If you're listening to this episode, there's a good chance
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question. Why are we sitting here talking
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Happy searching. Hi, I'm Jake.
And I'm Ashley. And this is the wonderful thing
about Disney Podcast. Because Disney's a wonderful
thing. Come on down, stop on by, hop a
carpet and fly with us as we discuss the parks, treats, and
all things Disney with new episodes every wonderful
Wednesday. What's up, dinglehoppers?
It's wonderful. Wednesday, it's Jake Ashley.
We're back with another amazing episode because we've got a big
adventure coming up that we wanted to tell you guys about.
Yeah. It's gonna be crazy, and this
trip is only two weeks away. It's kind of scary.
We're freaking out a little bit, but it's OK.
It's gonna be amazing, but before we get into what is
ahead, let's talk a little bit about what just happened over
the last couple weeks because we're now into May.
It is Star Wars season for those who celebrate, which should be
everyone because Star Wars is amazing.
So again, Season of the Force is here, but we just finished our
10K giveaway. We.
Did. And we just wanted to say thank
you to everybody again for helping us reach 10,000
followers on Instagram, but even more so like thank you guys for
just supporting us so much. Yeah, it it really, it really
does mean a lot. And I know we've said this
before, like we would still be doing this regardless of how
many people listen to the podcast or followed us on our
socials. But it really does mean a lot to
us that you like our stuff, you engage with us, you on the
podcast, you send us your top ten lists.
Like we really, really appreciate all your support.
We do and we had a very special comment that I wanted to share.
This was from Daisy and Buddy Boob on Instagram.
But just someone who has been following us for a little while
shared one of our reels to her story and we just said, you
know, thanks for sharing. And this is what she sent back.
I love you guys. Can't wait to see you hit
20K50KA100K. Times are tough for so many.
I truly appreciate the joy you bring.
Thank you for the work you do, it really helps.
OK, like so pulling back the curtain just a little bit, you
talked about even if nobody was really listening or following,
we would still do this. And that's absolutely true
because it's just something that we really enjoy doing as a
couple. But one thing that we always
keep very forefront in everything that we do is we
really have tried to build this channel and this content around
just bringing people joy because we know the world is a crazy
place. And if we can bring somebody a
smile or just help give them that little bit of Pixie dust in
their day, then that's what we're here for.
And I'm just really glad that, you know, that comes across.
And so anyway, thank you so much for that sweet comment.
And we want to send you something from the podcast just
as a thank you because, you know, this stuff matters to us
too. And it just came.
It's just the right day when we needed a little, a little
something. So thank you for the message.
But to all of you guys out there who are listening, that's what
we do it for. We do it for you, too.
Yeah. So anyway, love.
It. Great message.
Great. All right, so with that, maybe
we need to just start this episode from the beginning.
What? What do you mean?
I have a special opening just for this.
OK. Konichiwa Dinglehoppers.
Oh my God, what? That is how you say hello in
Japanese because your friends are going to Tokyo in a.
Little more than two weeks. I know it's nuts.
We're doing it. This is castle #4.
I know. Which is amazing out of 6.
For now. For now, we're getting there,
but this is it feels a little more overwhelming than when we
went to Paris. Absolutely, yeah.
And I think it's, you know, I had been to Europe before, so I
hadn't been to France before. But going to Disneyland Paris, I
don't know. It felt, it felt OK.
This was definitely, definitely overwhelming.
Well, and we want to talk about that in this episode.
We want to talk to you guys a little bit about what we've done
so far, what we've encountered, how we've gone about preparing
for this. I will say before we get too far
into this, thankfully we have my cousin Katie and Marcus who have
been to Tokyo. They went last year.
They have been super, super helpful in guiding us through
this. Also, our friend Haley, our VIP
tour guide, is actually going to Tokyo a week before I was going.
To say she's probably there right now or leaving very, very
soon. Yeah.
And so we've exchanged notes with her as well.
So I think that's been super helpful.
But let's get into how this even came about, why we're going, and
what we've found along the way so far.
Yeah, yeah. So our oldest, he's a senior,
he's graduating. Which is crazy, I know.
And we wanted to take him on a senior trip and we told him you
could pick anywhere in the world, maybe not like Australia,
'cause that is a bit much. I don't.
Wanna go to Australia? So do I, but I was like, if you
could go anywhere in the world for a senior trip, like, we'll
take you there. And he picked Tokyo.
He did, yeah. He's really big into robotics,
technology, all those types of things, and so this really made
a lot of sense for him. But we being great parents that
we are, we're like, guess what? There's a Disneyland there.
And I think we he was like, OK, twist my arm.
