3 teens in Tokyo! - we survived!! - Trip Report!!! Now with Photos!!!

After lunch we headed to its a small world, I thought this was lovely, and I definitely felt the Disney magic here - however we were deeply disappointed in the australian representation. !
Cringe factor was pretty high from the kids!

Next up, the carousel and tea cups - the kids wouldn't ride the tea cups and I am not so keen on too much spinning, but letting DH ride on his own, would just be well, weird!!

We refused to queue for dumbo.

There was a 30minute wait for poohs hunny hunt, but we picked up a Fastpass with return time of 6:30.

We missed haunted mansion and headed to splash mountain - thirty minute wait here, I am not keen on the big drop, but had ridden it before and survived, so joined the queue. DD waited for us - she had ridden it before and would rather wait for us.

Then it was Big Thunder Mountain Railroad - again it was a thirty minute wait, I love this one, I am ok with speed, it's the big drops I don't like. Again DD would rather wait.
As we came off the parade was starting to come around - we tried to get a view, but clearly you have to camp out for this. Bit we turned around and Big Thunder was now down to five minutes, so we rode again!


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Just caught up on the updates. I love a lazy weekend on the couch reading TR's. Photos were great too!

Uh oh, you DS got sick! That doesn't sound good! Disney Sea sounds awesome! It's definitely a park that I want to visit one day!
 
Great updates. Sorry that DS was sick. And you can tell your family that it sure sounds like a place to avoid!
 
Loving the updates but sorry DS was sick. I also felt very sick (but not to throwing up stage) the afternoon after we had Queen of Hearts but I am blaming the Mickey pork bun I had during the am as I was starting to feel a bit "off" by our early lunchtime. DH and I had the same-seafood meal and he was perfectly well but I agree, I thought the food was average-we had better elsewhere though I think the preceding day lunch was pretty average in the Lost Delta too though dinner at Cape Cod was nice.
 
Moving on, we hit the enchanted tiki room and then the jungle cruise. There was a lot of narration that we didnt understand on the jungle cruise, but we ducked, and oohed and laughed when everyone else did!

We rode the Mark Twain riverboat.

For dinner, i gave DD the park map and said, you choose - she chose the lucky nugget cafe, which was just a quick service with an outdoor seating area, and a nice outlook, fried chicken, nothing to write home about, but we were fed.

After this we made our way back to fantasy land, Poohs hunny hunt had a 20minute wait, so we decided to get in line, even though we did have fast passes up our sleeve. boys decided to ride the Tomorrowland racers instead. We met up at the racers and all rode again, (for my mind this is the worst ride in the place, so slow and that smell of two stroke, ugh!! Looking at the park map, which I know is not to scale, it takes up a lot of room, enough room for a Fantasyland expansion I think!!

Next up, Monsters inc, which I had completely forgotten about even though this is one of the headline attractions. The wait was twenty minutes so we jumped on
Then we we headed back to Poohs hunny hunt to use our fast passes.

We felt we had done everything - but wanted to stay for the night time spectacular - I had heard that fireworks were less impressive than Florida but thought they would have the show where they project images of the day onto the castle, we really enjoyed this in the Magic Kingdom.

so we found a spot on the bridge over to Tomorrowland, I thought it was strange that no one was staking out their positions as they had done for the parades, then we walked over to the building and there was an even better spot with a great view and a seat, it was too good to be true!!

We waited for a while, no one else was, didn't they know what a great display this was going to be???.

I got my camera all set, one of the biggest disappointments about these parks is that you can't use a tripod, or a gorillapod or anything that will hold your camera steady, so night shots are pretty hard to get. Apparently they are very strict about this, so ever the rule follower, I wasn't going to chance it.

Waiting, waiting, waiting - then a announcement in English, "sorry ladies and gentlemen, but due to the weather conditions the night time show has been cancelled". - grrrrr!!!!

We didnt understand as the weather was beautiful, not a breath of wind - we think it was technical difficulties and they pressed the wrong button on the announcement.

So very disappointed we made our way back to the sheraton.

We all hit the hay, until around midnight when DS decided be couldn't hang on to his lunch any longer.

