Tokyo DisneySea!

We are loving Jeff's Marriott Platinum status which gets us free club access, and at the Sheraton, that meant a lovely breakfast spread with a view of Disneyworld, so we were fuelled up in every sense when we headed out to DisneySea the next day. We had learned from the day before, and we had our monorail passes and our ears ready to go.

Tokyo Disney is the only one in the world with DisneySea. Everything at the park is connected to water in some way, and, yet again, the scale and attention to detail are staggering. You walk in to Venice.

We took some time to admire the buildings, but our goal was to get to the Indiana Jones ride on the far side of the park before it got too crowded. There was still a bit of a line, but it was manageable. 

It was a fun adventure ride, but when Jeff and Vivian said they wanted to go to Raging Spirits which was nearby and went upside down, Elena said, no way! So she and I headed over to King Triton's Kingdom while the other two went towards the scary ride.

The first ride Elena and I found was Flounder's Coaster, and there was no line. It's definitely a beginner roller coaster. I went once with Elena who scoffed a little at how simple it was. Then she said, she could go on it all by herself, so off she went, her first solo roller coaster.

Once that adventure was done, we went to explore the seashell castle just past it.

We discovered an opening and a pathway leading down under ground/water!

It turned out that Jeff and Vivi were just behind us. They stopped to take a picture, and then caught up with us as we were about to ride the Jellyfish.

The waited somewhat patiently for us to finish. 

Then we all went on the Whirlpool (aka underwater teacups).

The sky above had looked ominous, and there was a nice restaurant underwater, so we got some lunch.

Elena was very concerned about the big whale next to us. The sign said not to disturb it, and every so often its eyelid would flicker open and it would twitch a bit.

After lunch, the girls went to explore Ariel's Playground. It was a labyrinth of soft play areas and ropes to climb. Jeff and I gave up trying to follow them and settled in the area near the entrance that was clearly designed for adults. Every so often the girls would run by, so we knew they were okay.

They had a lot of fun making sure they explored every part of it. Once they were done there, we headed back above ground and across the river to Agrabah.

We wandered around a bit to see what was on offer.

We all agreed that the two story merry-go-round looked like the most fun, and, of course, we had to ride on the top story.

There was a great view of the square through the window as we circled around.

Once our ride was over, we wandered down the incredibly realistic side streets until we came upon another castle.

This was another float on a boat through animatronic land with singing ride, this time with Sinbad and his tiger. It was a lot of fun!

After all those calm rides, we were ready for some adventure, so we headed over to the part of the park focused on the works of Jules Verne. It was a steampunk landscape, impossible to capture in pictures.

Every so often,  you would hear the screams of people on the Journey to the Center of the Earth ride being dropped down the side of the volcano. That ride had an 80-90 minute wait, so that was our family fast pass splurge for the day. It was a really fun ride. The sets were well done, and the ride itself zipped around. Most of us knew the drop was coming, because we had seen it from the outside, but Elena had not put two and two together, and was very shocked to be dropped. She talked about how unacceptable it was that that had happened for the rest of the afternoon. 

We tried to soothe her by going on the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride, which was an interesting one where you were theoretically inside a submersible looking at the crazy underwater world.

As we were walking across the Italianate bridge back towards the other side of the park, the volcano began to rumble and then it erupted. 

Jeff and Vivian wanted to go on Tower of Terror. Elena said absolutely not to that, so she and I went to hang out in the area around it that was set up to look like 1900s New York City.

While we were walking along the street, we came across one of the main attractions of DisneySea, Duffy and Friends.

This is an offshoot of the Mickey verse that only exists in Asia. Duffy is the name of the teddy bear that Minnie made for Mickey to keep him company when he went to sea, but then he was lonely, so more living stuffed animals came into existence. This is HUGE in Asia, and there are only a few places you can buy the merchandise, DisneySea being one of them. Note, you cannot buy them at Disneyland in Tokyo, only DisneySea. We had seen people walking around both Disney parks with ears and various plush accessories modelled after these characters. Disney has capitalized on this by periodically having Duffy make a new friend who gets added to the collection. Elena's eyes were immediately drawn to a pink fox named LinaBell. She loves nature and helps Duffy get home when he gets lost one time. She also has a big, pink, fluffy tail, which Elena absolutely loved. Guess who left the shop with us?