And we were like, OK, twist our arms to go to Tokyo.
Like it was just the perfect fit.
Right, so let's talk a little bit about the overview of Tokyo
Disneyland because as we've talked about in history episodes
previously, like the Japanese wanted a Disneyland and they
wanted it to be almost identical to the original Disneyland in
California. Yeah, so, so there are two parks
in Tokyo. So you have Tokyo Disneyland and
Tokyo Disney Sea now. Tokyo Disneyland, the parks, the
attractions. To your point, they wanted it
almost exactly like Magic Kingdom.
Yeah, like the original Disneyland.
I mean, the the layout's about the same.
A lot of the the attractions, the rides and stuff all look
pretty identical to California. Yeah, yeah.
So you have probably seen reels, like, if you're not sure, you're
like, OK, have I seen Tokyo Disneyland?
So there's a ride enchanted, the Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the
Beast. And this is where you're sitting
in the teacup and you go through the story like I'm sure that you
have seen reels about this ride. Yeah, because this might be one
of the most incredible, mind blowing tricks that the
Imagineers have ever come up with.
I mean, this is iconic and famous, and that's probably the
attraction that Tokyo Disneyland is most known for.
That one and the Baymax ride. I'm sure if you have seen videos
of the Baymax ride, there's a couple different songs.
All of the cast members and people do dances to each of the
songs. If you haven't seen it, go to
Instagram, TikTok, you can search it.
It's awesome. And then they also have the
newly opened Fantasy Springs. And this features the new Peter
Pan ride, the new Rapunzel's Lantern Festival ride, which so
excited. For I'm going to cry.
I'm going to bawl my eyes out. I'm sure you will.
I I've heard the rumors that it's kind of a short ride.
I don't care. I am here for it.
I love me some Rapunzel and I will cry.
But most recently you had the crows that I'm sure you've
probably seen videos of that too.
So within the last two weeks. Or so.
Don't worry girl, I am coming. I will defend your honor.
I will beat away those crows. The.
Crows tried to make a nest in Rapunzel's hair in her tower.
Or her magic hair, right? Sorry crows, why don't you go
find someone else's happy ending to ruin?
But then when they put some little things up to protect our
girl, what did they do? They attacked Maximus.
They. Went after Maximus.
What is up with these Japanese crows?
Yeah, don't worry, your boy's on the case.
I will take matters into my own hands if I must.
Yeah, anyway, so, so, yeah, so that those are kind of the
famous rides over there in Tokyo.
But right now, Tokyo Disney Sea, they are actually actually
celebrating their Sparkling Jubilee, which is their 25th
anniversary. I know.
Talk about great timing. Right.
But when we were kind of like working with our son to to
choose where to go and then we were like leaning towards Japan
when we saw that it's the 25th like that kind of like sealed
the dill, we got to go. Yeah, and then also, while we
were there, Tokyo Disneyland is going to have a paw.
Palooza Vanellope's sweet pop world.
I don't even know what that is, but I'm here for.
It basically it's just a bunch of new menu items, colorful
decorations. They have some merchandise of
Vanellope and Wreck It Ralph. But we don't like food or
snacks. What are we going to do?
Look. Your face.
Now we're in trouble, gang. We know it, we've already
accepted it. But again, we're here for the
people. We will do our best.
I will find a way to dig deep and just fit more delicious
things into my body for you. I'll do it for you.
For the dinglehoppers. For the dinglehoppers, I'm a man
of the people. Yeah.
So that's kind of a very brief overview of just the park and
what there is to offer. Yeah, which is a lot.
And. And again, we've heard some
amazing things. And, you know, bringing up my
cousin Katie again, she has said that this is her favorite Disney
park. Now I know, which is saying a
lot. That is a high bar.
That's high praise. I know.
So we will see, like we will report back on that.
But with that being said, let's talk about what we've planned so
far for our trip. Yeah, so unlike Disneyland
Paris, we booked everything ourselves for Tokyo.
Well, we had to because Disneyland Paris is operated by
the Walt Disney Company, which makes a lot of things much
easier. Tokyo Disneyland is operated by
the Japanese. Yeah.
And you can tell just even in the website, there's a lot of
things that were just very difficult to navigate.
Now, it's not impossible, it's just it's not what we were used
to. Yeah, Disneyland Paris was easy.
We went through a travel agent. It was easy.
This, yes, the website to your point was not great.
So while we were trying to buy tickets, while we're trying to
book our hotels, the website is crashing.
Or you get all the way to the end and you're like, OK, I have
my tickets, I have my hotel. You go to log into your My
Disney account and then it crashes.
And then you have to start back at the beginning.
