Visiting Tokyo Disney Resort with a baby
If you’ve visited my blog before, you know that I am a happy Disney adult! Most of my trips are done as an adults-only trip since I don’t have many children in my life. But! This year I visited Tokyo Disney resort with a baby for the first time! (and their parents of course)
Since this was my first time spending a whole Disney trip with a baby, there were some learning lessons, discoveries, and new perspectives that I gained! Here’s everything I learned on my first trip to Tokyo Disney Resort with a baby - hopefully some of these help you if you’re planning a trip with little ones!
A major note here: I didn’t actually do any child-caring while we were at the parks, the parents did all of the actual work. But I navigated the parks, helped grab snacks, and handled the logistics so the parents could just focus on the parks and their child!
Vacation details
I absolutely love the Tokyo Disney Resort vacation packages after experiencing them for the first time in December 2024. And since we were taking on this trip with a larger party this time around (4 adults, 1 baby), I thought a vacation package would be a great decision once again.
I wanted everyone who was joining to experience the magical feelings and perks of a vacation package, and because we were visiting in July, I also wanted to avoid waiting in lines in the extreme heat while maximizing enjoyment of other things.
We ended up booking the ‘Enjoy Attractions And More - 3DAYS’ vacation package which came with 1 Tokyo Disneyland park day and 2 Tokyo DisneySea park days, along with a limited number of attraction tickets, and one of my favorite perks, the unlimited beverage voucher. I go into details about this vacation package versus the first one I booked, the ‘Enjoy Attractions Even More’ package in a previous blog post if you want to check that one out for more info!
We stayed at the Fantasy Springs Hotel for 2 nights so we could enjoy the beautiful hotel, and get that access to the exclusive Tokyo DisneySea entrance available to Fantasy Springs Hotel guests.
Is a vacation package worth it?
I definitely think vacation packages are worth it at Tokyo Disney Resort. Because we pre-booked our top attractions using the attraction tickets that came with our vacation package, we just had to get to the queue at the reservation time, and we were able to wait in very few lines.
Ahead of the trip, we already had the expectation that we were pretty much primarily going to ride the rides we pre-booked, and were going to use the remaining time walking around, shopping, escaping the heat, and eating. And of course, taking our queues from the baby in terms of whether we needed to find places to rest or the like. We wanted the park experience to be as easygoing as possible, and I think the vacation package really helps facilitate that. Whenever we had some down time, we just went to find a spot to grab a drink with our beverage vouchers, and it was great!
Can you do this without a vacation package? Absolutely, in the absence of pre-booked attraction tickets, you can still use the app to book Disney Premier Access time slots to do the same thing, but the vacation package took the stress out of potentially not getting a reservation and missing out on a ride we really wanted to experience.
The vacation package also came with 2 breakfast reservations in the morning, and the Fantasy Springs Restaurant is super spacious and child-friendly, so it’s a nice place to get the day started where highchairs are accessible and there’s lots of space to walk around and park your stroller (more on that later).
But let’s get into the experience!
The Good
Baby Centers
There are a few baby centers around the Tokyo Disney Resort parks (as well as the other Disney parks!). You can check the app and the website for details about the baby centers and their locations.
In total there are 2 baby centers in Tokyo Disneyland and 3 baby centers in Tokyo DisneySea.
These baby centers have a changing area and a feeding area where you have access to bottle warmers, microwaves, and high chairs. You can also purchase necessities if you need them like diapers, snacks, formula, etc. So this a great stop if you happen to be missing something you need for your baby or have run out.
These are nice and helpful, and definitely not something I would have ever noticed if I had not visited with a baby. I also loved that they were all also themed! They were so cute!
I particularly liked the location in Tokyo Disneyland at World Bazaar, which is right in front of the Monsters Inc. Hide and Go Seek ride. This one felt like it was the most spacious so adults could move around and navigate their strollers while still having all the necessary supplies. Some of the other ones like the Toontown one in Tokyo Disneyland and the Mermaid Lagoon one in DisneySea felt quite cramped.
Hotel access when staying on property
This one is a huge privilege, and is nice for anyone who is visiting the parks. But it’s especially nice when you have a baby in the group! Since we were staying at Fantasy Springs Hotel which is directly connected to Fantasy Springs in Tokyo DisneySea, this was super convenient! The parents were able to return to the room whenever they needed to or if their child needed a break or a nap. And even when they turned in early for the day, the room was just steps away from the exit of the park. So convenient! Entering the park was also so nice since we didn’t have to rush out the door or have to take any transit either.
Our Tokyo Disneyland day was less convenient since we still needed to take the Disney Rail Lane, but all things considered that’s still a very short and nice trip back to the hotel, and beats fighting the crowds back into the city.
