When looked for AirBnb in Tokyo for the last three nights, I wanted it to be close to a train station that is within JR Yamanote Line. That would provide easy access to places we wanted to go. Other requirements I had were to have laundry facility so we would not come home with too many dirty laundry; also have a lift facility. This is because we planned to do all the shopping in Tokyo and to drag our luggage up/down the stairs in (most likely be) full capacity could be quite challenging.
And with that filters on, I searched on AirBnb for a many weeks before decided to settle in at Shin Okubo. I had considered some other areas like Shinjuku Gyoen, Asakusa, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro – all of which is within the JR Yamanote Line, except the first one. But at the end, we decided Shin Okubo for its close proximity to Shinjuku. The apartment has many positive reviews and it has everything we need as well. On top of those, the price was also really good, we ended up at AUD 270 for 3 nights. Communication with host was great, he promptly responded to our emails and questions. I think all of my communication with any AirBnb hosts had been really great, with all of them being prompt and helpful.
Street in front of the apartment
The Apartment
The AirBnb in Tokyo is located within 5-7 minutes walk from Shin Okubo station, there is one 7-11 store close by and many more near the station. Shin Okubo is sort of well known as Korea Town, where you can find many Korean restaurant and shops that sell Korean brands cosmetics and skin care. With that many restaurants in the main street, the area is very much alive until late at night. The great advantage of the apartment being slightly away from main street is we got peaceful sleeps while there. It was like our apartment in Osaka, where it is so close to Dotonbori, but far enough to not get disturbed by the noise 🙂
Our apartment located on level 5, thankfully there is lift facility 🙂
From our communication with the host, we unfortunately could not check in to the apartment earlier. But the host kindly advised us to use lockers at Shinjuku station which we ended up using. By the time we checked in to the apartment, it had been cleaned and everything is perfect. Of all three AirBnb we stayed at in our Japan trip, this was the smallest; but understandably so are the majority apartments in Tokyo, I believe. The size is perfect for two adults with two big suitcases. Had we have more suitcases, it would probably a bit challenging to walk around the room 😛
Our general experience at this apartment was good, everything worked well and no problems occurred while we were there. No issues with speed or battery of the pocket WiFi either, so was all good. For the price, we were totally satisfied with this place and happily recommend it to first time goers. However, next time we’d love to try somewhere else. It may not necessarily within the Yamanote line, but still close to a subway or train station. The transportation system in Japan is working so well that I don’t think it would be a major issue if we stay outside of the Yamanote line.
View of train line outside of our apartment entrance door
Alright, down to the very last few days of our Japan trip. On Day 13, we left the magical world of Disney resort and back to real world 🙂 We left Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel at around 11 am and went straight to Shinjuku Station, in which we got coined lockers to store our luggage while we explored the area. And later in the day, we would be checking in to an AirBnb apartment at Shin-Okubo.
Day 13
Shinjuku Station is a massive station in Tokyo. I recalled many first time visitors got lost in there and as the matter of fact we did, too. We got there on the New North Wing, exited and walked around, some shopping malls. By the time we went back to the station from different entrance, we spent 20 minutes walked around in circle and unable to go back to the New North Wing again. The reason we needed to get there was to retrieve our luggage from one of the coined lockers there. In all the desperation, I remembered seeing Takashimaya Time Square nearby our coin lockers and that’s how we asked the train officer. Only then we learned it was the New North Building!
Following the direction from train station officer, we finally got to the coined lockers in time and went to the JR Yamanote line for Shin Okubo. It took only minutes from Shinjuku to get there and about 8 minutes to walk to our apartment. Once we left our luggage in the apartment, we went out again to Harajuku. It supposed to be one of the must go place in Tokyo, right? We both found it rather over crowded and the did not attract us that much. It was a quick walk along Takeshita Dori then we decided to walk to Meiji Shrine. Sadly, by the time we got there, it had already closed.
Takeshita Street – Harajuku
Next stop is Shibuya. No Tokyo trip is complete without a picture with Hachiko statue and walked through Shibuya crossing, right?
