Complete: Kawaii - Nov 2014 a 4 night stay at Tokyo Disneyland Hotel

[BagOLaughs]

Day 2 – Here fishie fishie… oh I mean kitty kitty kitty.

A you ready for some more cat pictures!!! Of course you are...

The cats were really well looked after and most were just chilling..



Mum loves the cat cafe! Oh i forgot to mention there were lockers you you store your things away in. They were free in this cafe.



There were lots of hidy holes they could visit if they didn't want to be bothered.


You can see the window where you pay for your visit in this photo. Also pay attention to this cat carer... he'll be important later.



You can see the lockers in the background here.



Hey that cat is looking at something...



This cat is also looking the same way... what are they looking at?



Ah! I see... Rolly Polly cat.



What a silly kitty.



This cat is far to dignified for that behavior.



Coming up - more cats!

 

[BagOLaughs]

Day 2 – Cats are gods in fur, remember that.

The cats were really fun to just sit back and watch play.

I saw at least two of the Japanese visitors to the cafe just sitting back and having a sleep.



I am God Cat... bow down to me!



I am grumpy faced cat you must not make fun of me...



What did I just say?



There were lots of toys for the cats to play with.




And that was the Cat Cafe. I know I've already said it but it really was a highlight of the whole trip. It was brilliant and the hour just flew by!

We decided to explore after our cat tea.



This street we found by accident but it was mostly Japanse strip clubs. There was one with a girl dressed in a bikini in a giant mecha suit!



The reason i took this photo below was because its advertising a really interesting service in japan. The idea is that girls will go to one of these clubs and choose a boy from a register (that's why all the boys look like pop stars). Google can explain it better than I can:

A host club (ja:ホストクラブ) is similar to a hostess club, except that female customers pay for male company. Male hosts pour drinks and will often flirt with their clients. The conversations are generally light-hearted; hosts may have a variety of entertainment skills, be it simple magic tricks or charisma with which to tell a story. On the first visit to a host club, the customer is presented with a 'menu' of the hosts available, (男メニュー), and decide which host to meet first, but over the course of the night, the customer will meet most of the hosts.

I find it really fascinating. There are rules against having physical relations with customers and the whole thing is very odd.




And that was the end of our night in Shinjuku. It was great!!!

Coming up - Day 3

 

[sperkins921]

Thanks for your trip report!!

I wondered, when you were at TKDLR, could you use your Disneyland Hotel key to charge park purchases to the way you can at WDW?

I asked this question as a main topic, but no replies. Lots of looks, but I guess no one knows the answer....

TIA!!

 

[BagOLaughs]

Thanks for your trip report!!

I wondered, when you were at TKDLR, could you use your Disneyland Hotel key to charge park purchases to the way you can at WDW?

I asked this question as a main topic, but no replies. Lots of looks, but I guess no one knows the answer....

TIA!!

Hey thanks for following along.

We didn't put our card on the room and as far as I know it can't be done. The park tickets, room keys, monorail tickets and early entry are all separate tickets and most are still paper based.

I hope that helps

 

[sperkins921]

It does, thank you!

 

[BagOLaughs]

Episode 3 - Revenge of the Culture

Day 3 - Culture at the Mitsukoshi department store.

Oh hai!

Its been a few days but I'm here and ready to finish off the last "episode" of my trip report. I was going to call it revenge of the shingles but that seemed a bit grim. Unfortunately, that title would have been very apt. This was the day that I suffered the most from the virus. I made it about half way through the day and then just couldn't do anymore.

We went back to the hotel and I slept for the rest of the day and the whole next day! However I'm glad I did because it meant I could enjoy my Disney days which if you've been following along were after the Tokyo days (this trip report is backwards)

But before my slow decent into illness (much like Anakin's decent to the dark side) I did managed to get some stuff done!

We'd had a bit of a lie in and were making our way to Tokyo's National museums via the subway when we stumbled across Mitsukoshi department store.

Naturally we wanted to have a look inside! This department store was very much Japan's answer to Harrods (from a British perspective)


We explored for a bit and ended up on the balcony over looking the beautiful sculpture.



And what luck, while I was snapping pictures a really cool show started down below. I have no idea what it was celebrating, if anything, but it was really fun to watch.

Firstly a Lion appeared!


It danced around the stage for a bit and then dropped this sign. If anyone can translate I'd love to know what it said!


What?! The lion was actually two people. Who would have known?! I joke


The lion then left the stage and went up to the audience. Each person bowed their head and the lion snapped at them. Again I have no idea if that has any significance but everyone was laughing.



