Disney Toyko Short trip lots o pics "Updated" 4-18

[lasob]

First time trip reporter. 15 trips to DW, four trips to DL... and yet no trip reports cause there are such great reports on here and most of my trips are like so many others. But then I went to Japan. I started reading a trip report from Japan months ago and the author never finished. So I will give it a shot. It was a wonderful trip.

First a little background. My DS 26 and I (father) made a trip to Japan. My wife was not interested so my son and I went alone. We spent 10 days in Japan. 3 days in Tokyo, 2 days at Disney, 3 days in Kyoto and then the last two back in Tokyo. The trip was from Nov. 6- 16. I am a retired teacher and we decided to go off season.

For anyone who thinks they might sometime venture to the Land of the Rising Sun, I will include logistics and tips because when I was looking, there was little that I could find online.


So enjoy.

 

[lasob]

Ok here we go.

My son and I were staying in Shinjuku an area in Tokyo. We had seen Disney Tokyo briefly on our bus ride from Narita airport. There was a bus that left Shinjuku train station every hour or so. It was a 5 minute walk from our hotel and cost about $ 30 USD. It was a double decker thing and was fairly small. With traffic and all it took about 1 hour to reach our destination. We were dropped off in an empty parking lot and after walking up a small hill we saw this.

The Hotel Mira Costa. A beautiful hotel that we stayed at with DVC points.

Here are a few more pictures of the hotel and the room.

And a typical Japanese shower bath combo, where no matter how much you try, everything gets wet. Which is apparently OK.

Next up the view from our room and we venture into the first of two parks.

 

[scottny]

I am interested in reading about this. That is the next Foreign Disney park I want to visit.

 

[DisneyDaddio]

Great start! I've been to Disneyland and Disney World, but one day I hope to visit Disney Tokyo. Can't wait for more.

 

[Goofy442]

WOW what a great hotel for DVC members. Great TR can't wait to hear more about your trip.

 

[lasob]

So as we stood in front of this wonderful hotel and man comes running out of the entrance and says" I take bags" and that turned out to be the extent of his English.

So we followed him feeling a little guilty as he struggled with our two large suitcases. But we had learned not to argue with someone with limited English about helping you at a hotel. And tipping is not allowed in Japan.

He lead us into a large nice lobby and we lined up behind about four other groups. When we approached the desk, we asked" English?" and she replied with a nice smile "No". Luckily I had the DVC sheet and presented it to her. She entered a number off of it and dissapeared She came back and handed us an index sized card completely in Japanese. I asked. She shrugged. We stepped away from the counter and really were not sure what to do.

My son went to the luggage area and asked if anyone spoke English.
About 5 minutes later, a very nice girl told us she spoke a little. She explained that since we did not speak Japanese and did not have a cell phone, we would return with the card after 4 for our room keys. OK. My son and I had already decided it was a go with the flow kinda vacation. So we took advantage of the English speaker and bombarded her with questions.
She directed us to the ticket counter. There are two parks - Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. So we purchased a two day park hopper pass for about $200 each. We head off, cameras and jackets in tow.

First a couple of photos of the view from our room. We were overlooking the Venice part of the hotel.

We found our way to the monorail.

Next, We enter the park and see, but do not hear a lot of English

 

[jelloarms]

Can't wait for more. I like many others, really want to visit Tokyo Disney. I am just so afraid of the language barrier though. I would have no idea how to navigate! I just know I would get lost.

 

[SOnotLayuh]

Can't wait to read more!! I'm supposed to go at some point this year with a good friend who is from Japan!

 

[floydfamily4]

cool pictures so far. Can't wait to read more!

 

[lasob]

Thanks for the replies and compliments. I hope to have the entire trip report done within a few days. I am frustrated by the fact that the board logs me off after a few minutes and twice now I have lost entire posts because of it.

In response to the post about language issues, My son and I were amazed at how few people in Tokyo spoke English. We managed quite well though with English signs and very helpful people who often walked up to us to ask if we needed help. But I was very surprised about the lack of English inside the parks. But we saw almost 100% Asian people as you will see in later photos.

Thanks,
Lasob

 

[lasob]

Ok, so you might have noticed that the few pictures I have posted were remarkably free of people. The front of the hotel, the monorail station and the monorail itself were virtually empty. My son and I had hopes. By the time we boarded the monorail it was about 10:30. So we exited at the entrance to Disneyland Tokyo and saw this.

Yeah that's me with the blond hair. I kinda stick out a little huh?

As bad as the crowds seem in this shot we really had very little wait times and it is apparently much, much more crowded than this most of the time.

So we made our way into the park and there is a covered kinda main street filled with shops, but quite different than the U.S. parks.