The famous Hachiko statue just outside of Shibuya staion… It was almost impossible to take the picture of the statue itself as there were crowds queuing for selfie with the statue.
And it was dinner time again, I was determined to have sushi dinner at Genki Sushi. After dinner, we had more walk around the area, walked into few shops and finally made our way back home. That wrapped up our short Day 13, which we originally had planned for Ramen Museum at Yokohama and cancelled at the last minute.
Spotted this cute version of Hachiko in front of Donqi Shibuya
Shibuya Ao no Dokutsu aka Blue Cave Shibuya Illumination 2017
What we ate on Day 13
We had our breakfast at Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel, a detailed review of our stay and experience can be found on the previous post.
That buffet breakfast had kept us full so long that we did not even need to have lunch. We bought some dorayaki and milk from 7-11 for snack in the afternoon and that was it. We were very slacked in taking pictures in the last few days of our trips, so unfotunately they were nothing to show here. By the way, out of all the convenience stores dorayaki, we agree 7-11 has the best version. There is just something about them that differ from other convenience stores’versions.
And for dinner, we had our ¥100 sushi train in Shibuya. Taste wise, they are obviously not the best. But, it was an experience to try out that kind of ordering system. You can also make your own hot green tea from your table, there is a hot tap water shared between every two seats. You can choose from the menu on the tablet provided, once confirmed you’ll wait for few minutes and your food will come to you. It’s a fun dinner and inexpensive yet very filling. Again, we totally forgot to take any pictures at all!
As we exited Tokyo DisneySea, exhaustion started to catch up – after all it had been a long yet extremely fun day. We were glad that we decided to stay in a hotel close by than going to an AirBnb near Shinjuku. Even better, we were going to spend the night at Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel. We scored a room here before we got one at DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta, so we booked ahead just in case we would never get a room at MiraCosta. But as we later got a room at MiraCosta, I got greedy and would not cancel this one :p
Firstly, we took the monorail to Ikspiari for dinner. Felt a bit run-down, we decided to get some takeaway and eat at the hotel room. After walking around and had not decided on what to get, we went in the supermarket and bought some bento boxes and drinks.
Then we went back to the monorail for a ride to Tokyo Disneyland station, from where we walked about 5 minutes to the hotel. Unlike DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta, Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel is not inside the theme park. It is newer than the MiraCosta, with a lot more rooms and therefore is bigger. There is a pretty garden in front of the hotel, then as we walked inside and took the stairs up, there the huge marbled lobby with all its grandness. The massive chandelier, a doll house in display, seating, everything was just perfect. It gives a more modern feeling than Hotel MiraCosta, a different charm.
Check in process here was also swift and again they offered us another 3-day monorail pass. We then were escorted to our room and it was the park grand view room. Our room was in level 5 which is good because our view of the park would not be blocked by the monorail. We could see the castle from our room window, albeit in a bit of distance away. But we enjoyed the fireworks from our room while we had our takeaway dinner 🙂
The room layout was similar to our room at MiraCosta, where the toilet is separate to bathroom. But there is also an extra mirrored dressing table in the room, opposite the bathroom sink. The bright yellow pastel colour paint through out the room gives a cheerful vibe. We got a king size bed in here as opposed to twins bed at MiraCosta. Their pyjamas were also in the similar yellow pastel colour; whereas light brown at MiraCosta hotel. There is a small table with two chairs by the window.
Again, we had another really good sleep at DisneyLand Hotel. They have coined laundry facility here, which we used the next morning. There is also a very nice gift shop within the hotel, a convenience store, and few restaurants. This time, we had breakfast at one of them and was an excellent choice. Do make a reservation for the restaurant ahead to ensure you can get in at the time you wanted. We had just made the reservation at check in and was told the only available slot was at 9.45 am. It worked out well for us as we could sleep in a little bit and get the laundry done first.