We met up with Jeff and Vivi for a snack and to discuss next steps. Jeff and Elena were pretty much worn out, but Vivian REALLY wanted to go on Raging Spirits again, so we decided to part ways. Jeff and Elena went back to the hotel, took showers, and went to the club level evening snacks, aka dinner.

Meanwhile, back in the park, it was me and Vivi.

I took her back to Raging Spirits and rode it one time with her. It also had a single rider line, so my little roller coaster addict ran back through the single rider line, while I waited on a bench for her. I could see her zipping around, her bright green shirt was easy to spot. My reward was a boat ride back to the main Venice area. While we were waiting in line, the guy in front of us told Vivi how lucky she was that her parents had brought her to DisneySea. Apparently, he's been to all the Disney Parks, and he says DisneySea is the best.

In the Venice area, we spotted a cool 40th anniversary sign, so I asked Vivi to stand next to it for a picture.

We heard clapping and bell ringing, and when we went around a corner, we saw a wedding couple coming out onto the balcony of one of the buildings.

Our minds were blown. These weren't just facades! There were actual event spaces inside. And honestly, it was probably cheaper to have a wedding there than for everyone to fly from Japan to Italy. After admiring the wedding, we went shopping. The window displays were lots of fun.

We got some t-shirts and cups, and Vivian insisted that Elena needed fox ears to match her new toy. Sigh. I'm a sucker.

Our flight home to KL wasn't until quite late the next day, so we took our time in the morning enjoying breakfast. The girls were a little sad to be so close to Disney and not be able to go in, but after two full on days, I don't think we could have made it. Instead, we went to the mall, which was pretty much the only thing in the area that wasn't a hotel. We had fun window shopping, and we found a Red Lobster for lunch. It was definitely a little different from a Red Lobster in the U.S., but we still enjoyed ourselves.

Eventually, we made our way back to the hotel, got our bags, and went to the airport. We were flying back on Malaysian Airlines, and the business class tickets were only a few hundred dollars more each than economy plus, so I went all out. That also got us access to the lounge, which wasn't great, but it gave us a place to sit and eat some dinner before we got on the plane.

The seats were very nice, and Elena was especially thrilled when they offered her chicken satay.

It was late though, and we were all tired, so we spent most of the flight sleeping in relative plane comfort. The flight also completed the girls' and my complete circumnavigation of the Earth, which is crazy to think about. It was a fantastic summer, but, as always, we were happy to be heading home.

Tokyo Disneyland!

We got off the ship bright and early and caught a taxi to our hotel near Disneyland. We discovered that the most expensive thing in Japan were the taxis, but the hotel, which was a Sheraton near the park, had been free with our Marriott points, so at least we managed to save some money there.

Our room wasn't ready that early, but we expected that, so we dropped off our bags and headed to Disneyland!

That's the Disney version. In the real world, we had a minor hiccup along the way. Turns out you can only buy monorail tickets a local credit card or cash. Luckily, the hotel is directly across the street from a monorail station, so, when we realized this, I could quickly run back to the hotel and use the ATM there to get cash. We bought two day passes for everyone on the monorail, and caught the first car that came by, which happened to have the 40th anniversary park logo on it.

Looking around the car, we felt a bit under dressed. Everyone was wearing special Disney paraphernalia. Japan is a country that enjoys dressing up, and Disney clearly fits perfectly with that. Vivian decided that she and Elena HAD to have ears, otherwise they would not be able to fully enjoy their Disney experience, so our first stop was the shops on Main Street to buy them ears.

You can actually go into the castle in Tokyo, so that was our first stop.

Disney's attention to detail never ceases to amaze me.

While we were waiting for our turn to enter the throne room. We heard scurrying and talking in the walls and then Jaq and Gus Gus came popping out of one of the pieces of crown molding.

