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

[JMcDisney]

Awesome report! A cliffhanger at the end even! Great job!

 

[ChrisFL]

OMG Cliffhanger!!

 

[lurkyloo]

Sorry! I just hadda break it up or I never would have gone to bed last night! OK, here's some more...

 

[lurkyloo]

When we got to Maihama Station, we RAN all the way to Disneyland station and grabbed the monorail to Tokyo Disney Sea. This is good news for you because it means we only had time to take three pictures…

Our hearts raced as the monorail puttered into the station and ambled out of it.


Faster!

Faster!!

FASTER!!!

We dashed up to the ticket booths and… the park was OPEN! Hooray! We paid the full rate to go in at 1:30pm and we didn't even care! We were THERE!

After dumping our stuff in a locker, we took stock of the changes since last week. Spring appeared to have sprung overnight, and Tinkerbell and her pals were out in force.

Our first stop was Journey to the Center of the Earth for FASTPASSes, but they were, predictably, gone. But we didn't care—we were THERE!


The line for the gyoza cart doubled back on itself a couple times

This day reminded me of the last day of our honeymoon, when we spent the remaining hours in Epcot just soaking in as much of it as we could before we had to leave. But it wasn't sad—it felt like we were seeing through fresh eyes! Everything was bigger and brighter and more exciting than before. And I was finally fully in the moment enjoying what we were doing right then.


…And what we were doing right then was taking more &$*#@%! pictures of that &$*#@%! volcano!

FASTPASS-less, we set off for Arabian Coast and got one of my favorite photos from the trip. At last, a sunny day!

Arabian Coast had been seriously sprinkled with Tink & Co.'s spring carnival pixie dust.

 

[lurkyloo]

I was inordinately impressed to see that the Raja heads on the fountain had been exchanged for Genie ones. Such a simple thing but it made a huge impact—what a great idea!

We kept exclaiming, "They would never do this much retheming in the US parks!"

Because it was so crowded that day, we also got to see the character mob in practice. We'd heard about how people just rush the characters and no one wait in line, but today was the most frenzied we'd seen.


I looooved Daisy's costume

 

[lurkyloo]

From Arabian Coast we looped around toward Lost River Delta in search of the elusive Cheesecake Chimichanga! All the planets aligned and we were there during the 20 minuts that Tropic Al's was open for business and still had said chimichangas. What would they be like? I got in the loooong line. And then I actually spotted some…

What?! Yellow CHURROS? Those ain't no chimichangas, and you can bet there's no cheesecake in them! HarRUMPH!

I passed. Instead we shot another popcorn bucket for you.

So Patrick has invented a friendly and one-sided rivalry with my PassPorter co-worker's husband, who once bragged to us about his wacky Donald hat that could only be obtained at Tokyo Disney. Hence this picture…

How ya like me now?!

Patrick's serious side

We decided to try Miguel's El Dorado Cantina for lunch. It was nice to take advantage of this rare sunny day by eating outside on the downstairs deck.

We also lucked into an hilarious photo op…

"Help us… please help us!"

"I heard that, you two!!!"

We split a fajita platter. It was… not great.

"Fajita Trio: Grilled Beef, Chicken, Shrimp, and Vegetables You Can Wrap In Homemade Flour Tortillas" ¥980

As we ate, we were accosted by Japanese duck with a taste for Mexican food… or possibly Cheetos…


"You look American—got any Cheetos?"

"Um, Cheetos?"

"A-cheetos-ooooo!"

"Gimme some CHEETOS!!!"

After lunch we walked over to Indiana Jones to ride single-rider and LOVED it again! I even got to sit in the best seat, the one where the giant snake attacks you – whohoo!

This is hard to see, but it's a feature of the queue. Fun things happen when the light of the "sun" moves over it every once in a while.

I love you, details!

 

[lurkyloo]

Yes, but do you have unleaded…?

Oh look! Here's me after getting attacked by the giant snake.

After that we walked back to Araby and got coconut soft serve. I tried the maple custard balls, and that's pretty much just what they were! But, as you know, ice cream improved them.

I've talked about how surprisingly unappealing most of Tokyo Disney's merchandise ws to us because it's so character-focused. Well, the brand new spring promotion merchandise was a whole 'nother story. It was SO colourful, I had to force myself not to buy it all (and I may or may not have collected a rat's nest worth of the themed shopping bags…).

Unfortunately, I only have this one picture

Who wants to see the overflow queue for Sindbad's Storybook Voyage?

Regular queue…

We had to go on this again, what with it being among Patrick's favorites.

In Lost River Delta we stumbled on Panchito and Jose Caricoa (and prolly Donald, but he was so mobbed we couldn't see him).

 

[lurkyloo]

Around the corner in Port Discovery we ran into the Incredibles.