We hit a few of the stores, just browsing and then pulled out the map and planned a strategy of attack. We decided to ride the POC first. We thought it might be called the Pirates of the Sea of Japan but no.

We passed this on the way. Not sure if this is at either DW or DL.

And here we are at POC sponsored by my favorite Japanese beer.

The ride was a bit different than in the states, but was essentially the same. Of course hearing Jack Sparrow in Japanese is a hoot. We had about a five minute wait.


Up next, more rides and is the Jungle Cruise corny in Japan too?

 

[DisneyDaddio]

Great pictures. Not sure if I would be able to keep as calm and collected dealing with not many English speakers. Good for you.

 

[jelloarms]

is the covered area over the Main Street World Bazaar really covered? I mean are there like clear panels above you or are the awnings just decoration?

I believe Japan's Universal Studios also has that awnings at the start of its park.

 

[Goofy442]

Great pictures! It is very different from Walt Disney World or Disneyland. My biggest problem would be the food. If I didn't know what was in it I wouldn't eat it.

 

[cmp1111]

Thank you SO much for sharing - this is definitely far from a "typical" trip! My best friend stopped by the Hong Kong Disneyland during an Asia trip last year. It's so neat to see the differences!

 

[lasob]

is the covered area over the Main Street World Bazaar really covered? I mean are there like clear panels above you or are the awnings just decoration?

I believe Japan's Universal Studios also has that awnings at the start of its park.

The majority of it is glass, but there are openings in the sides of the top where it expands upward (Not sure if that makes sense.) If you look at the picture from the front of the park, you can see it is glass. It was nice and breezy, but protects you from the rain.

 

[lisalisalisa]

Looking forward to hearing more. We hope to visit Disneyland Tokyo in a couple of years.

 

[lasob]

The weather that day was perfect. It started out hazy and about 55 degrees, but after lunch it was sunny and about 65.

After POC we walked through a New Orleans style town square and found the Jungle Cruise. This park is fairly small by DW standards, so we were not worried about necessarily moving in an orderly direction. From one end of the park to the others was no more than a ten minute walk. Now we thought about the Jungle Cruise being fairly pointless with the language barrier, but we had decided this would be our only chance to do Disney in Japan, so we lined up. We waited maybe 15 minuted for this one. And the line had all the same Jungle stuff laying around. The people around us in line looked at us perhaps thinking that we would not get as much out of the ride as they did. Well they were right.

So we sat down and watched the very familiar surroundings, the ride is almost identical to DW, but we didn't understand a word. But the guide was a hoot. Having ridden this thing many times, we were able to mumble the corny jokes, in English, to ourselves. And the guide laughed really loud and so did the folks on the ride.

So we enjoyed it. After the cruise we pulled out a map and decided that we should make sure we hit all the major rides as we would only be here for a day and a half.

We made our way to the Haunted Mansion and the line was long, so we snagged some fast passes for just an hour later. Then we decided it was lunch time. Now somebody mentioned the food as being an issue. No worries on that front. The menus here had tons of western food, hamburgers,
hot dogs etc. I don't eat meat (but I do eat fish) so after looking in here....

... and the line was long and the food heavy and expensive, we settled on a counter service place where I got and "ebi" (shrimp) sandwich. My son got a ham and cheese and we both got dessert.

The Mickey shaped thing was a brownie and my sons dessert is the red and white thing that is a bean paste pastry. The food was good.

Next, we walk around and encountered a ride we have never seen or heard about.

 

[lasob]

Before I continue... a few shots of the amazing stain glass window in the restaurant I showed in the last post.

So we walked around and absorbed the atmosphere. Here are some pics of Critter Country and Toon Town.

I thought this tree was especially unique and colorful.

The lines in Fantasy land were very long and my 26 and I really were not interested in most of those rides. So we headed over to the Haunted Mansion. Now I was at DL last year when they were converting HM into a Jack Skellington theme so it was closed, and they don't convert the one at DW, so I was excited to see it in Japan. A few pics of the walk up to the ride.

The inside was very cool. There are a lot of changes and they all work. I'm sure it is very similar to the one at DL.

We rode the BTRR, which is the same type of ride.

And then we headed back to a ride we saw earlier that was broken down. We knew nothing about the ride. It is called Monsters Inc Ride and Go Seek.
The line was long and the fast passes were gone, so we figured we have to go on it. So we lined up and waited...

Next. Did we like this new ride? and we exit this park.

 

[supersuperwendy]

subscribing!

I am so excited I came across your thread tonight! I want to go to Tokyo Disney Sea/DL so bad..we are crossing our fingers we can make it there for our 20th anniversary!

I think the hotel Mira Costa looks AMAZING!

I'm looking forward to more of your report!