Tokyo Disneyland

We spent three days at Tokyo Disney. When you buy the three-day pass, you have to choose one park for each of the first two days - you can't park hop on those days. You can park hop on the third day. We spent the first day at Disneyland and the second day at Disney Sea. On our third day we spent the morning at Disneyland and the rest of the day at Disney Sea. I am going to combine all of our time spent at Disneyland into one post, and all of our time at Disney Sea into another post.

I should have mentioned a little more about our hotel in the last post. We stayed at the Hilton Tokyo Bay, which is one of the partner hotels located in the Disney Resort. It is cheaper than the Official Disney hotels, but located on the Disney Monorail loop. In fact, the Hilton is right across the street from the monorail, while the other hotels are a decent walk away. A lot of people use a shuttle to get from their hotel to the monorail, but we were easily able to walk.

The Disney monorail stops at the hotels, the two parks, and the Ikspiari Shopping Mall, which is also at the stop for Maihama station. Unfortunately the monorail isn't free. You have to pay 230 yen each time you ride, which adds up pretty quickly. We ended up buying a multi-day pass. It saves some money and is definitely a lot more convenient than buying tickets each time.

To anyone staying in one of the resort hotels, I definitely recommend stopping by Ikspiari. Pick up a couple dozen donuts from Krispy Kreme. Not only are you probably missing these delicious American donuts, but they are a lot cheaper than getting breakfast at your hotel or at the park. There is also a small grocery store and food court near Krispy Kreme. You can pick up some milk and snacks as well.

Ikspiari also has a TGI Fridays and a Rainforest cafe. We ate at Fridays for lunch one day. Oh sweet American chain restaurants, how we have missed you.

Enough of that. Onward to Disneyland! But first, here's some cute kids in their Disney apparel:

Now, onward to Disneyland!

Right away after renting our stroller, Princess Aurora walked past us. Alivia and I made a run for it and were able to meet a princess first thing in the morning. You can imagine this made for one happy little girl.

We spotted lots of characters while we were at Disney, but they generally had crowds around them, so we didn't take a lot of character pictures. We were glad we were able to meet one princess though.

From here I think the best way to organize this post is into some categories. I'm going to do atmosphere, food, park areas and rides, and end with the parade. Whew. Let's see how this goes. 

Atmosphere

Cinderella's Castle

I definitely fell in love with Cinderella's castle while we were at Disney. It think it's what makes the park feel like more than just an ordinary amusement park. Alivia and I enjoyed the little walkthrough of Cinderella's Fairytail Hall. 

 These mosaics were in the tunnel that runs through the castle:

 Inside Cinderella's Fairy Tale Hall:

A view of the Castle from the top of the Swiss Family Treehouse

Between the castle and Westernland, we came across Snow White's Well. It makes for a fun photo op.

Food

We mostly ate from the snack carts at the park. They were generally cheaper and less crowded than the restaurants. We definitely learned that it pays to have a food plan: decide where you want to eat and when, way before you get hungry. And always have popcorn in your popcorn bucket.

 They sell these popcorn holders at the popcorn stands throughout the park. Seth really wanted the R2D2 one that we kept seeing but it was apparently a limited edition that was sold in the park when Episode 7 released. After looking around at the different stands, we went with Stitch. We like eating out of his mouth.

The popcorn flavors that we tried at Disneyland were Caramel, Curry, Soy Sauce & Butter, Chocolate, and Honey. Chocolate was of course the favorite, and of course everyone likes Caramel and Honey. The kids of course didn't like the curry or the soy sauce and butter. The soy sauce and butter actually seems to have a bad rep overall, but I liked it quite a bit. We had fun trying all the flavors. Good thing we are a popcorn loving family.

Sorry, I was hungry so I ate half of this pizza before thinking to take a picture. Yes I said pizza. Yes that is corn on pizza. This was actually pretty tasty. Corn and Bacon pizza. We got this from Huey, Dewey, and Louie's Cafe in Toontown, along with some other snacks.

We mostly ate light snacks throughout the day and I didn't take a lot of food pictures.

Adventureland
Jungle Cruise
Jungle Cruise is a fun boat ride through the jungle. This ride is most fun when you have an entertaining driver. Our first driver was pretty bland, but later we had a driver who was really animated and funny. Either way this is a fun, relaxing ride with lots of fun things to see.

Western River Railroad
Just another fun scenic ride. We happen to have two train loving boys.

 The train platform

The Enchanted Tiki Room

This is a show featuring Stitch causing trouble for some singing birds. The show wasn't that great (maybe because it was in Japanese) but I thought the waiting area was really cool.

 Making hearts with their hands

Caleb doesn't quite get it

Fantasyland

Dumbo the Flying Elephant

Castle Carousel

 The carousel at night

It's a Small World

Alice's Tea Party

(aka The Teacups)

This was definitely a favorite of the kids. Honestly, I have a hard time with spinning. I kept trying to ride with Caleb so I could spin slow, but he was being clingy to Daddy. Also after riding it a few times he wanted to go fast too.

Caleb fans, don't skip this next video.

As you can see, we rode the teacups a lot.

Seth and Simeon were able to do the Haunted Mansion together and had a lot of fun. We weren't able to do the famous Pooh's Honey Hunt. T0he other rides in Fantasyland also tended to have pretty long lines, but we don't feel like we missed out. We had a ton of fun.

Toontown

While I was riding Star Tours (see below) with the kids, Seth found a little play area for Caleb in Toontown. 

We ate lunch in Toontown (that corn pizza above) and took a bathroom break. The kids (especially Caleb) like splashing their hands in this fountain.

After that we rode Roger Rabbit's Cartoon Spin, which was a pretty fun ride (but too dark for pictures).

Tomorrowland

We were able to get Fast Passes for both Monster's Inc. and Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. 

One of our favorite rides, though was Star Tours. It never had any line and was a lot of fun.

We took turns riding it with the older kids since it was one of the few rides we did that Caleb couldn't ride.

Dreamlights
Dreamlights is the night parade at Disneyland. We were able to get great seats for the parade and we enjoyed it a lot. The floats were spectacular.

Disneyland is also just really beautiful at night. Especially the castle.

We had such a fun time at Disneyland!