Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
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oh wow..way to leave us hanging there! You're off, get to the typing
Haha well I was going to post an update yesterday until a freakin cyclone hit us!!
But I'm posting the update now so enjoy!
It's like Disney World... on Steroids! A Tokyo Disney TR (UPDATE PG.5!)
- Thread starter Vallie
- Start date
Haha well I was going to post an update yesterday until a freakin cyclone hit us!!
But I'm posting the update now so enjoy!
Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,276
No, I Don't Want to Sleep in Your Car!
(**Sorry for the lack of pictures, but there was nothing really to take photos of in this part and I wasn’t in the mood for photo taking anyways)
As I stood there crying (not overwhelming sobs, but just a couple tears of frustration) Craig kept banging on the door, a couple people who were inside playing pool looked at us through the door of the window but just ignored us. Now this really annoyed me, I understand they were probably just guests but they could see us with our bags, they could have been nice and opened the door... but they didn’t.
After five minutes of banging on the door, and being completely ignored we came to the conclusion that we would have to do something else. So we noticed their number posted on a van parked outside so we copied down the number into Craig’s phone and decided to head back to a gas station we had seen right across the street from the airport.
We walked back down the dark creepy path and arrived at the service station. We talked to the attendant inside, who at first seemed really nice. I explained our situation and he let me use the phone to call the hostel. I called a couple times and no one was answering, so I knew that place was out of the question. I suggested to Craig we just go and sleep at the airport, but the attendant told me that the airport was closed from midnight to 5am and we wouldn’t be able to stay there. He told us we could stay at the station, but we would have to sit outside while he did his duties for a couple hours.
I was so upset, this was not a good start to the trip. We didn’t know what to do so Craig went to ask the guy if we could use a phonebook to see if there were any hotels in the area with availability. We were both exhausted and didn’t want to spend our night sitting outside a gas station and we decided we were willing to pay some extra money to stay at a hotel.
This is when things started to get weird. The guy started getting really rude with Craig when he asked for the phone book to call hotels in the area. He started asking why we would pay extra to go to a hotel now. Then he started to get even weirder saying well I guess you can afford it, since you can afford a hair cut (whatever that means!). He then told Craig he could no longer use the phone in an almost angry way and kept telling him there were not going to be any hotels open right now and we were wasting our money.
So I went up and told him I wanted to buy prepaid phone credit for my phone and he let me buy it, and then said to me if we wanted we could sleep in his car. This guy was really starting to creep me out, so I told him we would think about it and see what the hotels said first. He was like ok, but my car is right over there and then he proceeded to tell me how much I look like this woman he met in America a long time ago. I didn’t know what to say so I said something along the lines of “Uhh ok thanks” and went back over to Craig and started calling hotels.
We were able to find two available rooms, one for $225 and one for $160. I was so annoyed to have to pay that much for a hotel for a couple hours but I figured I’d get the $100 back from the hostel and it was either pay the extra $60 or stay with the now agitated weirdo in the gas station. We quickly decided to go to the hotel and called a cab. The guy seemed pissed we were leaving, muttering to himself and kinda banging things around the store as he cleaned. So we decided to get the heck outta there and went to wait at the airport where we quickly found a million cabs waiting to go. We headed over to the hotel and arrived there at about 11:30 at night.
I explained my sob story to the guy at the front desk, who was very nice and he said that he could give me the room for $140 and I could check out as late as I wanted with no extra charge. Unfortunatly, we had to leave at 8am to go back to the airport, so we couldn’t take advantage of this but it was nice of him to offer anyways.
We went up to our room which was on the nicer side as far as hotel rooms go, but to me at that momen, it looked like Heaven! I kicked myself for not just booking something like this to begin with and spending the day up here instead of saving the $40 bucks and booking a hostel. However, what was done was done and we were happy to have a hot shower and a nice soft clean bed. We got ready for bed and had to have a good laugh about what the heck just happened to us. We both agreed that gas station attendant was probably a serial killer and I declared how I was gunna rip that hostel a new one in the morning when I called to get my money back and then we vowed to ourselves to never stay at a hostel again and fell asleep.
(**Sorry for the lack of pictures, but there was nothing really to take photos of in this part and I wasn’t in the mood for photo taking anyways)
As I stood there crying (not overwhelming sobs, but just a couple tears of frustration) Craig kept banging on the door, a couple people who were inside playing pool looked at us through the door of the window but just ignored us. Now this really annoyed me, I understand they were probably just guests but they could see us with our bags, they could have been nice and opened the door... but they didn’t.
