I go to Japan a few times a year because of work. My routine is always the same; I land in the morning, stay awake till about 9pm, (which is about the latest time I can stay awake without keeling over) and then head to bed. And by clockwork, I am always up at about 5.30am the next morning due to jet lag. Before heading to bed the night before, DH and I were discussing what time to head to TDS the next morning. We know as with every Disney park, getting there early is *the* key to minimal waits in line. But we weren't sure what time DS would wake up, and we may just have to do the trade-off between a well-rested non-cranky six-year-old with a late start.
I am in dreamland. And I hear DS singing. Seriously, this kid wakes up happy. All The Time. Wherever he is. Myself, on the other hand, you don't want to know... I look at the clock groggily. What do you know, it's just past five in the morning. I ask DS to go back to bed, as it's just too early and we need more rest so we can "have maximum energy to have more fun". No dice. I pass DS my phone so he can indulge in Angry Birds while I attempt to catch more sleep. A few minutes tickle on by, and I am also now awake. DH is also up now. It is now, my 'usual' Tokyo wake-up time, 5.30am.
We laze in bed a little more, surf on the internet, watch CNN, and get ready for the day. At just past seven, we leave our room for TDS. The Hilton shuttle takes us to the Bayside monorail. There, we buy a 4 day monorail pass. The Bayside station is really close to the hotel, an under 5 minute walk. But we took the shuttle back and forth anyways, as I really did not want to schlep the five minutes with the extreme heat. I think if the weather was cooler, we would have probably walked to or from the monorail a few times during our trip.
We get to TDS at about 7.30am. There are lines at every gate and turnstile, some longer than others. The longest line up is the only one where it is under shelter. That's the one I go for, despite the much longer line up. (about twice the length compared to the other line ups when we got there). I just can't bake under the sun for another hour. Shade it is for us.
We spent the hour waiting for the park to open eating our breakfast pastries, and looking at the English maps that DH had picked up from the ticketing counters behind us. We discussed our plans for the day. As I had mentioned at the beginning of this trip report, I am a scaredy cat when it comes to rides with drops. It freaks me out completely, my legs turn wobbly, and I feel weak and faint. I love speed, (my favourite ride at WDW is Test Track), I could go fast all day, (I have been told I have a lead foot when I am driving)
but drops, I can't handle.
DH wants to go on TOT, and of course, there's no way I am going on that ride. We decide that DH would take DS on TOT right away after rope drop while I run to get FPs for Journey.
TDS opens right on time, and we are past the turnstiles after a short wait. I grab the tickets from DH and race towards Journey. I make good time, and I am at Journey by 8.35am, pulling 2 FPs for a return time of 9.10-10.10am. DS is not tall enough for Journey, and we still have one 'open' FP slot out of our three tickets, so I decide to put my hat in the ring for 'wife-of-the-year' award, and push on to Raging Spirits to pull a FP for DH for that ride. I don't do coasters (have I mentioned I don't do drops?) and DS doesn't meet the height requirement, so it'll be a solo ride for DH. So I hustled onwards to Raging Spirits and pull a FP with a return time of 9.30-10.30am.
With the first FPs pulled, I headed back towards TOT where I were to meet up with DH and DS. I took a slight detour and headed into Guest Relations where I picked up a whole bunch of interesting brochures in English about the different rides and attractions. I then made my way to TOT's exit where both DH and DS were already waiting. It was now 8.55am and the TOT FPs were already showing return times of 1.30-2.30pm and the standby wait time was now showing 55 minutes! DH said he did not run to TOT on rope drop, and the wait was a minimal 10 minutes. DS said he enjoyed the ride but when asked if he wanted to ride again, it was a NOooooooo. He said he was too scared and the elevator falling too scary. Sorry bud. You drew the short end of the genetic straw there and got Mommy's scaredy cat genes. At least he has my good looks.
With about 15 minutes to go till our Journey FP return time, we ambled towards the ride, finally getting a moment to take a few photos along the way, and soak in the atmosphere. Our Journey FP window opens, and I get in line. I ask for a Rider Swap, as DH sits with DS on the benches outside. I am handed a piece of paper where the CM has written something. I hand that paper to DH. Paperwork done, I walk through the FP line at 9.30am and was at the exit by 9.40am. I have read so much about Journey, so I had high expectations, perhaps overly so, which resulted in my 'huh, that's it?' opinion when I came off the ride. Sure it was fast, and there was a small drop at the end, and there was the part where I got freaked out with the loud sudden clap of thunder near a pond (?), but it was meh for me.
Met up with DH and DS, and it was DH's turn to ride. We decided I would take DS to the Arabian Coast to ride the carousel and DH would meet us there when he is done with Journey and Raging Spirits. DS and I walked past 20K Leagues, and the FP were not operational. I think it's because the wait times were so minimal showing 10 minutes standby. The Caravan Carousel was deserted when we got there at 10am. DS chose to go on the upper level as he has never been to a double-level carousel. My kid loves carousels and we went on it a few times. We also walked past the Magic Lamp theatre and the FP was not in operation, again, I think, because of the minimal wait time.
