Tokyo Disney on 2 Weeks’ Notice: Hightower Halloween Costume!

[lurkyloo]

Our noon checkout time was still a ways off (why oh why can't they give us this extra hour at US Disney hotels?), so we dashed downstairs to the fanTABulous indoor pool and did something we'd never done before: paid $22 each for the privilege of swimming!
The reason is that this pool is the first thing that captured my fancy about Hotel MiraCosta, and I used to have a huge picture of it on my computer desktop reminding me I’d get there some day. So for us, the $44 fell under the ever-expanding budget category known as "When are we ever gonna have a chance to do THIS again?!"


The admission fee included use of a swanky locker room, the sauna, and what I called the “naked bath” because you were required to get undressed before using it. It was basically just a swank Jacuzzi in the locker room. Because we got there right when the pool opened, the place was deserted. Good thing, too, cuz I sure as heck wouldn't have gone in the naked bath if there were other ladies around!


Lockers!

Naked bath!

Next to the naked bath was a hall full of showers, complete with toiletries just like you find at spas.

Back in the locker room, I spent several minutes trying to figure out what this was and how to work it…

After poking it with a stick, flapping the lid a few times, and sticking my head inside it, I realized it was a swimsuit dryer! I spent a few more minutes trying to figure out how to make it go so I could use it after the swim. What I later learned, as I fished out my still-damp suit, is that it's more of a swimsuit wringer than a dryer—good to know when you're about to shove said swimsuit into your suitcase.

The "safe" side of the bathroom…

The "suicidal" side of the bathroom…

For some reason there were slippers lined up in the toilet area—I'm guessing so that barefoot patrons wouldn't have to be barefoot in there. But if you've got gunboats like I do, be sure to bring your own footwear!

After I'd explored every square inch of the locker room, I returned the camera to Patrick so he could take pictures of the pricey pool.

Just inside the door is a foot-washing pool

Looking back toward the door

Patrick had to list a little to get the lamps in this shot!

 

[lurkyloo]

Shimmering golden tiles in the bottom of the pool! Must be where the $22 goes…

Snack bar

View of the outdoor pool

I'm sure the pool attendant standing quietly off to one side thought we were nuts for taking all these pictures and wondered when we were gonna get in the pool already! We spent a blissful 30 minutes or so paddling around our own private pool and soaking in our own private spa before dashing back to the room to change in time to get to the park at 9:30am.

Patrick shot the men's locker room for ya…

All these plugged-in hairdryers next to sinks make me more nervous than any of Star Wars' unfenced precipices!

Free $22 water!

Hmph! Not as glamorous as the ladies' naked bath!

"Hullo, Venetian canals! We'll be seeing you again in just a few minutes!"

Back in the room, we packed up our stuff and took a few last shots of our glorious view.

I also asked Patrick to take a picture of our towels in lieu of me stealing them. I liked them much better than the fake Disney hotel towels available in the gift shop, which were a weird in-between size (too small to be a bath towel but too big to be a hand towel = insta carwash rag!) and printed with '80s-lookin' patterns that supposedly reflected the style of each hotel. However, I was checked by my strong moral code and the suspicion that Oriental Land Co. would prolly send me a bill for gawd-knows-how-much when the towels went missing.

Since we still had 2 1/2 hours til checkout, we decided to nip into the park and do a few more A- and B-ticket attractions we'd missed.

But first we stopped by the Journey to the Center of the Earth FASTPASS machine, which had a huge line and was already spitting out 2pm return times.


Apparently Patrick began to pass out when he saw how late the return time was…

Today turned out to be VERY busy at the parks—a Friday in the middle of a 2-week school break. Go figure! While we in Mysterious Island, we hit up 20,000 Leagues using single rider. I love this ride!


The line we got to skip

And then we set off to fill in the blanks of our experience with things we’d been meaning to do, such as eating our weight in popcorn.

Today witnessed a new world record for popcorn consumption by us. Thanks to all the themed buckets and different flavors, I ate more popcorn in those 4 days than I have in the last 4 years! (File under: "When are we ever gonna have a chance to do THIS again?!")

 

[lurkyloo]

We were quite interested in checking out the Leonardo Challenge room at Fortress Explorations, which required waiting in line and politely thanking two different cast members who approached us with cards that said the presentation was all in Japanese and very difficult for foreigners to understand. I told both of them that we just wanted the souvenir map that comes with the experience. You take it around to various stations in the fortress and place it on a stand that activates interactive exhibits.