After five minutes of banging on the door, and being completely ignored we came to the conclusion that we would have to do something else. So we noticed their number posted on a van parked outside so we copied down the number into Craig’s phone and decided to head back to a gas station we had seen right across the street from the airport.
We walked back down the dark creepy path and arrived at the service station. We talked to the attendant inside, who at first seemed really nice. I explained our situation and he let me use the phone to call the hostel. I called a couple times and no one was answering, so I knew that place was out of the question. I suggested to Craig we just go and sleep at the airport, but the attendant told me that the airport was closed from midnight to 5am and we wouldn’t be able to stay there. He told us we could stay at the station, but we would have to sit outside while he did his duties for a couple hours.
I was so upset, this was not a good start to the trip. We didn’t know what to do so Craig went to ask the guy if we could use a phonebook to see if there were any hotels in the area with availability. We were both exhausted and didn’t want to spend our night sitting outside a gas station and we decided we were willing to pay some extra money to stay at a hotel.
This is when things started to get weird. The guy started getting really rude with Craig when he asked for the phone book to call hotels in the area. He started asking why we would pay extra to go to a hotel now. Then he started to get even weirder saying well I guess you can afford it, since you can afford a hair cut (whatever that means!). He then told Craig he could no longer use the phone in an almost angry way and kept telling him there were not going to be any hotels open right now and we were wasting our money.
So I went up and told him I wanted to buy prepaid phone credit for my phone and he let me buy it, and then said to me if we wanted we could sleep in his car. This guy was really starting to creep me out, so I told him we would think about it and see what the hotels said first. He was like ok, but my car is right over there and then he proceeded to tell me how much I look like this woman he met in America a long time ago. I didn’t know what to say so I said something along the lines of “Uhh ok thanks” and went back over to Craig and started calling hotels.
We were able to find two available rooms, one for $225 and one for $160. I was so annoyed to have to pay that much for a hotel for a couple hours but I figured I’d get the $100 back from the hostel and it was either pay the extra $60 or stay with the now agitated weirdo in the gas station. We quickly decided to go to the hotel and called a cab. The guy seemed pissed we were leaving, muttering to himself and kinda banging things around the store as he cleaned. So we decided to get the heck outta there and went to wait at the airport where we quickly found a million cabs waiting to go. We headed over to the hotel and arrived there at about 11:30 at night.
I explained my sob story to the guy at the front desk, who was very nice and he said that he could give me the room for $140 and I could check out as late as I wanted with no extra charge. Unfortunatly, we had to leave at 8am to go back to the airport, so we couldn’t take advantage of this but it was nice of him to offer anyways.
We went up to our room which was on the nicer side as far as hotel rooms go, but to me at that momen, it looked like Heaven! I kicked myself for not just booking something like this to begin with and spending the day up here instead of saving the $40 bucks and booking a hostel. However, what was done was done and we were happy to have a hot shower and a nice soft clean bed. We got ready for bed and had to have a good laugh about what the heck just happened to us. We both agreed that gas station attendant was probably a serial killer and I declared how I was gunna rip that hostel a new one in the morning when I called to get my money back and then we vowed to ourselves to never stay at a hostel again and fell asleep.
Aburns8
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,344
That attendant guy does sound creepy! How weird. I am glad that you got out of there. Are you still living in Australia right now? If so I bet it is better than being back home in Toronto. It is cold here right now. I am from Michigan and now live in Virginia and the weather is crazy.
Did you get your money back? I hope that you did!
Did you get your money back? I hope that you did!
Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,276
He definitly had my weirdo-radar pinging! I am still living in Australia, I'm here until school is finished on July and I'll be heading back after a quick stop in Fiji and LA (and Disneyland of course!). My family called this morning and was telling me how freezing it is back home and how much snow they have! Glad to be missing the cold but we did get a crazy cyclone here last night, with some huge hail as well which was pretty crazy too!
I'll update soon about what happened with the hostel!
MAGICFOR2
Condimentessa
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2005
- Messages
- 11,044
I'm glad you got out of there - sounds like a serial killer! It's good you were able to get a hotel room.I am going to Newcastle in Feb - DH will be working there for a little while. We are planning to take the train to Sydney and spend one night so we can do some sight seeing. It looks like most of the hotels are $200 - $400 a night for not much room. Do you have any recommendations?
