Trip Report *COMPLETED* I've climbed the mountain, I've crossed the river, and I'm almost there!

Introduction

We've only been back from Japan since Saturday night but I am just itching to get started on this report! We had an absolutely AMAZING trip and I'm not ready to let it go, and writing my TR is one way for me to delay the inevitable return back to "the real world." :) This was the longest vacation I've ever taken, and like any long trip-or any new experience, for that matter-there were ups and downs, good moments and not-so-good moments. There were mistakes, mishaps, mountains, and monkeys. Yes, monkeys! There were surprises and there was DRAMMA!* There were things we will do differently next time we visit Japan, and believe me, we knew less than halfway through the trip that there WILL be a next time someday!

In case you missed the PTR, here it is: Bee's Big Birthday! There you can read about the cast, the general plans, and the reasons for planning this particular trip.

Now about the title: It's a reference to this song from The Princess and the Frog:



I have been kind of obsessed with this song lately and I found myself singing it in my head repeatedly during the trip. You'll see why soon!

So, if you're ready for a journey halfway around the world, thousands of photos, and Double Disney bookends, keep reading!

EDIT: The Tokyo Disney stuff starts here.

*I've mentioned it in previous TRs, but I like to spell "dramma" the Italian way because I'm an opera singer and what's more DRAMMAtic than Italian opera?? So please don't think I'm an idiot (for that reason anyway :hilarious:)!
 
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bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
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MinnieM123

Premium Member
My goodness, you caught a bright, sunny day there! Pictures are great. (I heard it often rains in London, so that's why your photos particularly caught my attention here this morning.) :)
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
My goodness, you caught a bright, sunny day there! Pictures are great. (I heard it often rains in London, so that's why your photos particularly caught my attention here this morning.) :)
It has been quite sunny here for us! It has only rained once, for a few minutes, while we were eating dinner at the hotel lounge. It may rain a bit today, though.
 

Tiggertoo56

Well-Known Member
Lucky you to have sunshine today in London - I live in Bristol (west of England) and we've had rain & wind but should have had sunshine most of the day. You got it instead!🤨 hope you're enjoying your trip to the UK. Lovely that you could have 2 trips for both birthdays.
 

PiratesMansion

Well-Known Member
My apologies if this was answered earlier in the thread, but what wait time app did you use for Tokyo Disney, and did you find it to be reliable?
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Lucky you to have sunshine today in London - I live in Bristol (west of England) and we've had rain & wind but should have had sunshine most of the day. You got it instead!🤨 hope you're enjoying your trip to the UK. Lovely that you could have 2 trips for both birthdays.
Sorry you got the rain meant for us! We got quite lucky with the weather during our trip.

My apologies if this was answered earlier in the thread, but what wait time app did you use for Tokyo Disney, and did you find it to be reliable?
I don’t think I did mention it! It is called TDRAlert and was fairly reliable. Sometimes the posted wait times were 5-10 minutes different from what the app said and sometimes the app said that there were FPs available for certain attractions when they were actually out, but for a free app it was pretty useful.
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
We are back! London was absolutely amazing and we can't wait to go back someday!!!

Day 19, cont.

We walked back to the front of the park to take advantage of the park hopper feature of our tickets (they don't call it "Park Hopper" like at WDW but it's the same thing, so that's what I'm calling it!).

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We had a look inside the Emporio...

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On the way out we got our hands stamped.

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This one left a lot of ink on me this time!

We took the monorail to Disneyland and entered pretty quickly. As we approached the SM FP kiosks we encountered THIS...

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At least while we waited we could watch the construction for the BatB attraction...

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We watched as the return time got later and later...

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Up next: Will we ever get a FP?????
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

We rode the monorail to Resort Gateway Station to go to Ikspiari. There we stopped in a bathroom and I felt compelled to take a photo of the mirror apparently??

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I had researched restaurant menus before and a place called Monsoon Select looked promising.

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Our waitress greeted us bilingually and asked in English if it was okay if she spoke Japanese because her English wasn't very good. I said yes in Japanese, hoping to practice a little more! She then told us in English her name, and I said "Nice to meet you" in Japanese. She was VEERRY impressed (even though again I am not anywhere near fluent or even conversation, I just learned a few key phrases) and said it back to me in Japanese. We told her in Japanese that we are vegetarians and she went through a whole list of foods (going back and forth between languages) to ask if they were okay. We really appreciated this because "vegetarian" can mean so many different things, especially to people from different countries.

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We started with beer. I'm thinking they were Sapporo but apparently I didn't document this very well!

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A vegan spinach salad

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Vegan spinach

Both of these were SO. SUPER. TASTY. The sauce on the sauteed spinach was one of my favorite things I tasted in Japan. We wished there had been an option with some tofu and rice or something else with more substance, but at least the food was really good (even if we were still hungry at the end).

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I took a picture of this because at a lot of restaurants we paid at the front after the meal, but here we paid at the table.

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We went back out into the mall and had to check out the Disney store!

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We didn't buy anything, even though there was so much cute stuff.

Next we went to the grocery store in the mall for some snacks and some breakfast for the next day.

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Up next: Back to the room
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

We took the monorail back to Bayside Station.

