To celebrate our 1000th day being together, my wife and I decided to go to Tokyo DisneySea and experience the new Fantasy Springs area for the first time! But I will warn you now – the way we enjoy DisneySea may not be very “orthodox”.
Our Schedule for the Day
- 9:00 am – Leave the house
- 10:30 am – Arrive at Maihama station and shop for headbands
- 10:45 am – Take the Disney Resort Liner to DisneySea
- 11:00 am – Enter the park and go souvenir shopping
- 11:30 am – Walk around the park until our lunch reservation
- 12:30 pm – Lunch reservation at “Magellan’s”
- 1:30 pm – Walk around some more + additional souvenir shopping
- 2:30 pm – Character Greeting with ShellieMay
- 3:30 pm – Quick snack
- 4:00 pm – Leave Maihama station and head home
- 5:30 pm – Arrive back home
I can already hear some questions marks arising, so let me explain myself as to why our schedule ended up looking like this.
First thing to know about me and my wife – we absolutely hate getting caught up in the middle of a huge crowd and waiting in long lines. That’s why we tend to avoid the most crowded times, which is right when the park opens and closes. Maihama station can get crazy at these times and we want to avoid this at all costs. This explains why we get to the park late and leave early.
Here’s one of the souvenirs we bought – matching mascot charms of Duffy and ShellieMay.
For the exact same reason, we decided to go souvenir shopping right as we got in the park, when the souvenir shops we’re literally empty. This way we can really take our time and look around and drop off the items we bought in a coin locker until we leave. And that explains the funky timing of souvenir shopping.
And before you say, “then why in the world would you go to Disneyland?”, we enjoy the vibes of Disney so just walking around is almost enough to satisfy us! We were able to walk around the new Fantasy Springs area, have a fancy lunch to celebrate, go souvenir shopping and that was good enough for us.
Part of the reason we were already so satisfied was because the Fantasy Springs area was so well made. It’s almost hard to believe the photo on the right is actually the Fantasy Springs hotel!
Lunch reservation at “Magellan’s”
Magellan’s is in the castle-like area, near the caves that lead to the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride.
Typically, we would try and find a restaurant super early so we can avoid the lunch rush, but since this time we were celebrating our 1000th day being together, we decided to make a reservation at Magellan’s, which only serves course menus, which tend to be a bit pricier. I had to make this reservation an entire month in advance, right when the reservations opened up.
Vibes
Apparently Magellan’s design is “a majestic restaurant where explorers and adventurers gather” – the restaurant being named after Ferdinand Magellan, a renowned explorer. I have no idea if that’s an actual person, but the huge globe in the middle of the restaurant does give off those adventure vibes.
We ordered the standard Magellan’s course, in which you can choose your appetizers, main dish and dessert out of a couple of options. Here were my choices:
Appetizers
Starting with the appetizers – I chose the tuna and salmon ceviche and pumpkin soup. I’m a sucker for fresh pieces of fish (my favorite food all-time is sushi), so I enjoyed the ceviche a lot. Fresh tuna and salmon, with good flavor.
The soup on the otherhand, was a bit too sweet for my liking. The first few bites are nice, but right around the third or fourth bite, the sweetness starts to overpower the other flavors. My wife chose the Sea Bream and Scallop instead of the soup and that was definitely the better option in my opinion.
Bread and Drinks
Next came two breads with butter. Nothing special, but the butter was smooth (they said it was some kind of French butter, but honestly I didn’t catch the whole explanation) and the bread was warm.
We also order the Magellan’s original soft drink, which is made up of fruit syrup, cranberry drink, grape jelly, orange drink and a cinnamon stick. Think craft cola, with grape jelly inside. I enjoyed it, but 1500 yen for the drink (or 2700 yen with the collectible glass) felt a bit steep. Hey, but it was a celebration and in these kinds of occasions, prices kind of go out the window with me.
Main Dish
And here comes the main dish – Basil Crusted Chicken. Honestly, this was amazing! The chicken was cooked perfectly, so it retained all of it’s juices and the basil crust added a nice layer of flavor.
My wife chose the Grilled Beef Loin, which was an additional 2000 yen upcharge, but honestly I liked this chicken more. Don’t get me wrong, the beef loin was tender and well-seasoned, but you would be able to get similar flavors and texture from a well-cooked steak anywhere else. But this basil-crusted chicken just had a lot more unique flavors, which is more attractive for a self-proclaimed foodie like myself.
Dessert
This dessert was also a highlight of this course. The star of this dish is definitely the chocolate cake. The top layer of chocolate was so smooth – I don’t think I’ve ever had anything quite like it. You just can’t get enough of that silky smooth chocolate. Definitely try this one out if you ever get to visit.
The orange compote and lemon sherbet were pretty standard, but it added a nice bit of acidity to the dish so you can cleanse your palette if the chocolate starts to feel a bit too sweet.
Overall thoughts on Magellan’s
Given that literally any other restaurant is full of people with long lines out of the doors, being able to sit down and enjoy lunch at our pace was a great experience. I was personally impressed with the main dish and dessert, which is enough to say it was worth the price.
The standard Magellan’s course is 8000 yen, with drinks being a separate charge. I always go into these courses thinking “is this going to be enough food for me?” and surprisingly is was more filling than I had anticipated.
Snack Time
Having said that, I still wasn’t going to skip out on a quick snack. I would usually go for some popcorn, but I swear the line for popcorn is always the longest (again, we hate long lines and crowds). Instead we found this fried pizza with chicken and mozzarella.
They hand it to you right away, so it’s piping hot with a decent amount of fillling. Any more filling and I probably would’ve burned myself. We took a seat and enjoyed the fried pizza, as we start to think about what to do next. And the conclusion we came to was..
Time to Go Home
Believe it or not, our conclusion was “we had enough fun today, lets head home before the train starts to crowd up.
As a kid, I would’ve never imagined leaving so early, without even getting on a single ride. But really this is far less exhausting and I like it that way.
Maybe it’s part of growing up – becoming able to appreciate taking life slowly and just appreciating that fact that I was able to have a relaxing day, in a magical place like DisneySea.
