TR--Girls' Trip to Asia---Next Stop: Japan!--updated 10/16--Day 15 --TR Finished

belle2211

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jan 9, 2011
The first part of our trip was in Hong Kong. You can read about that part in my Hong Kong Trip Report.

This is the same introduction as over there just in case there are some new people reading it.

Hi there! I took one of the best trips ever this past summer--a girls' trip to Asia! We went to both Hong Kong and Tokyo and hit up Disney parks in both locations. It was simply amazing! This TR isn't going to cover just Disney though. I'm going to show all that we did so that maybe I can help so people like people helped me!

First up, I'm Andrea. I am a cast member at the Hollywood Studios at Walt Disney World and am definitely a fanatic! In fact, I got married at the Wedding Pavillion at the Grand Floridian a little over a year ago. It was definitely a fairy tale!

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Anyways...how did we come to deciding to go on a girl's trip to Asia? Well my friend Meredith and I had a pact. We met in college and went to Disney World several times together. When we graduated from college in 2002, we travelled to Europe together and so of course we went to the 2 Disney parks in Paris. So we made a deal. Five years from then and ten years from then we would hit a new park. So in 2007, we went to Disneyland and sure enough, this year in 2012, we went to Hong Kong and Asia! So we've to every Disney park in the world together!

Here's Mer

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Then we were each talking to our friends and convinced them to come with us. Cori was a bridesmaid in my wedding, so she knew Meredith from that.

Here's Cori
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Meredith and I knew Rebecca from college

Rebecca
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And I met Vuong through Meredith on recent trips to Chicago and New Orleans. Vuong met up with us in Tokyo since she had just been to Hong Kong earlier in the year.

Vuong
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And then, just because this was the first picture on my camera card for the trip, here's my puppy Bella. I knew I would miss being away from her, so I had to take a picture before I left!

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We flew into Tokyo the night before and were staying at the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay Hotel right near property. I think its considered an official hotel. The room was pretty big. Two double beds and two single beds so we could have fit 6 people.

We woke up early and I took some pictures of the park from our room. We are pretty close!

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We went downstairs to buy our tickets (but they ended up not taking credit cards so we had to wait). On the way, we got off on the wrong floor and ended up on the wedding floor, so of course I had to take some pictures!

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The other girls got some breakfast and then we headed out to catch the monorail. Over on the disbrides board, there's been some talk about lots of ducks at the resorts. I had to take a picture of the duck we saw here!

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Here's a picture of the outside of the hotel.

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Our station, Bayside, is right across the tiny street from the hotel.

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You have to pay to take the monorail to Disney in Tokyo! It's about $13USD for a 3 day pass. The monorails were a lot like the ones in Hong Kong.

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Everywhere over there, we saw women with these puffy bow things

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And headbands. Rebecca decided she wanted one of those and I wanted a headband.

We bought a 3 day park ticket for about $172USD. You have to specify what park you want to go to on each of the first 2 days and then the third day is a park hopper.

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We decided to do Tokyo Disneyland first. We got in the long line about a half hour before park opened. The gates opened and it was a madhouse. People literally took off running!

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The castle is the same as ours (thank goodness!) but Main Street is different--it's covered!

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They were celebrating the Star Festival while we were there.

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We went on Pirates of the Caribbean first. There was no line. It was very similar to ours but weird how some words were in English and some were in Japanese.

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Then we went on the Jungle Cruise. It wasn't in English so we couldn't understand the words but our skipper was much better than the one in Hong Kong. She was really animated. Once again, it was pretty similar to ours.

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But instead of heads, this salesman had fruit! (we were talking about how this would ruin the joke but then we decided that plays on words might not translate into other languages.)

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Up next, part 2 of Disney Day!
 
I got married at the Wedding Pavillion at the Grand Floridian a little over a year ago. It was definitely a fairy tale!

Me too! :goodvibes That's a Maggie Sottero dress isn't it? I think I tried it on. You look gorgeous in it! :bride:

looks like you were there a couple of weeks before us!
 
