After spending our morning at the teamLab Planets exhibit, the five of us took the train over to Urayasu, Japan, where Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea are located. We then spent one day in each park and explored a bit of the area around us as well. These are the highlights:
Hotel: Oriental Hotel Tokyo Bay
We booked a room at the Oriental Hotel Tokyo Bay after finding a good deal on Orbitz for a “Family Plus Room” with four twin beds. The hotel is not on park property, but is a Tokyo Disney Resort® Partner Hotel. This meant we had frequent access to a shuttle to and from the parks, and it really allowed our days to go smoothly. The hotel also had some great amenities, including their evening “happy hour” (it was from 2pm to 11pm) with free snacks and drinks. We had a great experience here, and I would definitely recommend it for families going to the parks.
Tokyo Disney Resort: Baby Centers
This was my first time in a Disney park with a baby or a kid in general, not counting Disney Springs, so I became very well acquainted with the baby centers – these were amazing! I was so appreciative to have a dedicated space to nurse and change our daughter. Even the mothers’ nursing room had separate booths for privacy. The weather at the parks when we were there was quite cold and wet (we actually bought an umbrella after the first day), so this also offered us a space to get out of the rain and warm up a bit! They also sell things you might need, like diapers and stroller covers, so they’re a great kid resource overall.
Tokyo DisneySea: Mermaid Lagoon
DisneySea is definitely geared toward more of a teen audience with its ride offerings, so we found that Mermaid Lagoon was the port of call where we spent most of our time. Our son really enjoyed both Scuttle’s Scooters and Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster, which were the outdoor rides, but the indoor area had a ton going on – and it made for the perfect area to get out of the rain. Ariel’s Playground was a great spot to get out the wiggles, while our son also enjoyed his ride on Jumpin’ Jellyfish. Plus, they have shops and restaurants as well, so you could spend a large part of your day here.
Tokyo Disneyland: Toontown
I grew up visiting Toontown at Magic Kingdom in Orlando, but that closed in 2011 – seeing it in Tokyo was a nice throwback! The kiddo loved it, taking the opportunity to explore everyone’s homes (watching the cake bake and deflate at Minnie’s house was a hit), as well as visit with the big man himself: Mickey Mouse. Fun fact: if you ask our son his favorite part of the entire trip to Japan, meeting Mickey is what he says. We also took a ride on Gadget’s Go Coaster – this is reminiscent of “The Barnstormer” – and got bao bread sandwiches at the Good Time Cafe.
Other Fun Notes:
- Park food is surprisingly inexpensive for a theme park. Example: we paid ~$3 USD for a large chai churro. The popcorn stands are especially popular, garnering huge lines, and it comes in all sorts of flavors; we saw matcha white chocolate, curry, black pepper, and pistachio.
- Character hats are all the rage, and they are also reasonably priced (~$21 USD) for a theme park. We tried to convince our son to bring one home, as we figured he’d love a big, fuzzy hat with Sully or Mike Wazowski as a souvenir, but he wasn’t interested in doing more than try them on.
- Aquatopia was our favorite “new” ride, without a counterpart I’ve seen at either Magic Kingdom or Disneyland Paris. It was actually the first ride we went on, located in the Port Discovery area of DisneySea. I was eager to try The Happy Ride with Baymax at Disneyland, but the line was too long for us.
Was it worth it? Absolutely! Tickets are very reasonably priced, totaling ~$137 USD for each adult for two days at the park. It also helped that our kids were both free, as children at Tokyo Disney Resort do not need a ticket until age 4. While the wet, rainy weather may have dampened our daughter’s experience, our son continues to talk about what a great time he had. I would 100% do it again.
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