(Updated 8/31) How Many Times Can We Switch Hotels? - Tokyo Disney TR May 2025

[Araminta18]

From Fantasy to Adventure! - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 20)​

More rockwork!

Maleficent breathes smoke which is just fantastic. The whole Sleeping Beauty scene is great -

The three fairies are even in it - it's kind of hard to see, so I zoomed in:

They're tiny, but they're there!


The building is the Fantasy Springs hotel, but Sorcerer Mickey with the brooms!

It's really a cool area - I couldn't wait to actually stay in that hotel!

At this point we were ready to make our way out of Fantasy Springs and back into the rest of the park to finish riding rides. But one more goodbye to Arendelle:


As we were walking out, I noticed some new things in the entrance rockwork that I didn't see before:

Pocahontas!!

And in front of Anna and Elsa but kind of hidden so you don't see him really unless you're leaving:

Olaf!!

Ok, for reals, we were leaving Fantasy Springs and were heading to Raging Spirits, which looked to be basically the same Indiana Jones roller coaster as they have at Disneyland Paris.

I loved that this trunk was addressed to Harrison HighTower - intra park theming!

Trevor liked the fire.

I'd read online that this was one of the rides which was the hardest for bigger (either tall or wide) people, but I figured if I could ride it at Disney Paris I'd be ok here. But when we got up to the front, a Cast Member grabbed me and took me down this side path to this tiny little shed (later dubbed "the shed of shame" ) looking thing where they had hidden the test seat, to see if I could fit. I did fit (yay!) so he then sent Trevor and me on our way - there were three lines and he sent us down the center one. It took us way too long to realize that he sent us down the single rider line! So we had to get out of there and go to the fastpass merge point which was still a little bit of a wait. Oh well! At least I fit!

We got the front row. It was indeed the same as at Disney Paris, but smoother - or at least, my head didn'tbang about so much. Lots of fun!

 

[Araminta18]

We Didn't Mean To! - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 21)​

As we left Raging Spirits, the last ride we had left to ride with our fastpass was Soaring! So we figured we'd head that way, which kind of made sense for the loop we were doing. But that meant next up was the Arabian Coast area - we saw Jafar out!

And the Genie!

I also realized that the ice cream stand right there had no line! And it had the Sea Salt ice cream that we'd heard about and was on our list, so we got that:


It was good - vanilla with a berry disc of jam or something inside? Good - I don't know that it's worth the hype, but it was yummy.

As we left the Arabian coast, we passed a curry popcorn stand that didn't seem to have a line - the Duffy boat with all the characters was going by and everyone was watching them go by, up against the water's edge. So we figured awesome and hopped in the line which was like 5 people. But then after the Duffy boat left, a big line formed for popcorn (we were like #2 in line by then) and we realized that maybe we inadvertently cut the line? We were looking around and we really could see a line at all so I felt kind of bad. But...now we had curry popcorn. Oops!

We kept going, passing Mermaid Lagoon:

Pretty! We did talk to a CM about the crowds - mostly trying to see if it was actually busy or if it just felt busy to us, and he was saying it was definitely busier than expected. Apparently there was some kind of cheer or gymnastics competition and his best guess was that folks had stayed to go to the park instead of heading back to school/normal life. So we were hoping the next few days would be quieter. Disneyland yesterday had been very quiet but DisneySea was definitely busier. Not a bad day to have our unlimited fastpass!

We were passing through Mysterious Island area (with Journey to the Center of the Earth) so we (me) decided meh why not, and hopped in line to ride Journey one more time.

The line was a bit longer than earlier but still only 15 minutes to get on the ride. Not bad! And just as fun.

Then we finally made it over to Soaring!

Yes, Soaring with a g. Also that line on the right? That's the fastpass line! It doesn't look too bad in this picture, but......

This is the end of the fastpass line.

It took us 5 minutes to get up to the entrance itself where we saw this cool plaque:


Then another 10 to make it to this room - still not at the merge point:

It was a cool room though, describing the history of flight, with all these cool things that we didn't necessarily know about (see the flying gondola painting)

 

[Araminta18]

Soaring - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 22)​

The theming here was pretty neat, not gonna lie.

It's Don Quixote (the painting on the right), flying on a gear of the windmill! Love it.