Sherwood Garden Restaurant
We had breakfast in this buffet restaurant located on ground floor of Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel. There are wide range of food options available: traditional Japanese meal and Western food. We tried various Japanese meal here and they were all yummy. The pastries were light, flaky and buttery as well; particularly love their fresh juices!
Sherwood Garden Restaurant
Our Japanese version breakfast
The pictures above portray only a few sections of the buffet tables. There are a lot more options available on the buffet table that I failed to take picture of due to the crowd. To summarize, the Sherwood Garden Restaurant did not disappoint us for breakfast buffet – in terms of options and taste.
Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel also has some charming character rooms, which I heard the Peter Pan rooms are awesome. We did not get one of these as the only ones left were the quadruple rooms and we did not need it. Actually we got a glimpse of Mount Prometheus as well from our window, which was a sweet reminder of how awesome the past day been!
View from our room window in the morning
The gift shop here was huge and I would have been wanting to purchase everything if not remembering our budget 🙂 There is also a boutique where girls can get a fabulous Disney princess dress and we actually spotted few little girls dotted on the costumes throughout the hotel.
Check out process was swift again where they processed the final payment and that’s it. I was a little sad leaving Tokyo Disney Resort, indeed the happiest place on earth – knowing that our holiday was almost over. We would definitely love to come back again if budget permits, but absolutely will go back to Tokyo DisneySea!! Both hotels are equally memorable to us and excellent, but perhaps Hotel MiraCosta won just a few more points for being located inside Tokyo DisneySea. And that is such a unique experience in my opinion.
To add the excitement, there are so many hidden Mickeys in the whole hotel. We found a few, please let me know if you found any more in the most obvious places that we missed 🙂
Hidden mickey in the table at our room
Did you spot the mickey-shaped balloon? This picture is behind the reception desk
More hidden mickeys pattern on the marbled floor
In the garden
On the various balcony/exterior patterns
At the Tokyo DisneyLand monorail station
Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel
29 – 1 Maihama, Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture 279-8505, Japan
Here comes the happiest day of our trip, day 12 we finally went to DisneySea! Having seen some parts of the park from our hotel room window, it felt surreal to finally set foot in there. The Happy 15 entrance gate should be opened at 8.15 am and we went to the line at around 7.45 am. There was already crowd every where, noticeably more on the regular entrances. The Happy 15 entrance also had a fair long queue and I thought to myself the 15 minutes may not be that much help at that rate. Really have to give to the Japanese for their motivation to line up for theme parks so early! The same case happened when we visited Universal Studio Japan, although then we made an effort to came at least one hour before the opening time.
Anyway, let’s talk a bit about DisneySea. As far as my knowledge goes, there is only one DisneySea theme park in the world and it is only in Tokyo. Currently there are seven ports: Mediterranean Harbour, American Waterfront, Port Discovery, Mysterious Island, Mermaid Lagoon, Lost River Delta, and Arabian Coast. So yes, the park is massive and there is no way to enjoy everything thoroughly in one single day visit. But, a good planning ahead and choosing a right day to visit can help to maximise our visit.
As many others have suggested, try to come on either Wednesday or Thursday, avoid public holidays or weekends or school holidays. Make sure to check the crowd calendar to avoid heavy visitors days. If you do not read Japanese like myself, you can translate the page when opening it on Google Chrome. When we went there on December 6th, the predition was going to be well crowded (39,999 people) and sit on the mid range of the crowd prediction. I think the crowd calendar was quite accurate on the day, it was crowded but not that bad. And with the Happy 15, we managed to do all the rides I wanted to try.
Day 12
As soon as the Happy 15 gates opened, the line moved very quickly. The staffs browsed our bags only very briefly then off we went in. Our first destination was Toy Story Mania located on American Waterfront, as were many other people. Along the way, there are many staffs whole waves and smiles and remind people to not run 🙂 As we got to Toy Story Mania, there were already a big line. Hubby went to get the fast pass for 11.30 am and we went straight to Port Discovery for Nemo & Friends Sea Rider. Luckily there was almost no line and we went right in. It was a fun kids-friendly ride despite we do not understand Japanese 🙂
It is also a good advantage to familiarize yourself with the map and locations of rides that you want to try. Because of the huge land size, it is easy to lost yourself in all the other attractions. Getting lost and distracted will leave you with shorter time do the rides you want. They have maps on the show schedule stand and I believe you can always ask the staff for a copy. Also take note of what time your have-to shows started on this notice board near the entrance plaza.