DISNEYaddict4evr
Now some person I don't even know reminds me there
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2010
- Messages
- 706
Welcome!! Thats awesome! Where else are you planning on going? I'm dyinggg to go to Thailand! You will love Tokyo Disney it's amazing! I will stick with this report because there's not much out there on TD and I know it was annoyign when I was trying to plan, so hopefully my TR will provide some good info! And also I'm on winter break right now for another 2 1/2 months so I have no excuse not to finish it!
If all go as planned i will be spending about 3 weeks touring china, 5 days in Cambodia at Ankhor Wat, the 4 days in Bangkok, the 8 days touring Japan with my Disney 3 day Adventure. I can't wait!
I am stil trying to figure out how I am going to pack... I will be visiting so many different climates 
Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,276
I am going to Newcastle in Feb - DH will be working there for a little while. We are planning to take the train to Sydney and spend one night so we can do some sight seeing. It looks like most of the hotels are $200 - $400 a night for not much room. Do you have any recommendations?
Ya I was happy we were able to find a room as well. That guy was creeepy! I haven't been to Sydney yet, but hotels in Australia are expensive. It seems the choices are stay super cheap (at a hostel) or else pay $200 bucks a night for a hotel, especially near the tourist areas. Actually, from what I've found, everything is really expensive in Australia!
That being said, I think that Expedia is having a sale on rooms right now, maybe check that out!
If all go as planned i will be spending about 3 weeks touring china, 5 days in Cambodia at Ankhor Wat, the 4 days in Bangkok, the 8 days touring Japan with my Disney 3 day Adventure. I can't wait!
That sounds like an awesome trip! I'd love to be able to do that! I'd just pack things that you can layer! Thats what I did when I was packing to move here. Lots of cardigans!! hehe
MAGICFOR2
Condimentessa
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2005
- Messages
- 11,044
Thanks! Heading there now.
Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,276
These Toilets are AWESOME!
We woke in the morning feeling refreshed and in a much better mood then the previous night. We were feeling the Tokyo excitement but there was something I had to take care of right away... calling the hostel and giving them a piece of my mind. I called the place, ready to fight it out, but surprisingly I talked to a really nice girl who appologized profusely and didn't understand why the night shift person (who was supposed to be there until 3am) was not there and didn't let us in. She gave me a refund right on the phone and seemed to be truely sorry for the situation, and I was happy enough with that.
So we got on our comfy clothes and said goodbye to our hotel room
and headed back to the airport. We split a cab with the Kiwi (someone who is from New Zealand) version of Dog the Bounty Hunter, who pretty much paid for the whole cab ride and was really nice. We only had to be at the airport an hour and a half ahead of time, so we quickly got checked in and went to the terminal.
We flew with a airline called JetStar. We actually got the seats on sale for $500/round trip which is an AMAZING price, but really doesn't give you anything with the price. We purchased the entertainment package, but not the food package, so we had some snacks packed and decided to get some food at the airport before we boarded.
Soon enough we were being called to board. JetStar impressed me, the planes were nice, clean and comfy. I only had to sit beside Craig so I wasn't having to crawl over people to get out of my seat and it was pretty roomy, even in coach.
Goodbye Gold Coast!
The flight from Australia to Japan takes 9 hours, but the time difference is
only 1 hour which was nice because we didn't have to deal with jetlag at all.
So we watched some movies, some glee, listened to music and read for 9 hours and we landed at around 8pm in Japan.
$15 Entertainment Package
Notice the lady in the mask. I originally thought Japanese people wore these masks to keep out germs (which maybe they do) but from what I figured out in Japan people watching, and watching commercials for the mask, people actually wear these when they are sick, to keep from spreading the germs! Now I may be wrong about this, but thats what I understood from what I saw. Oh.. and no I wasn't taking a photo of the lady because she was wearing a mask lol. I was taking a photo of Craig and realised after there was a lady in a mask in it and thought I should share what I learnt!
I was expecting some crazy futuristic airport, but it didn't really look any different then any other airport. The one cool thing I noticed were the crazy vending machines that they had everywhere.
Which... I don't have a picture of!? I thought I did! Woops! Take my word for it, they were pretty crazy looking with pretty crazy types of drinks in them too.
