Episode 166: The Ultimate Tokyo Disney Planning Series Part 1 – Planning & Booking

Tokyo Disney sounds like a “someday” trip until you run the numbers and realize it can be more cost effective than a week in Florida. We’re Vanessa and Kris, and we’re kicking off a three part Tokyo Disney planning series with the unglamorous stuff that actually makes or breaks your vacation: dates, reservations, payment hurdles, and how to build a plan that fits your budget and your group.

We explain why we chose Tokyo Disney Resort now, including how the strong US dollar against the Japanese yen changed our total trip cost, and why Japan’s national holidays can turn Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea into wall to wall crowds. We also talk weather reality, from summer heat and humidity at DisneySea to colder, wetter seasons, so you can pick a travel window with eyes wide open. Along the way, we compare what we paid for a Tokyo Disney vacation package to what a similar Walt Disney World package can cost, and we share what surprised us most about food, merchandise, and taxes being baked into the displayed price.

Then we get tactical: how Tokyo Disney vacation packages work, when they open (often about five months out), and why you need your ride picks and dining decisions ready before you click purchase. We also share our biggest headache, credit card payment failures tied to 3D Secure authentication, plus backup options like authorized ticket platforms and alternative ticket types (including after 3 p.m. and after 5 p.m. tickets). We wrap with where we stayed, why we split time between Toy Story Hotel and Hilton Tokyo Bay, and what to prepare for before the next part of the series on arrival and park logistics.

If you’re planning Tokyo Disney for the first time and want a clear, honest playbook, subscribe for the rest of the series, share this with a friend who loves Disney travel, and leave us a review so more planners can find the show. What’s the one thing you’re most nervous about booking?

• Klook website for purchasing tickets
• Tokyo Disney Vacation Packages
• Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea Holiday Planning Facebook Group

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Transcript

Welcome And Series Setup

Vanessa Ferguson 0:25

Welcome to the Dis Love Podcast with Vanessa and Kris. I'm Vanessa Ferguson.

Kris Johns 0:30

And I'm Kris Johns.

Vanessa Ferguson 0:31

I would like to welcome you to episode number 166. And for any listeners joining us for the first time, our show features things we love at Disney and helps bring Disney magic into your life at home or on your next Disney vacation. In this episode, it's going to be the first of a three-part series about the ultimate Tokyo Disney planning. And in this one, we're going to talk to you about planning and making our reservations for our Tokyo Disney trip that we just took actually last week. So we want to share with you all of the ins and outs, and there's just way too much to share in one episode. So we are going to break this up into several different episodes. But before we get started with today's show, we want to tell you about a few other things related to our show. Of course, we always appreciate if you can take some time and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or anywhere else where you listen that helps new listeners find the show and of course helps the show grow. And before we get started with the episode today, we want to give a shout-out to a couple of our friends. First, we'd like to give a shout out to Kevin and Amanda. And what do Kevin and Amanda do?

Kris Johns 1:43

They bring a new sense of adventure to your next trip. Where in the park, it's not a scavenger hunt, it's an experience. What they do is they have you find details all throughout the park that you've walked past hundreds, maybe even thousands of times. They're going to give you a new perspective. And what they're going to do is they're going to take that next trip of you standing in line, just walking to get a churro. They're going to treat it into an adventure. What you're going to do is you're going to get a sealed pack of cards, they're going to have clues, and you're going to use those clues to find items throughout the park. Where in the park? Check out our show notes. We did this with them when we saw them at Disneyland. It was awesome. And again, as somebody who has been at Disney a lot of times, and I try to be pretty observant, there were things that opened my eyes, and I have four of them, to things I'd never seen before. And it is so much fun. Where in the park.

Speaker 2 2:36

And in the show notes, that link that Kris was talking about, if you use that link and the code DISLOVE10, you will save 10% off your order. And we'd also like to give a quick shout out to our friends Eric and Alexa at Baby Quip. There is a link for them in the show notes as well. And what does Baby Quip do, Kris?