We tried, but we had to skip Aquatopia because we weren’t waiting no 45 minutes to putter around in shallow water for a few seconds.

All this was new for spring!

I never want to see live shows at Disney parks, but I'd been curious about Big Band Beat because it features a full swing band. I'm still not sure how the FASTPASS works for this show—apparently it sells out quickly—because they were just letting anybody walk up and wait in line. It looks long in this picture, but we only had to wait about 20 minutes and had no trouble getting decent seats—the theater is HUGE!

While we waited, we spotted the walkaround Duffy again. I still don't get why they can't make him look just like the actual bear, since, you know, he's just a big walkaround stuffed bear…

The Pied Piper of American Waterfront

 

[lurkyloo]

The theater was gorgeous inside, and a lot like the grand old movie palaces in Downtown LA. I'm not sure we were allowed to take pix in there, and I *know* we were supposed to take them during the show, so… this is all I have…

Patrick only went to see Big Band Beat because I wanted to, but afterward he was like, "WOW!" It was spectacular – there were huge production numbers, a big cast, lots of dancing and singing and swinging! Oh, and there were characters, if you're into that sort of thing. It wasn't full-on Broadway sized, but I'd wager it's about the size of your better cruise ship productions.

Afterward we poked around in more shops to be enchanted by all the new spring merchandise – the colors were so appealing! I may have bought some lot of stuff.

The terraced area is where you can view the lagoon show if you manage to score a FASTPASS

My one regret about the non-hopping park passes was not being able to go into Tokyo Disneyland to get one of these adorable Easter egg-themed popcorn buckets. Some of the designs are exclusive to just one park.

For your enjoyment, Patrick extensively documented the fairy display at the park entrance.

(Sorry it's blurry—she was moving too fast!)

We went back to our locker to get our jackets (¥300).

 

[lurkyloo]

Menu for New York Deli

At some point we made a reservation for dinner at the swanky Chinese place in Hotel Mira Costa, Silk Road. But then we realized the park would only be open 2 more hours, so we ditched the dinner reservation and split 3 gyoza at the snack counter on the lower level of Mysterious Island, then dashed to Journey to the Center of the Earth because the wait was listed as 120 minutes (i.e., right up to park closing) and we thought they’d cut the line off. No way would we wait in these kind of lines at the US parks, but when were we ever gonna get here again?

We “only” waited an hour and 5 or 10 minutes to ride it, and it was FAB! When we got out, we saw the line was still open, so we hopped in and waited just 35 or 40 more minutes to ride it one last time. HOORAY!

 

[lurkyloo]

Oh, yeah. Um, I bought some spring ears.

Too tired to mug for the camera.

Scratch that!

Oh great, the lava ruined one of the drinking fountains—bad show, you guys!

Our last ride on Journey to the Center of the Earth was exhilarating—the perfect way to end our trip! And then the park was closed and we walked out taking pictures the whole way and just enjoying our last time there.

 

[lurkyloo]

Finally, it was time to leave Tokyo DisneySea. But because we'd had such a full day and been able to really appreciate our time there, I didn't feel sad to leave. Plus, we had a whole bunch of shoportunities to look forward to!

Since it was Patrick's buddy Brett O who put the idea in my head about going back to Disney later in our trip, we wanted to see if we could find the spring merchandise he'd wanted but missed because he had to fly back before the promo started. So we were on a mission to find a Mad Hatter-looking Mickey for him. Unfortunately, as with the popcorn bucket, most of the merchandise was exclusive to either Tokyo DisneySea or Disneyland, and all the Easter/tea party stuff was in Disneyland. We decided to scour every gift shop outside the parks and see if we could still find it.

The Disneyland Hotel and the shop just outside the gates of Disneyland were a no-go, but Bon Voyage had a good representative sample—including the Mickey, who turned out to be much smaller and much less like the Mad Hatter than he appeared in the merchandise brochure. And he was ¥3200! For a 6-inch doll! Hopefully Brett O still liked him… We also stumbled on a cache of ridiculous hats, including one that wins the prize for MOST Ridiculous Disney Hat Ever.

Sort of Silly

MOST Ridiculous Disney Hat Ever

I mean, really, what *doesn't* this hat have on it?

Finally, we headed for Maihama Station to catch the train back to Tokyo. The platform was PACKED, but we chalked it up to Top Season at Tokyo Disneyland.

We should have known something was amiss when the train came 20 minutes late and crept into the station at a snail's pace. But we managed to squeeze on it with all our bags, standing up in the crush of people. The train moved at about half speed into the next station, the doors opened, and then… nothing happened. After the train had sat for about 15 minutes, people started to get off and cross the platform to the other packed train that had limped into the station. New people coming into the station would get on, but the doors remained open and our fellow passengers began to sit down on the floor. The conductor made periodic announcements, but only in Japanese.