After that, we tried our luck at Lost River Delta for Indiana Jones Adventure. Again, the waiting time from entrance to actually got into the ride was perhaps only 15 minutes. I love this ride, all the little details was meticulous and amazing with a tiny bit of adrenaline kick.
Mysterious Island
Finishing that ride, we still had more than one hour before we could use our fast pass for Toy Story Mania. So, we went to Mysterious Island for Journey to the Centre of the Earth. This one was a long wait ride, it took us approximately 90 minutes to finally get to the ride. It started as easy ride with beautiful props then it started roller-coaster-like and out of the blue we were out of Mount Prometheus and turned downward right away. I did not see that coming, but I enjoyed the ride and would definitely do it again if not for the long wait!
Next was Toy Story Mania which we agreed is our favourite ride and no wonder as many people would also agree. It is such a fun ride while shooting at stuffs then at the end of it, you get to compare your score to the person you share the seat with. I would absolutely ride this again and again and again, but man, the queue was long. Even to get a fast pass, it already run out so early! 🙁 So, despite we would love to ride few times, we only got one chance. Before we joined the fast pass queue for Toy Story Mania, we actually went to grab another fast pass for Tower of Terror.
Best ride: Toy Story Mania! Only remembered to take picture later that day.
Tower of Terror
We then walked back to Mysterious Island for 20,000 Feet Under The Sea. I had no idea what that was, it sounded cool, right? Turned out it’s such a kiddie ride 😛 But, it was pretty and felt like we were really under the sea. Anyway, there was almost no queue on that ride when we went there. After that, we went for our fast pass queue for Tower of Terror. It was meant to be one of the rides at DisneySea with most adrenaline kick and frankly, we were quite anxious about it. The actual ride was fairly short, but definitely turned our stomachs upside down 😀 I am not a fan of such ride where you get dropped suddenly from height, so I would not look forward to do that again.
Another kiddie ride we took while at Tokyo DisneySea was Aquatopia which we did twice, not really because it was super exciting. Just because we wanted to ride something before the day ended and it was one of the few with significantly less queue 🙂 But regardless, the ride was fun and enjoyable enough. We also did Jasmine’s Flying Carpet and Flounder’s Flying Fish Coaster which the latter we also did twice and I quite fond of. It was a mini coaster with just enough adrenaline kick, a tiny scale in comparison to Raging Spirit. Raging Spirit with its 360 degrees coaster was probably a little out of our league, so we didn’t go for it. Maybe next time going there, I would join the single rider queue for this ride 🙂
The only shows we did at Tokyo DisneySea were Magic Lamp Theatre and the infamous Fantasmic! Looking through the website now, I regret not doing Sinbad’s Storybook Voyage – in fact, we did not pass that at all. Anyway Magic Lamp Theatre was nice even though not understanding Japanese.
Arabian Coast
Entrance to Magic Lamp Theatre
The buildings on the background is Hotel MiraCosta
The Teddy Roosevelt Lounge at American Waterfront
Picture of the ship taken inside
Fantasmic was so magical!!! I could not recommend this enough to anyone going to DisneySea. You’ll see people started taking up best seats for the show like two hours before it started. We joined the crowd taking our seats about 90 minutes before it started and sat there in cold. A lot of the Japanese people came here really well prepared, brought their own mat and blankets. We definitely should do so next time, especially during the colder season. But, all that waiting in cold was so paid off when Mickey came to life! The show was magnificent and absolutely made you to be kids again. Love how it ended with the Disney characters parade on the boats, dancing and singing – total highlight of the day!