Speaker 2:56

They're going to make your trip so much easier. They're going to help you. If you have small ones, we've used them for Keris, but they're going to bring to you brand new or like new equipment for children, whether it be a pack and play. What is a pack and play, Vanessa? I hear that a lot of it. It's like a pop open bed, essentially. Okay, a pack and play. I don't know what it is, but they have them. They also have for Karis, we've gotten her strollers, but like brand new. Here's what's awesome. Number one, the equipment is wonderful. The service is top-notch. And did I mention the service is awesome? What's is great is they're going to meet you at your resort at the time they said. So more time in the park, not waiting. And then what they're going to do is they're going to instead of you having to lug a stroller on the airplane here, there, everywhere, car seats, they're going to take care of all that for you. And so that number one, you can devote more of your time and attention to Disney, and you can ensure your child is in top-notch equipment. Because here's the thing does it cost a couple of bucks? It sure does. But guess what? When you go to Disney, you're spending money no matter what. Why not spend a couple

Why We Chose Tokyo Disney

Speaker 3:55

more dollars and make your trip so much easier on yourself, baby quip?

Speaker 2 3:58

Yes, and I will have their link in the show notes as well. So before we get dive too deep into the planning, I want to just ask some questions. And I know Kris's answers probably already. They're going to mostly be because Vanessa picked it, but I want to talk a little bit about why Tokyo Disney and why did we decide to do it now? So, Kris, do you have anything besides Vanessa picked it that of why you wanted to go to Tokyo?

Speaker 4:23

Why I wanted to go or why you wanted to go?

Speaker 2 4:25

Why did we as a family want to go?

Speaker 4:27

Well, let's say this. We've been to in the last, I would say arguably 16 months for sure. We've been to Disneyland, Disney World. And I know there was talk in the family about doing a Disney cruise, also a Disney cruise as well. A Disney cruise to Singapore, which would have been at sea only, which wouldn't have been bad. But in Vanessa's research, she just came across how cost-effective it was to go to Tokyo Disney. We live in Michigan. It was cost effective, I don't want to say cheap, but cost-effective for us to go 15 hours away to Tokyo than it would be to four hours to Orlando.

Speaker 2 5:00

Yes. So how that came about, like he mentioned, we were talking about doing a Disney cruise. We had a placeholder from last year when we had gone out of San Diego. And when we looked at the cruise, the cruise looked amazing, good pricing on the cruises. And then I thought, if we're going that far, why don't we add a couple days at a park over there? And I mentioned Hong Kong, and my parents were looking at going with us. And my mom goes, you know, if I go to one of the parks overseas in Asia, I'd really like to go to Tokyo. And so, like Kris mentioned, I kind of went down a rabbit hole investigating. You always see these TikTok videos and all these influencers saying, Oh, Tokyo Disney is so much cheaper. They're not lying, it is. And we're gonna get down into the details of that. We spent less for a week in Tokyo than we did for a week in Florida last December. We went, and this also takes into account we have DVC, so we have Disney Vacation Club, so we didn't have to pay for our room in December, but we paid for tickets, we went to two different parties, we had the dining plan, all of these things, and we spent more on that trip than we just did on our trip to Tokyo. So right now, and we kind of thought you have to catch lightning in a bottle. The dollar is very strong at this point when we're recording at the beginning of August of 2026. And if we waited, we didn't know what next year could bring. So we just decided, why wait? Let's go now.

Speaker 6:31

When on that note, today, as we speak, the US government intervened into the yen in terms of propping up the yen. I think it was at a 40-year low. And when Vanessa talks about the cost advantage, now granted, the portion sizes are different, it's not one-to-one. I got an ice cream cone, it was two dollars.

Speaker 2 6:48

Yes.

Speaker 6:49

I mean, you can't buy an ice cream cone without the ice cream for two dollars in Orlando. And so that was one of those things where we were just very surprised in terms of merchandise. I purchased a shirt, it was 19. And again, and these prices are with tax. They don't, you know, here in Michigan we have a 6% sales tax. So if something's a hundred dollars, it's $106 when you check out. There, the tax is baked

Savings From The Strong Dollar

Speaker 7:10

into the price. I purchased a shirt, $19.49 with the conversion.

Speaker 2 7:16

Our daughter couldn't get a shirt at a Disney park for that price. So when we first started looking, one of the things that is really important is you need to look at the calendar for the national holidays. Unlike the United States, Japan observes a lot more national holidays. So we were originally looking at mid-August. I will say it's my near my birthday, and our one friends were thinking about coming. It was near her birthday, but we discovered that it was near a fairly big holiday. Japan has 16 national holidays. I don't know how that compares to the US, but I don't feel like we celebrate 16 holidays on a national basis.

