The Bounds Do Tokyo Disney - Day 5

[Melanie]

The Bounds Do Tokyo Disney

Cast of Characters -

Melanie (37) - that's me
James (37) - that's hubby
Josh (8) - oldest, loves Donald and thrill rides
Ryan (7) - youngest, loves Stitch and Goofy, lovin' the thrill rides now

Day Five:


Since it was our last day in the parks, our main goal was to secure the Lilo & Friends Luau lunch show at Disneyland. From our experience the day before, we knew we had to be at the gates early in order to be one of the first in the park, and then make the mad dash back to the Polynesian Terrace for reservations.

Thankfully, my wonderful husband understood that we didn’t all need to wait in that cold weather. That was silly. So he and Ryan took off about 7:15am and were at the gates by 7:30am for a 9:00am opening. Josh and I took our time getting ready, with plans to meet James and Ryan at the Polynesian Terrace as soon as we could get back there.

Score! They got reservations for the 10:10am show. We wanted the early show since we hadn’t meant to even go to Disneyland that day, as we had wanted another full day at DisneySea. But we had to try to get this lunch for our Stitch lover, and besides, what is a Disney trip without a character meal? James said they truly did have to sprint back to the restaurant with the masses.

We all met up there in Adventureland, and figured we’d get FPs for one last ride on Big Thunder before we headed over to DisneySea. The timing worked out perfect, as we’d just be getting done with our lunch when our time opened. In the meantime, we had time for just one ride before the show, and Snow White was most convenient. On our way back over to Adventureland, we ran into Mary Poppins, who was just a pleasure to talk to. She insisted that we all knew how to speak Japanese better than she did, and the extent of her vocabulary was “konnichiwa”. She was very sweet! We also ran into Suzy and Perla from Cinderella. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them before out for meet and greets.

We arrived right around 10:00am for the show, and they pointed us to the side to wait. They finally came out and made an announcement and everyone started lining up, so we followed suit. When we entered the restaurant, all the servers were standing there in their Hawaiian garb greeting us enthusiastically while doing the “hang loose” gesture. It was going to be a lively show, I could tell.

They led us to our table and the poor CM tried, but we just couldn’t understand what he was trying to tell us. I felt so bad. He got a very sweet girl who spoke excellent English (she wasn't Japanese) and she ended up taking care of us for the rest of the meal. It worked out great.

As you can tell in this picture, we had a salad tortilla something or other waiting for us, and Ryan’s kid’s meal had some sort of soup. He and James ended up trading. The salad thing was yummy! I have no clue what I was eating, but I’ve become pretty used to that since moving here. Our lunch was chicken of some sort, with fresh vegetables. I honestly can’t remember what the kid’s meal was. And we had this awesome drink that we couldn’t get enough of. Don’t know what it was either, but I bet we all had three or four refills. Delicious!

The atmosphere in the restaurant was great! I felt like we were at the Polynesian at WDW. Before we knew it, the show had begun with our two hosts welcoming us. Granted, we had no idea what they were saying, but it was impossible to not get caught up in the fun. Lilo brought out Stitch, then Chip ‘n Dale and finally Mickey and Minnie. They were all in their Hawaiian best and ready for the Luau fun!

After the introductions, the characters started making their rounds at the tables. During this time, the host called each character up for their own little spotlight moment. We first saw Stitch (how appropriate), then Lilo, then Dale, Minnie, Chip and finally Mickey (my favorite). One of my favorite pictures of the trip is Mickey and Ryan. Mickey was shaking his nose at him - I've never seen him do that! The characters did not sign autographs, only did pictures. We did get a nice picture at the end of the show though, with all of their autographs.

After the characters finished visiting, they called all the kids on stage to dance. Josh didn’t want to go (is he getting too old?) but Ryan was ready and willing. He had help from both Dale and Stitch, probably because he kept bugging them, and he had fun learning the hula. The main players then finished with a final dance. What a great time we had, and it was so worth waiting in the cold and rushing to the restaurant. Yeah, I know, easy for me to say.

After the show, we took our full tummies on Big Thunder, but not a problem. Big Thunder ended up being the hit of the trip. We rode it four times and Ryan loved it more and more each time. It was then time to leave Disneyland and head to DisneySea, so after lingering a bit at World Bazaar, we head for the front of the park. There we run into characters galore. And we ended up staying there for at least 30 minutes. This was one of those unplanned Disney moments that are just so darn special. What fun we had with all these guys. It was not crowded at all, so we got a lot of attention from the characters. We seemed to attract Friar Tuck for some reason, cause he kept following us around and wanted in all the pictures with the other Robin Hood characters. Too funny! The Three Little Pigs were in rare form, and Hook and Mr. Smee were up to no good as usual. And it’s always nice to see classic Donald.

