StayAwake
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2014
Hi Everyone! I fulfilled a dream in December 2015 when I went to Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. I had great advice and help from the boards here as well as TDRExplorer, Honorable Rat, and DisneyTouristBlog. I'm hoping I can help pay that back by sharing my trip report with you.
The idea came about when I knew I would be going to Singapore to visit some family living there. I was going to have to change planes in Tokyo on the way home, so why not just stay for a few days and get two parks closer to my goal of seeing all of the Disney Parks in the world?
After much budgetary consideration, I chose the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. I would be arriving in Tokyo on a Monday, and planned to go to the parks Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, with a bit of time on Friday to sightsee in Tokyo before heading home Friday night. I was traveling alone, so that made it easy to change those plans on the fly. More about that later...
After a 4 am wake up call for a 6:30 flight, and a 7 hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo, I was both tired and elated about arriving in Japan. After collecting all my luggage and passing through customs, I set about finding the place to buy my airport limo bus ticket to Tokyo Disney Resort & the affiliated hotels. There were a whole bank of bus ticket windows and I found the correct one and got my ticket. Apparently, there was some kind of cut-off time that I had just missed for the next bus, as I was given a ticket for almost an hour in the future. The bus stop was also easy to find, but then it was a lot of waiting for the right time to queue. The previous bus to TDR came and left with only a few people on it, but there was no switching to the earlier time just because there was room. This was a fast introduction to the Japanese culture of following the rules. But I didn't care! I was in Japan. Plus, the free wi-fi at the airport let me catch up on Facebook and the time passed quickly. The bus attendants tagged my luggage for the appropriate stop, and before I knew it, I was on my way.
I passed the time alternately looking out the bus window and playing a game on my phone, as I was too excited to concentrate on my book. My original plan had been to check into the hotel and then go to Maihama Station to take the train into Tokyo to go exploring, but as we continued to drive west into the setting sun, I started to re-evaluate that plan. Was I up for trying to navigate a brand new city in the dark? Maybe I should stay closer to home base. And then, I saw this:
And this:
And I knew the plan was going to change.
The idea came about when I knew I would be going to Singapore to visit some family living there. I was going to have to change planes in Tokyo on the way home, so why not just stay for a few days and get two parks closer to my goal of seeing all of the Disney Parks in the world?
After much budgetary consideration, I chose the Sheraton Grande Tokyo Bay. I would be arriving in Tokyo on a Monday, and planned to go to the parks Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday, with a bit of time on Friday to sightsee in Tokyo before heading home Friday night. I was traveling alone, so that made it easy to change those plans on the fly. More about that later...
After a 4 am wake up call for a 6:30 flight, and a 7 hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo, I was both tired and elated about arriving in Japan. After collecting all my luggage and passing through customs, I set about finding the place to buy my airport limo bus ticket to Tokyo Disney Resort & the affiliated hotels. There were a whole bank of bus ticket windows and I found the correct one and got my ticket. Apparently, there was some kind of cut-off time that I had just missed for the next bus, as I was given a ticket for almost an hour in the future. The bus stop was also easy to find, but then it was a lot of waiting for the right time to queue. The previous bus to TDR came and left with only a few people on it, but there was no switching to the earlier time just because there was room. This was a fast introduction to the Japanese culture of following the rules. But I didn't care! I was in Japan. Plus, the free wi-fi at the airport let me catch up on Facebook and the time passed quickly. The bus attendants tagged my luggage for the appropriate stop, and before I knew it, I was on my way.
I passed the time alternately looking out the bus window and playing a game on my phone, as I was too excited to concentrate on my book. My original plan had been to check into the hotel and then go to Maihama Station to take the train into Tokyo to go exploring, but as we continued to drive west into the setting sun, I started to re-evaluate that plan. Was I up for trying to navigate a brand new city in the dark? Maybe I should stay closer to home base. And then, I saw this:
And this:
And I knew the plan was going to change.