Yeah. And maybe this was just our
experience, but this was multiple times that it would
crash. So this is what I will say.
We found luck opening a private window or an Incognito browser,
Yeah, and just starting fresh. And then the very first thing
you do once you get to the web page, go ahead and login
upfront. Yes, if you do that, it did
help. I'm not saying that it worked
every time, yeah, but it did help a lot.
So again, maybe just try on an open regular browser and
navigate your way through it, kind of see where you need to go
and then close it. Open a private window, start
over, login first thing and then get there.
And so does that make sense? Kind of do your exploring first,
but when you're ready to get down to business, open up a new
private window, correct. And that helped.
Yeah, Yep. So we didn't know exactly how
many days we were going to go because we're only in Tokyo for
about a week and 1/2. Right.
But we decided on three days, yeah.
So we're gonna do 2 days in Tokyo Disneyland and one day in
Tokyo Disney Sea. And that's kind of because,
again, like, we're Disney adults.
We don't know if we're ever gonna get back to Tokyo.
No, I mean, again, I as we've dug into this, there's so much
to do in Japan. As much as we wanted to explore
a lot more, like we're kind of focusing a lot of our time just
more around Tokyo. And we'd love to get back and go
to Kyoto or Hiroshima or some of these other places, but for this
trip is going to be more Tokyo focused.
And again, we don't know when we'll be back again.
So while we're here, let's make the most of it and make time to
do everything that we wanted to do.
And as we looked at the two parks, we felt, and we've also
been told that Disneyland is where you want to spend a second
day. Yeah, so that's what we went
with. Yep, Yep.
So you can book your park tickets exactly 2 months in
advance and they go on sale 2 months in advance at 2:00 PM
Japan time. Which just seems so random, but
2:00 PM Japan time makes it a little bit easier for us over
here in the United. States yeah, 'cause it was 11:00
PM for us, right? So yeah, it was easier.
And then here's the thing, though, with the tickets, and
again, this was my experience. If you've done it differently,
please let us know so we can tell.
Something tell us because we could not figure this out.
No. So we had to check out
separately every single day. There is no like add to cart and
continue shopping it's. A separate transaction for each
individual park day ticket. For each park day ticket, which
was annoying because the website kept crashing and I was like I
can't, I can't do this. And again, we don't know if
maybe they're like they're ticket packages of three day or
two day or whatever, if they even have them or if they did,
maybe they were sold out. I don't know.
But like, the only way we could figure it out is to do 1
individual day at a time, 1 transaction each.
So three times we had to check out and it was just kind of
interesting. But our tickets, they were about
$60.00 each per day. So thankfully, because our son
is not yet 18, he's considered a junior.
So his tickets were fifty U.S. dollars.
So I mean, again, that part alone, we feel like we're
winning. Well, yeah, cuz we can't even go
to Disney World with our whole family for one day for the price
that we got for three days in Japan.
Yeah, No, we love it. I mean, again, the flights over
there, you just had to, we had to be very patient.
We had to watch with flight trackers, but like that's kind
of the most expensive part of our trip.
Yeah, once we get there arc tickets alone, I'm like, OK,
yeah. And even as we've looked at some
of the merch that's over there and other things.
Yeah, ears are like $12.00. I know.
Going to have to buy a whole nother suitcase just for the
merch. Singing our song.
But let's talk about where we're
staying, because this, again, was another adventure.
Yes. So we at the end of the day, we
decided we're staying at the Tokyo Disneyland Hotel.
But why are we doing that? So, OK, so we had kind of had it
narrowed down. We knew that we wanted to stay
at one of three places, either the Disneyland Hotel, the Toy
Story Hotel or the new Fantasy Springs.
And I do feel like this is one thing that the website did very
well was to talk about each individual hotel and kind of how
they fit and compare it to each other.
I thought that was really helpful, great descriptions.
That part was really good. Well, and even each hotel would
break it down because there's different character rooms,
there's different levels. So the website really, I agree,
was great at breaking down what you got in each room and the
theme. Yeah, in each room.
That part was good. So again, we narrowed it down to
these three. Here's where our preferred stays
are and again, based on price and and other things were like,
hey, because we really did want to try and experience as many of
the hotels as we could while we were there, you know, for
research purposes. But that's when we kind of ran
into a headache. Yeah.
So we were trying to decide what hotels we wanted to stay at
which day and we'll kind of get into why we wanted to switch
hotels later when it when we get to early entry.
But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
So we decided that we wanted to do the Disneyland Hotel and then
maybe a night at Toy Story. So we tried to figure out, okay,
what day could we stay at Toy Story?
Because Toy Story didn't have a ton of options, but the
Disneyland Hotel did. You would check one minute there
was a room for Toy Story available.