The lion left and next up was this girl. See the parasol in her hands? This will be important later.


All the music was performed live on traditional instruments.


An older gentleman appeared along side the girl on stage.

 

[BagOLaughs]

Day 3 - More culture, quick grab the net!

Ah we're back with the girl... What is the parasol for you ask? Well...


They used them to balance things on! This was really fun to watch. Both the girl and the guy twirled the parasols and in the photo below they were balancing a baseball on one.


They then used the parasol to launch the ball into the air and throw it to one another. They then caught in on their parasol. Brilliant!


The girl says. A ball, thats easy. I can do it with a tea cup!


That show was a lot of fun. We left the department store and decided to get some lunch. Whats on the menu? Paella! Very Japanese I hear you say. I can't remember what I had but it did have an egg on top.


This is something I'd wish I'd taken more pictures of. Outside of restaurants 99% of the time they have plastic versions of their foods. Its really cool to see what you're going to be eating.


After lunch we made it to the National Museums and I took all of two photos! Outstanding I know.

Some very scary looking armor.


And a beautiful sword.



And that's it. I totally lost all my energy and we went back to the hotel. My mum was really great and bought some dinner from the 7/11 across the road but I slept so long. Thank you mum for being so understanding!!



Onigiri for the sick girl.

So i'm sorry that's a bit of an abrupt ending to the trip report but it was for us too!

I do gush about Japan when I talk about it but that's only because the only "low" we had the whole trip was my illness. Japan was amazing, the people were amazing, the sights were amazing and actually it wasn't as expensive as we were expecting!

Both mum and I had saved a lot of money and came away with more than we expected!

So go to Japan and thanks for reading my trip report!

 

[Tanzanite]

Thank you so much have loved your report so good you got some good rest shingles really zaps you..I completly agree about how wonderful Japan is my June trip i cant say any thing i didnt enjoy most holidays i find something to complain about. Our Orlando holiday we had some issues in July .Love all your photos and i feel the same about food pictures we didnt take as many as we should have.

 

[loladelorean]

Thank you for sharing your awesome trip report - such a shame you were ill but you still managed to do so much!
Pleased to hear you didn't find it too expensive, we've been a bit worried about that.
Love all your cat cafe photos was this the calico cat cafe? We are planning to go to that one because it's really near our hotel in shinjuku

 

[BagOLaughs]

Love all your cat cafe photos was this the calico cat cafe?

It sure was! It was a really cool place i would 100% recommend it! If you really want to be all the cat's friends then buy a little pot of chicken from the cafe.

 

[aussie shaz]

Thanks. Loved the whole report. Thanks for adding the Tokyo bit too.

 

[AussieDisneyNut]

Great report, loved all you pictures of Disneyland and Disneysea ... electrical parade looks amazing!

Thanks for adding your report on Tokyo too. We're heading there in two weeks and your entire report has made me even more excited (if that is possible!).

 

[BagOLaughs]

Thanks for adding your report on Tokyo too. We're heading there in two weeks and your entire report has made me even more excited (if that is possible!).

I hope you have the most amazing time (I already know you will )

 

[BagOLaughs]

The question above about Hotel keys and tickets inspired me to scan in the pages of my scrap book. I love graphic design and Tokyo Disneyland had so many paper based stuff for free. Here's the collection I've got. *NB* they do print your full name on some of the tickets (of course) but I've just blanked out my full name for these photos.

On this 1st page you can see the Guide Map for Tokyo Disney sea (left) and the Happy 15 Entry - which was the ticket that allowed us 15 minutes early access to the park (left center top) a little resort map (left center bottom) One of the park tickets with Pluto (right centre top) a Resort Line 4 day pass which allowed us access on the monorail which you have pay for usually (right centre bottom) and a tower of terror FP ticket (right bottom)



On the scan below you can see the other park ticket with Goofy on (Left top) our Priority Seating ticket for the blue Bayou Restaurant (left center top) the little paper holder that our room keys came in (left center bottom) and that same pass holder opened (right)



In Tokyo Sea there are these free maps you can pick up for the Fortress Explorations. The center is a map.



The front page gives you some story telling and the back gives some story for each room. - You have to know that Japanese books are back to front compared to western books. They open right to left.



This is a front and back scan of our hotel key. This was made from plastic.



Below is another front and back scan of the Resort Line monorail ticket



Lastly here are a couple of free postcards that we got given in our room. I absolutely loved these! The art work is beautiful and the designs are fabulous.



