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Trip Report: Tokyo Disneyland Resort & Tour of Parts of Japan 2024
- Thread starter ZapperZ
- Start date
A last good morning from the Donald Duck room in the Ambassador hotel.
We check out this morning and move back to the Hilton Tokyo Bay for just one night before transferring to the tour hotel. You may ask "Why don't you book one extra night at the Ambassador?" The answer is, we couldn't!
It appears that the evening of the 24 has been blacked out. From what i've seen, it appears that there will be major renovation work being done as soon as the last guests leave the hotel today. While one can't see anything from the front of the hotel, I have seen lots of equipment being staged behind the hotel, especially in the area connecting the hotel to Ikspiari. A large part of the hotel is also covered with scaffolding and coverings.
Luckily, there is a luggage transfer service and so, we don't have to drag our luggage to the Hilton. We will check out and then head to Disney Sea for our last day at the parks. We're hoping that there's another preview of Fantasy Springs. We were lucky to have had a chance on two of the rides in the new land on Monday, but there were no preview on Wednesday. Maybe we'll get lucky again today? Fingers crossed. In any case, getting a chance to see Frozen and Peter Pan was awesome.
Zz.
We check out this morning and move back to the Hilton Tokyo Bay for just one night before transferring to the tour hotel. You may ask "Why don't you book one extra night at the Ambassador?" The answer is, we couldn't!
It appears that the evening of the 24 has been blacked out. From what i've seen, it appears that there will be major renovation work being done as soon as the last guests leave the hotel today. While one can't see anything from the front of the hotel, I have seen lots of equipment being staged behind the hotel, especially in the area connecting the hotel to Ikspiari. A large part of the hotel is also covered with scaffolding and coverings.
Luckily, there is a luggage transfer service and so, we don't have to drag our luggage to the Hilton. We will check out and then head to Disney Sea for our last day at the parks. We're hoping that there's another preview of Fantasy Springs. We were lucky to have had a chance on two of the rides in the new land on Monday, but there were no preview on Wednesday. Maybe we'll get lucky again today? Fingers crossed. In any case, getting a chance to see Frozen and Peter Pan was awesome.
Zz.
we are back at the Hilton Tokyo bay. We are beginning to like this hotel a lot.
Disney Sea was getting to be very busy, Friday afternoon crowd was in full force.
We plan on chilling out and relaxing for the rest of the day, maybe grab food from Lawson nearby
Disney Sea was getting to be very busy, Friday afternoon crowd was in full force.
We plan on chilling out and relaxing for the rest of the day, maybe grab food from Lawson nearby
We had a good breakfast, and all cleaned up. We plan on checking out of the hotel around 10:00 am. We could try to make our way to our tour hotel via the trains, but with 3 luggage and backpacks, that would not be easy, so we will splurge and pay for a taxi. It will cost a pretty bundle, but it is something that we anticipated.
This marks the end of the "Disney" portion of our trip (unless we bump into a Disney store in downtown Tokyo). On Monday, we will begin an 11-day guided tour of parts of Honshu, ending in Kyoto. Our first and initial impression of Tokyo Disneyland Resort is: WOW! I can understand now why many Disney theme park aficionados consider Tokyo DisneySea as the best Disney theme park in the world. The theming alone is over the top and the details were crazy! I would be happy to just spend a week here and visit nothing but Tokyo DisneySea and explore every inch of it. Even with 3 days here, I barely scratched the surface.
Tokyo Disneyland is charming, especially with the special Donald Celebration. Honestly, I think Donald is bigger here than Mickey. I saw a lot more people wearing Donald outfit and guests with Donald merch hanging all over them than any other character, with Chip and Dale a close second.
But what I find as fascinating are the guests, or the Japanese guests in particular. The level of fandom and devotion to the brand are unlike anything that I've witnessed with guests in the US parks. They go all-out here, and I guess that's one of the reason why pin-trading is banned here because I can see how that can easily go out of hand. In addition, they LOVE, LOVE the live shows especially the ones with the characters. The level of audience participation is amazing and not what we see in US parks.
The few quirks that I could not understand are rather minor. The lack of trash cans is one such example, especially considering how Walt himself set the rules for how far apart the trash cans at Disneyland should be laid out. Maybe the idea that most Japanese always take their trash with them means that most places don't need as many trash cans as we normally expected. The other thing that I don't understand is the lack of hand dryer in washrooms. Typically, there's only one in each of the men's washrooms. It seems that most guests wash their hands and then walk out. I was told that most Japanese guests bring their own towels/hand towels, which may explain why hand towels and washcloths are commonly sold at the parks.
But like I said, once I got used to it, those are really minor quirks.
Anyhow, I have a bit more packing to do before we check out of the hotel and begin the next part of the adventure in Japan.
Zz.
This marks the end of the "Disney" portion of our trip (unless we bump into a Disney store in downtown Tokyo). On Monday, we will begin an 11-day guided tour of parts of Honshu, ending in Kyoto. Our first and initial impression of Tokyo Disneyland Resort is: WOW! I can understand now why many Disney theme park aficionados consider Tokyo DisneySea as the best Disney theme park in the world. The theming alone is over the top and the details were crazy! I would be happy to just spend a week here and visit nothing but Tokyo DisneySea and explore every inch of it. Even with 3 days here, I barely scratched the surface.
Tokyo Disneyland is charming, especially with the special Donald Celebration. Honestly, I think Donald is bigger here than Mickey. I saw a lot more people wearing Donald outfit and guests with Donald merch hanging all over them than any other character, with Chip and Dale a close second.
But what I find as fascinating are the guests, or the Japanese guests in particular. The level of fandom and devotion to the brand are unlike anything that I've witnessed with guests in the US parks. They go all-out here, and I guess that's one of the reason why pin-trading is banned here because I can see how that can easily go out of hand. In addition, they LOVE, LOVE the live shows especially the ones with the characters. The level of audience participation is amazing and not what we see in US parks.
The few quirks that I could not understand are rather minor. The lack of trash cans is one such example, especially considering how Walt himself set the rules for how far apart the trash cans at Disneyland should be laid out. Maybe the idea that most Japanese always take their trash with them means that most places don't need as many trash cans as we normally expected. The other thing that I don't understand is the lack of hand dryer in washrooms. Typically, there's only one in each of the men's washrooms. It seems that most guests wash their hands and then walk out. I was told that most Japanese guests bring their own towels/hand towels, which may explain why hand towels and washcloths are commonly sold at the parks.
But like I said, once I got used to it, those are really minor quirks.
Anyhow, I have a bit more packing to do before we check out of the hotel and begin the next part of the adventure in Japan.
Zz.