Fantasy Springs is a new port-of-call in Tokyo DisneySea. The new land (port) reportedly cost over 2 billion dollars to make and includes 4 attractions, 3 restaurants, a hotel and plenty more. In this post, we’ll review and discuss the land in totality, including how it fits into the park and if we view Fantasy Springs as a success. We’re going to break the port down in categories, starting with attractions!

Update: Tokyo Disney Resort has announced that the Fantasy Springs specialty ticket will no longer be available starting in April of 2025. It would stand to reason that the new port-of-call would be easier to access once that date rolls around, but there are no details on that yet. Stay tuned to the website for more information. On to the rest of the review!

Attractions

We’ve reviewed the three prominent attractions in DisneySea’s new port-of-call, all of which are good attractions. Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure and Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Adventure both land inside our top 5 of DisneySea’s Attraction Rankings. Meanwhile, Rapunzel’s Lantern Festival is incredibly strong for being the third attraction in Fantasy Springs. Like the Tangled ride, Fairy Tinker Bell’s Busy Buggies is strong for what it is, an outdoor kiddie ride in the style of old Fantasyland attractions.

Starting with the attractions is an obvious place to look when looking at Fantasy Springs. Trying to think of successful lands that don’t have successful attractions is a fruitless exercise. Thankfully, that’s not even close to the case with Fantasy Springs. Most theme park lands are lucky to have two quality attractions, this port has 3 with a good enough 4th option!

I mentioned in the Never Land Adventure Review how strong the capacity is in all of those attractions. Those main three attractions likely have an hourly capacity well over 2,000. That’s abnormal for modern attractions and will help to alleviate crowds both in Fantasy Springs and DisneySea as a whole. Another bonus? The four attractions bring DisneySea’s total to a whopping 27! That’s a fantastic number, especially with the quality that’s offered there.

Dining

Beyond the attractions, Fantasy Springs has three counter-service restaurants and a few snack spots! We came away impressed by all of these, but I did opt to skip the Roast Beef Popcorn for reasons that I feel are pretty obvious! Jokes aside, I bet it’s pretty good but I had too much else to eat. Royal Banquet of Arendelle is the crown jewel of the spots, both in theme and food. The Snuggly Duckling didn’t have our favorite food but the restaurant looked impressive. The Lookout Cookout is more snack-y than the others but is really enjoyable! Finally, the Oaken bread at the snack stand is one of our favorite snacks in the whole park.

Operationally, these restaurants are huge and will be assets down the road. Speaking in terms of capacity again, these spots will raise the Fantasy Springs number by a couple thousand! As of now, the main three need to be reserved via mobile order but we had no trouble getting spots a few hours in advance. More and more popped up throughout the day too. I don’t expect the mobile order only system to last very long.

The Fantasy Springs dining is a strength overall. Tokyo DisneySea has a wonderful array of restaurants and these places add to that. Royal Banquet of Arendelle is among the best in the park while the others are strong additions.

Aesthetic, Story & Flow

As we’ve established, Fantasy Springs has a lot of meat to it but it also has the looks. There’s a joke in there somewhere but it’s either not family appropriate or would be self-deprecating so I’ll move along. In a word, Fantasy Springs is pristine. Each building, facade and plant in the port looks the part of a 2+ billion dollar expansion.

One of my worries going into the land was how the three entities, Frozen, Tangled and Peter Pan would interact together. Those trepidations were immediately quieted once inside of Fantasy Springs. Despite those three movies being in 3 separate countries (Yes, I’m counting Neverland as a country. Don’t judge me, I was good at geography in grade school!) they’re bound together seamlessly here.

When entering the land through the park side (Fantasy Springs Hotel guests are the only ones who can use the other entrance) guests are met with an incredible spring. I mean, it’s a very elaborate fountain but we’ll stick with spring. This acts as an archway to enter the land, our main characters (Peter, Anna, Elsa, Rapunzel and a few more) are carved into the rockwork and there are colorful flowers surrounding the water. It’s a magical entry into a fantasy filled port.

Once inside, there’s a lush wonderland. Waterfalls stream down the rocks in each of the three sections, as well as a few other spots. Along with that, there’s a greenness to the port that not many theme park lands in the world possess. The very first impression with Rapunzel’s forest on the right and a thundering waterfall in front of a cave on the left is gorgeous. But the area doesn’t slow down after that.

Starting the port off with two areas that are less of a town feel makes sense and flows with Lost River Delta. The aforementioned Rapunzel’s Forest is paired with Neverland (or maybe it’s Never Land, judging by the attraction name?) on the left that make for some interesting areas to explore. Eventually those paths meet up and lead to Arendelle, easily the most civilization filled section of Fantasy Springs.

Arendelle still has some beautiful greenery and rockwork, largely around Elsa’s Ice Palace on the far end of the section. There’s also a small Norwegian themed town across a waterway from the Royal Banquet of Arendelle. This facade is one of the only spots in Fantasy Springs that seems to be mainly for looks. Don’t get me wrong, everything else looks great but also houses things. This facade of different shops houses restrooms but I don’t think there’s anything else back there. I do think they’re using that section to hide a little bit of the Fantasy Springs Hotel around the corner. Either way it looks great and adds some color and character to the area.

Finally, there’s the section nearest to the hotel that has different statues and water features. The most prominent movies featured in these statues are Fantasia, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Alice in Wonderland, and Snow White. This area is easy to forget about, especially if you are entering from the other side (this is the hotel entrance) and aren’t interested in the gift shop. But it is beautiful!