This is my whole hoard and also the small tin which some toiletries came in and a postcard we were given after visiting the cat cafe in Shinjuku. As you can see Disneyland Tokyo Resorts still uses lots of different pieces of paper for everything. Its bad for the environment (I'm all for using paperless ways of planning such as my Disney Experience App) however it gives graphic hoarders like me something to keep

 

[Tanzanite]

The question above about Hotel keys and tickets inspired me to scan in the pages of my scrap book. I love graphic design and Tokyo Disneyland had so many paper based stuff for free. Here's the collection I've got. *NB* they do print your full name on some of the tickets (of course) but I've just blanked out my full name for these photos.

On this 1st page you can see the Guide Map for Tokyo Disney sea (left) and the Happy 15 Entry - which was the ticket that allowed us 15 minutes early access to the park (left center top) a little resort map (left center bottom) One of the park tickets with Pluto (right centre top) a Resort Line 4 day pass which allowed us access on the monorail which you have pay for usually (right centre bottom) and a tower of terror FP ticket (right bottom)

View attachment 120539

On the scan below you can see the other park ticket with Goofy on (Left top) our Priority Seating ticket for the blue Bayou Restaurant (left center top) the little paper holder that our room keys came in (left center bottom) and that same pass holder opened (right)

View attachment 120551

In Tokyo Sea there are these free maps you can pick up for the Fortress Explorations. The center is a map.

View attachment 120540

The front page gives you some story telling and the back gives some story for each room. - You have to know that Japanese books are back to front compared to western books. They open right to left.

View attachment 120541
Beautiful thanks for sharing.
This is a front and back scan of our hotel key. This was made from plastic.

View attachment 120550

Below is another front and back scan of the Resort Line monorail ticket

View attachment 120543

Lastly here are a couple of free postcards that we got given in our room. I absolutely loved these! The art work is beautiful and the designs are fabulous.

View attachment 120547

This is my whole hoard and also the small tin which some toiletries came in and a postcard we were given after visiting the cat cafe in Shinjuku. As you can see Disneyland Tokyo Resorts still uses lots of different pieces of paper for everything. Its bad for the environment (I'm all for using paperless ways of planning such as my Disney Experience App) however it gives graphic hoarders like me something to keep

View attachment 120549

 

[sperkins921]

Hey, this leads to another question (and sorry if you mentioned it in your TR, but I don't remember off hand if you did) when staying at MiraCosta but going to DL, is it true that the 15 minute line is all the way off to the right when facing the gates? Then, for DS, I'm assuming that the place we go is somewhere in the hotel?

Thanks!!

 

[BagOLaughs]

Hey, this leads to another question (and sorry if you mentioned it in your TR, but I don't remember off hand if you did) when staying at MiraCosta but going to DL, is it true that the 15 minute line is all the way off to the right when facing the gates? Then, for DS, I'm assuming that the place we go is somewhere in the hotel?

Thanks!!

Hey,

I'm afraid I don't know about staying in the miracosta but the park entrance is before the hotel so I guess you just go through the regular exit in the hotel.

For Disneyland the 15 min early entrance, when we were there, was bang in the centre of the gates.

Have a fab time

 

[jsilvers]

Hey, this leads to another question (and sorry if you mentioned it in your TR, but I don't remember off hand if you did) when staying at MiraCosta but going to DL, is it true that the 15 minute line is all the way off to the right when facing the gates? Then, for DS, I'm assuming that the place we go is somewhere in the hotel?

The official "Happy 15" instructions:

Tokyo Disneyland
Please come to the central area of the Main Entrance if you are staying at the Disney Ambassador Hotel, Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta or Tokyo Disneyland Hotel.

Tokyo DisneySea
Please come to Park Entrance South if you are staying at the Disney Ambassador Hotel or Tokyo Disneyland Hotel.

Please come to Park Entrance North if you are staying at Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta.
Hotel /Park Gateway at Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta will be open to Guests from the regular Park opening time.
Please show proof of staying at Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta together with your valid Park Passport ticket.​

See http://www.disneyhotels.jp/english/guest_benefits/.

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Enjoyed reading your report. We've been to Tokyo and Tokyo Disney once, back in November 2014 but are planning another trip there soon as well as to Kyoto and Osaka in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai! Reading this report made me so excited to see Tokyo Disney again, It's such a beautiful resort!

 

[CupcakeLisa]

Really enjoyed your report. We have a cat cafe at home - its an awesome way to spend an hour.