Ahh the joys of sharing one room and one very close bathroom!!! - DH attended to him, the others didnt even wake up, even though it was quite a performance!! This went on for a while, he eventually settled and got some sleep. In the morning there was a repeat performance, but then he said he felt fine - he just had to get rid if something.

Sorry for too much information, but you guys need to know EVERYTHING right??


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Love the pics - thought of comments as reading and looking and now forget-I wish I'd taken a pic of the Columbia from where you did. It is such a photogenic park! Glad you enjoyed the decadent but delish stuffed crepe. You have some nice ones of the family in TDS albeit minus one each time apart from the Goofy pic. Pity its a bit blurry as yes, great one of all of you.
 
Sorry that DS didn't feel well and ended up having a repeat performance (with encore) about lunch. And yes, there is no such thing as too much information on the Dis. :rotfl2:


Pity about the night time show. No tripod?? WOW!


ps. Loving your pictures.
 
I remembered a couple of comments-Toy Story was still being built when we were there and I love the way they have repainted Mermaid Lagoon-so vibrant colours outside-compare to our pics last year and you can see how faded they were.
 
I also see from my TR that at the time I did quite like the meal at Queen's Banquet Hall-must have gone off it after feeling queasy during the pm! DD I know really enjoyed her soup and salad.
 
Aussie Wendy said:
Love the pics - thought of comments as reading and looking and now forget-I wish I'd taken a pic of the Columbia from where you did. It is such a photogenic park! Glad you enjoyed the decadent but delish stuffed crepe. You have some nice ones of the family in TDS albeit minus one each time apart from the Goofy pic. Pity its a bit blurry as yes, great one of all of you.
Click to expand...
Wish I had a decent night time photo at that spot! It so much more satisfying when you can say "I took that photo"

PrincessInOz said:
Sorry that DS didn't feel well and ended up having a repeat performance (with encore) about lunch. And yes, there is no such thing as too much information on the Dis. :rotfl2:

Pity about the night time show. No tripod?? WOW!

ps. Loving your pictures.
Click to expand...

PIO I was thinking of you. Yes tripods are not allowed, and you will get pulled up about it.
The reason Japan runs so well is because everyone follows the rules.
You will have to get creative and use garbage cans, fence rails etc to steady your camera. I think I have a few decent ones of the castle, using a fence rail, I haven't looked closely at them on a big screen.

Aussie Wendy said:
I remembered a couple of comments-Toy Story was still being built when we were there and I love the way they have repainted Mermaid Lagoon-so vibrant colours outside-compare to our pics last year and you can see how faded they were.
Click to expand...

Maybe a little colour saturation in my photo editing helped!! Lol!
 
Wednesday 17th April


So after DS's rough night, he said he was feeling fine but we all took it easy this morning - today was to be our second day at Disneysea, but as we felt we had covered most of the park on Monday there was no rush.

DH decided that he would head into Tokyo on his own for a while and he would meet us in the room at 11:00.

We headed to the park around noon, we actually walked through the lobby of the Miracosta hotel to enter the park - OMG, stunning!!!!

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there was a couple of things we wanted to achieve today, a goyoza bun and to see the Legend of Mythica show.

It took a bit of navigation skills to find the park map and the place where they sold the Goyoza buns, but we found it. We enjoyed the bun, but it wasn't lunch, and as it was now well past our 11:00 lunch window - we decided to eat at the Cape Cod cook off again as we had enjoyed that previously.


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Now we were a bit later than we were the previous time, but there seemed to be quite a crowd. Once we had our food we were herded into a room on the right, rather than finding our own way and going to the dining area on the left as we had done the other day.

Well we found ourselves among the My Friend Duffy show that we hadn't intended to be in.

Very cute all in Japanese, and oh so much cringe!!! One thing that I had intended on making everyone do was a character meal at Crystal Palace or the Horizon Bay restaurant , but when it came down to it, I wasn't willing to pay $40 per person for an "experience" that they would only just be tolerating.

So this was it as far as character meals for our family, and the characters never even left the stage! :(



We watched the legend of Mythica, which was pretty spectacular, but i did feel sorry for the jet skiers as it was a pretty cold day, no wetsuit, no matter how sparkly would keep you dry and warm on a day like today,

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Somehow, these two weren't quite as fascinated with the legend of Mythica as I was!