Oooh another TR !!

I will be subbing in!!

We are planning a trip to TDL in April 2013 so I am hungry for information! :thumbsup2

We are also staying at the Sheraton Grande. We are a family of five with a 2double, 2single room booked - how did you find it?

PS: That wedding photo in front of the castle is just beautiful - looks magical!
 


I reckon that's where I'd stay too... the Disney hotels in Tokyo are so expensive! Still looks pretty convenient, and nice view from your room :thumbsup2

It's so weird how you have to wear a hire dress for weddings over there too - I don't really get it! On the plus side, it would help with costs!

And what's with the park hoppers only being park hoppers on the last day :confused3 I suppose you need at least a day in each park anyway so you can just plan to do one or the other.

Oooh I can't wait to go to Tokyo! I'd actually planned to go there next, but then I decided I wanted to combine a Disney trip with a run so kinda had to do the US.
 
Catching up.

That's a great view you have from the hotel. Can't wait to see what you got up to in TDL. :thumbsup2
 
Cant' wait to read the rest of your TR. I hope you'll be including more details of your stay at the Sheraton- I've a vested interest, since we'll be staying there too in Oct.

Where did you end up purchasing your park passes? I think I remember reading somewhere else that you couldn't buy them at the Sheraton with a credit card. Could you not just charge it to your room account? I'm guessing not. I have a feeling that by the time we get to Tokyo Disney our cash reserves will be dwindling and don't want to hunt up an ATM just for the last couple of days.
 


•Wow, for being off property, you were very close. Great view!
•Look at that parking lot…so empty…
•Love those wedding dresses!
•Crazy you have to pay for the monorail.
•The 3 day ticket prices don't seem too bad. Did you get a CM discount with them?
•Ahahahah, a fruit salesman on JC?! SO FUNNY.


Alrighty, all caught up!
 
Me too! :goodvibes That's a Maggie Sottero dress isn't it? I think I tried it on. You look gorgeous in it! :bride:

looks like you were there a couple of weeks before us!

Thanks! Actually, funny story about the dress. My dress is from Alfred Angelo. I had fallen in love with 2 dresses there but went to other stores to try on dresses just to be sure. Well, Maggie Sottero had the same two dresses. The dress I didn't choose was exactly the same!! As for the dress I did choose, mine has silver thread and Maggie's was more gold thread. But that was the only difference (well, besides that Maggie's took longer to get and was more expensive!)

Oooh another TR !!

I will be subbing in!!

We are planning a trip to TDL in April 2013 so I am hungry for information! :thumbsup2

We are also staying at the Sheraton Grande. We are a family of five with a 2double, 2single room booked - how did you find it?

PS: That wedding photo in front of the castle is just beautiful - looks magical!

Thank you! As for the hotel room, we used Trip Advisor to look up hotel rooms, then used the searches they use to come up with it. That's all I remember...sorry! But you could probably email them. I have their email address if you want to PM me.

I reckon that's where I'd stay too... the Disney hotels in Tokyo are so expensive! Still looks pretty convenient, and nice view from your room :thumbsup2

It's so weird how you have to wear a hire dress for weddings over there too - I don't really get it! On the plus side, it would help with costs!

And what's with the park hoppers only being park hoppers on the last day :confused3 I suppose you need at least a day in each park anyway so you can just plan to do one or the other.

Oooh I can't wait to go to Tokyo! I'd actually planned to go there next, but then I decided I wanted to combine a Disney trip with a run so kinda had to do the US.

We got really lucky with the hotels we had for the prices. Our other Tokyo room was reallllly nice and for a great price (tokyo-wise) too! I didn't get the park hopper tickets either, but it ended up working okay! What run are you doing? My friend and I do the Disney runs

Catching up.

That's a great view you have from the hotel. Can't wait to see what you got up to in TDL. :thumbsup2

Thanks!

Cant' wait to read the rest of your TR. I hope you'll be including more details of your stay at the Sheraton- I've a vested interest, since we'll be staying there too in Oct.

