Spring Break in Japan: TOKYO DISNEY

You guys, HAPPY HAPPY APRIL!

In a blink March went by and now, we’re fully here in the middle of SPRING.

Before we know it, it will be May (I love May!) and then summer.

I am oh so excited about the month ahead.

Today, I have A LOT going on in blog world.

I hope you are ready for THREE DIFFERENT POSTS to kick off our new month.

For those of you gearing up for this weekend, I have EASY EASTER SIDES.

For those of you looking for WELLNESS WEDNESDAY content, I have WHAT “NOT” TO DO AT THE GYM.

And for those of you who love a travel post, I’m sharing our AMAZING DAY AT TOKYO DISNEY below 🙂 .

So far, I’ve shared OUR ARRIVAL AND DAY ONE, OUR EPIC DAY IN KYOTO, and our day with PUNCH + ST. PADDY’S DAY + DINNER FOOD TOUR too.

This day on our Spring Break vacation in Japan was March 18th, and it was extra special because, for the first time ever, the Shull family “divided and conquered”.

As we were planning and discussing our trip to Japan, the boys kept saying they wanted to snowboard and the girls kept saying they wanted to visit Tokyo Disney and…let’s be real, Andrew would rather do anything than go to Disney, and I’d rather do anything than put skis on, so we took one day to separate and do both. 🙂

Since both experiences were so different, I decided to share the girls’ Disney day today and then I’ll share the boys’ snowboarding day tomorrow.

Sound like a plan?

First, a few details:

1: My amazing Disney team helped me “dot every i and cross every t” for this day.  I couldn’t have done it so seamlessly without them.  They made sure I had the app, my Park Hopper passes, they made my dining reservations, educated me on the two different parks, and showed me how to get and use the Premiere Pass (worth every penny).  I’m going to save a lot of specific details for our clients because truly, the value of working with someone so knowledgeable about Disney is why you should reach out to us when planning any vacation (especially a Disney vacation).  They made it SO EASY for me!

2: Tokyo Disney has two parks, and we wanted to see both.  We had pre-purchased Park Hopper tickets for the day.

3: Tokyo Disney was right there in the middle of Tokyo.  It only took us 25 minutes to get from our hotel to the park.

4: We had two dining reservations (one for lunch and the other for dinner), but we were having so much fun and didn’t want to stop that I cancelled both that day (more on that below).

5: The park opened at 9:00 AM, and we knew it was best to be there early.  We had a car service lined up to drop us off and then bring us back when we were finished.  The car dropped us off at 8:10 AM and…

…holy cow, there were SO MANY PEOPLE in line already.  I couldn’t believe how many people were waiting for the park to open…

…here we are standing in line waiting for the park to open.  I’m not going to lie, this stressed me out a bit because LOOK AT ALL OF THESE PEOPLE.

But…

…the park opened at 9:00, and we were inside taking this photo at 9:37.  It truly, truly moved so quickly.  They scanned our passes on my phone, and we were in!  Easy!

Tokyo Disney is made up of two different parks: DisneySea and Disneyland.  We started our day in DisneySea.  Here are a bunch of MAGICAL pictures.

You guys, I was absolutely in Disney heaven.

These two parks DID NOT DISAPPOINT!  All of the Disney charm was absolutely here in Japan too…

Our Premiere Passes made it so easy to ride some of the most popular rides at each park quickly and without having to wait.  My girls were the most excited to ride the Tangled ride, so that is where we started…

This ride was one of the best Disney experiences I’ve had, and I so hope they bring it to Orlando.  It was gorgeous.  All of the music was the same…but the lyrics were sung in Japanese which actually made it feel even a bit more sweet.  We knew the words, but we heard it sung in a different language.

We all LOVED IT!

As a side note, I’ve had some gorgeous days at Disney parks, but this was by far the best.  It was cold enough to need a jacket, but sunny and bright, and we never felt too cold or too warm…it was perfection.

