Disney's new Japan theme park hosts 10 million visitors in shortest time
Sun Jul 7,11:20 PM ET

TOKYO - Walt Disney Co.'s newest amusement park in Japan welcomed its ten-millionth visitor since opening last year — reaching the milestone in the shortest time recorded so far, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The new mark came Sunday, 307 days after the DisneySea amusement park's Sept. 4 opening, said Oriental Land Co. spokeswoman Marie Iwamoto.

Oriental Land Co. is the Japanese developer that operates DisneySea and the older Tokyo Disneyland, which are built next to each other in a suburb of Japan's capital.

The previous shortest period needed to attract 10 million guests at any amusement park in the world was in March, 338 days after the opening of a Universal Studios facility in the western Japanese city of Osaka, according to figures monitored by Oriental Land.

Iwamoto said that Tetsuya Goto, a civil servant from Oita prefecture (state) in southwestern Japan, received a certificate marking the milestone Sunday. He was visiting DisneySea with five other family members.

The park's attractions include a roller coaster that shoots through a tunnel filled with luminescent creatures and "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," a ride over an artificial water terrain of anemone and coral viewed through bubbly glass.

Of the 10 million visitors at DisneySea, Iwamoto said that nearly 97 percent were Japanese, while the remainder cam from abroad, mostly other Asian countries.