Where did you end up purchasing your park passes? I think I remember reading somewhere else that you couldn't buy them at the Sheraton with a credit card. Could you not just charge it to your room account? I'm guessing not. I have a feeling that by the time we get to Tokyo Disney our cash reserves will be dwindling and don't want to hunt up an ATM just for the last couple of days.

So shame on me...I really thought I had taken a picture of the room, especially since one of the funniest memories was our adventure with the toilet but I just checked and I don't!!! I'm sorry! As for the park passes, we paid with our credit cards at the gate at Disney.

•Wow, for being off property, you were very close. Great view!
•Look at that parking lot…so empty…
•Love those wedding dresses!
•Crazy you have to pay for the monorail.
•The 3 day ticket prices don't seem too bad. Did you get a CM discount with them?
•Ahahahah, a fruit salesman on JC?! SO FUNNY.

Yup! The hotels were really close. And the parking lots to the hotels were pretty empty! No CM discount anywhere in Tokyo Disney! Apparently Disney doesn't really own the park so we don't get anything!
Alrighty, all caught up!
 
After Jungle Cruise, we realized the extent of the trend that was to be my favorite--the popcorn trend!! (where's my popcorn smiley??????) I am a popcorn fanatic. I literally have popcorn every evening and LOVE it! Each popcorn stand has a bucket (an expensive bucket!) and while we found that there were a couple of stands that had the same, there was still a variety. But almost every single person walking around had a bucket. I quickly decided that I wanted a girly one and saw people holding ones I wanted (which we quickly discovered were older ones. Boo!) I didn't find any buckets that I liked in the Disneyland park so I decided to wait to see if I did find one in Tokyo Sea and if not, I would just get a random one. I knew that I would try all of the flavors over the next 3 days. So excited! That day we tried the caramel (same as over here), honey (pretty good), soy sauce and butter (not my fav), and curry (disgusting!!).

We also discovered that everyone loves to wear ears and dress up. It's crazy! Rebecca got this huge puffy Minnie bow to ear. Then we headed to Splash Mountain to ride in the single rider line. There was absolutely NO WAIT for this! There wasn't a single rider line, you had to ask for it, but it was printed on the map. So we figured people didn't know about it. It was such a great thing that we discovered!

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After that, we rode Haunted Mansion. It started to sprinkle and continued all day & night.

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I got a snack called a Mickey Smile. It was a chocolate-ish cake with banana filling. I love banana and chocolate but this was only okay.

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We rode Big Thunder Mountain.

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Then we stopped to take pictures in front of the castle.

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We discovered Cinderella's Carriage on the floor. Yay! This was the theme for my wedding and we have tons of this icon all over our home!

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Cinderella was also on an archway by the castle.

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After that we went to try the lottery to watch the show One Man's Dream II. Each party can try to get tickets to ONE show time. We didn't get tickets. We thought the system completely sucked because if you are there for only one day and don't get it, you are screwed! Luckily for us, for the first show of the day, you can wait in line to see it. We were there just as they were letting people in and we made it. I realllllly liked the show! So much so, that I took tons of pictures and might have to make the next two posts about it since I have so many pictures and can only post 25!

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Up next...One Man's Dream II show pictures!
 
Thank you! As for the hotel room, we used Trip Advisor to look up hotel rooms, then used the searches they use to come up with it. That's all I remember...sorry! But you could probably email them. I have their email address if you want to PM me.


Sorry,

I think I may have been "lost in translation" - we already have that room booked - I just wanted to know if you found it too crowded with the four beds and if you enjoyed the room and resort (or not).
 
OK- even if you don't have pictures- you've GOT to tell us the adventure with the toilet!
 
We got really lucky with the hotels we had for the prices. Our other Tokyo room was reallllly nice and for a great price (tokyo-wise) too! I didn't get the park hopper tickets either, but it ended up working okay! What run are you doing? My friend and I do the Disney runs.