And not just paintings, but cool 3-D models too:

It's a good thing the theming was neat, cause it took us 10 minutes to get through this room and merge - basically 25 minutes pre merge point. Woof. Thankfully the merge puts you basically waiting for the pre-show, so not too much of a wait there.

The pre-show was pretty dang awesome. I also just love the whole aesthetic, with fancy paintings, etc.

No Patrick Warburton here, but still cool theming!


Even the ride vehicle is themed to be like something made out of wood. The ride itself was basically the exact same as we have (except it ends over DisneySea vs DisneyWorld), and definitely not worth the 2/3 hour wait (or even the 30 min fastpass wait), but the pre-show was pretty cool! I just wish I could have understood it better.

 

[Araminta18]

Photopass Does Exist! - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 23)​

We were basically at the front of the park after coming off the ride, so we decided to redeem our original merchandise voucher as part of the vacation package and then go drop stuff in the room. Apparently if you redeemed the voucher in DisneySea they had a Duffy little bag, and I figured hey might as well get that since we're not really going to buy any Duffy stuff, and we should have at least something Duffy, right?

So we were heading to the shop and as we passed the front of the bay/lagoon, we found a photographer with no line! I figured we must have just missed the line cause EVERYTHING had a line, but nope! We got lucky, and she took some great photos:




I thought they turned out pretty good! Tokyo Disney doesn't really have photopass - you have to buy each photo individually. We got lucky as they added the functionality to the app like 2 weeks before we got there where you could buy the photos in the app and download them. You have 30 days, so we waited til after we got home to buy our pics, cause the more you buy you get a slight discount. So pro-tip.

Then we got our original merchandise thing from the vacation package - the Duffy bag and a little vacation package bag that looked like a suitcase. The shop had (say it with me) amazing theming!


Super cute.

Then since we were right there, we went to the hotel to check in and drop stuff in our room. Checking in was still like a 5/10 minute process (you have to fill out a form and they have to take your passports), but then we got to the room and our bags were there! Brilliant. The room was basically the exact same as the night before:




I don't know why the curtains were closed - it made it look so dark! Also I apparently (shockingly) forgot to take a picture of the view here! We definitely looked, and I took pictures of the view later but not sure why I didn't do it now. *shrugs*

We hung out for about 30 minutes and then we were hungry! Time to head back into the park.

 

[Araminta18]

Cape Cod Cook Off for Dinner - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 24)​

We weren't sure where to go for food - I apparently hadn't planned us a meal. So we decided to go to the Cape Cod restaurant: it had several of the treats that I wanted to try so we figured we could also get dinner there with the treats. And bonus, it was by the Milk Chocolate popcorn stand so I could wait in line and get some popcorn. Trevor decided he wanted to try the Garlic Shrimp popcorn that was by the big steamship, so we decided to split up and reunite at the Cape Cod restaurant.

I did place a mobile order for Cape Cod Cook-Off though, 'cause your gal knows better than to wait in the lines if she doesn't have to. And as a price point - one of the meals earlier at Arendelle was 3500 yen, our entire meal this time was 3300 yen (2 burgers, chicken nuggets, and 2 desserts).

Anyways, but we had like 20 minutes, so off we split to get popcorn! We were racing to see who would get through the line faster.
My line:

The stand is that red thing way up there.

Trevor only waited 7 minutes:


I waited 12:

But my popcorn was good, and Trevor's was not. It was weird! I did like the one kernel I had that was SUPER lightly seasoned, but otherwise it was too strong. We decided it would have been cool if it was like 1/3 garlic shrimp and 2/3 salt or black pepper to moderate the flavor. Milk chocolate was delicious though. Trevor did try chocolate and garlic shrimp together - not sure why:

That face was entirely expected with that combo.

Anyways, time for dinner! There was a crazy long line to place an order in person but because we'd mobile ordered, we just went right in. Trevor grabbed a spot and I picked up our food. Mobile order guys - best kept secret.

Ok, what'd we get?

We got the special drink for free/included with our vacation package: mango, lychee and lactic acid. I wasn't gonna get it but since it was included, why not. I also got an orange drink for free/included.

Mickey shaped chicken nuggets (i remembered to ask for ketchup this time) in the cup at the top, then we got the Pulled Pork Cheeseburger and the Bacon & Egg burger.

Peach cake!