We had absolutely no idea what was going on until the guy sitting next to Patrick took pity on us and explained in English that all the trains had been stopped due to high winds, and there was no estimate of when they would be able to run again! He said that it could be a few minutes or it could be overnight, and that it happened a lot in Tokyo.

It was very eerie sitting on the train as the wind buffeted the cars and people huddled around us like refugees. It was also kind of scary for us because we truly felt stuck out in the boonies—no longer at Disney and not close enough to Tokyo and our hotel. This line was the only way we knew to get back, and we didn't have friends with cars we could call. Some people were going down to the station to look for taxis, but we kept thinking, "What if we go drop ¥¥¥ on a taxi and the train starts up again just as we leave?"

Finally, after another half an hour, our new friend decided he was going to get a hotel room for the night, so we decided to bite the bullet and pay for another taxi ride back to Tokyo. Except when we got down to the street, the line for the taxis was 200 people deep, and cars were trickling in at a rate of one or two every 10 minutes!

It turned out we were out by the huge aquarium Tokyo Sea Life Park, but of course it and everything around was closed for the night.

Wouldn't you know it, the one place open and warm and serving food and offering clean restrooms was McDonald's, and I've never been so glad to see one in my life! I got us the dinner we never had while Patrick waited in the line for taxis. A sort of camaraderie sprang up among we stranded travelers. McDonald's was packed with tourists chatting and laughing, and people walked around in the street outside hoping to catch a glimpse of the next taxi coming to rescue us.

We kept joking that every taxi driver in Tokyo should be descending on the spot to pick up all these easy fares, but it was another 45 minutes before a fleet of them finally rolled up.

One ¥5500 taxi ride later (ouch!) we were safely back at our hotel—and it was prolly the best money we spent on the trip!

Up Next: The Wrap-Up! Using the Limo Bus, Negotiating Narita Airport, and Tallying Up All Our Loot!

 

[lurkyloo]

Our last day in Tokyo went quite smoothly, and we’d had enough time in Japan (plus that last visit to Disney) that I didn’t feel like I had missed anything on our list. In fact, I can't ever remember feeling so content at the end of a trip—neither sad to leave nor desperate to get home.

We woke up around 9 and emptied our suitcases and repacked the whole shebang, including souvenirs, and weighed the two checked bags.

Disney would make a mint if they could create a functioning Mary Poppins bag…

Our breakfast consisted of the "Delicious" model of the convenience store's "Sandwich Series"… no, really—look!

Not only that, but it sent to us the lovely flavour of the wind in the meadows!

It had a surprising deliciousness which we'll never forget. Ever.

So long, view!

After we checked out, we left our bags at the bell desk and went in search of a good last lunch (the surprising deliciousness already forgotten). We found it on the top floor of the Daimaru department store at what is apparently one of Tokyo’s premier eel restaurants.

We got a seat with a nice view…

….But that wasn't the only place with a view—check out the john!

World's Best View from a Urinal

This was probably the least edible meal of our trip for me – the eel and the rice was about all I could do, and the eel had little bones that irritated my already irritated throat.

Three guesses what this is, and the first two don't count

Eel combo meal

The two businessmen next to us struck up a conversation with us. One was Japanese and one was French, and the Japanese guy complimented me on my Japanese pronunciation! When I told them I’d only had 2 weeks to learn, they seemed really surprised, and the French guy wrote down the name of the program I used because he was having trouble picking up the language. Now Patrick thinks they were just flattering me, cuz when I excused myself to go cough up some eel bones, the Japanese guy quizzed Patrick about whether we were a couple. Now I know this is the city where you can find such off-the-wall fetish items as used underpants in vending machines, but somehow I doubt this guy had a thing for ginormous pasty broads in frumpy, too-short pants and frizzy hair …

I *think* this is a shot of the elevator we took down to the basement of Daimaru.

Swanky macaroons

On our way out we got some shots of the baumkuchen counter for you…

The ever-present line

Hundreds of dollars' worth of baumkuchen

We back to our hotel to get our bags and ask about catching a limo bus to Narita Airport. We were able to buy our tickets right there (cash only), which was a big relief cuz I was stressed out about buying the fare on the bus from the ticket agent for some reason. Oh yeah, because you can only buy them at the second stop, Tokyo City Airpoort, and I didn't know if I'd have to get off the bus or what (turns out the agent comes on the bus and goe down the aisle selling tickets). Then they drew us a map to the limo bus stop across the street from Tokyo Station.

We picked up our bags back at the hotel and wended our way through the construction zones at Tokyo Station and emerged at the correct exit (hooray) to cross the street and meet the limo bus. Here's what the stop looks like.