You would refresh it, then it was gone.
You would wait 5 minutes, it's back.
But then you would go to click on reserve and then it would
say, oh, the site cannot be reached.
And then it would refresh and it would be gone.
So this is just very real talk, guys.
Like this site itself is probably the biggest headache
that we've run into thus far. And again, even tonight we were
trying to look at some other options like, you know, even
though we weren't going to the parks, we thought about staying
at a Disney Resort hotel while we were there just doing our
other sightseeing in Tokyo. And it just, it really does
change by the minute or change by the refresh or, you know,
even when you submit it, you know, put in the dates, put in
the people, we happen to choose the wrong night.
So we just adjust the night. And then all of a sudden we're
looking at all different rooms, sometimes different rates, which
the rates I can get, you know, from one day to another.
Weekend rate might be higher but I just don't understand how
rooms were available and then they would disappear and then
he'd come back. Yeah.
And again, to to be honest, the site does crash or become
unavailable quite often and that part is really frustrating and
hard. So at the end of the day, we
just landed on staying three nights at the Disneyland Hotel,
which we are very, very happy. Yeah, twist my arm.
Right. Yeah.
So, yeah, we're excited. So we did have to pay a deposit
for that and then the rest of the payment we can pay once we
get there. Yeah, which I appreciate it.
I thought that was nice. And again, we are really, really
excited to stay at the Disneyland Hotel.
Part of that was, you know what, we're able to make it work.
Let's just do it. But the other part was we we
just don't want to fight the website anymore.
We don't want to have to try and move around.
And again, there was a purpose to why we were trying to jump
and and resort hop through our stay.
But in the end, I'm very happy that we get to stay there.
I think it'll be great so. And we are staying in one of the
non themed rooms which lowers our cost a little bit.
So Toy Story is kind of your equivalent of like your All
Stars. It's kind.
Of on the. Yep, it's kind of on the lower
end. The Disneyland hotel now if you
want to go, they have Beauty and the Beast themed rooms.
Those rooms are a lot more expensive.
Oh. They're beautiful though.
Oh they are, but we are just staying three nights in just a
standard. Yeah, which is OK.
Yeah. But this is where, again,
another kind of wrinkle to the planning is now that we've got
our park tickets, now that we've got our resort hotel, there's
also something called vacation packages.
Yeah. So I had done my research and
looked into vacation packages before we booked our tickets and
our hotel. So they have two and three day
packages that will include your hotel, your park ticket and your
attraction, some of your fast passes and it could also include
some of your dining as well. Right.
Which again, sounds great, because if you can put it all
together, why wouldn't you? And it's great because So what I
did was I took a three day package and I pretended to check
out. I was like, I want to see
exactly how this works. So you picked your room, you
picked your park tickets, which days you wanted to go to which
park. And then essentially you brought
up a calendar and it said, you know, you have three attractions
that you can book right now. What time do you want them?
OK, you have the option to book a dining experience.
So you want to go, they have a Crystal Palace.
I want to go to the Crystal Palace at this time.
But the problem is as soon as you start booking all of your
attractions, all of your dining, that's not included in the
vacation package. The ability to book it early is
a great plus, but you have to pay extra for it.
Like it's not included in the package because at one point I
was like, why is my price changing so much?
And I'm like, oh, because I'm trying to book all of this extra
dining that I realized is not included.
So I would say if you are kind of new just to Disney in general
or you know, you want some convenience, I mean, I can see
why the vacation package might help a little bit, but at the
same time it did end up being more expensive and.
I did the math. I did the math to make sure OK
based on the vacation package, even if I go ahead book all of
the the passes that we wanted. Maybe if I only did one
restaurant it was almost $1000 more expensive to book the
package than if I just booked everything myself.
Yeah. So I was like, I'm going to save
myself some money. So again, I mean this this took
us multiple nights, multiple times going to the website and
kind of figuring it out. But you know, if you have the
patience to do so, it is worth the time to just figure out what
you want to do and then kind of do it a la carte as opposed to
with a vacation package. Yeah, yeah.
And they have different types of vacation packages because they
also have an unlimited vacation package where you can ride those
attractions as many times as you want.
Those sell out almost immediately, and you can book a
vacation package four months in advance.
We were not on top of it at that point.
So we were not able to even attempt to book that when those
were completely sold out by the time we had done our research
and got into these, which I think would have been nice to be
able to ride the rides as many times as we wanted.
But I also want to enjoy the food.
I want to do other things. I don't just want to go to ride
attractions all day so. Well, let's talk about the park
for a minute because again, one of the things that we're very
excited about for not just Disney but Japan in general is
the dining options, the food and everything else.