Banana Mousse, Apple, and Peach Jellied Dessert

Overall, this was surprisingly good! The burgers were decent for both Japan and theme parks, so that was a win, though I didn't take any pictures of the actual burgers...oops! The peach cake was super moist and had tiny pieces of peach in between the layers which was good, and the flavor was just yummy. The jelly thing was fine - jello but with some weird chunks of fruit in there. *shrugs*. Oh and the lactic acid drink was tart and sour and not bad, considering lactic acid was in the name. Overall, a win!

After dinner, it was 6:40, and the park closed at 9 - what to do with our remaining 2 hours and 20 minutes? Ride rides of course! Since we were kind of close to Indy, we decided to head back that way and ride.

Back corner this time, but still super fun. And only 10 minutes from entering the queue to getting on the ride.

I knew I wanted to ride Tower one more time, and Trevor didn't have really any specific wants, so we decided to go by Mysterious Island and try to ride Nautilus again, cause it was going to close in a couple days for refurbishment and we wanted to see if we could get front row. So off we went.

Baymax needed to be glowing now that it was dark out.

 

[Araminta18]

Late Night Ride Blitz - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 25)​

So off we went to Mysterious Island, and of course we couldn't not ride Journey again.

Still wasn't bad - about 5 minutes to get to the merge point, and then 10 minutes to get on the ride. So fun!!

Then, 20000 Leagues! They were about to close the fastpass line cause it was a 5 min wait in the standby, but they let us use it, so we just basically walked right on - 2 minutes, and that was walking the queue.



The bench seat I mentioned before - they have 3 of them, one in the front and one on each side. We asked for front row cause had to experience it at least once, and we got our own little submarine!


Not the best picture, but we had a fun time riding and being in the front. I do recommend front row or the right side (side closest to the loading area) - I feel like the way the ride track goes, if you sit on the right side you see everything the front seas, just a little bit later. Course, we didn't ride the left side so who knows.

We got off the ride at like 7:40 - what to do with 80 minutes! Tower of Terror, of course.

I again didn't film the pre-show - not sure why! It's such a cool effect.

I feel like the queue does just takes a while - 15 minutes to get to the room where you're boarding.

Still all the fun though:

I do like that they have the characters in the front. Also the family in the front behind Goofy is like super stoic LOL

Ok, it was 8:20 now! The plan was to just loop Toy Story now, since we'd ridden all the things and Toy Story was a relatively fast loader (especially with the short exit path, unlike the SUPER LONG one at DisneyWorld). But first, one more popcorn to try! Garlic Scallop popcorn stand was nearby, and conveniently it had the Peter Pan popcorn bucket that I decided I wanted. So Trevor was sweet and went and got the bucket and the popcorn while I went to the ladies room.

And enjoyed more theming while I waited.

The popcorn smelled SUPER bad and tasted bad too, though we decided it tasted slightly better than the garlic shrimp. And hey, included! Well, the bucket wasn't included but the popcorn was (with our vacation package).

Now, Toy Story, for as long as our arms could stand it! For the first ride, my gun didn't work the whole first game but then Trevor was off his groove, so I ended up eking out the victory!

I was blue, Trevor was red. 186700 to his 150400 - not too bad! This was 8:46 - definitely time for at least one more ride!

 

[zanzibar138]

Just stumbled across your TR and caught up. Loving all the pics!

FWIW, the Disneyland Hotel seems pretty similar to the one in Hong Kong, perhaps slightly on the fancier side.

 

[Araminta18]

Just stumbled across your TR and caught up. Loving all the pics!

FWIW, the Disneyland Hotel seems pretty similar to the one in Hong Kong, perhaps slightly on the fancier side.

Thanks for reading! I'm glad you're liking the excessive amount of pictures

Oh interesting! I don't know anything about Disneyland HongKong, I'll have to look at it.

 

[Araminta18]

So sorry for the long gap! Guys, this year has been like the weirdest year ever, but basically Trevor is away for a couple months for work, so I went to visit him, and did a quick stop in London to see Evita with Rachel Zegler (SO GOOD!) and then when we met up, we spent time together and then went to Disney Paris for 3 days! It was planned like 2 weeks out, but we had a great time. But it did mean I didn't write anything on this trip report - I'm so sorry! Y'all are saints to keep reading. And then next weekend I leave to go to DisneyWorld for the Disney Data Analytics Conference...so I'll be 2.5 trip reports behind! But I'm not sad about it. Ok, back to this trip report!