[Melanie]

We finally pull ourselves out of Disneyland and arrive at DisneySea via monorail right around midday. We had devoted our morning to what Ryan had wanted to do, so now we were going to do what Josh wanted to do – Raging Spirits. While James and Ryan hung back at the Entrance Plaza taking some more pictures of that area, Josh and I walked to the back of the park to pick up Raging Spirits FPs. We again got four, which meant two rides for Josh.

James and Ryan caught up with us, and we wandered into Mermaid Lagoon. The other day, we hadn’t gone into Triton’s Kingdom, so we figured we’d check it out real quick. Uh, about an hour and a half later, we emerged. This area is soooo cool!!!! Ride-wise, a good comparison would be A Bug’s Land at California Adventure, but the underwater feel is out of this world. The boys rode The Whirlpool (Teacups) and then we went into the Mermaid Lagoon Theater for “Under the Sea”.

We had no idea what to expect, and we were thinking (incorrectly) that it may be like the show at MGM. It was a theater in the round which was supposed to be a sunken ship, and most of the action took place above us, as Ariel and all the sea creatures were “swimming”. The show used cool puppetry (much like I’m imagining the new Nemo show at Animal Kingdom) and Ariel was suspended on wires. The Ursula effect was amazing, with her huge head appearing from one of the walls, but her tentacles were hanging separately all over the theater. As for the story, since we couldn’t understand the dialogue (although all the songs were sung in English), we felt it ended rather abruptly. I guess it wasn’t meant to be a telling of the story, but rather just a highlight of the popular songs. They performed “Part of Your World”, “Poor Unfortunate Souls”, and “Under the Sea”.

We weren’t done down below, as the kiddos still wanted to ride some of the rides and enjoy Ariel’s Playground. While the boys were waiting in line for the Blowfish Balloon Race, and James was off doing some shopping in the Sleepy Whale Shop, I was looking through my pictures on my camera when I realized someone hopped up next to me on the “rocks” I was sitting on. Yikes – it was Prince Eric! He was also someone I had never seen do a meet and greet, and I was a little taken aback. What a cute guy and very nice. He wanted to know what we were doing in Japan and how we liked it, etc. I just hated that the rest of the family missed him, although they probably wouldn’t have cared as much as I did. The Swedish Chef was out as well, but I could never get a good pic of him.

After some ice cream, and some time playing in Ariel’s Playground (where the boys had so much fun), we came back to the surface into the bright sunlight. Seriously, that whole area was such a surprise. We loved it down there!

We could get another FP at this time, so we went to see what the wait was for Journey to the Center of the Earth, but it was down. An English speaking CM explained to us that it was down for “system maintenance” and would be back up in a bit. We grabbed FPs, which were for around 9pm that night, and stood in the standby line for 20K Leagues. The line wasn’t too bad there, maybe 20 minutes. I enjoyed this ride even more the second time. It’s just very nifty!

At this point, The Legend of Mythica had just begun within the Mediterranean Harbor, and we kinda spread out within the Fort Explorations area to watch the show. There were still many wonderful places to view from even though we showed up a bit late. WOW!!! The floats, colors, music, character costumes, everything, were incredible! Each of the main characters had their own float. What a gorgeous show! Far superior to BraviSEAmo in my book. Mediterranean Harbor was designed just perfectly to accommodate these over-the-top water productions. James went way high and took pictures from one of the towers, and I stayed down a bit lower. I’m so glad we didn’t miss it, although we hadn’t exactly planned for it.

After the show, we let the boys play around more at the Fort Explorations area, and then we headed back to through Mysterious Island on the way to use our Raging Spirits FPs. Well, as luck would have it, Journey had just opened back up, with only a 20 minute wait. That was incredible at that time of day. Now remember the first time, this ride scared Ryan so much he cried. Well, he was ready to tackle it again. I was a little surprised he was being so brave. But Josh had one thing on his mind – Raging Spirits. So he and James went on to ride that, while Ryan and I did Journey again. We were placed in the first row, and Ryan got scared and insisted we not sit in the first row, so I asked if we couldn’t be in the back. They graciously accommodated us, and Ryan told me he’d be fine if I held his hand. He did great, and loved it! It really was much more enjoyable the second time knowing what to expect. What a thrill shooting back up the volcano!

We met the other guys back in the Lost River Delta and Josh and I finally got our ride on Raging Spirits. We were in the front row, and no breakdowns this time. Great theming and a fun coaster. Josh proclaimed it his favorite ride of the trip!