Speaker 7:54

No.

Speaker 2 7:55

So they have 16 holidays. So when you are planning a trip, check their calendar, check and see if you see videos and pictures of Tokyo, Disney Sea, and Disneyland elbow to elbow, those are those national holidays. So you want to avoid them. So right away, we went from planning an August trip to moving it up to having a July trip. And this is really important because it influences pricing, it influences crowds. Now, is there ever a downtime there? I don't think so. But we also didn't want to go to where and it was super, super busy during a during a holiday season. Now, another thing that's important to recognize is the weather is they have a lot of extremes in weather. When we went, it was very hot. We knew that planning this out, but we also knew if we waited till January, we didn't know what the dollar was going to look like. And they have snow too. So there they don't have as much snow as we get in Michigan, but they do have periods of snow and really wet weather. So you have to be mindful. Look at their weather. I don't think they really have a perfect time of year at all. Their weather's kind of all over.

Speaker 9:04

Imagine it's snowing in Orlando in regards to just in the cold parts. I mean, in the cold, I mean, maybe you might get upper 40s on the very cold side. When we went the first day we're in the park, it was 95 as the temperature plus the humidity because this is Tokyo Sea.

Speaker 2 9:20

Yeah, it's on the water.

Speaker 9:21

It's Disney Sea. It's right on the water. I think, in terms in the if you were to this to be the central part of the park, you'd be less than a maybe a quarter mile, maybe even a half mile from the bay. That said it is very warm. Not it's not heat stroke warm, but still it is extremely muggy.

Speaker 2 9:39

And we come from, even though Michigan is in colder temperatures, we are a very humid state as well. In the summer, like the week before we left, the temperatures were in the low hundreds and it was very humid here. So I felt like we were better prepared than some people, depending on where you live in the country. So that's something to consider if you're looking at summer. Um, but when we first started to book, we decided we were going to do a vacation package for part of our trip. Their vacation packages are a lot different than Walt Disney World. And here's where I think a lot of people get off right at the beginning. They only have three-day or the main packages are three-night, two-day packages. So it's not like at Disney World where I can build my own package, they have very set packages. So we decided to do the three-day, three-night, two-day package. And there are a few other variations which I'm gonna talk about, but unlike at Disney World where you can book out a year, these are the room-only reservation.

Holidays Crowds And Weather Reality

Speaker 2 10:45

So if you just wanted to book hotel or at four months, and the packages are only at five months, sometimes that varies a little bit, so you're gonna want to check depending on the time of year you're going, but it's only five months out most of the time. And you are typically only allowed those two or three nights at the Disney Hotel. So we had a two-night package. Um, and there's advantages and disadvantages. Now we had to decide because we were getting only a two-night package. I'm sorry, I said that wrong earlier. We have two-night, three-day hotel package. So we arrived in Tokyo on a Wednesday. That was our first night at Toy Story Hotel. We checked in the next morning. We went to the park. We were at the park all day. We stayed the night. The next day we went to the second park. We went to Disney C and that night we had no Disney hotel. We switched over to another hotel, which we'll talk about later. So we had a when we went to book, here's a couple of things. It opens up and with the time difference, I forget based on the time of year it was, because it was it was in February. We were looking at it was the middle of the night. It was one or two a.m. when we could book. But the here's the downside there's hours and hours of waiting in the queue. I think I waited three hours in the queue. Our friends who were also booking were waiting in the queue. We had multiple devices open to it, and it takes a long time. Now, before you get to the point of opening up in the queue, here's another difference. You book everything at once. Kris is used to me getting up one day to do lightning lane, one day to do dining. No, you do this all at once, and you're used to me getting up and oh, I got this reservation. Exactly.

Speaker 12:33

I'd make none of these reservations, but I'm very used to Vanessa again, whether it be dining, having certain deadlines. And I think that's just part of the Japanese culture, is that it's everything's planned. Everything's planned, everything's efficient, and that's just one of those things of being ready and having your ducks in a row.