And the park is no exception. I know people talk a lot about
Tokyo and all the amazing food it offers.
There are so many awesome options to eat in Tokyo
Disneyland, and I mean, it's almost overwhelming to be able
to figure out what we're going to eat and what we're going to
do. Not because it's like, oh, this
food's different. It's just there's so much.
Yeah, it's going to be crazy. So how did we go about
navigating that? Yeah.
So as I mentioned above, the you if you book a vacation package,
you have the ability to book dining.
That is actually the only way, Not the only way, but that is
the main way that you can book dining ahead of time is through
a vacation package. If you are not booking a
vacation package, you can still book on the Tokyo Disney
website, except it is all in Japanese.
They do not have an English version.
Which we cannot figure out guys, we looked.
There's and I even googled it. No, there is not an English
version. So if you were again, but I'm
just going to use Crystal Palace as an example because I was
like, oh, that might be fun to go to.
So I want to try to make a reservation and it's all in
Japanese. Like there is no English version
of the website. And I did read that if you are
staying on property you can call your hotel and they will help
you book it. Or e-mail them.
Just contact them in general. Yeah.
But those are your two main ways to book your dining is either
through the package or you have to call through your hotel.
And with this dining, we're talking about sit down
restaurants with a reservation and again, like booking for
these is available one month before your dining date and
that's done at 10 AM Japan time. Yeah.
So again, kind of kind of something you have to navigate.
That's a little tricky. Yeah.
So we will pretty much be mobile ordering all of our food.
We will be snacking. Yeah, all of the things.
And I think we'll still check it out and see if there's something
that, you know, does peak our fancy that we're able to, you
know, just walk up to day of or or look.
But again, from what we were able to gather, a lot of these
reservations go pretty quickly. And so there just is not a lot
available. So if you're looking into a trip
and you like no, I really want to dine at this restaurant,
which is a sit down experience, maybe the vacation package is
the way to go. Exactly.
Yeah, but that's not for us. We want the flexibility.
So we're excited to try Churros. OK, time out, time out.
Yes, we're excited for the churros.
I will say that cousin Katie has warned me to lower my
expectations that these are not the same churros which, again,
we experienced in Paris. In Paris though, those churros
were really bad. They were, they were.
Hoping these will be better. We hope, one can hope.
But again, it's OK. I'm not hating on anyone's
churros. I'll just again continue to
acknowledge that Disneyland's churros are the best of all the
churros. And we'll go to Disneyland soon
and and cleanse the palate. But we're excited to try them.
But not only that, they've got different flavors of popcorn.
They've got the famous alien mochi which looks really good,
sparkling Jubilee treats, which I don't know, it's just it's
going to be, it's going to be awesome, a grind in the best
way. Yeah, yeah.
So we're very excited for food. But it's not just the food,
we're excited for some of the other attractions as well.
And the top of my list, it's not Beauty and the Beast.
It's not even Tangled. I'm going on Splash Mountain.
The OG splash mountain is there. The OG.
And I'm just going to sit there and bathe in the life giving
waters of Splash Mountain. Let it wash over my soul and
take me back to my laughing place.
OK. What I said, what I said.
You might cry. I will cry, you might cry.
I will wash my tears into those waters so that I may become a
part of it. As it becomes a part of me.
I will go down with my mouth open, hoping that little flecks
of that water will fall into my mouth.
Moving on, OK, they have a Monsters Inc ride and Go Seek
which is an interactive dark ride I'm excited to try.
That that sounds super cool. They have Pooh's Honey Hut,
which is essentially you sit in a honey pot, kind of like
Runaway Railway. You have four people in the
front, four people in the back. So excited for that one.
Of course they have Haunted Mansion.
Of course they have Haunted Mansion, Justin, We will
investigate and we will report back to our ghost host.
But honestly, one of the things I'm really excited for is they
have It's a small world, yeah, but Groot is in it.
What like Groot is throughout the entire It's a small world.
I'm here for it. I think that sounds amazing.
I'm. Excited.
It's gonna be awesome, yeah. So all of those are Disneyland.
So moving over to Tokyo Disney Sea, so they have Soaring
Fantastic Flight, which is Soren.
OK, so excited for that one. They have Toy Story Mania, yes,
excited for that again. Rapunzel's Lantern Festival and
the new Peter Pan ride. Yeah, I honestly haven't read a
lot about these. Like I know what they are, but
I've tried not to like dig in too much.
I just kind of want to experience it.
Yeah, I can't do that. Things things find me on social
media. Well, I think it's going to be
awesome. Though with that said, there are
a couple key things that are not going to be open that I am more
than a little sad about. I know.
