So in about 5 hours and 15 minutes I will be taking off for Japan for a 10 day trip. The first 2.5 days I will be in to Tokyo Disneyland (and hopefully reporting back from the parks each day!), with the remainder in Kyoto, then back to Tokyo. Naturally I am super excited. I got the Kevin Yee book, which was useful but outdated. For example, he says that the only way to do hotel bookings for the on property and official hotels is by calling Tokyo at a certain number. That is no longer true. The Tokyo Disney website allows you to book Disney hotels on their website and the the Official hotels all now have English websites that allow you to book. Furthermore, I wound up getting my official hotel (the Hilton) from Orbitz. It was priced in US dollars and worked (so far) like any other domestic booking. Quick side note: I chose the Hilton because it was very reasonably priced for Tokyo ($150 a night for a double room) and was recommended by Yee, other websites, and Orbitz. I will have to take the monorail (which will be walking distance from the Hilton) to the park instead of just walking out the door, but that seems like nothing compared to WDW. Also, the monorail stop for the official hotels is called Bayside Station, and as I was born and raised in Bayside, Queens, and as I am easily amused, it seemed perfect. The book also appears to have step by step instructions on maneuvering around Narita airport (i.e., when you see the Starbucks, make a right...). They may no longer be true based on experience with the hotels, but it is good to have a game plan that is more than likely to work out for when you land and don't know the language. Moral of the story: I would really suggest getting the book for reference, but then checking out websites to see what has changed. I found the Japan section at Mousesavers personally to be very useful. Ok, final packing time! Speak to you all (hopefully) from Japan! Some fine print: I know this should technically be in the trip report section, but I thought we could use some beefing up of this thread. The question is: if I was to post anything from outside the parks, should I just continue this thread or start a new one over in non-park photography? Also, shout-out to Crystal (ScottWDW's daughter) for the name of this thread. My original thought was to translate it to Japanese, but real life got in the way.
I can't wait to hear from the parks Deniz! I want to make it over there one day and am glad that someone is getting the chance to do it now, so I can oooh and aaaahh over their photo's. Thanks!
Absolutely awesome Deniz! You're going to have a big one up on many of us - that's a Disney park not many here have visited...looking forward to the trip reports and photos from over there where the sun rises. Enjoy!
Have a safe trip Deniz! This forum is probably okay since we're not going to have the volume of other stuff like we can with WDW and DL.
Hey all from Japan! I made it safe and sound, and I think that I truly earned my Disney ears today because even though we landed at 3pm, and I was at the airport for two hours taking care of stuff before I even left for the hotel, I still made it to the park in time for the electrical parade: dreamlights with a pretty clear shot of the floats and stayed until closing... Needless to say I am very tired now... But boy was it worth it! There were some old friends: [attachimg=1][attachimg=2][attachimg=3] And some new ones: [attachimg=4][attachimg=5] And some old favorites [attachimg=6] How do you meter for a nighttime parade? Spot meter off a character's face? Matrix-y meter off the lights, but then adjust down by -.7? Random notes: Def recommend the limo bus to the hotels. However, be sure when you buy your ticket to clarify that you are going to a hotel and not Disneyland proper as I def ran into a language barrier when I was trying to communicate this to the luggage handler and bus driver out by the bus. There was a great cultural exchange of: Hilton. Hil-tun? Hil-TON. HIL-ton? Hil-Ton. Ahh, hai! Hiltin! Aye! Hiltin! My $150 room rocks. The service was fantastic, and there is a starbucks downstairs. I have a view of the castle, space mountain, and if you squint a little, thunder. The mini bar offers not only beer and chips, but legos, which was rather interesting. Also, the toilet seat was obviously designed by someone with too much time on their hands as not only does it have a spray and bidet option, but a seat warmer option as well. That one I am not quite sure about yet. My overall impression of Disneyland: except for the haunted mansion being in the middle of it, Fantasyland here actually makes sense and doesn't feel crammed in. Their toontown is AwSoMe! There is a little trolly that runs around it to make it feel more lived in, plus overall many more structures. I loved new Orleans square and how it transitioned into adventure land. Also, the stores are much more unique to the area of the park they are in, which was refreshing. I think a lot this park was trying to do Disneyland but on a Magic Kingdom Scale. To that I can't speak to since I have never been to California, but from all the