Tokyo Disneyland Update: Entertainment Cast Can Go Home

As I fell asleep last night, word from Japan was that the nuclear power plant had experienced further problems with possibility of a larger leak of radiation. To make it worse, winds were shifting driving any radio active particles in the air back toward land. This morning I awoke to news that radiation levels in Tokyo were 10 times higher than normal, which is still a ‘safe’ level but not good obviously, and the situation at the nuclear plant was now ‘catastrophic’. That’s definitely not good.

The Tokyo Disneyland entertainment cast members I’ve been following online were concerned and with good cause. Some to the point of panic ready to break their contracts and buy a $2500 air ticket on their own.

So I’m happy to hear that Disney and OLC management has stepped up to the plate and offered to send any international cast member back home, if they want, with the promise that their job would be available when the situation returns to normal. OLC is even picking up the cost of air travel. Very nice to see them step up to the plate like that. But so far Disney Cast Members have been nothing but professional and amazing, so it was almost expected that they would do this now.

Tokyo Disneyland is contributing in a different way to relief efforts. Water from pools and ponds around the town has been claimed for use as shower and toilet water (but not for drinking please). That now includes water from Tokyo DisneySea’s Mediterranean bay area (and I assume hotel pools, although this article doesn’t mention that).

Below the jump is a video taken from the monorail that shows the condition of the parks.

At minute 4:14 you can see how bad the liquefaction was in the Tokyo DisneySea parking lot. Otherwise, not a lot of visible damage other than some exterior building cracking, which is not unusual in an earth quake.

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If you know how busy those parks are on any given day, it’s very bizarre to see it so empty like that. Let’s hope everyone recovers safely and quickly from this emergency.