Round and Round and Round We Go! - Monday May 26, 2025 (part 26)​

We left off with me scoring 186,700 to Trevor's 150400 on Toy Story but guys look!

Best in Vehicle! I'll take it. Especially cause look at that "best day" score - that's crazy!

We ran around again to do it - only waited about 4 minutes. And this time:

LOL we didn't do well at all. Oops! We got off the ride at 8:59, and since this was a short exit, we squeaked in with one more ride!

Another 4 minute wait, and then we were off!

I was blue, and Trevor was red - he got the best score! I think maybe the best score either of us has ever gotten: we got the plates to go super early, and got a BUNCH of the joint effects. We closed out strong:


Trevor almost always loses to me, so had to commemorate the occasion.

Ok I just spent like 15 minutes looking through my older trip reports and I was wrong - 205700 is not the best score ever - In May of 2024, I got 213,400. But it's definitely almost the best score ever!

We were off the ride, riding high, at about 9:13 pm, and so it was time to head back to the room. We did stop at a gift shop and bought a postcard thing (I think? That's what the receipt said but I honestly don't remember), and then we stopped at the hotel front desk in order to buy our park tickets for the next day. It was nice that we were able to take advantage of the Hotel Miracosta exclusive exit - it was just a bit of a hike from that entrance to our room. We got back at 9:30ish, and despite it being a bit late, there were still people exiting so of course we had to wave goodbye!

Trevor was using his Baymax to wave instead of his cell phone flashlight. This whole tradition is so cute - waving to folks walking out from your room. It's such a small thing but it makes you feel connected and part of this whole fun Disney thing.

This was one of the nights we weren't switching rooms or hotels the next day (yay!) so we didn't have to pre-pack or anything, just got ready for bed. Trevor did try on the pajamas:

Faaaaaaaancy.

Today was the end of our vacation package - we were on our own for the rest of the week with regards to fastpasses. But since we'd ridden (multiple times ) the fastpass rides, we figured tomorrow would be a day of riding the non-fastpass rides at DisneySea. We were excited!

Fun with Metrics:
Steps walked: 23996 (9.1 miles)
Ride Count: 20 (Toy Story Midway Mania x5, Tower of Terror x2, Journey to the Center of the Earth x4, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea x2, Nemo & Friends SeaRider, Indiana Jones Temple of the Crystal Skull x2, Peter Pan's Neverland Adventure, Rapunzel's Lantern Festival, Raging Spirits, Soaring)
Shows: none
(free) Popcorn: 4 (garlic scallop, milk chocolate, garlic shrimp, curry - we'd tried all the unique flavors except the roast beef one )
(free) drinks: 6 (orange drink x2, Mango Lychee Lactic Acid Duffy Special drink, ginger ale, water bottle x2)

 

[Araminta18]

DisneySea Rope Drop #2 - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 1)​

Today was our first full day without our vacation package, so we were on our own for fastpasses! We didn't have breakfast booked either, so we decided to do the ropedrop bit and then get food in the park (foreshadowing ). It was super neat to be up and looking out our window into the park, while it was still closed:

Pretty view! No wedding this morning that we saw.

We were up earlier than we expected - by 8:10, we were heading to the lines.


We weren't that far back - not too shabby!

We were making our plans: get breakfast at Mama Biscotti's (Mike's Melon Bread was calling my name), and then take it over to eat by Aquatopia, and then ride Aquatopia as our first ride with the line hopefully being low.

At about 8:37 (per the timestamps on my photos), the characters came out!

We all kind of squeezed up to the front to be able to see them, though we went back to our spots in line after the characters went away. But yea, we got a much better view of the characters today.

Clarice!



Mickey and Minnie!

Pluto was my favorite though -

He's got a fish and a bone on his collar!!! So cute.

We picked a way better line today - both of us were in the park by 8:47 (happy entry starts at 8:45).

We got the free fastpass for Indy at 9 am, and then as soon as 9am hit, I got us a 9:10 fastpass for Raging Spirits. I tried entering the show lottery for Big Band Beat and I won! For 10:35 am, which thinking now was probably too early, but still - we won! Woot!

As we headed in, they had all the characters out and hanging around in the piazza! Mama Biscotti's didn't open til 9, so we decided to hang around.