So when we finally got inside this mysterious and exotic room for Japanese-speakers only and the CM began his spiel, we nodded a lot, watched the other guests to know when to turn over our maps, and tried very hard to look like we understood what the H was going on. It was anticlimactic really – just a 5-minute explanation of how the scavenger hunt works, and there was nothing particularly interesting about the room.


Off we went to try out our new map!

Hmmm… those are the only pictures I have—perhaps we were distracted by this waterfall!

…Or maybe by the quaint cottages crammed on the bridge from Mysterious Island to American Waterfront…

…Or by the Electric Railway…

At any rate, next thing we knew, we were in Venice and deciding to ride the gondolas around Mediterranean Harbor. In addition to providing a good 10 minutes of entertainment, complete with singing, the gondolas gave us a chance to finally hear words and phrases we understood, like “Buon giorno” (“Good day”/”Hello”), “Ciao” ("Goodbye") and "Molto bene" (“Wanna come back to my place?”).

It really puts the gondolas at the Venetian in Vegas to shame…

"Why yes, I *did* win Paper/Rock/Scissors at the dock this morning…"

"Harrumph!'

 

[lurkyloo]

"'Molto bene' my patootie…!"

Scattered throughout the park are Duffy photo spots, the perfect way to capture Duffy at leisure.

I didn't have a Duffy, so I improvised…

"Boy, it looks like Marie Bucket is having a fabulous time in Venice!"

Ristorante di Canaletto was the one sit-down restaurant we'd been unable to walk right up to without a reservation, so we contented ourselves with a photo of the menu.

Then we checked out the inside of New York Deli—looks pretty authentic to me!

 

[lurkyloo]

Patrick ALMOST made off with the bakery wagon, except it was bolted to the ground…

Here's a better shot of the exterior of the restrooms—so clever!

'Nother menu for ya

The line for Turtle Talk With Crush

Patrick really wanted to explore the SS Columbia. We couldn’t get over the fact that they built a full-on ship and let you walk around it, instead of cutting corners and only doing the parts you can see.

View of the park…

View of the bay!

 

[lurkyloo]

We headed back toward Tower of Terror's gift shop to pick up more goodies for Uncle Matt, and some for us too! Realizing we weren't going to find him anything on his list, we decided to get a representative sample of Tokyo DisneySea items, like a tiny Duffy, a Shiriki Utundu bobble head, some of those fake hotel towels (hey, he's got a big car, and I've got a hunch it may need washing!), a few stand-out pins, and some neat retro-looking Mickey and Minnie plush we found only in Steamboat Mickey's in American Waterfront. That was also the place we stumbled on a packable duffle bag printed with Cutie-style Minnie and Mickey visiting each of the lands in Tokyo DisneySea—I hope we took a picture of all this stuff before we gave it to him so I can show you at some point!

Best. FASTPASS machine. EVER!

Finally it was time to give up our glorious room at Hotel MiraCosta and send our bags over to Disney's Ambassador Hotel. I give you this parting shot…

Oh wait, no! I give you THESE parting shots. We got to watch a mini-show around Mediterranean Harbor before we left.

Whoa…. Chip and/or Dale has a girlfriend?

Down in the lobby, Patrick took random pictures while I sorted out the bag transfer.

When I complimented the bellhop on her English, she said she’d studied at Cal Poly Pomona for five years!

OK, there's Uncle Matt's Tokyo DisneySea loot bag on top of all our stuff!

I also scored us 3-day monorail passes… sweet!

Then it was back into Tokyo DisneySea for the last time so we could continue filling in the map of our experiences.

"Oh crap, we'd better take a picture to prove we've actually been here together!"

 

[lurkyloo]

The back of the wedding chapel in Hotel MiraCosta

I think it was around this time that I realized I'd packed my earplugs in one of the suitcases merrily making its way to the Ambassador. I hate loud noises, so I always bring earplugs for rides, movies and shows. When I forget them, I can usually count on the first aid station at any of the US Disney parks to have another pair for me. So we made the mistake of stopping in at the first aid station, near the Hotel MiraCosta entrance in Mediterranean Harbor. Neither of the nurses on duty spoke English, so I gestured to my ears and made the Japanese "no" symbol (an X with both hands) and continued speaking in English for no reason. Confused, they whipped out a book full of English phrases for me to point at ("I have a headache," "I ate one too many cheesecake chimichangas," "May I sell you my kidney to pay for this vacation?" etc.). But I couldn't find one that explained what I wanted. So I continued with the pointing and the X-ing until they got very concerned looks and, perhaps fearing that I was bleeding from the ears, flipped to a page that said in big letters "I NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL"! To which I responded with frantic X-ing and vigorous shaking of my head while bowing and smiling and hastily backing my way out of the first aid station.

