Cosplaying in Tokyo Disneyland/SEA during Halloween Season

Cosplaying in Tokyo Disneyland/SEA during Halloween Season

• 10.19.2019

Yes, you read that right. Halloween, the only magical period of the year where adults too are able to dress up as their favourite Disney character and immerse in their Disney fantasy world. Children however have the privilege of dressing up anytime of the year, one of the reasons I’ve heard on why Disneyland has this “no adults in costume” rule is because they don’t want children visiting the park to get confused on who the actual talents are. Especially when these specific Disney talents goes through vigorous training to portray assigned characters as accurately as possible even when being asked the darnest questions by kids. Normal visitors won’t have that kind of skill, and imagine if a child catches a random park visitor in Cinderella costume smoking at the park or replying back rudely, that would seriously cause a lot of problems. Hence the no adults in costume rule. 

Professional casts on duty

But once a year during Halloween month (from early sept to 31st Oct), they make an exception; so you can see tons of excited adults especially women dressing up as their favourite Disney princess, another group would be parents dressing alongside with their kids and of course, the classic dating couples; All of them taking tons of pictures for memories because it is indeed a special occasion that happens only once a year! I too couldn’t help but to embrace my inner childhood dreams to dress up as my favourite Disney character together with lil penguin and it couldn’t get more magical than being in Disneyland itself. Enough said.

Side note: Disneyland came out with a long set of rules which you can read about it HERE, butthat doesn’t mean you can’t fully enjoy your costume day out.

Here are some things I’ve learned while cosplaying in a themepark which includes riding the rides as well because I live in Kyoto, heck I’m going to enjoy as much rides as I can because I only get to visit Tokyo Disneyland once a year! Was telling the danna if we moved to Tokyo, Disneyland would be our weekend playground lol, go every week with lil penguin haha.

1. Choose your outfits wisely
Yes, your imagination might be going wild at this point with a whole list of characters you’ll want to cosplay and photograph as at Tokyo Disneyland but hold your horses peeps because don’t get too over ambitious thinking it’s possible to henshin* (transform) into multiple outfits a day because you’ll have bear in mind that once you are IN the theme park, you’ll only get small toilet cubicles to change in. So if you are wearing Cinderella’s ball gown you are going to have a problem trying not to get it dirty while changing out of it. Pick 1 costume for the day and stick with that, and make sure it’s comfortable enough to be in, that means no suffocating corsets or glass shoes or else you are going to suffer instead of enjoying your visit. 

2. Accuracy vs Convenience & Comfort

This one.. almost every cosplayer knows very well, we might be pretty anal when it comes to details because I’m not shy to admit that I’m a culprit myself haha. But this is not an event or competition, it’s a place to have fun so go easy on the dressing up. Anyway it’s one of the rules in Disneyland’s website, make sure that your costume does not cause inconvenience to others, if they found your costume to be “hazardous” you might be asked to leave the premises. For example, my original Elsa costume comes with a long flowy cape, if I were to wear that to Disneyland I wouldn’t have even gone pass security check lol and having people stepping on my cape every minute doesn’t sound too ideal too. So yea, do modify your costumes to be “themepark” friendly which means you might need to shorten certain lengths (make sure it’s still an appropriate length & not too revealing), make it easy to be put on and taken off, overall just comfortable (if it’s possible)! Even you come in an “inspired”/ “Disneybound” costume is still good enough because no one is going to judge you for your creativity. Your trip to Disneyland is to have fun! 

My Rapunzel costume was a "bound" version so it's casual (it's a modified Uniqlo T-shirt lol) and comfortable!  Even the wig is lighter instead of the original 12 feet long wig which can be super heavy after braided up.

This was my original Rapunzel costume, the corset boning, heavy petticoat layers underneath the skirt, a wig that weighs at least 4kg and barefooted (ouch). Not exactly something you would want to wear to a themepark.

3. Be extra secured

Get ready those extra hair and safety pins because you’ll definitely need them! Especially if you are wearing a wig, you might want to secure it as much as possible because going on some rides like the Raging Spirits in DisneySEA would definitely make your wig fly off your head lol, I was clinging on to my wig throughout the whole ride XD

Also if your costume has a “mishap” halfway like a small tear or zip malfunction, at least safety pins can temporarily fix it.

4. Plan your rides for the day

Keep in mind of what kind of rides you are going for because like I mentioned above, some costumes may pose certain restrictions like those poofy ball gowns. If you are going for those slow kid friendly rides, then you won’t have a problem. And if you are rushing to get fast passes upon entering, you wouldn’t want your costume to hold you back so have a “route plan” as well. If you can read Japanese then download the official Tokyo Disneyland app, you can book your fast passes on your phone without having to go to the actual ride’s fast pass booth.


5. Bring Back Ups

It can get really tiring in a costume after a couple of hours, for me I was sweating buckets because it was still 30 degrees during early October, so much for cool autumn weather Lboo! Luckily I brought normal clothes along as back up so I can change into them anytime, also you’ll never know if you might accidentally spill food or drinks on your costume (especially me with a baby) so instead of walking around with an obvious stain, just change into a fresh set of clothes! 

Me being so done with the costume for the day, back into normal clothes lol

Or if you get caught drench in an unexpected downpour, at least you know you don’t have to spend extra 8,000-10,000yen on a fresh set on clothes from the souvenir store lol. The only place in Japan that doesn’t sell less than 1000yen T-shirts haha & ouch.

Before I became a mom, yea YOLO from morning to night in the same uncomfortable costume, but now? Back up every single thing, one is not enough; make it double please!

6. Make Use of Lockers

I get it that most people rather wear the costume the whole day and not bring a change of clothes because it would be troublesome to carry so many things around, but hey! Disneyland and DisneySEA has tons of coin lockers, make use of them and dump all your unwanted stuff in it. Most locals use it to store their shopping bags so that they don’t have to lug it around the park, I personally use it for the extra baby stuff and my clothes. It’s only 500 yen per locker which isn’t too expensive.

First thing upon entering the park I dumped the extra bag in the locker and towards late noon when I felt I was done being in a costume I just took the bag out of the locker to change into my normal clothes. Dump the costume back into the locker again, that alone is just a total of 1000yen spent a day to walk around without a bulky bag. Anything for convenience ;)

Hope you found these tips useful especially if you are planning to dress up for Tokyo Disneyland’s Halloween in the future. I’ll update this post from time to time if anything else comes to mind so make sure to click subscribe to my blog to get notified on the latest posts!

Yours Truly,