pictures I have seen that seems right. In fact, this park seems much bigger than the Magic Kingdom. The only areas I was not super excited by was the World Bazaar that acts like their Main Street because I didn't see as many details (including windows) and Tomorrowland (perhaps because no TTA? I am not sure why...it just felt empty. But in a bad way). P.S.: I need some help if anyone is good with phones. I opened up my T-mobile phone to both international calls, data, and emails, but my blackberry is not 3G which is all they have in Japan. So my genious plan was land in Japan, buy a 3G phone (they are all unlocked), insert sim card, presto! Blackberry in Japan, which would quite honestly make me a lot more comfortable. We tested the phone where I bought it and it worked fine--I can both receive and make calls. So now I have to set up my email on it. I am trying to set up my gmail, and as there are no clear cut instructions for the Nokia 6120 Classic, I tried to make it up (bad idea). I set up one mailbox, but it was a pop, and I would have to tell it to actually retrieve emails, and when it did it found emails from 4 years ago and labeled them new. That was on the bus to the hotel. So I gave myself a stern talking to, and for the last two hours have tried everything I could. The closest I came I thought I came to was using modified blackberry instructions, so user name and password are my normal sn and pw. Then for outgoing and ingoing server I used imap.gmail.com like instructions said and then set it up so that it should automatically check every 5 minutes for new emails. Nope... I haven't received the test I tried, and I also haven't received an outgoing email test I tried. If anyone can make any sense of that and knows or has a suggestion of what I should try next...please help! (~whimper~) p.p.s.: Pirates in Japanese is just as unintentionally funny as you all have imagined in your heads. [attachment deleted by admin]
Oops, one more thing. I am going to Disney Sea tomorrow and then have most of the day thursday in disneyland again. If anybody wants me to check out anything, let me know. No promises...but I will try.
I am so envious, Deniz. I have maps of the two Tokyo parks, and they look like they would be great places to visit. For anyone else who wants to read a great trip report of Tokyo Disney (and lots of other areas in Japan), go to www.fyabulous.com/japan.
Wow...thanks for sharing. I must admit I was one of those cynical about Americans visiting Disney parks abroad when they first started building them...sort of akin to eating at McDonald's in Germany and demanding locals speak English. I was cynical myself, and wrong...I've since changed my mind - it seems everything I love about Disney along with something different that incorporates a bit of the culture from where it is located. On top of that, Disney is so universally known and loved that it isn't an 'American' thing anymore. Now that I've gone full circle on the idea many years ago, I would absolutely love to see this place! They did have time to work out the things that succeeded and the problem areas, to perfect the 'Magic Kingdom' layout and formula...and add in the technical capability and admiration of the Japanese...I am happy to be living vicariously through your trip reports until I can find my way there myself someday.
Good evening from Tokyo! Justin, I understand where you were coming from. I first became interested in Tokyo Disney and Disneyland Paris when I was working on my thesis in cross cultural psychology. I was interested to see how a corporation would try to translate and sell American history and nostalgia to other cultures. I never actually wrote the thesis because I couldn't quantify that idea, especially when a really good assessment for nostalgia was still not fully developed, but the anthropological side still fascinates me--like the placement of the haunted mansion in fantasyland or that they used the statute of liberty image a lot in Paris' main street usa. ANYWAY, today was TokyoSea, and instead of spurting random sentences, I am actually going to try and thoughtfully write something out for ya'll because I definitely have a boatload of opinions. But just in case I fall asleep while writing (let's hope so--it is 10:30 here!), I wanted post the view from my room that I was talking about: the monorail track (the monorail got blurred out), the castle and thunder, and Tokyo in the distance. [attachimg=1] And this is the monorail station for the "official" hotels, such as the Hilton. [attachimg=2] [attachment deleted by admin]
Thanks for sharing your photos. The fact that my night photos from Tokyo didn't come out is why I got the slr. Anyhow, hope you are enjoying your trip. Its a wonderful place to visit.
Cherry Blossom season is just beginning here. . . [attachimg=1][attachimg=2] [attachment deleted by admin]
Back to the parks... here is something you don't exactly see in WDW (sorry about the exposure)[attachimg=1] [attachment deleted by admin]
DisneySea is supposed to be fantastic, hope to see that someday, but I'll settle for photos Deniz. Glad to hear to are having fun.