So this trip, really, this was the only time that this worked
for us. Unfortunately, just due to other
summer plans and other things going on in our lives, the end
of May was the only time that worked.
That being said, there are four key rides that will not be open
when we are there. I mean it, it couldn't possibly
be Pirates of the Caribbean. Yeah.
Oh well. Well, that's my favorite ride.
But of course, your favorite ride will be open Big Thunder
Mountain. No, that's close to.
Oh yeah, what the beef? Yeah, I'm just so sad.
So again, did we ever decide what we're calling Cousin Josh
now? Is he still Cousin Josh?
No, we really didn't. King, Josh, Daddy Josh, whatever
we're calling you now. If you could just magically open
these up in the next two weeks for us, that would be amazing.
Honestly. But here's the thing.
So like Pirates and Big Thunder Mountain, from what we've heard,
they're identical copies to what we have here.
Fine. So those like I am upset, but
the one that I am most upset about is Anna and Elsa's frozen
journey will not be open when we are there.
I know and I'm. That one hurts.
No, that one. That one hurts, but again, that
is the nature of it. Just these rides, they need to,
you know, just have some maintenance done.
We get it. If we ever go back, we will make
sure that that ride is open before we go again.
But then there's also Indiana Jones Adventure Temple of the
Crystal Skull. Yeah, that won't be open either.
Yeah. But that's OK.
It's OK. We're still there.
We're. Still going?
Yeah, it's going to be amazing. Yeah.
Let's talk about entertainment. I I don't know I'm.
What are you worried about? Because going to Disneyland
Paris and seeing their entertainment, my expectations
are very high for Tokyo and I'm afraid that it's not going to
live up. To what?
But it's Paris I. Know.
That's to be expected. And also, again, we do get
spoiled like with the shows and the parades and and all the
things that we have here in Disneyland and Disney World.
So, yeah, we kind of like we, we, we ate well, we started at
the top. And now we just need to accept
that maybe these might be not quite up to the same standard,
and that's OK. Yeah.
But at Disney Sea, you've got believe Sea of Dreams.
So there's boats that go across the waterway like that.
Looks cool. Yeah, I am excited for that one.
They have the Sparkling Jubilee, their 25th anniversary, going.
Yeah. So I am excited to see the
decorations and the little show that they have there.
OK, well what about in Disneyland?
You've got Disney Harmony and Color, which is a fun daytime
parade. You've got, you know, the Tokyo
Disneyland Electrical Parade. I am really excited, OK?
I mean it's not good gonna be paint the night, but like, it'll
be awesome. They have Reach for the Stars,
which is like this 25 minute long nighttime show.
Yeah, that's our castle projection.
Yeah, we love nighttime shows. Yeah, that'll be cool.
It will be cool. Yeah, and I don't know, we might
get lucky. And they may even have like,
that one daytime parade where they just, like, annihilate the
crowd with water cannons. I OK, so we have heard that they
they've done that, but I don't think it's going to be that.
Warm. Oh, it might be.
We can hope so. Again, like they do some fun
things. They do.
Let's go in with open hearts and
open minds. Yes.
It'll be great. Yeah.
So I think the other thing that we need to talk about and I had
mentioned earlier is their version of fast passes because
they do have them. They.
Do you? First off, you have to have the
Tokyo Disneyland app downloaded on your phone.
But anymore, we all know that we're all Disney veterans.
We know that you have to go through the app for all of your
ride reservations, of course, for mobile ordering because no
one stands in line for food. Yeah.
No one stands in line for food. Friends, download the app.
OK, just download the app. Yeah, download the app.
Yep. And then you want to make sure
that your party is linked together.
Now, because we bought our tickets through the Disneyland
app, we haven't linked our tickets to the app yet.
But we have heard that because we bought them through the
Disney site, our party should automatically be linked
together. But if you're buying, yeah, if
you're buying from a third party, they might not be.
If not, as the kids would say, we are cooked fam, I'll.
Get it figured out. We'll get it figured out.
We're just going to figure it out.
So again, in a few weeks when we revisit our trip and tell you
about it, assuming we make it back alive, then we'll tell you
how it went. You might just live on Splash
Mountain forever. Honestly, I might.
I'm going to be keeping my eyes open to see if there's anywhere
I could just duck out of the log and and just kind of set up camp
for myself. I think I could survive there
for quite some time very well. OK, anyway, back to this.
So they have two versions of their fast passes.
The first they call their Disney Premier Access, which is DAP.
Wait, hold on, wouldn't it be DPA?
It would be. Maybe that was a typo on my end.