 

[Araminta18]

CharacterPalooza - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 2)​

We'd noticed the characters out in the piazza the day before but we didn't stick around. Today, we had time to stick around! And there weren't huge lines cause most folks were going to the rides. First up, we met Clarice!



I just love Clarice's little foot pop there - making a move on Trevor!

Then we turned around and there was Mickey!


Mickey did have a bit more of a group waiting to meet him and this is where we had that advantage of not looking Asian - we got picked almost right away to meet Mickey.

High fives!

And Minnie was right there too -


This picture is 8:54 - so we met Clarice and Mickey and Minnie in like 7 minutes! Crazy.

Then of course, when I saw Pluto without a real line I had to jump over there -

Had to pet him to say hi

Look at his cute little chef's hat, also with a fish on it! I love it. Just can't even.

 

[Araminta18]

Aquatopia Walk (with a Duffy detour) - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 3)​

And despite that being the picture limit, we met one more character!

Goofy's outfit is pretty epic. This was 8:56, so the characters were kind of getting ready to head back inside (apparently they hang out here just for the happy entry), but we snagged one of Goofy's last meets.

I love how Goofy and Trevor are basically mirroring each other's poses.

With that, we headed over to Mama Biscotti's to wait in line for it to open. Though by "wait in line" it was like 2 other people in front of me LOL. And the characters exit right there by Mama Biscotti's, so we got to wave goodbye to Mickey one more time:

Then Mama Biscotti's opened up and it was time to get our food! I don't actually remember now why Trevor wasn't in line with me, but he wasn't for some reason - hrm. Oh well! But we got our food and one of the things we loved about Tokyo Disney is that they had these paper/cardboard tray things to help you carry around the food, which made it SUPER convenient and easy to carry our food all the way over to Aquatopia. It was a lovely view though as we walked over there -

Gorgeous.

Our walk took us past the Cape Cod area with Duffy, and we noticed there were several photographers out by this Duffy sign, with no line, so like OF COURSE we stopped. Luckily there was a bench we could put the food on, but we had to get some photos.



Not the best, but still fun - and it came with a little Duffy animation:

So that was a fun little detour! Then we finally made it over to Aquatopia, and sat ourselves on one of the benches there right by it, to eat our food.


See, the little tray things - super handy.

I'm Mike Wazowski'ing myself, with Mike Wazowski! Meta!

Also notice the stickers I'm wearing! Right as we sat down, this super nice CM spent a TON of time talking to us, and giving us stickers. She was super nice and sweet, and it was fun to talk to her. The stickers were "First Ride!" stickers - super cute.
(and picture limit! food review next post)

 

[Araminta18]

Aquatopia! - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 4)​

Ok, back to food: this was the Beef in Puff Pastry (cheese/truffle accent):

I really liked this. Trevor thought it was fine, but I really liked this. Definitely beefy, but it was yum. This pastry was definitely better than the pastry on the pot pies at the Frozen restaurant yesterday!

Then the melon bread!

This was cold, and then had melon custard inside. It was really good - I didn't expect it to be cold, so that threw me a little bit, but it was really good. Soft and sweet and just yum. And of course, super cute.

We also got two of the Food and Wine Festival dishes - a grape jelly mousse, and a muscat grape cake. The grape jello mousse tasted like grape jelly - it was a bit one note, but still good. The muscat grape cake was interesting - a bit perfumey and a bit sour, but interesting. Overall, that plus the two cartons of milk made for a decent breakfast.

Then it was time for Aquatopia! There was no line, which was nice. We walked right on.

It was a bit cold still so they had the water effects turned down, which was nice.

We almost went down a whirlpool!

Since there was no line, we went back around for a second ride, and this time we went on the right side (vs the left side we'd done before).

No idea how they control the boats, but there are at least two separate paths for the boats to take on each side. We thought about going around again, but decided against it in favor of our fastpasses.

So we started to head over towards Indiana Jones, and we ran into a souvenir stand selling sunglasses, so we had some fun trying those on:

The Sorcerer Mickey glasses are...intense! I did try to get Trevor to buy the Sully glasses he's wearing but I was unsuccessful. Oh well.

Then we got sidetracked again -

Max was out meeting and greeting! Of course we had to stop - it was super fun.

I have no idea what they were doing - maybe talkign about Max's hat, or wishing they could both have ears like mine?