I'm aiming for the 2014 10 miler (assuming they still have it then!). Can't afford a trip to the US next year since I'm already going to Europe. Mum is planning on doing it with me :thumbsup2 You guys in the US don't know how lucky you are getting to do all the Disney runs! I'd love to do the coast to coast but I couldn't justify 2 trips to the US in one year.

Still enjoying your updates, but Tokyo is looking pretty similar to the other parks so far - I'll admit it's TDS I'm really hanging out for :rolleyes1

And yes, please tell us about the toilet adventure!
 
I remember when you were asking questions about your trip and had recently been wondering how it went. Thanks for posting; am enjoying it so far. :) I'll catch up on the HK parts when I have more time over the weekend.
 
Sorry,

I think I may have been "lost in translation" - we already have that room booked - I just wanted to know if you found it too crowded with the four beds and if you enjoyed the room and resort (or not).

Oops! Sorry! I don't think the room was really that crowded at all. Between the five of us, we had 7 pieces of large luggage too. I mean, there wasn't lots of extra space, but compared to the pictures I had seen of Tokyo rooms, this was bigger! The room and the resort was nice. Nothing spectacular, but I am pretty snobby when it comes to cleanliness of where I'll stay and I had no issues with this whatsoever. And it was nice that it was right across from the monorail

OK- even if you don't have pictures- you've GOT to tell us the adventure with the toilet!

Oh, I definitely will. It will come on day 8 :)

I'm aiming for the 2014 10 miler (assuming they still have it then!). Can't afford a trip to the US next year since I'm already going to Europe. Mum is planning on doing it with me :thumbsup2 You guys in the US don't know how lucky you are getting to do all the Disney runs! I'd love to do the coast to coast but I couldn't justify 2 trips to the US in one year.

Still enjoying your updates, but Tokyo is looking pretty similar to the other parks so far - I'll admit it's TDS I'm really hanging out for :rolleyes1

And yes, please tell us about the toilet adventure!

They should still have it! I would have loved to do the coast 2 coast 2 but I've already had too many trips this year!

Seems like a nice day so far.




Oooh...Potty humour! popcorn::

Ohhh...the popcorn smiley is back! Where was that yesterday when I was looking for it??

I remember when you were asking questions about your trip and had recently been wondering how it went. Thanks for posting; am enjoying it so far. :) I'll catch up on the HK parts when I have more time over the weekend.

It was sooo much fun!
 
So as promised, here's a post all about the show One Man's Dream II (and again, I apologize about the quality of pictures. I stink at getting clear shots from far away with moving subjects!)

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It started with Mickey and Minnie in a black and white costume. I'd never seen that before!

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Then they turned to color

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And there was Snow White and the Snow Prince

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the monkey from Tarzan (I forget her name!)

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King Louie
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A Bug's Life

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Peter Pan, Wendy, and Captain Hook

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The Evil Queen

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Frollo and Maleficent

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Aurora and Prince Phillip

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Cinderella and Prince Charming

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Up next...the ending of the show...
 
Oooh love the pictures so far! Makes me want to go and see it :goodvibes

I love that more modern version of Snow White's dress too!
 
Minnie Mum-you can also use your credit card to buy Park tickets beforehand at the Disney Welcome Centre within Ikspiari-its on the ground floor eg when we found out we needed cash to buy them at the hotel (what is it with this?) we went there that first arrival evening and bought them for the next couple of days-I forget how late its open til-at least 7pm as it must have been about that time when we got there. I read you can also buy them at some Disney stores around Tokyo too if you are in the city first.
 
Minnie Mum-you can also use your credit card to buy Park tickets beforehand at the Disney Welcome Centre within Ikspiari-its on the ground floor eg when we found out we needed cash to buy them at the hotel (what is it with this?) we went there that first arrival evening and bought them for the next couple of days-I forget how late its open til-at least 7pm as it must have been about that time when we got there. I read you can also buy them at some Disney stores around Tokyo too if you are in the city first.

Thank you for the info- that's a big help!
 

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