Customer Reviews

Tokyo Disney Made Easy

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this book because it was the only Tokyo Disney Resort Guide book I could find. I should have kept on looking! This book was really not useful at all. More & better information can be found on Disney websites and message boards. Kevin Yee, it seems, has only been to Tokyo Disney once before and it shows. I don't understand how you can write a travel guide with only being at the destination once prior.

There was no information on staying in Tokyo and visiting the parks, little information on dining in the parks (That could not be found on the parks English website), no information on tours and no help in planning your day other than arrive early & grab a Fastpass for Pooh.

Planning a trip to Tokyo Disney seems like planning a trip to Mars for me, it's so foreign. So, a book called Tokyo Disney Made Easy should have made me feel better: it didn't! The only area this book was helpful was in the words & phrases we'd hear or need to know at the parks. Thanks Kevin for teaching me how to say 2 people and 3 people in Japanese!Tokyo Disney Made Easy

I will say I do live in Japan so I have easy access to information about Disney. However, I don't speak Japanese so I thought a book in English would be a benefit. This one wasn't. It had no information at all that was useful. Ill stick to the information I get off the web.

By virtue of being the only English-language guidebook to the Tokyo Disney Resort, I expect that Kevin Yee's "Tokyo Disney Made Easy" would be useful for the first-time visitor. But at the same time, the coverage of TDR is not particularly deep - much of the book is devoted to general travel advice, and each attraction receives only a few lines of description, far less than the typical guide to the U.S. parks provides for each one. The guide appears to assume that the reader is already very familiar with Disney attractions (but if you're planning a trip to the Tokyo Disney Resort specifically, there's a good chance that you are?).

There are also some outright errors - such as a claim that transit passes for Tokyo subways and buses are valid on the Disney Resort Line monorail (true only for the now-discontinued Passnet system, and not the Pasmo and Suica cards, at least for now), and that the storyline behind the Tower of Terror involves "Lord Hightower" (the ride's in the American Waterfront section of the park - he's a millionaire, not nobility).

I will say right off that I did get some helpful information from this book, most of which concerns interactions with clerks and such who may not speak English. The explanations of what happens during transactions involving food and merchandise is very useful for someone who doesn't speak Japanese. Beyond that, it is quite obvious that the author either doesn't travel abroad very much, if at all, and certainly has not been to Japan more than once or twice. Much of the information presented is at best based upon incorrect assumptions and at worst is down-right wrong. I'm not saying don't buy this book, but do be sure to consult "real" guide books about Japan such as those by Frommer's and Lonely Planet if you are venturing outside of the Tokyo Disneyland Resort. There is a lot of tedious information in the book that anyone who has ever left the house should be able to figure out for themselves, but I suppose someone may need a reminder to bring their tickets to the airport with them. I'd have much preferred the pages had been devoted to more in-depth information related to the subject of the book rather than educating people on how to travel in general. All-in-all, I did get enough good information from the book to justify the cost, but I'm very glad I had read other guide books first so I knew when I was being led astray by this one.

I'm a diehard Disney fan, so visiting the two Japanese Disney theme parks (especially Tokyo Disney Sea) is high on my list of priorities. However, the thought of traveling to Asia is very intimidating to me. I studied Italian in high school, and as a result, I can get by in most European countries, and I had no problems when I visited Disneyland Paris (then Eurodisneyland) years ago. But Japan is a different story. I have no basis at all for reading or understanding anything in Japanese. Furthermore, in most ways, Japanese culture is more different from my own than Western European cultures are. So if I were to visit the Tokyo Disney parks, how would I even get from the airport to the hotel? How do park tickets work? Where would I stay? To my delight, this book answers all those questions and many more. This would not be a good resource (or, at least, the *only* resource) for someone who wanted to tour all over Japan. The information it contains is very targeted, but fortunately, it was exactly the information I've been looking for. It explains in great detail exactly how someone not familiar with Japanese language and customs can enjoy Tokyo Disneyland with minimal stress and uncertainty. As a bonus, it also tells you how to make informed decisions on how you spend your money and how you can avoid embarassing oneself or unintentionally appearing rude. So if you want to visit Tokyo Disneyland and don't know where to start, I don't think there's a better resource than this book. I recommend it highly.

Being the only English guide book for Tokyo Disneyland, there isn't much competition. However, the book is full of useful information for the American thinking of visiting the Toyko Disney Resort and wondering of how to handle the difficulties of language, culture and customs. This book can help prepare you for an enjoyable trip.

Compared to the great guide books that are available for Walt Disney World, this book doesn't cover as much. But an American used to visiting WDW or Disneyland in California will find this book extremely useful.

Kevin Yee has managed to distill the information you need to travel to TDR in a clear concise book. As someone who has visited TDR in the past, I can tell you that I wished for a book like Tokyo Disney Made Easy. What took me several trips to learn, the author has captured in one place. The book includes additional insights that were beyond my travels. I look forward to my next trip armed with my copy of Tokyo Disney Made Easy.