Also shout out to the CMs - they took SO MANY photos. They definitely get the numbers game aspect of this

 

[Araminta18]

Shed of Shame - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 5)​

But we weren't done with surprise characters - it was Jose Carioca!

I realize we may have had a better experience with the characters than locals, but I loved how they did characters here, cause we met so many with basically no wait!

At this point it was 9:50, and our Indy fastpass expired at 10 am so we hustled over there to get on! I loved the pictures on the fastpasses:

Isn't that cool? Unnecessary, but neat.

We got the back row this time, which was only fair since I drove last time:

But we had a great time. It's such a good ride!

Next up? Our fastpass for Raging Spirits, which was ending at 10:10.

This was interesting: last night they had me go to the test seat, but I didn't realize that it was something you had to do every day. Once you got "measured" for the day you didn't have to do it again that day, but apparently if they think you may not fit, they'll have you measure once a day. Which I mostly didn't mind, except that the test seat was a bit of a walk, down this little hidden pathway and then in this tiny little shed that Trevor and I nicknamed the "Shed of Shame". LOL. BUT! It actually worked out pretty well - once the CM saw that I would fit, rather then sending us through the regular line, she walked us through the exit!

We got basically straight on.

Which was really nice, though I guess the amount of time it takes to go to the shed of shame is about the same as waiting in the fastpass line. So it works out.

And yea, they super pad these shoulder restraints so it didn't hurt our heads at all. Nice!

We got off and it was about 10:15, so about time for us to head over to Big Band Beat for our show! We were planning to take the boat over to the front of the park but the boats were down, womp womp. On the bright side though, since we now had to walk we passed a popcorn stand with a pretty short line, as lines for popcorn in DisneySea go.

Salt popcorn for the win!

We kept heading back, and this time as we passed by the Aquatopia area, we saw a CM drawing Minnie!

I love that the CMs do this - just such a nice touch.

Then, as we walked by Cape Cod, we saw a CRAZY line - guess what it was for?

The Duffy photo op we did earlier that morning! Glad we did it earlier.

 

[Araminta18]

Big Band Beat with Popcorn! - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 6)​

As we kept going in Cape Cod area, we saw that the popcorn stand lines were not nothing, but not crazy! So I hopped in line for the Milk Chocolate popcorn, while Trevor kept going to get the Black Pepper popcorn.

It ended up only being about 5 minutes:

Milk Chocolate popcorn! And don't judge, yes I still had the salt popcorn.

I kept heading towards the New York area to meet up with Trevor, and saw the Duffy boat going by!

Look at all those bubbles! So fun.

Over at the New York area, I walked by the McDucks' store and noticed this fountain of gold coins:

Isn't that cute?

Then I met back up with Trevor and it was time to go into the theatre!

Now I love Broadway and musicals, so I loved that they'd names this theatre the Broadway theater.

Our seats were on the far left, but front row!

Not bad at all!

We got there like 15 minutes early, so we were having all sorts of fun trying various mixes of the popcorn: salt and milk chocolate was really good (says me, Trevor didn't like it). Black Pepper and chocolate was ... interesting. Pepper and salt was good, as you may expect.

Ok, the show! The show was fine - as you may expect, it was Big Band music from 30s/40s/50s, which actually isn't my favorite period or my favorite songs, so I wasn't like IN LOVE with the show or anything, but it was cool. And Mickey played the drums. No pics cause they said no.

We got out of the show a little after 11:30, and we had a lunch reservation at 12:20 at Magellan's, so we decided to head over to that area and explore! I'd read that they had cool things over there, and the Da Vinci Explorer's challenge was just recently translated to English, so we wanted to do that.


The theming - top notch. And a ship you can explore!

I made Trevor go over so I could take a picture of him.

Hi Trevor!

More theming pictures:

I love the little waterfall!

Then we went off and explored the ship!

 

[Araminta18]

SEA Exploration - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 7)​

The ship was a lot of fun to explore - super detailed and lots of fun interactive elements. And Society of Explorers and Adventurers references!


They had cannons that you could play with and they'd go off:

And the views from the ship were fantastic:


The ship was all outfitted as if it were ready for a voyage (at least as far as I could tell, with my 0 experience in this. )

After playing around for a bit, we decided to get off the ship and explore the area, specifically doing the Leonardo Challenge.

