Guests are able to experience three attractions at Fantasy Springs with Disney Premier Access. Prices are as follows:
- Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey: 2,000 yen
- Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival: 2,000 yen
- Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure: 2,000 yen
For Walt Disney World and Disneyland fans, Premier Access is Tokyo Disney Resort’s version of a Lightning Lane Single Pass, minus the pre-booking part (in Florida–making it almost identical to its California counterpart, but with a different name). Just like Walt Disney World and Disneyland, FastPass is also dead at Tokyo Disney Resort. (See our Guide to (Free) Priority Pass & (Paid) Premier Access at Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea.)
Domestic Disney Parks fans know that we’re averse to Lightning Lane Single Pass for personal use. While we recommend it (begrudgingly) to infrequent tourists and (especially) first-timers, we have never purchased it ourselves at Walt Disney World or Disneyland. Not once.
We have bought Premier Access several times at Tokyo Disney Resort and enthusiastically recommend it to international tourists. We’re still against it on principle, but your time has value on vacation. Not only that, but the reduction in waiting is much more considerable at Tokyo Disney Resort.
If used on the highest priority attractions at busier times, a single Premier Access pass could save you 2-3 hours in line. There’s also the reality of the favorable exchange rate, which makes those 2,000 yen Premier Access passes cost approximately $13.
Doing the math, you’re conservatively spending around $6 per hour saved on Premier Access at Tokyo Disney Resort. The hourly cost basis at Walt Disney World or Disneyland is closer to $15 to $20. That’s still within the realm of “worth it” for many tourists, but it’s more borderline for others.
By contrast, it’s an absolute no-brainer at Tokyo Disney Resort, especially if you only have a single day for each park. Honestly, even with 2 days at Tokyo DisneySea, you’re going to be hard-pressed to see and do it all while also soaking up the incredible atmosphere and attention to detail without buying Premier Access. I cannot fathom flying halfway around the world but then deeming my waking theme park hours worth less than $6 per hour, and I’m fairly frugal!
The problem is that most other guests have this same calculus, making Premier Access a hot ticket at Tokyo Disney Resort. It regularly sells out for the Fantasy Springs attractions instantly, and for other rides throughout the park early on in the morning. For this reason, we’re not really expecting much change to the rope drop madness at Tokyo DisneySea. It should let up a little with the rush for Standby Pass going away, but it’s not going to go from completely chaotic to calm. If it’s 100 on the intensity scale now, expect it to drop to maybe 75.
The bigger consequence for Tokyo DisneySea will be lower wait times everywhere else as the elimination of the virtual queue will mean guests are actually standing in the standby line. This will also be an incremental improvement, though, so don’t expect Soaring to drop from 240 minutes to 40 minutes. It’ll be more like a drop to 210 minutes or so.
Another potentially overlooked improvement will be greater operational efficiency. There have been times when standby lines in Fantasy Springs are on the emptier side, and ride vehicles dispatch partially-empty. This issue isn’t as pronounced as it was last summer, but should still bring efficiency closer to 100%, which means more guests get to experience these attractions each day.
This will also improve the guest distribution on those attractions. Between the current unlimited Magic Passport and quirks with the Standby Pass distribution, many of the same guests are getting to experience the attractions in Fantasy Springs again and again. Now, instead of paying the price in only dollars or knowledge, people will be able to “pay” the “market rate” wait time.
As someone who just waited ~120 minutes at the crack of dawn in the sun outside the park for absolutely nothing, I would much rather have had the option to wait ~3 hours instead in the actual line for Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey at a time of my choosing.
It’ll be interesting to see how strategy for Tokyo DisneySea changes along with the introduction of standby lines. Touring TDS has been “broken” over the last several months, and this should be a step in the right direction at fixing that.
One wildcard that’s worth keeping in mind is that Fantasy Springs is far from the front entrance. It’s actually closer to the front of Tokyo Disneyland than it is DisneySea! The trek from Aquasphere Plaza to the Fantasy Springs attractions is well over 1 mile, and will easily take most guests 15 minutes at a normal pace.
It’ll still be the rope drop priority for many guests (TDR fans are dedicated), but plenty will stop at Soaring or Journey to the Center of the Earth on the way, or pivot to the easier American Waterfront attractions. This could be a win for dedicated walkers. It’ll also absolutely benefit guests of Fantasy Springs Hotel, who should have ~20 minutes of the land essentially to themselves since only they can use that entrance.
The same dynamic could play out in reverse at the end of the night. Again, only Fantasy Springs Hotel guests can exit here, and others aren’t going to want to get themselves stuck in the back of the park when they’re already tired. We already see this play out to some degree with Indiana Jones Adventure’s wait time falling faster than Soaring–it’ll be interesting to see whether this holds true with the newer and more popular Fantasy Springs attractions. There are no guarantees, and I’ll underscore again that TDR fans are a dedicated bunch. (And queues get cut earlier now, so there’s no jumping into line at 20:59!)
Ultimately, switching to standby in Fantasy Springs is a huge step forward. It’s not a perfect solution and I’m sure many people are going to balk at the notion of waiting in line 3+ hours for these rides. As someone who has been on the other side of this, I’m dead certain that beats the unpleasant and unpredictable alternative.
Quite frankly, Tokyo Disney Resort dropped the ball with park operations for the first ~6 months of Fantasy Springs. This is a much-needed and overdue change, but it’s just one of several that’s needed. In addition to this, Tokyo DisneySea needs to restore park closing to its 2019 norms (extending them further is tricky with trains) and move forward park opening by at least 1 hour. That’s just a start. They also need a full entertainment slate, and atmospheric offerings to help absorb crowds, among other things.
Our best guess is that Tokyo Disney Resort has received a lot of negative feedback about accessing Fantasy Springs (rightfully so!) and they’re scrambling to fix the problem. TDR has historically taken guest satisfaction very seriously, and Fantasy Springs has been guest unfriendly to an almost hostile degree, unlike anything we’ve seen from the Tokyo parks in the past. Here’s hoping April 2025 marks the park turning a corner and getting back closer to its old self.
Planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort? For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea Trip Planning Guide! For more specifics, our TDR Hotel Rankings & Reviews page covers accommodations. Our Restaurant Reviews detail where to dine & snack. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money post. Our What to Pack for Disney post takes a unique look at clever items to take. Venturing elsewhere in Japan? Consult our Ultimate Guide to Kyoto, Japan and City Guide to Tokyo, Japan.
YOUR THOUGHTS
How will you attempt to access Fantasy Springs and ride the rides? Will you stick with free standby lines or attempt to purchase Premier Access? Thoughts on rope dropping Tokyo DisneySea, end of night lines, or anything else covered here? Curious about crowds or anything else? What do you think of the Peter Pan’s Never Land, Rapunzel’s Forest, and Frozen Kingdom? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!