Speaker 2 12:49

So when you're going to book a package, you can add dining, you can do some things related to rides, and then you also have the hotel with your tickets. So we decided that we were going to do that two-night, three-day package. And with that, we had to decide in advance with our group, because we had other people traveling with us, what rides we wanted to do, because we ended up doing a package that had three ride reservations. We also had to decide our dining plans because you have to book your dining. And then we also had to decide what we wanted if we were doing unlimited for the rides, or if we were doing the three rides, what time we wanted to eat, all of these things. Now, when you first go in to do the packages, it's going to give you every option possible. You can narrow it down to help save on some of those costs. So you can remove, like right away, it's going to try to give you three meals a day. It's

Tokyo Vacation Packages Explained

Speaker 2 13:45

going to give you where we looked at the baseline with the three rides. We ended up what we decided to do is you can't remove the breakfast. You are required to get the breakfast at the hotels, but we removed a third meal. So we only had breakfast and one additional reservation each day for dining.

Speaker 14:01

And question for you, Vanessa. Because I didn't plan anything, the third meal, like what in American dollars, like what would be the rough cost per person for the third meal?

Speaker 2 14:12

I'm not sure because it gives you a flat rate for the dining. So we'd have to look at a little bit of the breakdown, but I would say probably less than $20 a person.

Speaker 14:23

Yeah, and I think when you go into the park, and we'll get to this later, but the portions are decent. They're not huge, they're definitely not American portions by any means. But that said, if you're making the decision to go to Tokyo, my humble opinion is just dive in head first because the dollar, even with adjustments and with support, is still very strong against the yen, and you are gonna get a lot more for your money.

Speaker 2 14:47

Yes. So what we did for our dining is we were at Toy Story Hotel. So we knew we were gonna have breakfast at the hotel. And then for our first day, which was at Disneyland, we decided to eat at Crystal Palace because it was a flat rate for the meals. It's very similar. It looks like the Crystal Palace in Florida, except for this one has a little bit of a Mary Poppins motif with the penguins instead of anything Winnie the Pooh. We also went there because we had some members of our party that had some restrictions related to their diet and what they could eat. So we thought that a buffet would give the most options. And for our second day when we were at Disney C, we ate at the Arendale restaurant. So we had with that one, you are given a flat option of what meal, kind of like with the dining plan. You had certain meals you could pick from and you got a drink, and that was kind of how the plan worked. So we had this package that was three rides. We did not do the unlimited VP because that was just a little bit out of our price range. We had the three rides, four meals because two meals per day, one ticket to Disney C, one ticket to Disneyland. We had five of us in the room originally, because originally my parents were going, Kris and I and my our daughter. And at Tokyo, at the Toy Story Hotel, there are rooms that sleep five people. So if you have a family, or you have a like where we were, I mean, we're all extended family, we were gonna stay in one room. You are able to do that at Toy Story, at Fantasy Springs, and I believe some of the other hotels as well. So we stayed at Toy Story, and the total package was 515,200 yen, which means probably most of you don't know the conversion. I still had trouble with the conversion that works out to be about $3,200, a little bit over. Now, in comparison, when I price checked a here, this is a good trivia for you, Kris. Our package at Toy Story for five of us, so four adults and one child, and they do do child prices and junior prices. So if you have kids that are over that nine years old, our daughter is not, but if you have a kid that's 10, 11, 12, they have a junior price as well, so you're not automatically in the adult price, which makes a difference. So it's $3,200 for our package of with everyone at Tokyo. What would an equivalent package be at Walt Disney World? $7,400. Close, up to $6,000, depending on where you were staying. Because it I did price comparison like at Pop Century, because we were at kind of the equivalent of a value with Toy Story. So roughly double, depending on what you're looking at. So that's something right off the bat that was a huge savings. Now, when you go to book, here's here's some interesting things that you have to take into account. So we knew that the price was going to be lower. Um, we had planned out everything ahead of time. I suggest we had done like some shared documents, maybe make a Google Doc, have a shared chat, something where people can have everything because you have to know, okay, we want to ride the Peter Pan ride at 12:30. We want to eat lunch at 1 p.m. Like you have to know all of these things, and it they do use a 24-hour clock, so that's something to take into consideration when you're making plans for the rides as well. But have everything ready, and then on top of that, you have to really be careful. I had a bit of a nightmare with our credit cards, and it's

The Booking Queue And Prep

Speaker 2 18:20

odd because other members of our party used the same cards and they had no problems. It was quite the nightmare with the cards.