Or it could just be a translation from a Japanese to
English. To be determined OK, so this is
where you will select a ride for a fee, so you have to pay for
it. OK, so you can book one every 60
minutes or after your admission time.
So unlike the US, when you book a lightning lane, you have to
scan into the ride before you can book another one.
This one. If your time was for 9/10 at
9:10, you can book another one. You don't actually have to scan
into the ride. So similarly to here, just
because your time is at 910 doesn't mean you have to go
right at 9:00. Correct, you have like an half.
A window? Yep.
Okay, okay, so we'll be setting timers.
We will be setting timers, yes. Love that.
Yep, and then so you can purchase your first one as soon
as you walk into the park. So as soon as you scan in, very
similar to here. And then you can purchase one
ride and one show at a time because similar to Paris, there
are reserved areas that you can watch entertainment.
Which is different for us guys like here in the US, like we're
not used to that. Yeah, But that is something that
happened, like you said in Paris and and again, like it's just
different. But I appreciated it knowing
that you had a dedicated spot to sit.
It was kind of nice. Yeah, then your second option is
your 40th anniversary priority pass.
Hold on, I thought we were at the 25th anniversary.
No. So it was the 40th for Tokyo,
and then they kept this. Yeah, the 25th anniversary is
Disneysea. Now it's making sense.
So this is where it's free to use.
However, your time slot is selected for you, whereas the
first one, you get to select a time, maybe you don't want it
until the afternoon, right? You get to select that and this
one's free. They're like, hey, you're
getting it at 2:00 PM and you don't have a choice.
You cannot edit the time slot. So you get what you get and you
don't throw a fit. Correct.
That's wild, gang. I don't what are we going to do?
Because I mean, again, like we're adventurers, but just
leaving it up to chance like that makes me a little nervous.
Well, and then your free one again, so you can book after
your return time. So again, if your time was at
9:10, you can book another one at 9:10 or you have to wait two
hours. Two hours as opposed to one.
Oh, so that's how they get you? Yeah, interesting.
Yep. So last thing I think we need to
talk about, OK is they call it happy entry, which essentially
is the early entry for Disney World.
Right, right. This is where you will get into
the parks if you were staying on Disney property and it has to be
one of the Disneyland hotels, right?
You get into the park 15 minutes early.
Wait, that's it. Yes.
Not like an hour. Nope, not 30 minutes. 15 minutes
early. However, this is so crucial
because that 15 minutes like the Enchanted Tale of Beauty and the
Beast. Yeah, I have heard that that
ride those passes will sell out within 5 minutes of the park
opening. OK.
So staying on property and getting into the park 15 minutes
early allows you to book your pass before the regular public
even gets into the park. You know, I was feeling a little
nervous and overwhelmed before and going through this.
Now in this episode, I'm like, maybe I wasn't nervous enough.
Don't worry, we got this. But that's like a key thing
because Can you imagine going all the way over there getting
super pumped to see Beauty and the Beast and then be like, oh,
I'm a little jet lagged. We'll just get into the park.
Like, you know, an hour later, no, wrong, wrong.
You're done. Yep, which is why we gave
ourselves a day in between. From the point we land to the
point that we start Disney, we gave ourselves a day.
Yeah, because we want to be as acclimated as we can be so we
can make the most of this. I mean, this is not the only
reason we're going to Japan, but again, you know, this is a big
deal and we want to make sure that we can do as much as we
can. And if you didn't know that,
that could be a game changer and not a good way.
Yep, but even with happy entry I have heard that people will line
up an hour before you can get into the park.
Oh. OK.
If you don't have happy entry, if you're staying off property,
I have heard that you almost need to get in line 2 hours
before the park even opens because people in Japan that's
what they do. That's just what they do.
Park opens at 9:00. They are there at 7:00.
All right, gang, So that's what we got to do.
But here's the snag. What?
Happy entry. Depending on what hotel you are
staying at will depend on if you can get into that park early.
So for example, we're staying at the Disneyland Hotel.
Yeah, we have happy entry into Tokyo Disneyland.
Sure. We do not have happy entry into
Tokyo Disney Sea. What?
So we will have to get up early and essentially because we can't
go into that special entrance, we have to use the main
entrance. So we are going to have to get
in line an hour and a half before the park open.
Coconuts. OK, so I knew this was the case.
It just gasp. What?
No, because it's just it is. It is what it is.
Yep, and that's another reason why we had looked at staying at
Fantasy Springs that day, because we're like we could
have. We have the happy entry then
from Fantasy Springs Hotel into Tokyo Disney Sea.
However, I was not willing to pay $2000 a night for a room at
the new Fantasy Springs Resort. Yeah.