We went down to book an airport shuttle bus, since taxi's are pretty expensive in Japan. The shuttle bus could only take us to a hotel that was close to us and then we had to take a cab from that hotel to our hotel. The whole trip cost us about 3500Yen each (approx $40).
We could have taken the subway system but we were tired and I was wary of traveling on the subway with all our bags because it seemed like a huge daunting subway system.
So we caught our shuttle bus/cab and arrived at the hotel, The Grand Arc Hanzomon.
The hotel room was a decent size, I was worried because I read that Japanese hotel rooms are super small but I found it to be bigger then I expected (but it was on the small side compared to other hotels I've been to!).
Notice the free slippers!
The hotel overlooked the Imperial Palace East Gardens and we could also see much of the Tokyo Skyline, it was a great view and the Grand Arc was in a nice quiet buisness area, and it was a good escape from the hustle and craziness of the rest of the city.
The hotel also had some cool surprises, most of them being located in the bathroom.
One of the surprises was the press iron that you just slipped your clothing into and it flattened all the wrinkles out.
Another surprise was the cool warming toilet seat, along with every kind of behind spray you could imagine! We actually found these toilets in most of the places in Tokyo, some with music or flushing sounds you could use as well. Of course if you couldn't find these toilets, there was always the pop and squat (think a mini bathtub in the ground lol).
But the best discovery of the day was after Craig took his shower he exclaimed... OMG THIS IS SO COOL! and I was like urmm... what is so cool? He told me to come in and see...
The mirror was heated in one spot (in the shape of a square) so that section of the mirror didn't fog up! He was right.. it was pretty cool!
After showering we got into our Komodos (that came with the hotel room along with a years supply of slippers and every kind of toiletry you can imagine) and watched some Japanese TV before we fell asleep.
From what I understood, this was a crazy game show in which the players for some unknown reason had to go around town and hold different gigantic bugs!
We woke in the morning feeling refreshed and in a much better mood then the previous night. We were feeling the Tokyo excitement but there was something I had to take care of right away... calling the hostel and giving them a piece of my mind. I called the place, ready to fight it out, but surprisingly I talked to a really nice girl who appologized profusely and didn't understand why the night shift person (who was supposed to be there until 3am) was not there and didn't let us in. She gave me a refund right on the phone and seemed to be truely sorry for the situation, and I was happy enough with that.
So we got on our comfy clothes and said goodbye to our hotel room
and headed back to the airport. We split a cab with the Kiwi (someone who is from New Zealand) version of Dog the Bounty Hunter, who pretty much paid for the whole cab ride and was really nice. We only had to be at the airport an hour and a half ahead of time, so we quickly got checked in and went to the terminal.
We flew with a airline called JetStar. We actually got the seats on sale for $500/round trip which is an AMAZING price, but really doesn't give you anything with the price. We purchased the entertainment package, but not the food package, so we had some snacks packed and decided to get some food at the airport before we boarded.
Soon enough we were being called to board. JetStar impressed me, the planes were nice, clean and comfy. I only had to sit beside Craig so I wasn't having to crawl over people to get out of my seat and it was pretty roomy, even in coach.
Goodbye Gold Coast!
The flight from Australia to Japan takes 9 hours, but the time difference is
only 1 hour which was nice because we didn't have to deal with jetlag at all.
So we watched some movies, some glee, listened to music and read for 9 hours and we landed at around 8pm in Japan.
$15 Entertainment Package
Notice the lady in the mask. I originally thought Japanese people wore these masks to keep out germs (which maybe they do) but from what I figured out in Japan people watching, and watching commercials for the mask, people actually wear these when they are sick, to keep from spreading the germs! Now I may be wrong about this, but thats what I understood from what I saw. Oh.. and no I wasn't taking a photo of the lady because she was wearing a mask lol. I was taking a photo of Craig and realised after there was a lady in a mask in it and thought I should share what I learnt!
I was expecting some crazy futuristic airport, but it didn't really look any different then any other airport. The one cool thing I noticed were the crazy vending machines that they had everywhere.
Which... I don't have a picture of!? I thought I did! Woops! Take my word for it, they were pretty crazy looking with pretty crazy types of drinks in them too.