Speaker 18:27

Yes, it was.

Speaker 2 18:28

So here's what happens is there is a, and this is gonna sound like a lot of jargon, but if you are planning a Tokyo Disney, check with your credit card companies ahead of time. I had already checked with, I was gonna use Chase because I wasn't gonna use the Disney card because the Disney card does have that foreign transaction fee, but I was gonna use, I have a Chase Sapphire card, which is meant for travel and for foreign travel. And I talked to them ahead of time, no big deal. They said, well, Japan, when it comes to Visa, they do what's called the 3D, like the number three in the letter D as in dog, secure authentication. And if you join any of the Tokyo Facebook groups, Disney Facebook groups, you'll see it is a crapshoot of whose card goes through and whose doesn't. So I had already talked to Chase, went through the whole process, wouldn't take my card. It said it couldn't be authenticated. Decided, okay, I've waited all this time. I'm gonna try Bank of America, I'm gonna try Discover. None of the different banking systems would work. I would get the fraud alerts, I'd do the fraud, like the where I give you the code. Nothing worked. I could not get through. I had waited three hours in the queue. I'd already talked to my credit card companies, I couldn't get through. Our friends had the same card, they used it, they had no problems. So it's very hit or miss. So be prepared. If I would have known this ahead of time, I would have just waited and not done the queue in the middle of the night. I would have just done the queue the next day because I ended up having to do the queue again the next day when it was daytime for us. You also need to watch, they have a time where there's maintenance on their site every single day, and that time falls in the middle of our afternoon. Like we're in Eastern Standard Time. I think it was from 1 to 2 p.m. You'd have to double check depending on the time zone you're in, but that means you can't access the site. So be mindful of that because during the day here, it's in the middle of the night there. So you have to be mindful of that. I ended up calling Chase. I decided I know some people said they've had luck with American Express. Some people said MasterCard. I've also heard, like, if you do the prepaid debit cards, but because it was such a large amount, it wasn't letting me do the prepaid debit cards. So I called Chase. Regular people in Chase customer service don't know what you're talking about. You end up having to talk to the fraud protection department and ask about the 3D secure. And I don't want to bog down this episode about all of these details about credit cards, but this was very frustrating and a huge time suck when we were trying to work on getting our rooms reserved and our package set up. So I finally was able to get, I think they gave me less than a 24-hour authorization with this 3D secure. They had me on the phone while I was doing it on the Tokyo site, and I finally was able to purchase our package. Another friend that was going solo, she asked me just to book the her package for her because she was having trouble as well. So it's important, those are things that I really wish I would have known ahead of time because I thought, oh, I alerted my credit card, no big deal. Well, if you read and join, there's some really

Dining Picks And Ride Reservations

Speaker 2 21:40

good Facebook planning groups for Tokyo. You'll see it's really hit and miss. So that's something that's important to remember. Now, when you got there, we had no problems. It's just when it's trying to conduct a transaction from overseas. And we buy, we've done transactions overseas quite a bit because I think we've mentioned our daughters from India. We've done Some purchases in for in India and different things. This was the first time we had such a problem with our credit cards. Another thing that's important to know is you can't use Disney gift cards. Kris was asking, hey, we've got gift cards, or we have our Disney Reward Visa that rewards card. None of those can be used because Tokyo Disney is not operated by the Disney company. So that's something important to know. And another thing is that there are so many little details that go into it. You want to make sure that everyone is on the same page. Everybody has all those details planned out. So we finally got it booked. Now, if we had not booked the package, we would have had to wait until four months out to book the room-only reservations. So we ended up, I'm going to tell a little bit more about what we planned. We decided that the remaining nights of our vacation, so the other four nights we were there, we were going to switch to the Hilton, Tokyo Bay, which was next door.

