In a surprising change, Tokyo Disney Resort has added single rider lines to three of the most popular attractions between the two parks. Starting today, Enchanted Tale of Beauty & the Beast, Anna & Elsa’s Frozen Journey and Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure will all feature a single rider line. In this post, we’ll detail the news further and share why this is a huge win for solo travelers and adult guests.

Tokyo Disney Resort has cutback on single rider lines since the pandemic. If memory serves, several prominent attractions, like Splash Mountain, featured a single rider line before 2020 but they have been noticeably absent since then. That’s not especially strange, many resorts have taken a slower approach to single riders in recent years. Whether that has to do with the pandemic or staffing is a fair question to ask. The answer is that it’s likely some of both.

As adults who are always looking for an efficient way to navigate the parks, we love single rider lines and have encouraged guests to use them if applicable. Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure comes as the prime example, as that standby line is always long and not the most enjoyable but the single rider line usually cuts the wait in half.

Both Frozen Journey (DisneySea) and Enchanted Tale of Beauty & the Beast (TDL) are apt comparisons to Radiator Springs Racers. Both have the highest wait times in their respective parks and can be an absolute headache to navigate from a strategy perspective. We always try to steer clear of fully recommending add-on splurges like Disney Premier Access (paid skip-the-line service at Tokyo Disney Resort) because vacations already cost plenty. But we’ve had to bite the bullet for these two rides in recent itineraries (there’s a post sitting in my drafts right now about this) and recommend splurging for those two attractions. It just makes the day so much more enjoyable and simpler.

To be clear, offering a single rider line for those two rides doesn’t solve the problems. Families are still in the same situation that they were in before this news and even adults who have never experienced the parks would likely want to ride together. But for repeat guests or adults who are low on time, this is huge news. There won’t be the need to buy Disney Premier Access or this could grant a chance to re-ride an extremely popular attraction in the same day.

Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure is less popular than the other two rides offered but this should still be beneficial to single riders. On the positive, there’s less of a queue to skip in that ride and now guests might be able to tack it on while already back in Fantasy Springs instead of having to make separate trips to the far corner of an already huge park.

These three new offerings join Indiana Jones Adventure (which remains closed for the time being) and Raging Spirits as the only single rider lines at the resort. Hopefully, this will be the first of a few new options adding the line. To go from not offering it hardly at all to offering it at 3 of the biggest rides in the resort is a drastic change.

While it is a big change, the infrastructure for this move has been here since all of the rides opened. All 3 attractions were built with a separate queue for single riders and, theoretically, it was only a matter of time before they started to use them. But theme parks don’t always make sense in that regard. Staffing is the main culprit but complex loading systems (yes, they are more complex than they appear) as well as accessibility and fire safety all have to be accounted for. Disneyland’s Space Mountain single rider line changes all of the time thanks to those issues.

Whether these 3 Tokyo Disney attractions will always have their single rider line open is a good question that we just don’t have the answer to yet. Signs point to yes, seeing how they’re starting the system on a traditionally low crowd week. Maybe this is a trial run but I’m guessing that the changes will be here to stay, save for a few random days throughout the year. I do think the hours may shift around from day to day and I wouldn’t always count on the single rider lines being open from 9 to 9.

How this changes the park touring strategy will be interesting. Single rider lines won’t make the ride a walk-on in most cases but it could halve the wait time, if not more. Going from a 2 hour wait to 40 minutes is a big change! This will definitely save some guests money if they opt for this route over Disney Premier Access. Heck, this may help those that partake in single rider lines to be able to sleep an extra hour!

For those that will be using the single rider line and aren’t looking to ride any other way, Frozen Journey and Enchanted Tale of Beauty & the Beast should still be done fairly early. I’d advise rope dropping a different attraction, maybe one nearby, and then getting in the single rider line. That should lead to a minimal backup. Heck, rope dropping in the single rider line (assuming it’s open that early) wouldn’t be a bad move either from a saved minutes standpoint but you probably have time to get in another ride first with a minimal wait backing up.

As for Peter Pan’s Never Land Adventure, that line should be safe throughout most of the day. If it’s particularly busy then go for single rider earlier or later instead of midday but you should be in good shape regardless.

I want to be clear that these strategies haven’t been tested out yet. We usually wait to recommend until after testing them out but with the news coming unexpectedly and no trip to Japan planned for a few months, I’m giving this my best guess. I’ll be keeping an eye on wait times and any news before adding advice to our actual itineraries.

All in all, this is great news! The amount of people it will directly apply to is fairly small but this will give an efficient way to tour the park. That efficiency will, in turn, help everybody. Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea have become confusing, and sometimes frustrating, to navigate over the last several years. This change will be an improvement for everyone!

Are you excited for these single rider lines at Tokyo Disney Resort? Let us know your thoughts, along with any questions you might have, in the comments below! Planning a trip to Tokyo? Check out our guide to help you along the way! For those interested in going to Tokyo Disney Resort and Japan with us, check out this post! 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!