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Our haul from the grocery store

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I don't even remember what these controls were for. Lights maybe?

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We shared a caprese salad

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And some chips

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AND SOME DARK CHOCOLATE KITKATS WHICH ARE THE BEST KITKATS EVER

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This is what the KitKat package says apparently!

I took some time to do the survey I'd received earlier in the park.

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I'm not supposed to say what questions were on it. But it was basically about travel plans to and from Japan and to and from Tokyo Disney Resort.

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In addition to this adorable postcard, I received a "gift" at the end of a phone background:

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Which I am still using to this day!

Up next: "Fast" Pass...
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

After a break in the room we headed back toward DisneySea.

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Elevator view

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In our lobby

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Blurry arriving bus

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Monorail

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Once inside the park we stopped at the Emporio for some souvenirs. I think I mentioned before that my brother wanted something specific to the Tokyo parks so we ended up getting him something from here with Gelatoni the cat, who is a friend of Duffy. Later I'll post pics of all the souvenirs we got for everyone because I took better photos of them once we got home and before we sent them.

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We headed toward Port Discover to use our Journey FP.

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The app said that the standby entrance was closed and only guests with FPs were being allowed to line up. HMMMMM...

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This doesn't look good...

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This is how far back we were from the actual ride entrance!

We slowly but surely moved through the queue...

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NO STANDBY ALLOWED!!!

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And FINALLY we made it to a ride vehicle, FORTY MINUTES after we got on line! 😦

Needless to say this was very frustrating and the worst wait of the trip. Occasionally in WDW I've had to wait 15-20 minutes for Soarin' with a FP, but I've never experienced ANYTHING like this.

Up next: Under the Sea
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

After we finally rode Journey to the Center of the Earth, we made the short journey to Mermaid Lagoon and went back inside King Triton's castle with the goal of seeing King Triton's Concert. It was quite busy inside, which was no surprise with the level of crowds plus the cold weather.

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It was a long wait for the show but eventually we found our seats inside.

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The show used a combination of live performers, puppetry, animatronics, and screens/projections. We really enjoyed it, even though it was all in Japanese and we couldn't understand what anyone was saying. :hilarious: I especially thought it was cool how Ariel was an aerial (!!) artist and the choreography made it look like she was swimming in the air!

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After the show we hit some of the smaller attractions inside the castle.

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Jumpin' Jellyfish

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Two hand stamps from two parks!

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Blowfish Balloon Race

Up next: Hopping back to Disneyland
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
@bee , as usual, you never disappoint us with your fascinating TRs! Loving the photos and commentary. You have the ability to whisk us all away to far-off lands and experiences.

This is such fun armchair reading -- I look forward to whenever you post about your vacations! :happy:
Thank you for your kind words and thank you for reading!

It is such a simple effect, but I LOVE the way the "water ripple" cutout pieces really make it seem like we're (you're...) UNDER THE SEA! Oh Disney, you've done it again! :geek: I'm having so much fun in Japan!
I loved that too!
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

We managed to ride every ride AND see the show in Mermaid Lagoon over our two days in DisneySea! After we wrapped up the land we headed out of the park to go back to Disneyland for our Space Mountain FP.

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A little Fantasmic on the way out

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We used our Space FP without incident, and did NOT get stuck on the ride like we did at Disneyland!

Afterward we were hungry so we went back to Plazma Ray's for some veggie curry. We wanted to try the set meal with fries, but we only wanted to share one serving of fries, so we decided to order one curry on its own and one set meal. When we arrived at the counter to order, the CM we got was new and in training, and spoke even less English than we spoke Japanese. He seemed really nervous and had lots of laminated cards for reference, and we all did our best to communicate. We found that in lots of restaurants in Japan it was best to just say or point to what we wanted, and then say "two" and hold up two fingers. However, it was a little more complicated since we didn't want two of the exact same thing. His supervisor stepped in to help and eventually we got exactly what we wanted. The CM was super nice and we actually really enjoyed the experience. We always like ordered from CMs in training because we like to think we are a little part of their training!

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It also came with soda, hence the green stuff in a cup!

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After dinner we walked back to Fantasyland to see what rides had short waits. We also caught a bit of a fireworks show (though I'm not sure which one!).

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Snow White's Adventures was a walk-on.

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The ride was very similar to the version in Disneyland.

Up next: a bunch of thots
 

bee

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Day 19, cont.

Park closing time was fast approaching. We were both exhausted, and also full of adrenaline and in denial that we would have to leave the park--and this beautiful country--soon. We thought about just leaving for the night so we could get to bed and prepare for our departure the next day. I turned to M and said, "Would it be crazy for us to go ride Big Thunder right now?" She thought about it for a moment, but suggested that we instead check the wait time for Pooh's Hunny Hunt. It had had outrageous wait times all day without a hope for a FP, plus it's a unique attraction that we can't ride back home.

Sure enough, the ride that had had waits of over an hour all day was finally down to a reasonable wait time!

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We couldn't help but giggle at all the references to Pooh's "thots!" :hilarious:

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🐝

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Pooh's Hunny Hunt was totally cute and fun and we were glad we got to ride it!

Up next: We're in major denial about the end of our vacation
 

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