We then made our way to Jasmine's Flying Carpets at the other end of Arabian Coast. We bumped into DH on our way to the Carpets. I was surprised, as I thought it'd take longer than it has for DH to do Journey and Raging Spirits. So as it turns out DH did not do end up riding RS after Journey as he could not find the FP I had handed him for RS. He said it must have fallen out of his pocket on his walk to RS after Journey.
Oh well. At least I did try for wife of the year award.
DS loved The Carpets and once again, it was pretty much walk-on, so we went on it a few more times. What I loved about the attraction was that as an onlooker, you could head up the stairs and take awesome photos of the carpets flying from a top-down perspective, rather than a bottoms-up view of which we are usually resigned to when taking photos on airborne rides. So I was able to get some great shots of DS happily soaring on the carpets.
We ended up having an early lunch at 10-ish at Yucatan Grill. I can't remember what we had. I didn't jot it down. Probably not that memorable. Just edible.
After lunch, I headed onto Indiana Jones while DH took DS back to the Arabian Coast for Sindbad's Storybook Voyage. The standby line for Indy was showing 45 minutes. But as a single rider, the ride was a walk-on at 11.05am. It was quite similar to the rides at DLR and WDW. I don't know why more don't split from their group and ride as a single rider, since you do save so much time. I think when DS gets older and taller, we will always do single rider in long line ups.
We regrouped outside Indy's exit at 11.25am. DH really enjoyed the Sindbad ride. He remarked that it had great animatronics and the tunes playing weren't as annoying as hearing "it's a small world" over and over again. It is DH's turn to go on Indy as a single rider while I sit with DS under the shade. I let my inner lazy parent out, and hands DS his Nintendo while I people watch. Looking around, the park is noticeably more crowded now.
When DH is done with Indy, we head over to Storm rider. It was around a 10 minute wait under the hot sun while we wait for the doors to open for the pre-ride presentation. There is some English subtitles, but the presentation is in Japanese, and while the crowd oohs and laughs, we just nod along. It is a motion simulator ride akin to Star Tours, and it was just an OK ride to all three of us.
Given the jetlag, and the early waking, we were fading fast at this point, and opted to return to the Hilton for a nap and maybe returning to the park in the evening. On our way out, we rode 20K Leagues. It was a 5 minute wait. Interesting ride, but I think we prefer the Nemo submarine ride at DLR. DH wanted to ride TOT again, so on our way out of TDS, we pulled a FP for TOT for him. It was now 12.45pm and the FP return time was at 8-9pm with a standby time showing 60 minutes.
We were back in our hotel room at 1.40pm, where we all crashed in bed and were out cold for the next few hours.
We woke up about four hours later, and instantly felt more human again. Made our way back to TDS and made it through the turnstiles at around 6.30pm. We rode the train from waterfront to Port Discovery. There, we waffled on whether to go on Aquatopia as it was starting to drizzle and we didn't want to get wet. We waited out the drizzle under a shelter near the ride. I noticed people were heading up the line-up to Aquatopia, looked at some signage, and then turned around and left the ride. Interest-piqued, I walked up and looked at the sign, and it said something like "this is currently a wet ride". I haven't read much about Aquatopia before, so I didn't know what to expect. I guess they have wet and dry versions of the ride? Since it was a wet ride anyways, we decided not to bother about the drizzle and join the line-up. Holy schmoly. They weren't kidding. We were soaked from head to toe on the ride. No wonder people were turning around. It was wet. Super wet. So wet that when we got off the ride, we were wringing our clothing with vigor and lots of water was being squeezed out! We had a lot of fun during the ride though, and laughed so hard, as it was so ridiculous that we were getting hosed at every turn. Fun times.
After drying off as much as we can, we trooped off towards the Lost River Delta where DH was going to get his second shot at riding Raging Spirits as a single rider after losing his FP for it earlier in the day. I then took DS to ride Sindbad and we regrouped at Sindbad's exit. DH said Raging Spirits was very tame and boring. I wouldn't know. No drops for this scaredy cat!
We stopped for dinner at Casbah at the Arabian Coast. We all had some form of curry, which was decent. After dinner, DS wanted to go on the carousel again, so we did. It was very pretty all lit up at night. Again, it was a walk on ride. After a few rounds on the carousel, we made our way to the Mermaid Lagoon. We found the entrance to Triton's Kingdom and proceeded underground. DS rode all the rides there: Jumping Jellyfish (which was a lot tamer than the one at DLR), Blowfish Balloon Race, etc. We then headed back outside where we rode more kiddie rides like Scuttle's Scooters (surprisingly more thrilling than expected), and the kiddy coaster, Flounder's Flying Fish. Kiddy coasters are the only coasters you'll find me on, and even that, my heart is in my throat the whole time.
DS really enjoyed Flounder's, so DH and him went on the ride a few more times. There was no wait at any of the kiddy rides at this time of the night.
It was almost closing time now, so we headed out of TDS and made our way back to the hotel. I think we covered a lot of ground today and overall it was a great day with very manageable crowds. On retrospect, it was the only day of the trip where it didn't feel too crowded, as evidenced by minimal waits at most attractions.
I am so glad he's grown out of that! 
We stayed at the Hilton for five nights and had no complaints whatsoever. Great hotel, polite staff, regular shuttles to Bayside monorail, and somewhat regular shuttles to JR Maihama station (and Ikspiari mall). 
