ichabody
Jiminy Crickets! Podcast co-host
- Joined
- Oct 16, 2011
My wife is Japanese and so naturally we've traveled back there many times. In 2010 we made a quick stop at Tokyo Disneyland for just a day because we were heading back home to California the next day...so we missed Tokyo DisneySea Which is a shame because we consider to be the most fabulous Disney Park ever created in the universe. Well, last June we had the opportunity to go back to Japan and this time we planned on doing a four day trip! There are limited websites for planning purposes (compared to WDW) but we did come across Tom Bricker's super mega awesome website, Disney Tourist Blog and he has what I consider to be the most thorough and entertaining Tokyo Disney Resort planning website available in English. The dude loves Tokyo DisneySea as much as breathing...maybe even more...he may like In-n-Out burger more than those two, but that's another story. You can find his planning guide here: http://www.disneytouristblog.com/tokyo-disney-trip-planning-guide/
First, let me introduce my family...I'm Brian...the Disney Nerd Dad (DISDad #792), my wife Masako who loves Disney as much as my daughter loved her first ride on Tower of Terror; My daughter, Sarah, who is my partner in Disney crime; My two Disney-loving thrill-seeking boys Andrew (older) and Kyle. Here is a pic of us before we ate at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall:
We pre-purchased our 4 day ticket ahead of time and had the tickets mailed to my wife's address in Japan (they do not mail tickets to addresses outside of Japan). We could have printed them at home, but we decided not to. One thing about the four day ticket is that you choose which parks you want to attend the first two days, then the last two days you can park hop. We picked Disneyland first, despite our eagerness to get to DisneySea, since we were meeting some friends who lived in Tokyo and they had only one day so Disneyland it was. DisneySea was day 2 then back to Disneyland day 3 and finished up at DisneySea on day 4. You should avoid visiting the park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday if possible, but since our friends had kids who had to be in school on Monday we met on Sunday and stayed at the resort until Wednesday.
We stayed at the Palm and Fountain Terrace hotel http://www.palmandfountainterracehotel.com/english/access/index.html which is technically off-property, but it is a partner hotel so we had a speedy shuttle each morning. It was a great hotel, not much theming, but it was perfectly adequate for our family of five and the room was a decent size even for my 6'3" frame!
We got up bright and early on Day 1, hit probably the first shuttle from the hotel and got to Disneyland about 45 minutes before the gates open. HIGHLY recommend arriving that early because if you don't...well, just get there early if you want to ride anything cool. Our friends arrived 30 minutes before we did and got a spot near the gates...LUCKY!! We joined them on their mat and commenced our plan of attack while eating our breakfast that we purchased the night before in our hotel's convenience store.
Well, I'm going to end this first post here and figure out how to resize my photos on Windows 8 so I can show you the scene in front of the gates!!! Tomorrow: the mad dash to Pooh's Hunny Hunt!
First, let me introduce my family...I'm Brian...the Disney Nerd Dad (DISDad #792), my wife Masako who loves Disney as much as my daughter loved her first ride on Tower of Terror; My daughter, Sarah, who is my partner in Disney crime; My two Disney-loving thrill-seeking boys Andrew (older) and Kyle. Here is a pic of us before we ate at the Queen of Hearts Banquet Hall:
We pre-purchased our 4 day ticket ahead of time and had the tickets mailed to my wife's address in Japan (they do not mail tickets to addresses outside of Japan). We could have printed them at home, but we decided not to. One thing about the four day ticket is that you choose which parks you want to attend the first two days, then the last two days you can park hop. We picked Disneyland first, despite our eagerness to get to DisneySea, since we were meeting some friends who lived in Tokyo and they had only one day so Disneyland it was. DisneySea was day 2 then back to Disneyland day 3 and finished up at DisneySea on day 4. You should avoid visiting the park on Friday, Saturday and Sunday if possible, but since our friends had kids who had to be in school on Monday we met on Sunday and stayed at the resort until Wednesday.
We stayed at the Palm and Fountain Terrace hotel http://www.palmandfountainterracehotel.com/english/access/index.html which is technically off-property, but it is a partner hotel so we had a speedy shuttle each morning. It was a great hotel, not much theming, but it was perfectly adequate for our family of five and the room was a decent size even for my 6'3" frame!
We got up bright and early on Day 1, hit probably the first shuttle from the hotel and got to Disneyland about 45 minutes before the gates open. HIGHLY recommend arriving that early because if you don't...well, just get there early if you want to ride anything cool. Our friends arrived 30 minutes before we did and got a spot near the gates...LUCKY!! We joined them on their mat and commenced our plan of attack while eating our breakfast that we purchased the night before in our hotel's convenience store.
Well, I'm going to end this first post here and figure out how to resize my photos on Windows 8 so I can show you the scene in front of the gates!!! Tomorrow: the mad dash to Pooh's Hunny Hunt!