Instead we decided to take a nice, quiet walk around the back streets of Mediterranean Harbor and photograph flora.

Festival of Popcorn Buckets!

We decided that Uncle Matt (whose favorite character is Tinkerbell) needed a Tinkerbell popcorn bucket as the ultimate Tokyo Disney souvenir.

We visited Devil's Postpile last summer, and it is just uncanny how well Disney replicated the effect here.

 

[lurkyloo]

Listen! I think you can hear what the guide is saying… "Up ahead you'll see the Nautilus, Captain Nemo's home away from home. You'd think that all his mining and marauding would pay well, but I hear he can't keep his head above water…"

Patrick was dying to eat a meal in an underground boiler room, so we tried Vulcania restaurant. We shared some dim sum, the sweet and sour pork, the crispy chicken, and the fried rice. It was pretty dang good!

Fried Chicken with Soy-Vinegar Sauce (¥785), Fried Rice with Char Siu & Egg (Half portion, ¥400), and Sweet & Sour Pork (¥840)

Dim Sum Sampler (¥399), which was inexplicably all shumai…

We took a few more pix of Mysterious Island on our way out to the Arabian Coast.

Off to Arabia!

As we passed Sultan's Oasis, we decided to try the coconut soft-serve. When it comes to dessert, I'm usually of the "more is more" school of thought: chocolate cake, ice cream, peanut butter, fudge, frosting—all of the above, please! So I was surprised to fall in love with something so simple as coconut soft-serve, but fall I did. I wonder if that's how the first people to taste ice cream felt back when there was only vanilla…

 

[lurkyloo]

Jafar's Shop of Wonders was one thing that disappointed me… surely with all that money they could've made it something to at least peek into, if not enter or, you know, ride…

Since there wasn't much else to do in Arabian Coast, and the line was short, we decided to take a spin on the carousel. I got a camel and Patrick got the Genie! We didn't get to ride upstairs, though—that woulda been cool!

The quintessential tourist…

I was still in love with the Arabian Minnie ear headband I'd declared The Absolute Gaudiest Set of Ears Sold in Tokyo Disney, but I knew I'd never ever wear them. So instead of buying them, we followed the old adage "Take a picture, for it shall last longer"…


Hmm…. I'm looking a little drab in this photo. Lemme just punch things up in Photoshop!

The light was all wrong, but I wanted a pic of Jasmine's fountain, so… here ya go!

I also wanted a pic of the first cherry blossoms we'd seen at the resort!

 

[lurkyloo]

I'd heard that you could find less well-known Disney characters in the Tokyo parks, but I wasn't convinced until we spotted THIS guy outside Mermaid Lagoon:

Patrick was very excited…

On our way out of Arabian Coast we'd realized we were within the miniscule window of operating hours for the cheesecake chimichanga cart, so we'd hoofed it over to Lost River Delta—only to discover that they were already sold out for the day! When we reached Mysterious Island, I decided I would try the sea salt ice cream in a souvenir cup instead. (Let us all forget the part where I'd just had coconut soft serve in Arabia…)

Patrick had a… what is that, a ChocoTaco? No, wait—it was little bites of frozen banana covered in chocolate. The sea salt ice cream turned out to be delicious! Maybe my taste buds are screwed up, but the salt makes this plain vanilla ice cream taste almost like an entire hot fudge sundae to me! I think it’s mimicking the taste of the nuts or maybe even the fudge for my brain.

Then we hadda stand around forEVER waiting to get the perfect shot of the big bubble that comes up in the bay of Mysterious Island…

And then we rode JTTCOE one last time – FABUOUS!