The crowd stood by for Fantasmic! show surrounding Mediterranean Harbour with the lighted Mount Prometheus on the background
By the way, getting to restroom after the show finished was somewhat a challenge, all of them had super long queue 😀 We walked around the park once more time and by the time we went back to Mediterranean Harbour, the Christmas Tree Show was just about to start. We stayed for that and realised this was what’s on when we checked in to Hotel MiraCosta last night. Beautiful show complete with fake snow 🙂
Also, do not forget to ride the Transit Steamer Line or Electric Railway to get from one port to the other. It’s fun and you get a glimpse of the theme park from different perspective than walking. We tried to ride the Venetian Gondola, but it was not started yet when we were there. And we did not come back on the time they supposed to run again, so we missed it. We also missed out on the highly recommended Big Band Beat show.
Make sure to drop by inside Mermaid Lagoon, it is very pretty. All the colourful and lighting and underwater-themed truly brings mermaid cartoon to life! And there are also many child-friendly rides here, so if you come here with little kids, I am sure they would totally in love with Mermaid Lagoon.
Mermaid Lagoon
Ariel!!!
Inside Mermaid Lagoon – ain’t that pretty?
I thought we did a lot that day and yet we still miss out on so many! It truly was an extremely happy day, being kids again, forget about all the worries in our lives and just enjoy the magical moments. We miss Tokyo DisneySea so much and wish if only they made one in Australia, which I would definitely buy the annual pass then 😀
Anyway, the Christmas Tree show wrapped up our day at Tokyo DisneySea and off we went to Tokyo DisneyLand hotel for the night.
What We Ate Here
There were a few snack food I wanted to try even before came here: weirdest flavoured popcorn, the gyoza steamed bun, and lastly those mochi with ice cream fillings. In fact, I deliberately looked for those mochi here until we found it in a small cart with long queue 🙂 It could be very easily missed but we got them at last. Some of the food we tried were surprisingly yummy. Some others were not that nice and I would definitely not bother with them again next time. Without further ado, here are what we ate at Tokyo DisneySea:
Delicious mochi with ice cream filling (chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry flavours) – ¥360
Attracted to this snack bar, Barnacle Bill’s, for the nice smoky smell and crowd in front of it
Sausage (with bone) – ¥370. It’s a bit salty to my liking, but cute eh 🙂
Another one that smelled good! – Liberty Landing Diner
Pork roll rice, yummy and hearty! – ¥500
High Tide Treats – saw some crowd in front of it and we got curious – smells sweet and chocolatey
And we got the chocolate Tipo Torta, yummy! – ¥360
Mickey castella cake with caramel cream ¥350 – this would be our least favorite snack at DisneySea.
Delicious gyoza sausage bun from Nautilus Galley – ¥500
Tiramisu Ice Cream ¥310 – was good but did not blow us away
Milk chocolate popcorn ¥310. We did not buy the container package, thinking it would be too much.
Curry-flavoured popcorn – ¥310
Curry naan with rice from Casbah Foodcourt, it was actually pretty good. Worth to try if you come here
The mango lassi, nice and refreshing. Total spent for two servings of food with one mango lassi was ¥2,140
We also got a sausage roll and some hot drinks after Fanstasmic! show which we forgot to take the pictures. The hot apple cinnamon drink, I believe a seasonal menu, was really good. There were actual chunks of apples in it and goes really well with subtle cinnamon flavour. The hot chocolate, on the other hand was so so – but it served the purpose to keep us warm 🙂
Obviously we missed many other good food here, for example spring tail from Sultan’s Oasis; Seaside bun; Gondolier’s snacks and Magellan’s. Let’s save them for our next trip!
As mentioned in previous post, we left booking for a room here until about three months before our trip. The reason being, we did not plan to stay at any of the Tokyo Disney hotels at all. The plan was to stay at an AirBnb throughout our time in Tokyo and made a day trip to Tokyo DisneySea. That all changed when I researched for DisneySea strategy. While reading on a good strategy to plan for our day there, I bumped into some blogs about the hotels. And there went our initial plan, we decided to splurge and stay just one night at either DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta or DisneyLand Hotel. And as it turned out, we ended up staying one night at each hotel (✿´‿`) But, it was going to be a once in a lifetime splurge (we said at that time, pretty sure we will make up excuses in the future).