Elena took her turn "trying on" the glass slipper

and talking to the Fairy Godmother.

Then both girls sat on the throne.

While the inside was fantastic, I like our outside pictures better, even though Elena's sequinned ears added some unexpected sparkle to several of our photos.

We went down the stairs and got in line for the first ride we came across, Snow White. It was a classic, but also kind of scary. The boulder almost fell on us!

Elena requested a change of pace after that, so to the teacups we went!

Of course, then we got in line for Pinocchio, which was not exactly light.

Finally, I convinced the family to stand in the slightly longer line for Winnie the Pooh, and everyone enjoyed that one. It's especially cool that it's not on tracks, so you really feel like you're floating through the story.

By then it was time for a lunch break, so we grabbed some Mickey shaped pizza.

Elena had some fun while we were waiting for everyone to finish up bathroom breaks and water bottle refills.

The app for the park was very helpful, and we could see that the Beauty and the Beast ride had an 80-90 minute wait at pretty much all times, so we decided to splurge on a fast pass for that ride. It was about $10 per person, but it was totally worth it when we walked right up to the main ride entrance.

They ushered us into the grand entryway of the castle where the beginning of the story played out on the balconies above us with animatronics. It was all in Japanese, but we know the story well, so we knew what was happening. Then, we were ushered into the kitchen and got into soup bowls for our ride.

Lumiere invited us to be their guest, and our soup bowls danced around the room.

Then we glided into the winter scene.

And finally, we danced along with the happy ending.

I'm not gonna lie, I choked up a little. I am a sucker for Beauty and the Beast.

My emotional state may have been why I thought Space Mountain would be a good choice for Elena's first ever roller coaster.

To her credit, she didn't cry or get hysterical, but she was definitely more shaken than thrilled by the experience and needed to sit down for a bit afterwards. We decided a 4-D Star Wars ride would probably be tame enough.

That was still a little shaky, so we glided along with the Pirates of the Caribbean next.

We sailed past people eating at a restaurant, and we got into a whole debate about whether they were real people or animatronics. I'm pretty sure it's an actual restaurant, but the family members arguing for animatronic pointed out that no one made eye contact or waved at us. It's a testament to Disney magic that the debate was as heated as it was.

By then, Elena was calmed down enough that she was willing to try another rollercoaster, so we took her to Big Thunder Mountain, a classic, and she loved it!

We eyed Splash Mountain, but decided we didn't want to get wet.

We were ready for some air conditioning, so we decided to try the Haunted Mansion. The one in Hong Kong had been really cool with free moving cars. It had also been in English. This one was on a track and in Japanese, so it wasn't as fun, but at least we cooled off.

It was getting to be parade time, and the street was filling up with people getting seats along the route. We decided to forgo the parade in favor of the shorter lines and plenty of seating at the restaurant nearby. It was an Alice in Wonderland theme one, which made Vivi very happy.

Elena loves the theme too.

And they had steak and corn soup. We were a happy family all around.

After a lovely dinner, we bid farewell to our card hosts.

Elena had requested a calm ride after dinner, and we all needed some time to digest. It's a Small World was right next to the restaurant, so in we went.

Vivian had mixed feelings about this decision.

Elena thought it was great, and honestly, I was very impressed with all the animatronics. 

The song did get stuck in our heads though. Vivian demanded a trip to Toontown to make up for it.

We started by visiting Goofy's house, where my personal goofballs sprayed the walls with paint.

The girls climbed to the lookout at Donald's house,

and did a quick exploration of Chip and Dale's house.

Mickey's house had a line, but the girls didn't mind. They loved Minnie's house.

Jeff requested a ride on the railroad, so we got in line for that. It was a nice breezy ride, and we got a good view of the sun beginning to set.

Elena begged for one more go on Big Thunder Mountain, and we couldn't say no.

We got off that ride just as the lit up steamship pulled off from its dock.

By that point, I had over 20,000 steps on my watch, and we declared the day done. Jeff got a great picture on the way out.

We loved the Mickey clock in the station.

It had been a LONG but fun day, and we were ready to go back to the hotel and collapse.