Having some space to walk around and explore the incredible rockwork feels a little like Animal Kingdom’s Pandora, although this is rooted in classic Disney stories and has more space to play with. Having the hotel as the backdrop for this area works for the most part. There’s enough texture in the hotel generally, although the muted colors don’t do the area any favors. I’m glad these extra springs are included even if they feel a little disconnected.

Speaking of the gift shop, there’s only one in the whole port! The lack of them after attractions is noticeable and adds to the immersion. I could be extra snarky here but I’ll just say that only having one gift shop, tucked away in the back of the port, helps the flow of Fantasy Springs and makes it more picturesque.

Fantasy Springs took the idea of entering a magical world and ran with it. The ‘spring’ has led to green everywhere and that really ties the whole land together. Ahead of time, I thought the grandeur of each section could make the area less cohesive but it works in the port’s favor. Walking from the forest to Neverland to Arendelle is stunning, not jarring. As with the rest of DisneySea, the water helps tie these areas together along with the beautiful trees.

The magical spring story works well enough for me too. Theme parks have to have some suspension of belief. Stretching the imagination to where you can walk from the Arabian Coast to Lost River Delta isn’t that different than walking into Fantasy Springs. The same goes for walking from Frontierland’s Old West into Adventureland’s South Pacific. Really, fill in the blank on those lands. Some parks get you in between lands easier with transitions and DisneySea continues to excel at that, utilizing space to get into the new port.

Thanks to the beauty, the story is believable enough. Next to nothing feels out of place once inside of the land. We’ll pick nits in the next category but Fantasy Springs plays out as a gorgeous area that is well designed from one section to another.

The Negatives

I mean, not everything can be perfect! There’s three relatively minor gripes I have. Since we just talked about the aesthetic and flow, we’ll start there.

The Fantasy Springs Hotel is not integrated into the land as well as it could be. Thinking of Hotel MiraCosta in the front of the park, not only is that the most lavish Disney hotel in the world but it works as a backdrop to Mediterranean Harbor. If people didn’t know that was a hotel then there’s nothing to give it away once inside of DisneySea.

Fantasy Springs Hotel doesn’t attempt anything like that, there’s just a big building at the end of the land without much in the way of explanation. The color, as I mentioned, doesn’t do the hotel many favors. We weren’t able to stay in the hotel on this go around but the reviews have been mixed about the inside of it. I wouldn’t say this is a big problem, as Fantasy Springs Hotel is hidden from some of the port but it is noticeable at times and Tokyo DisneySea is held to a higher standard than any other theme park in the world.

Moving on, I’m not sure this is a negative more than an unknown… It remains to be seen how well Fantasy Springs will fit in with the rest of the park. Right now, it feels disconnected. Some of that is due to the elaborate entry process (more on that in a second) that makes it feel like a theme park within a theme park. When you’re able to freely stroll into Fantasy Springs instead of feeling like you’re in a wonderland version of Inception, this point may be moot.

As of now, the long walkway into the new port and the subject matter don’t feel as connected to me. I don’t think the aesthetic is that different though, aside from the running waterway that DisneySea has throughout doesn’t reach all the way back to Fantasy Springs. Would this have made more sense in Tokyo Disneyland? Probably, but not as much as I expected. The detail and specificity make it belong, I’m just not sure how connected it is to the rest of the park.

Finally, there is that entry process. This isn’t a port problem per se, it’s more of an operation choice. It’s just such a headache to figure out how Fantasy Springs entry works. The whole process is more confusing than any virtual queue or Lightning Lane situation in the states. Once you’re inside of the land, all is well. In fact, they could probably let more people back there! But trying to score a pass to get back there takes away from the rest of DisneySea because everyone is on their phone all of the time, trying to get that pass.

Thankfully, this issue won’t last forever. They’ll eventually rollback this process and the port will be able to handle crowds thanks to the gigantic capacity. By then we’ll have a more accurate picture of if these issues are actual problems or just a product of the first month of operation.

Is Fantasy Springs a Success?

Yes! With only a few minor gripes and heaps of praise, that question probably didn’t need to be asked. Asking questions that are pretty obvious is a hallmark of blogging though.

Fantasy Springs clearly shows that Imagineering still has it. Give them a gigantic budget and get out of the way, the results will be spectacular. The port had the highest of expectations and it blew them out of the spring sea water. Design choices throughout the area are beautifully executed, making for a secluded and gorgeous experience.

I came away feeling that Fantasy Springs blends traditional with modern marvelously. Traditionally, we have theme park lands that are broad and can encompass different IP’s without them seeing out of place. In the past decade (or two), theme parks have skewed more towards immersion and focused a whole land on one IP. This new port somehow does both, making each section feeling immersive while making the transition between each effortlessly.

Even the attractions blend that old and new, with classic dark ride setups but with tricks. Whether that’s through visual effects, different ride systems, incredible animatronics or a whole new perspective on an attraction, it all works well. And in the end, it’s about the rides. We can have all of the spots we want to pose for selfies, and Fantasy Springs has more than enough. We can also have plenty of pathways that are fun to explore, with beautiful rockwork or fountains at the end. But without attractions, those will all be forgotten.

With a 2 billion dollar price tag, it’s hardly a surprise that Fantasy Springs is a hit. But the way it’s done, with such precision and reverence, is what will make the area timeless. There are few theme park lands as successful as Fantasy Springs.

Do you have questions or thoughts about Fantasy Springs? Let us know in the comments below! If you are planning a trip to Tokyo Disney Resort, check out our Trip Planning Guide. If you enjoy what you are reading here on Wandering in Disney please share this post with your friends, as well as like our social media pages. You can also subscribe to the blog via WordPress or email. All of those links are on the right side of this page. Thank you for reading, we really appreciate it!