Next up, raging spirits and another go on Indiana jones. Tower of Terror was at ten minutes, but i still couldnt bring myself to go on. We filled the afternoon wandering the park, but DS was not his usual self and we headed back pretty early.


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Yeah,I took a photo of the screen, look at DS in the drivers seat !

Dinner tonight was at the Ikspieri food court, we found a table, I gave everyone 1000¥ and everyone chose their own meal! It's really quite good, I think I had a fried noodle dish.
 
Love the photos, sorry to hear about DS being sick!
I hope our kids never grow to old for Disney ;)
 
So, it was an overnight thing for your DS? Glad it wasn't any worse and that it really probably just was a dodgy seafood thing.

Looking forward to seeing your pics on the 17th update. Sounds like a great day.

And yes, I can get creative with trashcans and the like. :thumbsup2
 
Great TR! In going to Japan in August and I am glued to your Trip Report for tips....Needless to say I'll be skipping Queen of Hearts for lunch!

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards
 
I promise I will finish!

I usually surf the net, update dis etc on my ipad - but editing my photos involves actually using a computer, which is not as easy as laying on the couch with an iPad!
 
Thursday 18th April

Today was our second day at Tokyo Disneyland. Again we had done the headliners so were in no hurry to be early and we had a coup,e of chores that needed to be done first.

Before we left, I had packed our luggage and dropped it into luggage services - we were sending it via "takkyubbin" or courier to our accommodation in Kyoto. Apparently this is commonplace in Japan to avoid carrying luggage on trains, but was a giant leap of faith for me!! I was doubly concerned as our accommodation was a house, without a reception, but my contact had said it was fine to send it this way and she would be there at the allotted time to accept it, she gave me the address of the property written in Japanese - and for all I knew it could have said anything!!

I was second guessing this choice but knew that we had to catch a peak hour commuter train to Tokyo station and after our experience with that, I knew dragging two full suitcases was not an option.

As you may have guessed everything worked out fine, but I sure was feeling a little nervous handing over my brand new samsonite spinners to somebody that didnt understand a word of anything I said. One of the hotel staff assured me in her broken English that it would be fine, as long as the address I had given them was correct, -

This did little to reassure me!



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We had lunch at beckers somewhere about now!


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The fake food displays are quite impressive!!


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Who says you have to actually speak to anyone?? order your meal here!!

Next up - we had to exchange our rail pass vouchers. We found the JR office at Maihama station but was told that we can only exchange them at Tokyo station. :( . As. We were leaving early the next morning, this meant we had to make a quick trip into Tokyo. DH and I decided we would go in alone, the kids headed off to Disneyland on their own, we said we would meet them at the Partners statue at 2:00pm - it was now 11:30.

So DH and I got our job done, I took my ipad and had screen shots of the trains we wished to take and they booked our seats while we were there. This was a painless but tedious process and we were soon headed back to Disneyland.

We arrived back and headed to the partners statue, it was right on two, and after our history of meeting up at Disneysea, I planted myself and waited, but I did notice that I wasn't the only one sitting on the ground. The kids eventually turned up at 2:30 - I wasn't worried because I knew they may have gotten in line for something, I didn't expect them to get out just because it was two, -

Anyway by now, a lot of people were waiting, and I realised they were waiting for the parade, so having already sat for 30minutes in a prime spot, I decided I would wait for the parade as well. The family were not so keen, so they all headed off to space mountain, this suited me, so I stayed put and waited for the parade. I have never seen a Disney parade before, but this was quite spectacular, the floats were amazing - and......the crowd all sat down!!!!


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Straight after the parade, Pirates was a walk on, so we jumped on!! Loved it!!!!

We filled in the rest of the afternoon ticking things of the list, such as haunted mansion - Loved it!!!. We did spend a considerable amount of time queuing for Peter Pan , which sort of killed it for us, but it's very cute.


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As we had missed the nighttime show previously we were keen to see it, however we decided to head out of the park to eat at the Ikspieri as we had all enjoyed our dinner their previously.

