Hello everyone, and welcome to this February 2019 Japan trip report. I probably know what you're thinking. "February 2019? Surely you meant 2020. Otherwise, you're writing up a report for a vacation that happened almost two years ago!" So here's the thing...
I did begin writing things down when I came home from my trip but stuff got in the way, and it fell to the wayside. Even as The Event That Shall Not Be Named kicked off and I found myself with a lot of free time, I sort of forgot about it. So November comes around, we've gone into a second lockdown in the UK, and the hopeful plans I made at the start of the year to go back to Japan for the autumn have been well and truly dashed by now. So while sorting through pictures and stuff, I came back across what I'd written. I thought it'd be a shame to waste what I had. Plus, it'll be fun to reminisce and revisit the memories. The highs, the lows, and everything in-between. Who knows, maybe I can convince others to make the trek to Japan or help people plan their own vacations when everything's said and done, and we can all travel again!
So hello everyone, again! My name is George. I'm 28, and I live in London (or the suburbs of Greater London. It's easier to just say London!) I actually used to use the DIS Boards quite a while back but I sort of forgot the account details and started anew. So here I am! Before things kicked off, I worked as an extra in movies and TV. It's definitely not as exciting as it sounds! Film production has only just started back up in the UK over the past month or two so I'm hoping I can get some work before the end of the year. Otherwise, I'm just riding things out at home.
Outside of this Tokyo Disney trip, I've been to WDW over a dozen times, Disneyland twice, Disneyland Paris once (which was actually after my Tokyo trip, funnily enough), and I've made three DCL cruises. So I suppose I'm a bit of a Disney Parks fanatic. But this trip to Japan was my first time travelling abroad by myself. Well, technically my first time was when I went to Australia as part of fieldwork for university. But I only had two days alone before I joined the rest of my classmates so I don't think it really counts... But I digress!
Japan has always been on my bucket list. Before the trip, I had spent more than a year researching Japan and making countless hypothetical itineraries. I even began learning the basics of the language, all to prepare myself for a potential trip. It wasn't until I actually came back from a visit to Disneyland in California with my family that I started looking for flights. I'd had a particularly great summer for work and the possibility of going to Japan felt very much in reach. Then I noticed British Airways had a sale on and my aunt's friend worked for BA at the time, knocking an extra £100 off with their staff discount.
So why did I choose February? Mostly because it was the cheapest time to fly and it's also an off-peak time to visit Japan, after the new years celebrations and before the cherry blossoms start to bloom, which meant less people at some of the more popular tourist spots. But one of the big deciders was actually something different. Is anyone familiar with the Kingdom Hearts games? I'm a massive fan, and Kingdom Hearts 3 was released at the end of January 2019. So to commemorate that, Tokyo Skytree (the tallest building in Japan) was holding a special event. Plus the Square Enix cafes in Osaka and Tokyo were holding a limited time Kingdom Hearts menu. Tokyo Disneyland was nearing the end of its 35th anniversary celebration and I thought that would be cool to see as well!
So after much deliberating, I gathered up everything I'd been planning for a year and settled on 17 days in Japan, leaving ol' Blighty on the 12th February and returning the 1st March. Here's a general schedule of where I went.
12th/13th - Flight to Tokyo, then bullet train to Kyoto [PART ONE TWO THREE]
14th - Kyoto (Arashiyama) [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR]
15th - Kyoto (Higashiyama and Fushimi)
16th - Uji and Nara
17th - Osaka
18th - Himeji and Kinosakionsen
19th - Kyoto (Nishiki & Gion), then back to Tokyo (Nihombashi & Akihabara)
20th - Tokyo (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya)
21st - Tokyo (SkyTree, Ueno, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro)
22nd - Tokyo (Asakusa, Nihombashi, Shibuya, and Harajuku)
23rd - Tokyo (Jiyugaoka, Ikebukuro, Ginza, and Asakusa)
24th - Tokyo (Ryogoku, Sumida, and Akihabara), then onto Maihama for Tokyo Disney Resort [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR]
25th - Tokyo Disneyland [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN]
26th - Tokyo DisneySea [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN]
27th - Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN]
28th - Tokyo DisneySea & Disneyland [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX] [EXTRA CONTENT]
1st - Back to Haneda airport and the flight home
As you can see, I saved Disney for last. I know a lot of people tend to visit the Disney parks first before going off to explore the rest of Japan. (Well, the Disney fans do anyway!) However, I figured jet lag and Disney wouldn't mix well. There's a good 9 hour time difference between the UK and Japan, after all. Instead, I used my jet lag to visit a few popular tourist spots in Kyoto before the crowds hit them. I think this worked in my favour since I had adjusted to the time zone in Japan by the time I reached Disney, which meant I could endure a full day at the parks without much hassle.
I also realise that, seeing how this is a Disney fan forum, I imagine most of you have clicked on this trip report to see my experiences in the Tokyo Disney Resort. So unless there are any objections, I'm actually going to jump ahead to those Disney park days, then backtrack to the start for the rest of the report. Otherwise there will be quite the wait for that Disney goodness! So with that in mind, let's get cracking!
