Days needed to visit Both Disneyland and Disneysea at Tokyo

[chinhk]

Hi everyone,

I'm planning a trip with my partner to Tokyo for next March. We will be there from the 9th till the 17th March (about 7.5 full days to spend minus the arrival and departure day).

How many days do think we will need to cover all the rides at both Disneyland and Disneysea? We have no children with us and we have done Paris Disneyland and Magic Kingdom, so we are quite familiar with the queue system and layout of the disney parks. However, we do not want to underestimate these two parks at Tokyo, hence all advice are much appreciated.
I've noticed the opening hours during our visit seems to be shorter (only till 6 or 7pm it seems), weekends may open later till 10pm but we are debating on whether to go on a weekend or weekdays. Hoping it will be less crowded if we go during the weekdays and hotels may be cheaper than on weekends.

Finally, any suggestions in regards to which hotel to stay? We want it to be a little bit special so considering either the Disneyland Hotel or the disneysea miracosta. Is it a good idea to split our stay in both hotels to get a taste of each or its more advisable to just stay in one hotel for the convenience??

Sorry for all the queries but hopefully some you experienced disney travellers could point me in the right direction.

Many thanks!

 

[GrtWtNorth]

It sounds like you have a great trip planned.

I would suggest two days at each park if you want to experience everything. That's how long we spent on our trip -- we didn't quite see everything, but we had a 13-month-old who absolutely needed mid-day naps in air conditioning, plus early nights.

Both the Disneyland Hotel and the Hotel Miracosta are nice and conveniently located to the parks. However, since you do not have kids, I think you might enjoy the Miracosta more.

Note: While we liked the Miracosta, it was not as posh as I expected. We stayed in 3-star and 4-star hotels in Kyoto and Tokyo that had better amenities than the 5-star service claimed by the Hotel Miracosta. For ~$600 per night (for a view of the turnstiles, not a view of the park), I expected it to be the best hotel in Japan.

 

[chinhk]

Thanks for the advice GRtwtNorth. I think 3 days will be the minimum but 4 days would be just nice. Unfortunately we are also planning to visit other places in Tokyo, and hopefully travel to Osaka and Kyoto (if time permits) with the bullet train. So, we will most likely to do the 3 days visit.

Do you know any good hotels in Tokyo and Kyoto area?
We have had a look on the prices, although its very very tempting to stay at a disney hotel, the prices of the hilton tokyo bay is just too good to say no to. LOL
not sure if I can now justify to pay the extra to stay at the disney hotels.

 

[GrtWtNorth]

Tokyo -- warning: you get what you pay for. We were attending a wedding, so we stayed in Shinjuku with other guests. I booked into the Kodoya Hotel, thinking that we could save a bit of money. It was small, smoky and aweful. We ended up switching after one night, paying ~$300 per night for a very good room at the Century South Tower. It was excellent, but I have no idea how it compares to other Tokyo hotels other than Hotel Miracosta (less amenities, but twice the price).

Kyoto, I highly recommend the Westin Miako Hotel. It's slightly away from the downtown core, but closer to the ancient capital. This hotel has some interesting grounds, including honeymoon cottages, and some very cozy but spectacular Japanese gardens. The price was great, and in my opinion, this was our best hotel in Japan.

We also stayed in a beautiful spa resort in Yokosuka (Monado?) that was arranged by our host family (as they had too much company and wedding preparations to host us in their home). None of the staff spoke English, but we relished the experience, especially the traditional Japanese spa and eating buffet breakfast with dozens of other guests, all wearing our resort-supplied robes, dining on great tasting eggs, salmon, noodles, rice, yogurt, seaweed, fruit... We had a great time, but we couldn't have even checked in without help from our Japanese-speaking host. We did a bit of research to ensure we minimized any cultural / social etiquette issues, but if we were to do a spa again, I would insist on selecting one with English-speaking staff.

In Hiroshima, we stayed at the Rihga Royal Hotel. It was good quality and very close to the Peace Park. (I don't remember much else.)

 

[nytimez]

Depends on what else you want to do in Japan. I've done just about everything I wanted to do in each park in two days, and had plenty of time for drinks at the Teddy Roosevelt in DisneySea.

Three days gives you a little extra time, and that's what would recommend (and what I prefer, especially since I need to end each day with a round at the Teddy).

Be aware that they don't quite have "park hoppers" there. You pick a park a day -- although you can park hop on like day three or something (and maybe beyond), at least that's how it used to work.

Tokyo Disneyland Hotel is pretty amazing, but I would stay at the MiraCosta -- the only hotel inside a Disney park. I love that place.

I would stay at just one hotel and not go through the hassle of a split stay (and I'd pick the MiraCosta).

Note that March is the end of the school year in Japan. I have never been to the parks in March but it may have an impact.

 

[franandaj]

Has anyone stayed at the Ambassador Hotel? We're thinking of using our DVC points there, and it's a fair use of the points. $600 a night for a hotel room is just OUT of our budget!

 

[danceintherain]

Has anyone stayed at the Ambassador Hotel? We're thinking of using our DVC points there, and it's a fair use of the points. $600 a night for a hotel room is just OUT of our budget!

If you scroll down on this board, you'll come across lurkyloo's trip report. She stayed at all three TDR hotels during her trip last year.

 

[chinhk]

Lurkyloo's trip report is amazing, I have read it all Very informative and I'll definately use some of the tips from her report.
Although the hilton tokyo bay hotel seems good in terms of value for money, we are very tempted to stay at either the disneyland hotel or Miracosta considering the fact that this is our first trip together and we want something special.
The ambassador hotel looks quite good too but it lacks the wow factor. That's what I think personally.
We are still waiting for the official tokyo disneyland website to release the dates and prices for hotels in March. It is only accepting bookings for up till Jan 2012 at the moment.