Speaker 22:58

Next door. And this is not this is not Florida next door. This is you walk down the driveway, the walkway, you go maybe 20 yards to your left, you're right there. You can see again, this is Tokyo. I mean, the other side is in America, we're just so used to things being so far apart. Tokyo is not that way. The density is intense. And you can see from Toy Story, you can see the Tokyo Bay Hilton. And there was one point where Vanessa was just, we had some negotiating to do with just the next steps. And I said, let me just take the the guard the big bags, the luggage over. And I wheeled, I think, four bags, and it maybe took me, it was less than 10 minutes from door to door.

Speaker 2 23:38

And I will say these rooms are these buildings are closer than some of the buildings in an individual Disney resort. Like if they're closer together than some of the buildings, like at Port Orleans Riverside, you literally could walk to those faster than you could from Alligator Bayou to the mansion. So it's really a good thing to do. And because there was going to be five of us, we decided to switch to the Hilton number one because they have suites that are larger. And we thought by that point in the trip we'd want more space. And we were able to get Hilton rewards points. And that room, a suite at the Hilton Bay with taxes and everything, was $340. So we went from, and there's no way you could get a suite at Walt Disney World for $340. We could have had a standard room if we had a smaller group, but because we had five, we were getting the suite, and it was perfect. That Hilton had lots of restaurants, it had a convenience store because those are big things over in Japan.

Credit Card 3D Secure Headaches

Speaker 24:40

It had these are not, and again, going back to the price piece, these are not Disney convenience stores. These it would be like as if it was a there was a 7-Eleven. This brand was called Lawson's, but the items were not Disney prices inside the store.

Speaker 2 24:56

Yeah. So where he the great point, because like we're used to, if you're on Disney property, everything is the prices increase. Even if you're at the Speedway gas station that's over by Swan and Dolphin, the prices are higher. This was not the case. So staying at the Hilton not only saved us money on our nightly room, but it also saved us just money overall for like food and things like that. So we booked the Hilton, and then what we ended up doing is we booked separate individual tickets. So we had two days in our package. We took a, I wouldn't say a rest day, because we took a day where we did a private tour of Tokyo and we were already moved over to the Hilton. And from there, the next day, we did a second day at Tokyo Disney C, which we bought an individual ticket. You can buy those on Kluke K-L-O-O-K, which I'll put the link in the in the show notes because I ended up using Kluke because it was easier in terms of we had problems with the credit card. Again, I didn't want to deal with that headache because it opens up as you get closer to your date, it opens up where you can buy the single tickets. So we bought a single ticket for Disney C and then our friends helped us out because they weren't having trouble with their credit cards. They did, they also have after 3 p.m. tickets and after 5 p.m. tickets, which is great because on the last day we did an after 5 p.m. ticket for Disneyland, which I would have to go back and look, but I think the equivalent was about $18 for the after 5 p.m. ticket. Now, tickets, of course, vary depending on when and day, but this was a Monday and it was an $18 ticket price. So great savings. Even the single-day ticket was quite low. So I'll put all of those links in the show notes. Another option they have for tickets that they don't have here, and if you listen to some of our previous episodes, um, like about the disability pass in Florida, this is they actually have a disability ticket where you can get a reduced price ticket for a person who has a disability along with a companion for their helper. We were going to purchase one of those for our daughter and do that, but because of the credit card challenges, we just ended up buying the regular one-day pass. Those disability tickets are only available in the one-day passes, not in the vacation packages or in the after three or after five tickets. So they have some different ticket options, which I really enjoyed. I liked having that after three and after five option. If we had been there longer, I probably would have done that another day. Um, we did the after five, and that was good for us. But the after three ticket or the after five ticket was just right for us. So we had in the end, we ended up booking two full days at Disney C, one full day at Disneyland, and an after five at Disneyland. So overall, there was a lot of different moving parts when it came to the planning. But booking your vacation package first is the number one priority you should have, followed by figuring out what those accommodations are going to be afterwards. We booked Toy Story because we thought our daughter would enjoy it. It was also one considered one of the value resorts, but also you got certain perks if you stayed at some of the Disney hotels. So if you stayed at Fantasy Springs or Toy Story, which our friends stayed at Fantasy Springs, you got to use a special entrance to Tokyo Disney Sea that was at the back of the park near the Fantasy Springs area. So that worked out well for us, which we'll talk more about that in our future episode. But I will say in the planning groups,

Toy Story Hotel Versus Hilton Tokyo Bay

Speaker 2 28:35

there's also the Ambassador Hotel. There's also the Disneyland Hotel. People acted like the Ambassador Hotel was like way off. I in my mind, I was thinking like Animal Kingdom Lodge, kind of off. It was right on the monorail line. They had some really cute rooms that were themed about around different Disney shows. Honestly, if we went back, I wouldn't mind staying at the Ambassador Hotel. All those hotels were very close.