We went down to book an airport shuttle bus, since taxi's are pretty expensive in Japan. The shuttle bus could only take us to a hotel that was close to us and then we had to take a cab from that hotel to our hotel. The whole trip cost us about 3500Yen each (approx $40).
We could have taken the subway system but we were tired and I was wary of traveling on the subway with all our bags because it seemed like a huge daunting subway system.
So we caught our shuttle bus/cab and arrived at the hotel, The Grand Arc Hanzomon.
The hotel room was a decent size, I was worried because I read that Japanese hotel rooms are super small but I found it to be bigger then I expected (but it was on the small side compared to other hotels I've been to!).
Notice the free slippers!
The hotel overlooked the Imperial Palace East Gardens and we could also see much of the Tokyo Skyline, it was a great view and the Grand Arc was in a nice quiet buisness area, and it was a good escape from the hustle and craziness of the rest of the city.
The hotel also had some cool surprises, most of them being located in the bathroom.
One of the surprises was the press iron that you just slipped your clothing into and it flattened all the wrinkles out.
Another surprise was the cool warming toilet seat, along with every kind of behind spray you could imagine! We actually found these toilets in most of the places in Tokyo, some with music or flushing sounds you could use as well. Of course if you couldn't find these toilets, there was always the pop and squat (think a mini bathtub in the ground lol).
But the best discovery of the day was after Craig took his shower he exclaimed... OMG THIS IS SO COOL! and I was like urmm... what is so cool? He told me to come in and see...
The mirror was heated in one spot (in the shape of a square) so that section of the mirror didn't fog up! He was right.. it was pretty cool!
After showering we got into our Komodos (that came with the hotel room along with a years supply of slippers and every kind of toiletry you can imagine) and watched some Japanese TV before we fell asleep.
From what I understood, this was a crazy game show in which the players for some unknown reason had to go around town and hold different gigantic bugs!
These Toilets are AWESOME!
Notice the lady in the mask. I originally thought Japanese people wore these masks to keep out germs (which maybe they do) but from what I figured out in Japan people watching, and watching commercials for the mask, people actually wear these when they are sick, to keep from spreading the germs! Now I may be wrong about this, but thats what I understood from what I saw. Oh.. and no I wasn't taking a photo of the lady because she was wearing a mask lol. I was taking a photo of Craig and realised after there was a lady in a mask in it and thought I should share what I learnt!
Yep. That's the custom in Japan. During winter, you will see a lot of people (young and old) wearing masks everywhere. They also sell funny/crazy masks too.
Vallie
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2006
- Messages
- 1,276
Hey! You made it to Tokyo and to your hotel with ease! So glad your journey went well. I'm excited to see your adventure begin!
Me too, after the night we had I was very wary! I'll be posting the first day of the trip soon!
Yep. That's the custom in Japan. During winter, you will see a lot of people (young and old) wearing masks everywhere. They also sell funny/crazy masks too.
Ok so I did get it right! Yay! We didn't see too many people wearing them, but we did come across a couple of funny masks and even some pooh looking ones which were quite cute!
Aburns8
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 24, 2008
- Messages
- 1,344
That is awesome that there is only an hour time difference! No jet lag is the best. At least you got to your hotel with ease. I would love to go to Japan to see all of the cool gadgets. The idea of the electric toilet seems so cool! And I like how that part of the mirror didn't fog up. Can't wait to see what's next.
GAGirlInVA
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Apr 23, 2010
- Messages
- 1,255
Subbing.
PrincessInOz
Thanks for my avatar, Mary Jo!
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2010
- Messages
- 108,012
I'm pleased to see the hotel room is decent. Other friends of mine have come back with pictures of pods!
Glad you got a refund from the hostel without any issue.
Glad you got a refund from the hostel without any issue.
inkedupmomma
modern mouseketeer
- Joined
- May 5, 2008
- Messages
- 4,418
Fantastic update. Room looked decent sized, and I'm glad that the hostel was so willing to work with you! Looking forward to more pics of Tokyo!
Ah, this brings back nice memories of what I felt on my first visit to Japan! The vending machines, the toilets, the small hotel rooms (but offering more amenities than most 5* places here) 
You may use my photo of the vending machines:
This was taken inside a shrine!
You may use my photo of the vending machines:
This was taken inside a shrine!
PrincessMomofTwo
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- May 11, 2010
- Messages
- 60
Really intersting TR! Can't wait to read more. Thanks for sharing
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