So 2 hours in line it is. Unhappy entry for us.
Right. But that's all right, it's OK.
Why? Because let's talk about
shopping and the merch. Yeah.
What are some things before we get into what they do have, what
are some things that they don't really have because there are
some things that are different, like for example, lounge flies.
Yeah, they don't have lounge flies.
Like that's not, that's not a thing.
Like, I don't, I debated. I'm like, do I even take one?
Like that's not a thing. I think you do.
But yeah, it is something that like they just don't have the
little backpacks like we do here.
When we went to Disneyland Paris, we noticed that a lot of
the people in the parks were wearing kind of generic ears.
Most of the women had the the standard black with red bow and
polka dot mini ears. There wasn't a lot of variety.
If they were wearing ears at all.
Right. So, you know, what kind of
variety are we going to see? I don't know.
So there's going to be some things that are a little
different. But that being said, stuff is
much cheaper. Yeah.
And with the anniversary, there's a lot available.
And what is it that they're known for in Japan?
The popcorn buckets, the. Popcorn buckets.
So your girl will probably come home with a popcorn bucket.
And not just any popcorn bucket. The Peter Pan popcorn bucket.
I know as much as the Beauty and the Beast one.
If you haven't seen it, Google it.
Gorgeous. But you know me, I'm a Peter Pan
person. I know, but this is one of those
things that Japan is known for. And I do think it's really,
really cool that the international parks, all of them
kind of have a thing. Yeah.
You know, like Hong Kong, it's the pins in Japan, and Tokyo,
it's the popcorn buckets. Yeah.
And they have a lot of varieties of popcorn.
So we're going to check it out and it's going to be great.
But also, I mean, again, let's see what kind of ears they have
because they do have them. So hopefully there's some fun
things there. But again, like the sparkling
Jubilee, this just started. Yeah, it started like 2 months
ago, so it's still relatively new.
Yeah, and apparently you need a virtual queue.
So I don't even think it was two months ago.
I think it was only about a month ago that the Jubilee
started. But I had read that some of the
stores have a virtual queue because of all of the new merch
that is going on. So once we get into the park
that is something that we will have to look at is getting a
pass just to go shopping. Yeah, I don't know.
It's, it's one of those if if you guys are listening and
you're like, no, I, I love Disney.
Maybe I don't go a ton, but I just, I love Disney.
I'd love to go to Tokyo someday. This is where, especially in
this digital age, you kind of just need to get a feel for what
Disney is. Know how to use the app, know
how to book lightning lanes, know how to get into virtual
queues, all those things because going overseas like you just you
want to make the most of your time.
And the last thing that we would want is for anybody to be
blindsided by, you know, things are just different here.
So we have spent a lot of time not just because of this
episode, but because we really need to understand for
ourselves, going for the first time, what are we getting
ourselves into? What do we need to be prepared
for? Yeah, all of that.
So hopefully this is helpful for you.
Hopefully you guys have, you know, been able to pick up on a
few things, but is there something that we missed?
If there is, please let us know. Yeah, Let us know what we
missed, if you have any tips or tricks, if you've been there
before or you know somebody that's been there, or maybe you
have a real saved that you're like one day when I get to
Tokyo, I want to do this like let us know.
Yeah. And we've been trying and we do
this often, like I know Katie and Marcus do the same thing
before they go somewhere, you know, you start following those
reels on Instagram or looking for that content because again,
there are so many things you can learn just by watching TikTok,
watching Instagram, YouTube, other things like that.
So that's been really helpful. And as we're preparing to go, we
would also love to know from you what kind of content would you
like us to make while we're there.
Yeah. What would you like to see?
Let us know, because again, we're there for you guys.
We want to help showcase what this park has to offer.
And if there's something specific that you're looking
for, let us know and we'll do our best to find it and film it
and try it and whatever else. But I mean, again, I, I do, I, I
do have a lot of of things I'm a little nervous about.
But at the same time, that's part of the adventure.
But most importantly, we wanted to do this with our son.
It's his first trip out of the country besides, you know, the
Bahamas on a Disney cruise. Yeah.
Right. You know, it's this is the one
of the most amazing things about this world is the diversity and
cultures and seeing a different place and getting to know
different people. And it's really fun to be able
to go experience that in the Disney bubble, but also to be
able to go explore Tokyo and and see this other part of the world
that neither of us have ever been to Asia before.
So it's going to be a great adventure.
But oh. Me new.
We're here for it and you know that after it's all said and
done, we will report back and it's going to be epic.
It will be. That's it for this week's
episode. Don't forget to rate our show on
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Threads of Imagination, and until next wonderful Wednesday,
TTFN.