Kid-friendly rides
I love how kid-friendly so many of the rides at Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are! There were very few rides we wanted to try that babies were not allowed to ride. And for the rides that aren’t baby-friendly, there’s also rider switch available. We did actually end up using the rider switch offering, since there weren’t any non baby-friendly rides that we were interested in riding during our trip, but it’s really nice that they have it and I can see it being useful for groups with babies!
Just ask the cast members at the queue entrance for rides about rider switch, and they’ll be able to help!
High chairs
Maybe this is something that is expected for theme parks, but something I was surprised about in general about Tokyo is the lack of high chairs for babies. Many restaurants around the greater Tokyo area either don’t have them or have chairs without belts or safety bars that are useful for younger babies. I was surprised about this and wasn’t sure what we would experience at Tokyo Disney Resort, but I was glad to see that all the restaurants we ate at had plenty of high chairs available, safety belts and all!
Stroller parking
Stroller parking for the rides was very organized across the board. And in general, because we were in the Tokyo Disney parks, I felt like things that were left at the stroller would be safe which was a comfort. There was also always a cast member around who was monitoring the area, helping families navigate, and reorganizing the parking so that strollers were always accessible when families returned from a ride. I think this made it very organized and safe. While I haven’t personally had to deal with stroller parking at other Disney parks, I am aware that things do get stolen from strollers at Disneyland unfortunately :/ so I appreciate the stroller parking setup here.
Mermaid Lagoon
The Mermaid Lagoon area in Tokyo DisneySea gets its own pro alone. This area is so great for groups with young children - honestly even if you don’t have young children, this spot is awesome. I love that it’s an enclosed space that pretty much has some of everything - rides, activities, food, shopping, and places to rest! All indoors, all accessible.
This was great for all of us to escape the heat since the day was so hot. All the rides are kid-friendly so we could ride all of them together, and that was awesome! The baby center in Mermaid Lagoon is right outside the exit so it’s not far at all, and there’s a cute playground area for kids to explore!
Mermaid Lagoon is also where you can get the famous sea salt monaka as well as other frozen treats, and Sebastian’s Calypso Kitchen is inside as well, so if you’re hungry you can easily grab something to eat.
The not-so-great
Lack of shaded/indoor areas
I was actually surprised to realize how little indoor or shaded areas there are at Tokyo Disneyland! This was especially prominent because we were there in the summer and it was so hot and humid outside! Looking for cooler areas to walk or hang out was actually a bit challenging. I realized that a lot of ride queues are primarily outdoors, and even lots of the quick service food areas are too.
I’m already very sensitive to heat, so even I was uncomfortable. I’m not sure how my nephew fared since he couldn’t tell us, but the extreme heat did make me a bit worried that it was too hot for him.
Tokyo DisneySea has Mermaid Lagoon which is entirely indoors, so that really is a great location for exactly this. But Tokyo Disneyland doesn’t have an equivalent area like this.
Cramped dining spaces
Another thing I didn’t realize notice until I visited the parks with a baby: the indoor dining areas in the park are quite cramped! This is especially noticeable when trying to push a stroller through different seating areas.
Some notably cramped dining areas that I think of are Tomorrowland Terrace and the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall in Tokyo Disneyland. Tables and chairs are placed so close together, it’s very difficult to get strollers through to tables that aren’t immediately reachable from the aisles.
This affects both strollers and wheelchairs, so I imagine those visiting with wheelchairs will experience similar difficulty finding and accessing tables in some of the restaurants.
I do understand that there are a lot of guests and they do have to fit as many people as they can, and this is the case even in the American Disney parks. So in general just be prepared to struggle a bit when trying to move strollers through crowded areas.
Overall experience
Since I wasn’t the main caretaker during the trip, I can’t speak to how easy or difficult it was to get through the Tokyo Disneyland or Tokyo DisneySea days with a baby. However, as the main navigator for the group, I will say I was able to notice more subtle logistical aspects that I never noticed before.
We tried to be thoughtful of our reservations and time slots to make sure there was enough time for naps and breaks. We didn’t spend too much time waiting in standby lines in case restlessness would get the better of us, so we stuck to rides that had 15 minutes or less wait times.
Because of the heat, we also didn’t want to spend too much time outdoors for our sake and the baby’s sake, so we primarily prioritized our vacation package attractions, so we thankfully didn’t have to spend too much time waiting in standby lines in the heat.
I think you do try to make quite a few concessions when it comes to traveling with a baby, but ultimately it’s all worth it! I’m overall glad that we got to have this experience and even if he doesn’t remember it, we’ll have photos of his first Disney trip ever, and hopefully he’ll enjoy seeing them when he’s older!
I have a lot of appreciation for the ways in which the park is designed to make some of these logistical parts more convenient for families, and overall there isn’t too much to complain about! As to be expected of a family-friendly park!
If you’re planning a trip to the Disney parks soon with children, what are your main concerns? Or were there any family-centered parts of the Tokyo Disney parks that I missed? Let me know!