We went up those stairs to the upper level, and had great timing - it was 11:55, and the Challenge opened at noon. Brilliant. Unfortunately the pre-show/introduction was all in Japanese, so we had no idea what it was saying. But basically we had to follow a scavenger hunt until we got to Leonardo's tower, and they gave us a map/thing to follow.

We ended up going to about 3 or 4 of the sites -

Lots of stairs! Though there was the literal slowest elevator I've ever seen.

Waterfall!

I didn't realize that the scavenger hunt wouldn't take you to all the spots, though I suppose I should have, cause duh. But it was still fun to have this directed exploration of the fortress. And at the end, you get to emboss your little map with the SEA symbol!

 

[Araminta18]

Lunch at Magellan's - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 8)​

We had great timing - we finished right at 12:20, which was our reservation time. And where were we eating?

Magellan's! This was the one restaurant (outside of Fantasy Springs) that I really wanted to eat at, and had heard good things about. I'd heard about asking to eat in the wine cellar but decided against asking, so we could sit in the main dining room.
We got brought inside and that view - wow!


You enter on the upper floor and go down the stairs to the main dining room. Super cool looking! I was hoping we'd get seated in the center but we got seated off to the side.

Still cool though!

For drinks, Trevor just got a ginger ale, while I got the Magellan drink: Fruit Syrup, Cranberry Drink, Grape Jelly, Orange Drink, Cinnamon Stick.

It came in this cute little souvenir cup you could buy, though we didn't.

And had a rose on top!

The Cast Member who brought it said that the layering of the colors is meant to mimic the costumes of the Magellan's CMs, which is cool. As for the drink itself, I liked it. It was sweet, slightly floral, and then that grape jelly was a very artificial flavor, but not bad. Trevor also liked it, but not enough to order his own.

As far as menus, they were offering a special Frozen-inspired menu for Food and Wine festival, and I'd seen pictures of the food - it looked super cute! But a bunch of it was fish, and I don't like fish, so I decided to go with the standard Magellan's menu, but Trevor went for the Frozen menu. They described it as "a series of courses inspired by Anna and Elsa’s Frozen Journey."

For hors d'oeuvre, Trevor's was described as: "The hors d’oeuvre, made with Nordic ingredients, is based on Olaf. His face is cod brandade with a carrot nose, while his body is king crab, served with celery root salad."

Isn't that adorable? It was fish though; Trevor liked it. He did give me a bite of a piece that didn't have as much fish but the bite was still a bit fishy, so I left it to Trevor.

As for me, I got the Lightly Roasted Berkshire Pork with Duck Rillettes, Cheese and Nuts Terrine:

This was good. The pink sauce was berry, and the clear sauce was honey? I may have that wrong, but it was god - very bright and fresh. Yum!

They also brought bread:

Yum. I don't remember what the bread was, but it was good.

Then, the soup/fish dish! I got the Soy Milk-Pumpkin Soup with Coconut and Basil Accent (since no way was I getting the fish).

This didn't look great, but it tasted good. Better than I expected for soy soup, and with a more delicate/sweet flavor than I would have expected.

 

[Araminta18]

Magellan's Lunch Part 2 - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 9)​

Trevor's was a fish dish: "A fish dish depicts the North Mountain, home of Elsa’s ice palace. Hokkaido abalone is covered in yuzu foam, representing Elsa’s closed-off heart.


Trevor said this was good, just fishy. I didn't even try it. Cause gross.

Then the mains! I got the Grilled Beef Loin with Madeira Sauce served with Almond Dukkah

This was good, very much like a dish I'd get at a fancy restaurant back home (as opposed to other western dishes at the resort that come with some kind of odd surprise ). I liked it.

Trevor got: "A beef filet en croute depicts Arendelle Castle. It’s inspired by the food served at castle banquets, featuring berry-scented wince sauce."


Trevor liked his - it was a bit like a beef wellington, but actually good as opposed to the not good beef wellington dishes we'd had at Epcot.

While we were eating the main dish Trevor and I were talking about our flights back home: since I was flying back to Seoul and Trevor was flying back home, we ended up booking him a flight with a layover, out of Narita, since my Seoul flight was also out of Narita. But then we were talking and ended up looking up flight availability and we found 1. a direct flight home for Trevor for half the amount of points, but out of Haneda and 2. a flight for me back to Seoul out of Haneda! So we rebooked onto those flights - still flying out together but Trevor now had a direct flight! A productive lunch.