Me and my girl with Portofino behind us 🙂 .  She happily took this pic, but then I went in to smooch her…

…and we got this pic.  Hahaha!

I mentioned in the first JAPAN RECAP that culturally they do not walk around eating and drinking…and that was the same even at Disney.

Where Disneyland and Walt Disney World have food, food, and more food everywhere you look, in Tokyo, they had fewer options.  That being said, one of their most beloved options were the different popcorn stands.  They had popcorn stands sprinkled throughout both parks serving the most unique flavors (I saw a beef flavored, one that was mushroom flavored…so many!).  We picked the stand that served…

…caramel corn for a treat 🙂 .

Tokyo Disney had all of the Disney charm without just repeating what you see at the other parks.  Some of the rides were similar, but many were original to that park.  They also had different “neighborhood” themes as well.  I showed you Portofino and the Italian section and then this was the Arabian coast from Aladdin.  All so fun!

They even had a big Disney Cruise Ship to explore too!

One ride that was similar was…

…Tower of Terror.  This is one of our favorite rides at Walt Disney World, so of course, we had to ride it in Japan too.  We could not stop laughing because it felt so much scarier when everything was being spoken in Japanese.  This ride tells you a little spooky story as it takes you up and around (before it drops you), and since we couldn’t understand the story, we didn’t know when the big “drop” was going to happen.  It made it fun!

We cancelled our lunch reservation and instead grabbed a “quick service” meal instead…

…I was SO HUNGRY!  We had been walking and riding all morning/early afternoon long, and I could have eaten a horse.  I devoured my burger and fries.

We were refueled and ready for more fun!

The Toy Story area was oh so cute!

Here we are about to ride Buzz Lightyear’s ride…

…this one was exactly like the Walt Disney World ride.

We went from ride to ride to ride…

…and enjoyed every single minute of DisneySea.

That being said, we had Park Hopper passes and around 2:00, we left DisneySea…

…figured out how to buy a little train ticket (it was right there on the property and it connects the two parks…but you do need to pay for a ticket), and we were off to…

…the Disneyland park…

…since it was mid-day, there was no line.  We walked right on in…

…my Disney-loving heart was so happy.

We had Premiere Passes here as well and the first ride we wanted to try was…

…Pirates of the Caribbean.

Believe it or not, after that ride, we were ready for another snack, so we sat down and grabbed a quick one at Cafe Orleans…

…it was a hodgepodge of things to fuel us for the afternoon.

This Orleans area was super cute…

…and the castle was OH SO MAGICAL!

I have a mix of videos and photos from rides, but we moved fast and covered a lot of ground…

…my favorite ride of the entire day was the Beauty and the Beast ride.  We were able to skip the 2 hour wait and walk up to it (again, thank you Premiere Passes!)…

During this ride, you rode around in a teacup…

…the four of us sang our hearts out.  The music was in Japanese, but we belted those English lyrics 🙂 .

I snapped as many cute pics as I could as we darted from one thing to the next…

We decided to skip our evening dinner reservation in lieu of more rides.

It was a little chilly, so Mades and I skipped the final ride of the day…

…because we did not want to get wet, but Kensington and Ashby LOVED Splash Mountain…

…there they go!

We stayed until it was dark and then had our driver pick us up and take us back to the hotel.  We ate pizza at the hotel before crashing in bed.

It was THE VERY BEST DAY.  I could not have asked for a better day with my three girls.

Tokyo Disneyland exceeded all of my expectations (and it was a heck of a lot better than skiing 😉 ) .

My Disney Team is the VERY BEST!  Whether you want to visit one of the parks in the US, Aulani, Paris, Tokyo or Adventures by Disney destinations, let us create a magical vacation for you too!  Contact us today!

Now don’t forget…I have EASY EASTER SIDES and  WHAT “NOT” TO DO AT THE GYM today too!

Happy April, friends! xx