Speaker 28:59

Definitely, very close. And that's the other piece, too. You have to change your perspective in terms of the money, in terms of the distance, also the weather. It's one of those pieces where, for us, everything is on the monorail, you pay a small fee, we'll get into that. But with that, things are very, very close. And I think even from when you have to leave the park at nine o'clock, I believe if I hadn't just even to exaggerate, it was less than a half hour from door to door, and that's us going slow and letting other people get ahead of us. Everything is very close. It's a real experience, and that's where I really want you to just think about it. Because number one, if you've been to Orlando a number of times, it's going to be there again. Japan, for many folks, is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and we've done more and we'll get into this. But for me, who was really agnostic, it we could have gone to a lot of places and I would have gone because Vanessa planned it. I saw the value in Tokyo, and it really was a new perspective on Disney.

Speaker 2 29:54

Yeah. So this kind of wraps up all of the different things related to planning. I'm going to put some of those links in the show notes to help you. Hopefully, our experience can help you some. And I really will say things like the credit card issues and some of those things, they vary so much. So don't get frustrated. Just keep trying. Keep trying different options. Look at different opportunities. Like if you have different ways to pay, try different things because we did that, and you'll eventually get through. It might be frustrating, but you will eventually get through. And the great thing is you only have to get up once. You don't have to worry about getting up for your dining reservations another day, your lightning lane another day. We're so used to spreading everything out, but everything is planned and it's ready to go right from the beginning. So once you get through, that's very important. So I'm looking forward to sharing with you our experiences at the hotel, at the parks. Like Kris mentioned, some of the things about getting to the parks, getting a um, getting back to the rooms, etc.

Extra Ticket Options And Klook

Speaker 2 30:55

Um, but before we wrap up this episode, we're gonna continue and end with our wisdom from Walt quote and our trivia. So, Kris, you are up with trivia.

Speaker 31:07

Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world, let alone Asia. What is the record single-year attendance according to the internet?

Speaker 2 31:18

At one of the parks?

Speaker 31:19

At the two parks combined.

Speaker 2 31:22

Okay.

Speaker 31:23

I will give you a one and a half million plus or minus in a year.

Speaker 2 31:27

So total attendance for a year.

Speaker 31:29

Total attendance, according to the internet. This would be Tokyo Disneyland.

Speaker 2 31:35

Let's go with 1.2 billion. That's probably way too high.

Speaker 31:40

I'll give you another guess.

Speaker 2 31:42

Okay. Five million.

Speaker 31:45

17 million people.

Speaker 2 31:47

Holy cow.

Speaker 31:48

And I think that's the other side too, is like we during our trip, it was busy. I would not say it was at max capacity by any means. But it was there was a nice capacity. But with that, we still were able to experience everything we wanted to experience.

Speaker 2 32:04

Yes. And when you see some of those pictures shoulder to shoulder, we did not experience that, but you we saw the ride wide paths throughout the parks because you can tell it's built for larger capacities, like what Kris just mentioned. So looking forward

Two Minute Trivia and Wisdom from Walt Quote

Speaker 2 32:20

to sharing more about that. And of course, as always, we have to end with our wisdom from Walt quote. And I thought this was fun because it's about like exploring and trying new things, and that's what this trip was for us. There's really no secret about our approach. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. We're always exploring and experimenting. And hopefully you and your family can explore and experiment on new things on your Disney trips. Maybe it's not to Tokyo, but maybe trying something new on your next trip to Orlando or to Anaheim. And we look forward to in our next episode, we're going to talk about the process of like arriving in Japan, going to our hotel, some of the things related to the vacation package, and a little bit about what we experienced at the parks. So thank you so much for joining us on this episode of the Dis Love Podcast with Vanessa and Kris. I'm Vanessa. And I'm Kris.