And then it was time for dessert! I got the Cremet D'Anjou:

Basically a cheesecake mousse thing.

Trevor's dessert: "The dessert brings the story to its conclusion with a chocolate piece depicted Anna and Elsa skating hand in hand. It’s fromage mousse with macedonia lemon sorbet and mignardises."

Trevor and I switched - he took my cheesecake and I got whatever the heck the Frozen dessert was. The Frozen dessert was delicious - nice and light ice sorbet, and then a cheesy thing that didn't taste like cheesecake (thankfully). Trevor like the cremet d'anjou - he said it was super light too.

We also got a little chocolate/macaron thing at the end:

Cute!

Overall, it was a good lunch. Expensive (24000 yen or about $168 at the time), but very very good.

Love that ceiling painting!

It was a little after 1:30 when we finished, so we decided to ride the boat around the park if it was open, before heading to the room to take a nap. And it was open! We only waited like 5 minutes, not bad at all.


Fun view of the Columbia.

 

[Araminta18]

Naptime and Long Bread - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 10)​

We also got a closer look at the "leak" in the wall.

Such a neat piece of theming!

I can't remember if they let us stay on or if we had to get off and back on at the stop in the back of the park, but either way, we rode it around back to the front of the park and then took advantage of our hotel entrance to quickly get back to the room for a nap! As we got to the room and were laying down, we saw the band playing out in the piazza!

A lovely thing to fall asleep to.

We had a good nap for about 2 hours, leaving the room at about 4:30. As we entered the park from the hotel entrance, we exited right by Mama Biscotti's so I was like OOOH do they have the Mickey longbread? It's only sold after like 3:30 pm or something like that, and then it sells out, so I was like let's see! And, they did!



It really is shaped like Mickey! And it's so soft, we were just tearing chunks off. It has the flavor of a baguette, without the texture (which works for me, I prefer soft vs crispy on the outside. ) Also it was HUGE! Way bigger than I was expecting.

We also got the Strawberry Castella cake:

This was basically strawberry inbetween pancakes - the bread/outside tasted and had the texture of pancakes. Not bad!

After we'd finished eating the bread (well as much of the bread as we were going to) Trevor so kindly ran it back up to the room.

We were on the top floor, the only one with the little balcony.

You can kind of see Trevor waving through the window!

Once Trevor came back, it was time to head to our reservation at the Teddy Roosevelt Lounge. Well, our reservation wasn't until like 7 or so, but we had an overlapping fastpass (my bad) so we decided to try and go early and see if they'd seat us.

The ship is really cool - no idea how real it is but it feels like what a ship would be!

 

[Araminta18]

Teddy Roosevelt Lounge - Tuesday May 27, 2025 (part 11)​

We checked in, and after about 10 minutes, we got seated! Yay! The downside was that we got seated at a table right by the entrance, so we didn't really get to enjoy the ambiance of the lounge. But we placed our order and then I went off to look around. There were lots of fun touches around:

Like tigers holding the lamps.

Further in the lounge they had some exhibit cases with stuff about Teddy Roosevelt:

a teddy bear!


Tokyo Disney does have some amazing murals.

And then holding up the bar:

Bears!

Cute touch!

As far as what to order: none of the food really appealed, except the Fruit and Crepe Parfait (Macaron, Panna Cotta, Pear Sorbet):

Looked cool!

And a fun glass - love the not-so-hidden mickey on it. This was super interesting - the pear sorbet was good, and the fruit was good, but there were also random things like raisins, and chocolate frosted flakes. Such interesting choices!

Then, mocktails! They had several mocktails on the menu but only just the name, and nothing else, so we had to go in blind. We ordered basically all of them. First up, the Cinderella:

This was veeeery tart - something citrusy? Almost like just straight up juice from an orange or lemon or something. Veery tart.

Then, the Saratoga Cooler:

Trevor took a drink and made a face - he said not cause it was bad but because he was expecting it to be sweet but instead it was sour. This one I liked a bit better, there was a bit of sweetness. Though SO MUCH ICE.

And then the Virgin Breeze:

This was VEEEERY bitter - very much grapefruit. Just tasted mostly of the acid and not sweet at all. Didn't like this one at all.