Looky! Looky! We finally found a Hidden Mickey!... Because a bunch of people were standing around pointing at it…

On our way out of the park I broke down and paid the $30 for a park soundtrack CD cuz I loved the music from JTTCOE and 20K Leagues so much. We also spotted something we’d missed before – large soft-cover books full of pictures of the parks! We picked up the Tokyo DisneySea one. Side note: When we got home and played the Tokyo DisneySea soundtrack, we were disappointed to discover that most of the songs are super-cheesey "theme songs" for the various lands, complete with silly English lyrics that spell out exactly what the land is about. ("Singing a mermaid song! In this Mermaid Lagoon!" and "I am Captain Nemo! Welcome to Mysterious Island!" and "Lost River travels oooooonnnnnnnn! CAW!!!" [that's the screeching eagle sound effect]). None of these are actually heard in the park, and I would have been much happier with ride soundtracks and a medley of the ambient music played in each land (Mediterranean Harbor has a particularly evocative area loop). But at least I got my soundtracks to Journey to the Center of the Earth and 20,000 Leagues. Also the Aquasphere Plaza soundtrack isn't half bad.

Speaking of which….

So long, Aquasphere!

Sayonara, Tokyo DisneySea!

Up next: Last half of the day at Tokyo Disneyland, plus checking into the Ambassador Hotel's Concierge Level!

 

[onelilspark]

Whoa…. Chip and/or Dale has a girlfriend?

That's Clarice. I couldn't remember exactly how she fit in with Chip & Dale, so I went to good 'ol Wikipedia. In "Two Chips and a Miss" they worked against one another for the affections of Clarice, a performer at the Acorn Club. You can sometimes find her at Hollywood Studios & in various parades at WDW.

Also: I would have gone crazy with the popcorn buckets. I collect them from WDW and they're pretty boring compared to Tokyo! And I'm totally jelous of Patrick getting his picture taken with the chef from the Little Mermaid. Awesome.

 

[taylor3297]

I want one of those popcorn buckets!

 

[ChrisFL]

I agree with you that the indoor pool is one of the reasons why I wanted to visit the MiraCosta so much, it's just so nice.

Regarding the soundtrack, a lot of DisneySea songs you can hear at this site:

http://www.mouseinfo.com/cms/radio/index.php

(There's different songs now each time you reload the page, but it has several from DisneySea)

Otherwise, I'm still sad that I won't get back there for a while, it's just so amazing

 

[burly]

Alas no butterflies were born while reading these wonderful updates due to the drool from the dessert descriptions. Poor things.

 

[Princess_K]

Great update as usual! Love the shots from the gondola ride.. how pretty!

Each of your updates makes me want to get there more and more. I'm definitely adding it to my list of places to go some day

 

[PopArtGal]

I remember Chip and Dale's girlfriend from somewhere. Don't remember where. But I'm sure I've seen her with an Hawain style outfit.

Of all the popcorn buckets, I'm sure I would have gotten the retro looking Mickey. Yep, I'm obsessed with retro Disney and with Walt. He's my hero.

I love the look of the Arabian part. So beautiful!

OMG, coconut soft-serve! I have to taste this one day. I am obsessed with coconut!

 

[Disneygrl36]

That spring show looks very colorful & once again I love all the costumes the chacaters are in..........so stinkin' cute.

The indoor pool looks fabulous even the naked bath. I have never paid to use a pool but really wanted to when we stayed at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville NC. They have a fabulous stone grotto like pool with music piped in under the water..........but unless you are staying club level you have to pay $50 for a spa day pass to use it & Eric wasn't buying it.

Was Patrick in a peaceful mood that day?

Finally a picture of you 2 together.

Love the chef from Little Mermaid........that is awesome to see such an obscure character.

Coconut soft serve............ahhhhhh I love coconut & ice cream so this sounds heavenly.

Too bad you didn't get your cheesecake thingy.........but at least you got more yummy ice cream.

As always............can't wait for more.

 

[cseca]

Thank goodness for the updates!
I was getting the shakes waiting for them ...
excellent as always... I'm hoping to go in Sept, so I'm following this thread really closely...

 

[A-T-G]

Oooh! I hope you're getting a lot done. Did I read you guys are selling something glow-in-the-dark something this year...?

You did, indeed. We printed up a glow-in-the-dark t-shirt with DH's design on it. I was skeptical until I saw in and now I LOVE it!

 

[Aburns8]

Another great report! I love the character costumes from the lagoon show. They were very colorful.

The pool was beautiful. I think that I would have paid as well to experience it. I knew what that machine was since I have used one in the past. Too bad there was no English on the thing.

I love popcorn, and I really love all of those popcorn buckets I have seen from your report! I would need a suitcase just for all the buckets that I would want.

Now I want some coconut soft serve. That sounds amazing!