Anyway, being three months away from our trip, mostly all the rooms have been booked. And only then I realised majority people actually booked their room six months before, as soon as the booking window become available. The only rooms available when I first looked at it was the suites, which costs range from ¥250,000 to ¥500,000 per night! As much as we liked to, we just could not justify spending that on accommodation just for one night 🙁 So, yeah that was devastating – but as some people suggested, just be persistent and check out the availability page every day as many times as possible. And one day, finally a room became available; even better a Porto Paradiso Side Superior Room with Partial View. Woohooo…
Ain’t this sweet? ❤
Earlier when we checked in at Tokyo Disney Resort Welcome Centre, Maihama Station, we were also given 3-day monorail passes. DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta is on the third stop of the Mickey-themed monorail ride. We got to the hotel at almost 8 pm that night and were rushing to the lobby; hoping that we could see some fireworks or show from our room or the lobby at least. Our first impression was how grand the hotel is, even from the outside to the lobby! Every details inside the hotels was stunning; especially the ceiling of the rotunda which features paintings of each ports of Tokyo DisneySea.
Check in process took a little longer, I guess because they need to print our customised room key cards. I love how everyone here (staffs and guests) all wore a big smile on their faces 🙂 I am sure it’s true what they say about DisneyLand (or in this case, Sea) is the happiest place on earth, hey? After getting our key cards, we were told to wait a bit in the lobby for the staff to fetch our luggage and walked us to our room. While waiting, I could hear the sounds of fireworks but could not see clearly pass the glass windows. I could only see a giant Christmas tree with a huge crowd all over the place.
View of the lobby from upper level
Anyway, eventually we were escorted to our room 4147 and it was amazing with sea themed! I think it shows some signs of ageing but still in great condition. Of course the first thing I did once entering the room, was rushed to the window to see our view. The view was partially blocked, but we could see Mount Prometheus so clearly. And Hotel MiraCosta being the only Disney hotel that is located within the theme park, I could see all those happy faces of the park goers from my window.
The perk of staying at one of the Disney resorts is getting the 15 minutes earlier admission to theme park. You might think 15 minutes does not sound like a long time at all – but it could mean whether you get the Toy Story Mania ride or not. I did not know how true that statement would be until we went to DisneySea the next day! We did not get to try any of the restaurants in this hotel; but our stay was awesome. We had a really good sleep here and we left the windows slightly open through the night so we could hear the Disney songs played from the theme park. Another unverified tip when staying here is to get your park entrance ticket directly from the hotel as well. You may purchase the ticket online after booking your room or do so at check in. I have read that they might offer you a special ticket that can be used to access both DisneySea and DisneyLand; or a free half day ticket. This is unverified because we already purchased our ticket before we decided to stay here, so do let me know if that is true 🙂
Gift shop inside Hotel MiraCosta
Check out process was quick and smooth. We told them we would be transferring to Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel that day and they arranged for our luggage transfer. Oh by the way, they also gave me an “early” birthday card! Inside was the birthday card with a birthday sticker. I did not expect this at all and was overwhelmed with such a lovely gesture 😊
My early birthday card from Hotel MiraCosta
Yes it is pricey, but if you could spare some budget for it, I think you should try staying here to complete your Tokyo Disney experience. It was exciting wake up to DisneySea view so close and seeing the staffs preparing for the day. Then you get to enter the park via a special entrance 15 minutes ahead of the other people (there was actually a pretty long line for the express entrance as well, but it moved very quickly).
Stay tuned for how we spent our day at DisneySea and review on Tokyo DisneyLand Hotel \ (•◡•) /
Tokyo DisneySea Hotel MiraCosta
Tokyo DisneySea
1-13 Maihama, Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture 279-8519, Japan