It was late afternoon by this time, and after our early lunch, we were all hungry. Since we don’t get a lot of Mexican food here in Okinawa, we chose Miguel’s El Dorado Cantina. I do believe we all had the soft taco dinner, and it was very good. After that, we moved into Port Discovery and Josh and James wanted to do StormRider. I didn’t care to do it again. The boys had gotten yet another of the Orange Mickey Ice Cream (Popsicle) bars, and to prove how cold it was, I held Josh’s while they rode StormRider and it didn’t melt a bit. Brrrr! While Ryan and I were waiting, Inventor Chip ‘n Dale came out again, and we had a visit from Chip.

We were going to ride Aquatopia again, but it was down, so we went on to the American Waterfront and browsed the shops there. This is where we ran into this huge display of Duffy the Disney Bears. Huh? We had seen him here and there throughout the week, and I had wondered what the deal was with him. Mufasa has since explained to me that he’s supposed to be Mickey’s bear and that if you look at his face, it is indeed a Mickey. Interesting enough.

It’s getting dark now, and we decide to take a cruise on the DisneySea Transit Steamer Line. While waiting in line, we had a perfect view of Tower of Terror and realized this Tower of Terror had an awesome effect that the stateside ToT’s didn’t – a lightning strike. We hadn’t noticed it the other day, but since it was almost dark, it really stood out. If notice in this picture, there is a bigger window at the top which sits slightly to the right of center. Each time an elevator door opened (for your view of the park before the drop) a green lightning strike would originate from that window to the designated elevator. Way cool! I wish I could have gotten a good picture of it.

We didn’t know where our cruise was going, but it ended up going around the entire park. This was so pretty and relaxing, and I’m glad it ended up being our last ride of the day. It was dark when we finished, so we did some last minute shopping at McDuck’s and walked around the other side of Mediterranean Harbor that we hadn’t seen yet. It was gorgeous at night, with the lights and feeling of Old Italy. No way we were in Japan!

With heavy hearts and cold bodies, we left the park with declarations of coming back in the near future. Then just like all the nights before, we had an easy trip on the monorail, a visit to the Starwood Lounge, and an early bedtime. It had been a really successful day!


Up Next: Departure Day and Final Thoughts

[faline]

Wow! I'm not sure what else to say except - Wow!

[disneydrmr]

What a great time you guys seemed to have! You've made me want to visit there someday! Awesome pictures! That Triton's undersea area looks awesome! Thanks for sharing your trip reports and photos!

[offwego]

Wow Wow Wow!!!

Melanie this has just been amazing! I can't believe how cool all your pics are and what a good time you all seem to be having.

Thank you so much for sharing it with us!!

[dlpmikki]

'Wow' is one word and 'Thank you!' are two more. It has been a delight reading your reports and looking at your pictures

[KylesMom]

What an amazing opportunity for your family, Mel. Thanks for bringing Japan to all of us - it's been an unbelievable journey!

[tron80]

Sounds like you guys had a blast. Thanks for posting!

[BrerGnat]

Ok, I'm definitely going to have to visit Tokyo Disneyland! You guys had an AMAZING trip, from the looks of it, and your reports were so much fun to read! I'm glad your family got to have this opportunity prior to James' deployment. Maybe you can go back again when he returns.

Do they not sell Duffy the Disney Bear at WDW? They have had him all over the DLR for a few years now. But, here they are called "My First Disney Bear". It's the same thing, though. They are very soft and fuzzy...I almost bought one for myself a few times.

Looking forward to hearing your final thoughts, although I can sort of guess what you have to say. Thank you so much for allowing us this "peek" into such a fabulous Disney resort!

[lindique]

Mel, thank you so much for taking the time to write all this and to integrate those wonderful pictures!

[Nascfan]

Wow Mel! I have enjoyed your reports so much! Your pictures are incredible and compliment your telling of the visit so well. Thank you so much for showing us Tokyo Disneyland! What fun you guys had.

[ChipDale]

What a fantastic ending to your park touring! Thanks again for the great reports and all the pictures.

[Carol]

Wow!

What an amazing day from start to finish.

[Bethis26fan]

sounds like a great day.

[NotaGeek]

All your reports make me crave some crazy flavored popcorn and a BIG crazy Disney hat for my trip there next February!

[pdrlkr]

Thanks for the report!

[TikiGoddess]

All is can say is:

Wow, what an amazing park DisneySea is. Thanks so much for sharing your reports and your photos!

TikiG

[spb]

I can't tell you how much we've enjoyed your reports! Thanks for posting : )

[ElenitaB]

Mel, thank you so much for your reports! You've been so generous to share pics, experiences, etc. with us! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

(Now please write your final impressions. )

[DizneyFreak2002]

Thanks for sharing your report.