I did begin writing things down when I came home from my trip but stuff got in the way, and it fell to the wayside. Even as The Event That Shall Not Be Named kicked off and I found myself with a lot of free time, I sort of forgot about it. So November comes around, we've gone into a second lockdown in the UK, and the hopeful plans I made at the start of the year to go back to Japan for the autumn have been well and truly dashed by now. So while sorting through pictures and stuff, I came back across what I'd written. I thought it'd be a shame to waste what I had. Plus, it'll be fun to reminisce and revisit the memories. The highs, the lows, and everything in-between. Who knows, maybe I can convince others to make the trek to Japan or help people plan their own vacations when everything's said and done, and we can all travel again!
So hello everyone, again! My name is George. I'm 28, and I live in London (or the suburbs of Greater London. It's easier to just say London!) I actually used to use the DIS Boards quite a while back but I sort of forgot the account details and started anew. So here I am! Before things kicked off, I worked as an extra in movies and TV. It's definitely not as exciting as it sounds! Film production has only just started back up in the UK over the past month or two so I'm hoping I can get some work before the end of the year. Otherwise, I'm just riding things out at home.
Outside of this Tokyo Disney trip, I've been to WDW over a dozen times, Disneyland twice, Disneyland Paris once (which was actually after my Tokyo trip, funnily enough), and I've made three DCL cruises. So I suppose I'm a bit of a Disney Parks fanatic. But this trip to Japan was my first time travelling abroad by myself. Well, technically my first time was when I went to Australia as part of fieldwork for university. But I only had two days alone before I joined the rest of my classmates so I don't think it really counts... But I digress!
Japan has always been on my bucket list. Before the trip, I had spent more than a year researching Japan and making countless hypothetical itineraries. I even began learning the basics of the language, all to prepare myself for a potential trip. It wasn't until I actually came back from a visit to Disneyland in California with my family that I started looking for flights. I'd had a particularly great summer for work and the possibility of going to Japan felt very much in reach. Then I noticed British Airways had a sale on and my aunt's friend worked for BA at the time, knocking an extra £100 off with their staff discount.
So why did I choose February? Mostly because it was the cheapest time to fly and it's also an off-peak time to visit Japan, after the new years celebrations and before the cherry blossoms start to bloom, which meant less people at some of the more popular tourist spots. But one of the big deciders was actually something different. Is anyone familiar with the Kingdom Hearts games? I'm a massive fan, and Kingdom Hearts 3 was released at the end of January 2019. So to commemorate that, Tokyo Skytree (the tallest building in Japan) was holding a special event. Plus the Square Enix cafes in Osaka and Tokyo were holding a limited time Kingdom Hearts menu. Tokyo Disneyland was nearing the end of its 35th anniversary celebration and I thought that would be cool to see as well!
So after much deliberating, I gathered up everything I'd been planning for a year and settled on 17 days in Japan, leaving ol' Blighty on the 12th February and returning the 1st March. Here's a general schedule of where I went.
12th/13th - Flight to Tokyo, then bullet train to Kyoto [PART ONE TWO THREE]
14th - Kyoto (Arashiyama) [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR]
15th - Kyoto (Higashiyama and Fushimi)
16th - Uji and Nara
17th - Osaka
18th - Himeji and Kinosakionsen
19th - Kyoto (Nishiki & Gion), then back to Tokyo (Nihombashi & Akihabara)
20th - Tokyo (Harajuku, Shinjuku, Shibuya)
21st - Tokyo (SkyTree, Ueno, Akihabara, and Ikebukuro)
22nd - Tokyo (Asakusa, Nihombashi, Shibuya, and Harajuku)
23rd - Tokyo (Jiyugaoka, Ikebukuro, Ginza, and Asakusa)
24th - Tokyo (Ryogoku, Sumida, and Akihabara), then onto Maihama for Tokyo Disney Resort [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR]
25th - Tokyo Disneyland [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN EIGHT NINE TEN]
26th - Tokyo DisneySea [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN]
27th - Tokyo Disneyland & DisneySea [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN]
28th - Tokyo DisneySea & Disneyland [PART ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX] [EXTRA CONTENT]
1st - Back to Haneda airport and the flight home
As you can see, I saved Disney for last. I know a lot of people tend to visit the Disney parks first before going off to explore the rest of Japan. (Well, the Disney fans do anyway!) However, I figured jet lag and Disney wouldn't mix well. There's a good 9 hour time difference between the UK and Japan, after all. Instead, I used my jet lag to visit a few popular tourist spots in Kyoto before the crowds hit them. I think this worked in my favour since I had adjusted to the time zone in Japan by the time I reached Disney, which meant I could endure a full day at the parks without much hassle.
I also realise that, seeing how this is a Disney fan forum, I imagine most of you have clicked on this trip report to see my experiences in the Tokyo Disney Resort. So unless there are any objections, I'm actually going to jump ahead to those Disney park days, then backtrack to the start for the rest of the report. Otherwise there will be quite the wait for that Disney goodness! So with that in mind, let's get cracking!
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