Part 1, here, goes in to detail on our first 2 days in Tokyo Disney Resort.
We woke up bright and early on our third day in Tokyo Disney, our last morning at Mira Costa. We got ready and packed up a few bits, we decided to check out at 11am rather than first thing in the morning. We had another breakfast reservation at Oceana at 6.30am, then headed to Mira Costa’s hotel guest Happy 15 entrance.
Our strategy was to get to Soaring Fantastic Flight and pick up an early morning fast pass. However due to the new Tokyo Disney Resort app, locals have access to fast passes on the app similar to Disneyland’s Max Pass. This puts us non locals at such a disadvantage, as it is only compatible with a Japanese account. Happy 15 gave us entry at 8am, at 8.08am, we obtained a 7.30pm return time for the attraction. We decided to stand and watch the rest of the days fast pass go. At 8.12am, 12 minutes after Happy 15 entry opened all of the Soaring fast passes for the day had gone.
After we got our fast passes for Soaring we headed over to enter the lottery for the show. Locals are also able to do this on the app so there were no queues when we went. We didn’t win anything, we didn’t win anything until our very last day there.
We met Donald Duck in Mediterranean Harbour outfit, character meet and greets in Tokyo Disney are something I have not seen before. Some characters had queues as normal. But other roaming characters encourage crowds to gather and they will pick guests at random for a photo. You have to wave and shout to get their attention. It looks unorganised but all guests are polite, there is no pushing or shoving. Donald had the most ridiculously cute outfit on. It is also worth noting that all character interactions in Tokyo Disney are limited to one photo! Yes, one!
We walked through Duffy’s home town, Cape Cod, through to Port Discovery to ride on Nemo and Friends Searider. This is such an adorable attraction. The set up is similar to Star Tours, Iron Man Experience, seats and a simulation screen. In this attraction you are shrunk down to the size of a fish and go exploring with Nemo and friends.
We walked over to Zambini Brothers to get a pineapple churro, a limited edition treat for the opening of Soaring Fantastic Flight, it is a plain churro covered in blue, pineapple flavoured sugar. It was tangy and sweet. I did like it, it was just very odd, blue coloured, pineapple flavoured.
Heading back to the Mira Costa, we collected our bags and checked out. The hotel held our bags until later that day.
Exploring Disneys, looking at new things, trying new things is one of my favourite things to do. We tried some garlic shrimp flavoured popcorn and a tropical Mickey ice lolly. Tokyo Disney has some pretty amazing popcorn flavours located around the two parks, curry, barbaque, chocolate, strawberry, tomato, caramel, the garlic shrimp was my favourite. It is the one that had the most flavour and tasted of what it said it was ment to be. After stuffing our faces with popcorn we wandered over to Indiana Jones Temple of the Crystal Skull, extremely similar to Disneyland’s Indiana Jones ride. And I bloody hated it!
We had dinner reservation at Magellan’s, tucked away in the back of the Mediterranean Harbour, that evening, you can find my review for that here. A tasteful and beautiful restaurant. The service was on point. Plus unlimited bread! Although the portions were small, I enjoyed my food. Before our dinner we had a great interaction with Jack Sparrow, we watched from afar but her kept talking to us. After our food we headed to our Soaring fast pass, gosh I love that ride so much.
After Soaring we went back to Mira Costa to pick up our bags and suitcases and hopped on the Resort Line to Bayside Station and walked to the Hilton on Tokyo Bay which is just across the road. There are designated shuttles to drop guests at each of the hotels on the Bay, but please, just walk. The hotel check in took a little longer than expected. I had signed up to Hilton Honours before booking the trip so we had access to a discount and upgrade. I did make two separate reservations to make it cheaper and I had requested for us to stay in the same room.
The room was big and located on the 9th floor, we had a theme park view, we could see the Fantasy Springs expansion, Cinderella’s Castle, Space Mountain and Splash Mountain. After three super long nearly 18 hour days. We decided to not set an alarm for the following day and just wake up and get up whenever.
Our next day was a lazy day. We got up and left the hotel at 10am! Heading to the Resort Line we had to purchase monorail tickets as they do not come free with the partner hotels. I got a really cute Halloween design. Disneyland was our next stop and upon entering the park we walked right in to a character palooza. For those of you who don’t know a character palooza is when a lot characters come out for a meet and greet.
On this day, nearly all the walls were down infront of the castle, it revealed an amazing feature of the fab five for Halloween. Walking over to The Boiler Room we picked up a popcorn and donut soda and a pork Chinese bao bun. Once we had eaten these we went to grab some air con and watch the Vacation overlay at Country Bear Jamboree. This was amazing, so funny and I really enjoyed it. Unlike the Walt Disney World version, you can’t hear the mechanisms and movements of the animatronics.
We decided to meet Donald in his Camp Woodchuck outfit. Again, only one photo, again!
Haunted Mansion had been down for the few days we had been in Tokyo Disney as it was getting a Nightmare Before Christmas overlay and was due to open on 10th September. I am not going to lie every time I walked past the attraction I secretly hoped it would be open or I would get invited on to it ride on it before everyone else. This did not happen! Boo.
Sam had booked us dinner in the Crystal Palace, the decor and design is a copy of the Crystal Palace in Magic Kingdom, a buffet for breakfast, lunch and dinner, however there is not character restaurant. The selections of food was great. I must had eaten bout 4 plates of sushi, tempura, noodles. The desserts were my favourite part, obviously, the designs and details were beautiful for a buffet restaurant.
After our meal we went to our Monsters Inc fast pass. Monsters Inc Hide and go Seek, is by far my favourite attraction in Tokyo Disneyland. We decided to head to the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel. This hotel is stunning and I mean stunning, it oozes elegance and luxury. I do want to experience a stay here. Maybe in a Beauty and the Beast room. Maybe, ha. We decided to check out the Dreamer’s Lounge, a bar in the hotel lobby. Sam had a cocktail and I had an Halloween inspired non-alcoholic cocktail. Just sitting and doing nothing for half an hour or so was nice.
I decided to explore the hotel and I definitely found myself in an area I should not have been in, different convention rooms, ballrooms and bridal ‘getting ready’ rooms. All were beautiful. We decided to call it a day and head back to our room at the Hilton.
Part 3 coming soon….
That Disney Girl 