So, fed and watered we headed back into the park and found a prime viewing spot, only to find out the show had been cancelled AGAIN!!!!!

Well, my DD was most upset, she wanted to write a letter to Disney and tell them this has ruined her childhood (she will be 18 soon, so this is the last of her childhood) she was joking of course, but we all left very disappointed.
 
Friday 19th April

Sadly it was time to leave Disney, we definitely felt that we got all of the parks covered in our four days there, our Disney Do-over was successful and I know this might be heresy to say on these boards, but I can't see us travelling to any Disney parks in the foreseeable future,there are just too many other places in the world to see - but should they build one "down under" I am sure we will be the first ones there!!

I don't think I can give a fair comparison between TDL and the Magic Kingdom, as my time there felt so jaded - there are many discussions on the net about this subject, for my mind it was pretty much a replica, and Disneysea is just amazing. We certainly felt the Disney magic, and language was never a problem, so for us it was a perfect fit.


As our luggage had already been taken care of, this morning we just gathered our carryon stuff and headed off on our next leg. We had to catch the Shinkansen at 8:36 and as I knew Tokyo station was huge and would be crowded we headed off by 7:00 am.

As expected the commuter train was packed, we managed to all get on, just short of a push, but were immensely grateful not to have our luggage, although we did have two wheeled duffles as well as assorted backpacks, camera bags and jackets. I am sure a few commuters were cursing at the family of gaijin tourists!!.

We got to Tokyo and found the shinkansen tracks and our platform with plenty of time. The carriage numbers are marked on the platform and you line up and wait. It really is quite an orderly process.

We were headed to Nagano and than onto Yudanaka to visit the famed snow monkey park and stay in a traditional ryokan for the night.

the bullet train arrived and we boarded, unfortunately we could only get single reserved seats, so we all sat apart. The train was amazing, it took a while to reach its full speed, but when it did WOW!! It was so smooth however, that you really had no idea of how fast you were going.

The metropolis of Tokyo spread for ages but the high rise apartment blocks soon gave way to more low rise free standing houses. All built in a uniquely Japanese fashion, We thought everything was a little ramshackle, even places that looked new. You would see a few new houses right next to a rice paddy, with no new roads or surrounding infrastructure. I don't think there are planning laws like we have to abide by here, can't build less than 1metre from your fence, have to have off street parking, a certain amount of greenspace etc,etc, etc. -

Throughout the while trip, I wouldn't call the countryside especially scenic or postcard beautiful. It was very flat, until you get these steep mountains.

Soon enough we arrived at Nagano. We had about thirty minutes here to make a connecting train. In my planning I had figured that that would be enough time to grab something to eat. But I underestimated how long it takes just to get off the train and down into the main part of the station. As meals had been a problem for us, the first shop we came to I sent the family in and said quickly get yourself something to eat - I was getting panicked as I did not know where the platform was that we had to get to was.

So while they were in the shop, I was trying to work out where to go, I found a information window, that told me - down here, up there, round there, in here - all directions that left my head as soon as quickly as they entered. Oh, and the train wasn't covered by our JR passes and that we needed to buy tickets!!

time was running out, the family was still in this shop. DH went in and realised it was a sit down affair, so pulled them out, 1 DS had already ordered, so he waited for his meal - meanwhile I was about having a coronary outside - much signals between DH and I through the window and they came out.

I still had no idea where the platform was and the directions I was given seemed to take us outside the station. I can't tell you how sick I was feeling, trains to Yudanaka are few and far between, so if we missed it, our whole day would be ruined. Just writing that now, it seems so silly that i was in such a panic about it, because what would be the worst that could happen?

I remember gaining some sort of super human strength, and even though I was carrying a backpack, a camera bag, a coat I picked up the wheeled duffle that DS was carrying and lifted it and literally ran up this escalator, like a madwoman, with the rest of the family in my wake, too scared to do anything but follow me!!

We eventually found the platform and the ticket office - I was literally shaking, but we still had to deal with a ticket machine - I tell you money was flying out of my purse , I couldn't feed it in the machine,

But in the end - we got the tickets, got on the train in plenty of time. But gee I did not like that one bit!!!
 
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