They must've known I'd be there…

The bus ride was easy and comfy – we got our own rows of seats to put our huge carry-ons in.

]


Last-minute kawaii

I dunno, it's just weird to see the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel from this vantage point

 

[lurkyloo]

CASTLE!!!

Check in went smoothly, and security had the shortest line ever. JAL had these robo-check-in machines, but they weren't saving a lot of labor, cuz as soon as we approached one, a nice employee came over to help us use it.

So THAT's where Tokyo's recycling containers all are!

Once you get beyond security, there's miniature mall to browse while you wait for your flight. When we spotted our pal Anita's two favorite stores—Hermés and Tiffany—right next to each other, we had to get a shot.

There was also a mini-Akhiabara hawking electronic goods, plus the usual assortment of gift-wrapped foodstuffs, most of which we'd never actually encountered in Tokyo.

Wait a minute—how'd this picture get in the camera? Paaaaaatrick!!!

Because eel bones only tide you over so long, we decided to have a second lunch at a café—which took Pasmo/Suica for payment! I merrily depleted the remaining balance on my subway card to buy our lunch.

Then we loaded up on snacks for the plane at a convenience store, including a jumbo box of Patrick's favorite Meiji strawberry candies, which I saved as a surprise.

Our plane

Hooray!

And then we got on the plane! It was an uneventful flight, about 9 hours. The only drag was that the seatback TVs cut out a few times for about 20 minutes. But I still managed to catch “Up in the Air” and the truly awful “Did You Hear About the Morgans?” plus 1/3 of “Kinky Boots.”

The people in the row ahead of us got moved to premium economy cuz their TVs never worked at all, so Patrick got to stretch out and nap in that row. Oh, and the dinner included more delicious egg salad, and Patrick let me have his! (These are the highlights listed in my journal, so you know the trip must've been uneventful.)

When we got into SFO, we staggered to passport control and waited in line to the strains of Disney’s IllumiNations soundtrack, which plays over the US State Dept.’s “Welcome to America” video. The line was only 10 or 15 minutes long, and we just answered some questions about our trip and got passed to baggage. We eventually found all our luggage and then dragged it to the last stop, customs, where they glanced at us and sent us on our way.

Patrick's dad picked us up and whisked us to his parents house, where they fed us split pea soup and sourdough bread that tasted like manna, I tells ya! I think we took about a 2-hour nap, but we were pretty much fully recovered the next day, so jetlag wasn't even an issue.

We gave Môma & P-Daddy their omiyage, which they LOVED! They were so excited about the fake food we brought them. Patrick was right – it was the highlight of their own trip to Japan, and they couldn’t believe they finally owned some.


I'll post this one again…

Omiyage in action!

Then we dumped out our suitcases in the spare room and separated the omiyage from our loot.

Our Loot

Uncle Not-Traveling Matt's Birthday Present

Hotel Heist

I can't resist showing you a few shots from Uncle Matt's house, where we went to deliver the birthday goods the next day. It looks like a Disneyana Convention exhibitors' hall!

And that's it! I am so glad we were finally "forced" to go to Tokyo instead of keeping it a far-off, someday dream. I really hope that I've been able to make a trip to Japan seem slightly more accessible to US Disney fans (I just wish I could make it cheaper too! ).

We're hoping to go back in April, so stay tuned…. In the meantime, we're off to Walt Disney World and Disneyland for Halloweentime, and I hope to finally resume A Very Lurkyloo Christmas: Holiday at Bay Lake Tower of TERROR.

 

[PopArtGal]

What a bummer that they never let you go inside the temples.


Awe, so glad you got to go back once more!

I looooooooooooooove the spring theme. So great!

 

[PopArtGal]

What a gret loot! I'm jealous. When I go to Hong Kong one day (oh, yeah, I plan on traveling the world ), I will buy a lot too.

 

[athenna]

Amazing trip report, Carrie I have always wanted to go to Japan, even before Tokyo Disney was an option. Of course now that it is, it's just been my #1 dream destination! I feel like reading this report and seeing your pics got me a little closer, if only virtually I'll get there someday.

 

[Aburns8]

I am so glad that you made it back to the parks! And the weather looked nice as well! I can't believe they are releasing Duffy while we are in WDW. I don't know if I want one yet or not. I will see you at the Sip and Stroll! We are driving down on Saturday and I can't wait!

 

[V a n e s s a]

What a fantastic trip report! I enjoyed every page!

Just an observation:I have noticed from your pictures that there seem to be no foreign tourists at Disneyland or Disneysea: did you encounter any non-Japanese at the parks?

Do the CMs speak English?

 

[ChrisFL]

I'd call this the Tokyo Disney Ultimate Trip Report!! Thanks for all your "hard work" although I know you enjoy it!