The best way to get there is the trains; it would cost about $40 in tolls one way in our car. The downside is that it takes about 3 hours by train and the trains are crowded with little room for luggage. I did finally manage to get the family to travel relatively lightly with only one suitcase. Ok, a suitcase, diaper bag, purse, dvc member bag, and tandem stroller. For Betty, that is very light. We got up about 5:30 am Sunday morning; mostly to pack. (I had to work Saturday - 8 hours on a trip to Narita airport to give and receive items from a courier so I didn't really do any packing the night before.) By the time we were packed and ready to leave it was almost 9 am.
Day 1: Travel and DisneySea: We got on our local train, the Keikyo Line (privately owned) and rode it one stop to Kurihama where we were able to switch to the JR "Yokosuka-Soba" line train (govt. owned). Some of the JR train liness here have a "green car" which has seating like an airplane and even there is an attendant who sells sodas and snacks. It cost an extra $10 to ride in it from Kurihama to Tokyo, but was well worth it. We then had to change to another JR line train that had no green car for the last 10 miles or so to the Maihama/resort gateway station. By the way if any of you come over here I recommend the www.jorudan.co.jp/english/ website. It has a train route finder to plan out any trips you may want to make.
Upon arrival at the resort gate way, we went to the welcome center between the train and monorail stations. We did not receive our paperwork from DVC before coming on the trip. Yes, we used points for this trip...we have developer points that will expire soon and are too busy to rent them out. I forgot the email they sent me...it made it really difficult. First they could not find me, then they wanted to charge me for the rooms. Luckily one person there was able to figure it out. They took our bags to transport to the hotel and gave us free passes for the monorail (normally cost money).
By the way, tickets work differently there. You have to pick a park for each day for the first 2 days, then any other days (maximum ticket is 4 days) is a park hopper. We bought our tickets at the welcome center going for 2 day tickets, as I had Monday/Tuesday as vacation time. We almost bought 3 day passes but they told us as long as we went to a ticket office before they expired we could switch from 2 to 3 day passes. The weather was predicting rain Monday and Tuesday, so we figured it best to see how the weather progressed before continuing.
We rode the monorail to the DisneySea Park (last stop before finishing the loop) and had lunch at a restaurant on the Mediterranean Harbor. We then went in to the "mysterious island" and got fast passes for Journey to the Center of the earth. We then got in line for 20,000 leagues, but Betty left to nurse Mary at the baby center and Ben then decided he did not want to go on it because it was scary (he does that a lot on dark ride lines). He and I took off to catch up with Betty but when we got there she was not there. Turns out Mary changed her mind and Betty went exploring. Betty wouldn't answer her cell so Ben and I caught the big water pagent on the harbor then went to check into the Hotel. The Mira Costa has a private entrance to the park and actually forms most of the scenery in the Harbor. Betty finally checked her phone and I was ale to get her to the hotel with the baggage claim check that was in the stroller. We checked into the hotel and had to wait in the lobby until they were free to escort us to the room. The lobby is very nice though with paintings on the ceilings. I have photos of the paintings and most (maybe all) have hidden Mickey's.
After spending a bit of time in the room, we went back to the park. I headed out first and used one of the fast passes to journey to the center of the earth. Betty and the kids followed shortly after and we met up in Mermaid Lagoon for the next few hours riding every ride except the roller coaster which we did not see on the map until the next day. We went out for dinner and as we passed 20000 leagues, it had only a 5 min wait, so we all rode that. Unfortunately it was almost time for the night-time water show in the Harbor, but we were too hungry to wait. We went to the american waterfront and ate at Restaurant Sakura. They messed up the order but what they brought was good, so no harm done. Back to the hotel after that and called it a night.
Day 2: Disneyland: We had a breakfast of packaged danish and OJ from the hotel's MinnieLisa Sundries. I miss my DVC rooms!!!! Then off to Disneyland via Monorail. The new Disneyland hotel looks great...scheduled to open 7/8 and it looks about ready. No point charts yet though (still have developer points to use).
We went right away to Pirates...it has been updated just like at California and Florida with Capt Jack. It started to drizzle rain, so we bought the kids raingear and continued on to the Jungle Cruise followed by a bucket of Chocolate Popcorn. Can't really recommend it...it was like adding a package of cocoa to an oil popper. Not much chocolate flavor. The caramel corn is better.
Fantasy land was next with Snow white first. The kids have discovered that movie recently and so it was a must. I never realized before how scary that ride can be for children. Except for the one little bit in the dwarves house, it is all scary. Even that scene has the Witch in the Window.
After that we did the carrousel and picked up fast passes to Pooh's hunny hunt on our way to Toon Town. Ben loved Donald's Boat and he kept running off to it. We had lunch there, getting souvenier lunch boxes for the kids; they were pricey but then everything is and the boxes are high quality not like in California. We rode Gadget's Go Coaster many times and had a picture with Mickey while there.
Next was Tomorrow land with two rides for me and Ben on the StarJets. Betty took Mary to Nurse as Ben and I got in line for the second ride. After that, Ben and I headed further into Tomorrowland, and I took him for his first ride on Space Mountain. He enjoyed it but was scared and said he didn't want to ride again. We met up with Betty and Mary as Ben saw the race cars, so he and I rode the autopia before heading back for our fast pass time at Pooh's Hunny Hunt. This is the best Pooh ride they have designed and may be one of the best rides they have in Tokyo. I am fairly certain it was built before the one in California. They shouldn't have changed the design; or they should redesing the others.
Next was dinner in the Queen of Heart's Banquet Hall. Prices and food weren't too bad. I had the Swordfish for about $11. Portions are small though. It was dark so we headed to go out through the World Bazaar stopping to buy a trash can for my office. It looks like Donald did a headplant into the ground. Ben didn't want to leave so he ditched us. We found him after searching about 5 mins. The nice thing in Japan is kids are almost universally safe here. Everyone watches out for them and so we didn't worry too much...mostly annoyed that he ran off. We can normally trust him to stay inside whatever buildiung we are in but this time he went to the Churros stand that looked like a fire engine and was behind the wheel. Another Monorail ride and were were in the hotel the rest of the night.
Day 3: Homeward bound. It turns out to be a good thing we didn't get the 3 day tickets. We would have loved to do more, but the day was very wet and windy. It took about 4 hours to get home with delays for food and worry about transportation issues. The train leaving Disney was running very slow...I think it was a weather related slowdown. We live on a hill and the wind was blowing about 30-40 mph with rain. I went ahead to get the car and bring it down to the train station. I climbed the hill pulling the suitcase with Ben climbed up on top opf it wrapped up in his raincoat. I was most thankful for my good raincoat that I brought with me as I was pelted by the water.
I discovered the last time Betty drove the car, Ben had turned on the dome light. Dead Battery. I called Betty and told her to take a cab. But, after we talked on the phone, she decided to be stubborn and pushed the stroller up the hill in the weather. Mary was covered with her raincoat and an umbrella and the stroller dome, but Betty only had her cheap raincoat. We were exhausted by our return trip and I still had to get the car running in time for work the next day. All in all it was a good trip and we plan to go back to do more in the next month or two.
